This is what happens when I try to take a vacation

So, a while back I scheduled a week of vacation for the first week of February. The idea was that I would have some time to myself while the boys were in school, in which I could write and do laundry and perhaps attempt one or two other minor projects.

The Friday before that week was scheduled to begin, Secondborn woke up with a fever. Fortunately, we have resources: his Nana was able to take him for the morning, and I was able to take him for the afternoon. He probably would have stayed with me at work, but the fever was high enough that we'd gone ahead and scheduled an afternoon appointment with the pediatrician. So, not long after what-should-have-been-lunch, I took him to his appointment. The whole thing took maybe fifteen minutes, including time in the waiting room.

It was flu.

So I took the kiddo off to pick up medicine, then took him home and medicated him, and then made sure that the last of the Friday Night postings made it onto our website. Yay me. It was exhausting, but by the dark and forgotten gods we got it done.

I spent the next two days with massive, massive stuffiness and drainage, and a headache that wouldn't go away. No fever -- none at all -- but by Sunday I was ready to go get myself swabbed and find out of this was (as I now suspected) a flu of my very own. Finally, after a day spent dickering with the doctor's office, I got a prescription for Tamiflu. It cleared up the headache and most of the drainage in -- I kid you not -- less than two hours. I don't even think that's possible, but I swear that's what happened.

That was Monday night. Secondborn was home with me for all of Monday, but he was fever-free and feeling better and extremely well behaved. Plus, it wasn't like I was accomplishing anything anyway. I was exhausted.

On Tuesday, Secondborn went back to school; he'd been fever-free for about thirty-six hours by that point, so he was definitely no longer contagious. A little tired, but basically healthy. I'd had thoughts of doing things, but after I helped get the boys together and off to school, I wound up passing out for most of the morning. Forget writing; I was just trying to rest.

Wednesday was... I don't even know. About the same, I think. I was starting to feel better, finally, and thinking that I might be able to do things again.

Then Thursday hit. I don't know if it was something I ate, or some symptom of the flu that just hadn't quite gone away, or if I managed to pick up a completely new disease -- some sort of intestinal bug -- but whatever the case, it was horrible. And exhausting. And horrible. And unending. And horrible. Did I mention that it was horrible?

So: Tamiflu, Immodium, and ungodly amounts of liquids.

I made it through Friday: picked up the boys, got them fed, got everybody home and into bed. Hoo-flippin'-ray.

Saturday was my father-in-law's birthday, so we took him bowling in the afternoon. Despite having gotten as much extra sleep as I could manage, I was barely recovered enough to do this. (I was also deeply worried about what might happen if I had another bout at the bowling alley.) That said, it was actually a lot of fun; it was just a lot of fun that took most of my energy.

Saturday night, the Beautiful Woman had arranged for us to go out on a date -- it was sort of a present, left over from my birthday, and we'd been looking forward to the chance for quite a while. So the boys went over to my in-laws, and the two of us went to see Seventh Son (which turned out to be a solidly B-grade fantasy adventure), and then we came back out of the theater and found that my car wouldn't start. The battery was dead. And at that hour, there was nobody around to jump it. So: USAA roadside assistance, which -- now that we've been forced to try it out -- is awesome.

Sunday morning, the official end of my week of "vacation", was spent replacing the battery on my car. Beautiful Wife took the kids off for their Sunday with my parents, leaving me to try to recuperate, so I spent the day resting and running laundry. Beautiful Wife is, of course, now completely exhausted herself. (We've got to get a better system for this.) And I still feel somewhat as if I've been expertly beaten with rubber mallets.

So, yeah. I'm setting this post to publish for Monday morning. I may or may not be back at work; at this point, that's going to depend on whether or not I can climb out of bed tomorrow. Another such week of vacation and we are undone...