Ninjas, Pirates, and Vikings.

...see that you avoid getting mono at all costs.

Being sick is something I've never tolerated. I always push myself to the very brink and in very few cases (including this one) I fall over and land myself on the living room couch all day. In this sense, I'm glad I'm a townie.

In the past two weeks or so (I've pretty much lost all sense of time on the outside...) I've managed to harbor a pair of tonsils up to the size of some healthy golf balls, in addition to managing a scaled-down model of the Black Forest of Germany on my legs. (No worries, I still shower every day.) Sometimes my tonsils hurt so badly that I can't talk or swallow, but then the doctor just prescribes a new pain medication and hurries me off. In all truth, though, I'm really only on an 800mg dose of Ibuprofen and, as I call it lately, "the magic V" (meaning Vicodin).

It's hard to stay asleep because my enlarged tonsil friends cause me to snore and I wake myself up. Then I toss and turn for a while and eventually fall asleep again, knowing full well that I'll be awake again shortly.

Mom told me to think of all the medications/herbal home remedies as some kind of fierce army full of creatures swimming through my bloodstream and eating the virus. I think of ninjas (I've always loved Jackie Chan), pirates (for the love of God, DO NOT reference the newer Disney movies...), and vikings (you don't get much more badassery than huge bulking men covered in metal and hair).

I still hate being sick.