Keep your germs to yourself

I have a major pet peeve with a coworker who CONSTANTLY lectures everyone in the office about taking vitamin supplements and Airborne to prevent colds, etc., but who ends up being sick the most often out of the three secretaries in the office. What pisses me off is that she won’t stay home when she’s sick. Instead, she comes in, hacking over all of us, and complaining about how lousy she feels. This goes on for a day or two, and then she’ll call in sick the day after she’s had a big date or gone to a concert. Granted, she may be sick, but for God’s sake, stopping breathing on me.

I bring this up because last week she and her boss were both coughing, and she was complaining per usual. And what happened? I caught her cold. 35+ weeks pregnant, a long weekend, so much to do, and all I could accomplish was to lie on the couch, coughing and hacking my way through the weekend. We did manage to get some things done, like rearranging some of the furniture in the house, moving it to new locations, but I still haven’t gotten my bag packed, Christmas totally put away, baby clothes down from the attic and washed, or the bassinet out.

Even more fun is trying to cough with a full bladder while someone is using it as a sitting cushion. TMI, but I have taken to wearing thin maxi-pads as protection against the occasional overflow when coughing. Oh, and I’ve pulled every muscle in my diaphragm and belly, drunk WAY too much decaf Irish tea with honey and milk, and consumed almost a whole bag of cough drops. Of course, based on those lovely medicine charts your OB gives you at the beginning of your pregnancy and the ensuing confirmation call to the OB nurse, all I can take is Sudafed for the congestion, Robitussin (plain) for the cough, Tylenol for the headache that began this morning, and use saline spray. Let me tell you, none of it is really helping. My rice pack has been in the microwave so often I’m afraid it will begin to pop. Other than that, the only thing that helps is a lengthy hot steamy shower with my B&B eucalyptus/spearmint “Relax” candle burning (opening up my nose somewhat), but I can’t stay in the shower all day! So, I did the smart thing: I called my primary care physician per the OB nurse’s orders. Got a fast appointment this morning, and saw Dr. Blondie. She was impressed with how good I looked, said my lungs were clear (which we need for me to have a section!), I was probably on the verge of a sinus infection, and that both ears were definitely infected. She also wanted to give me something to get rid of the post-nasal drip, as it would be VERY PAINFUL to be coughing like this and have a C-section incision to be dealing with, so… one prescription for Zithromax, and I was back to work.

Yes, to work. Not home on the cough, curled up with yet another cup of tea and honey. No, I came to work today as payback, coughing and hacking in the direction of those that gave me this. I sound like a frog. But I don’t have a choice. Any time I have, I am desperately trying to hang on to in order to have some pay coming in during my maternity leave. On top of that, it’s the first day of classes, and very much frowned upon for anyone to be out. Well, that is, apparently, for anyone but my darling boss to be out. She is STILL out with her broken wrist, this being her THIRD week, and according to our discussion on Friday, she only plans on being in ONE day this week.

Today, she hasn’t even called once to check in! So, I’ve just been giving out her home number to all the faculty calling to talk to her. On top of all this, she hasn’t even begun to interview for my replacement while I’m out! God, I’m almost hoping she stays out for another two weeks, and then I can just call in and tell her that, according to Dr. Fav, I’m out of here!