uo apparently I managed to catch the sore throat bug that was going around the class at our graduation events last weekend. I thought I had escaped. Then on Thursday evening I started noticing some really funky, tender submandibular and anterior cervical adenopathy on my left side. By Friday evening my throat hurt pretty badly on the left when I swallowed, but I felt fine otherwise. I hung out with some friends in the afternoon, went to another friend's dance performance and a dinner that night. But yesterday I started to feel like I had been hit by a truck--body aches, fatigue, headache, and the sore throat. I moped around most of the day.

Of course, when it rains it pours; in the midst of my feeling like crap, we started to smell natural gas pretty strongly. So it meant a visit from the power company to determine we did not have a gas leak from the pipe, but likely a malfunctioning switch on the really tacky gas fireplace that is in our new living room. Since we will likely not use it much, we had them just shut the gas off to the fireplace. Problem solved. The dude was very thorough about checking everything and told us we definitely did the right thing to call and get it looked at now before it created an even worse situation.

Today I feel a bit better but still definitely not 100%. Thankfully, I am not starting residency tomorrow like a number of my friends are, so I will have time to kick this thing. Ironically, I was just reading an article in some journal about the attitude among many physicians that we just need to keep working through illness and are wimps if we call in sick. I definitely saw that mentality at work on the wards and it can be pretty destructive. You are not your best when you are sick and can make mistakes and provide substandard care. Plus by coming in you expose your patients and colleagues to whatever you have. Not a good situation. I can only hope that eventually rational thinking will prevail on this issue in general.