What Goes Around

I was surprised I was able to go 3.5 miles for more reasons than just yesterday's poor performance. I was surprised because I seem to be coming down with what's going around. I have a serious tickle in the back of my throat that is just itching to explode into a sore throat. My eyes are itchy. My chest is feeling a little constricted. Yesterday was a total wash for me -- I was sleepy and exhausted all day (not to mention depressed, but you've read that entry).

Carolann was home for three or four days with whatever this is. James missed class last night. Evan got it from James yesterday.

It's a plot. A horrible, evil plot. Every four months another bug comes around and I'm standing there saying, "Come and get me!"

Not helping my imagination with this is the interview I heard on Terri Gross the other day with a writer from the New Yorker who's written a piece on a medical detective. This detective has located some corpses that were buried in the permafrost way up above the Arctic Circle, so they're very well preserved. These corpses are from people who died from the Spanish Flu, the pandemic which wiped out more people than World War I, WWII, Korea, and Vietnam combined -- and the flu just disappeared and there are no records of what it was. (This happened, by the way, in 1918. Why we never hear about this, I have no idea.)

This detective is going to dig up the bodies and do autopsies in the grave, to prevent thawing and possibly rereleasing the Spanish Flu. Whee!

Terri and the writer chatted about flu fighters, like the CDC, and how we're really, really due for another pandemic soon.

Hey, I've seen (and read) The Stand, okay? No thank you.

Anyhow, it sounded like a fascinating article. I'm going to go check it out.

Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics

3.5 miles. Maybe having days like yesterday (2 really, really icky miles at a pace slightly faster than comatose) is a cyclic thing. Every couple of weeks I can expect to be a total wuss.