Just Got Back From Feverville, Kansas

I was sick over the weekend.

I don’t get sick all that often. I have allergies and blood sugar issues, but the last time I remember getting actually ill was back in February, last year. [Why Catching A Cold Makes Some People Cuter ]

Early last week, however, I began to notice a scratchy, sore throat. I didn’t pay much attention to it because I felt okay. Up until late Friday afternoon.

At some point late Friday afternoon it was like—BLAM—it was as if a demented symphonic prog musician slammed me in the back of the head with a hammer and kidnapped me to Feverville, Kansas.

I don’t know what my temperature was Friday because at that time I didn’t have a thermometer, but I started to alternate between being freezing and being hot, with dizzy wrapped around both. So, just before sundown I put a towel around my neck, put on two shirts over that, and crawled under my blankets.

The whole night I tossed and turned, sometimes drifting off to sleep, mostly not, mostly just tossing and turning. And the whole night, in my mind’s ear, I was listening to Kansas, playing “Point of Know Return.”

[sigh]

A couple of weeks ago, I used the word ‘roundabout’ a lot, as in, ‘I sometimes talk in a roundabout way.’ That made me think of the cool old song, “Roundabout,” by Yes. So I looked around the net and I found a very cool site that streams, for free, a lot of old classic rock songs.

Technically, it’s a progressive rock site.

“ProgArchives.com” — You click on the letter of the band you’re looking for, scroll down and select the particular band, and then scroll down past the ads and the chatter to a selection of songs. You just click on the song you want to hear and the site plays it for you.

So, for much of the last couple of weeks I’ve found time every day to listen to “Roundabout” at some point or another.

Toward the end of last week—right before I got really sick—I noticed that the site considered Kansas to be progressive rock as well, and it considered “Point of Know Return” to be symphonic progressive just like “Roundabout.” I’m not sure I agree with either of those assessments, but I kind of like “Point of Know Return” so I listened to that a couple of times.

Then I got sick and the song was kind of, in my mind, stuck on play. So I had to listen to it in my mind’s ear all the time I had the fever.

Friday night was the worst.

Saturday morning I got up—eventually—feeling a little better but still kind of dizzy. I showered and walked to the local grocery story for a lot of fresh vegetables and chicken breasts. I also bought a thermometer.

Most of the day Saturday my temperature stayed around 99.7 and 99.9. I never broke a hundred on the thermometer, but I sure would have liked to have had the thing to measure my temperature during that weird Friday night.

Saturday night I slept more soundly.

Sunday morning I woke up feeling much better, feeling almost normal. I took my temperature and it was smack on 98.6.

So Sunday I took things easily and ate mostly healthy meals.

My temperature has stayed down and I’m feeling even better today. I’m still coughing now and then, still sneezing now and then, but no more chills or hot flashes, no more dizzy.

And, as I type this, I’m listening to “Roundabout,” not “Point of Know Return.” I am back from Kansas!


I feel like I’ve been away for a week!