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Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Sickness

Given the fact that I spend a large part of my day in a building packed to the rafters with sick people, it's quite a remarkable achievement on my immune system that I don't get sick with a cold or illness more often than once a year or so. However, after over a year of dodging colds and various viruses, one finally got to me last week.

I've been phlegming it up the past several days, coughing my lungs out and waiting patiently and miserably as my body overcomes this flu. Lucky for me (I guess), I got sick over the weekend so I had time to recuperate. Unlike most other jobs where you can call in sick, being an MD means you go to work sick and take care of the people that are sicker than you. So being sick over the weekend meant I could sleep it off all weekend, instead of having to show up at work and try to function doped up on DayQuil, Ricolas, and obscene amounts of orange juice and other home remedies.

The real big pain in the butt about getting the flu is the chills and fever sweats. As I lay in bed during the weekend sweating through one set of sheets after another, I started to dread the eventual washing of the sheets.

Actually, its not the washing, but the drying that drives me nuts. How is it that the laundry industry just can't seem to build a dryer that will prevent the sheets from becoming bunched together into a big ball? Nothing is more frustrating than going to the dryer after it's finished, opening the door and finding a big old wad of sheets, where the outside is smoking hot and the inside is wet.

The dryer generates so much heat trying to dry this wet wad of sheets that I am always amazed that the outer layer of the sheets hasn't caught on fire.

Of course this is easily remedied by drying the sheets individually. Which is what I do, but really, that's poor utilization of resources and a bit inconvenient.