I've been sick for 11 days.

I don't mean that I've had a lingering cough that hasn't gone away for 11 days. I mean that, for 11 days, I've barely been able to leave my house or walk to the bathroom without keeling over from coughing. I'm over it. Spencer is really over it.

Five days into this ordeal, I schlepped to Urgent Care where I tested positive for strep. When antibiotics didn't help after five more days, I went back for another visit. I almost cried talking to the nurse. "I'm just not getting any better," I told her. "And I'm so, so tired." As I get older and the nurses get younger, it becomes more humiliating to be vulnerable in front of them. Maybe I was extra sensitive due to "my situation"? Living alone. A single dog parent (yes, this is thing for me). Accountable to essentially no one but my employer. And now, sick as hell. Woe, woe is me.

In the exam room, the same nurse told me she was going to take some samples for flu and mono tests. Apparently there's an option where they prick your finger repeatedly and try to squeeze out enough blood? If that doesn't work, they go for the arm anyway. The finger pricking sounded horrific, so I opted to just go for the vein. Not pleasant, but manageable. After that, I suffered the indignity of her sticking a Q-tip up my nose. (Did I mention she was a cute nurse my age?) "Is your nose wet or dry?" she asked. "Um, I think it's pretty dry." "Yup! Pretty dry. Oh... oh. Wet!" Ugh.

I ended up testing positive for two different strains of flu. At least some justification for feeling like death! They opted to hydrate me with fluids via an IV drip and went into my other arm. So, I got pricked again, sat there for 40 minutes, and watched Ellen on TV -- perfect timing! -- as the clear stuff magically entered my bloodstream. For the first time in ten days, I actually felt better.

Sadly, the best part of my visit was not the IV drip but the nurse cleaning all the blood off my hand and arm. I'm apparently a bleeder, so there was a fair amount. She took those little alcohol swabs and spent time cleaning all the red off my skin. She'd take my hand and gently twist to get to all the spots. A five-year relationship recently up in smoke and, I admit, it was just nice to be touched again, even by a latex-gloved hand.

When Alex told me she wanted to end things on a Wednesday at 9:30pm, I kind of tuned out. Not a great time to disappear into one's head, I admit, but I did. I thought about the time. It was late, and I already felt exhausted. How could I make it through this conversation? Should I try to go to work tomorrow or should I get in touch with my boss now? What about that weekend's planned trip to Oklahoma? Should I text my friend -- who I had emailed hours earlier about what to pack -- and tell her we were no longer coming? (I ultimately went, just me and Spencer.) Then, worse than contemplating the immediate future, I started to consider the real future. Flashing before my eyes was the life I imagined for us, crumbling.

I'm a fairly risk averse person. I try not to even let myself think too far down the line so as not to set myself up for disappointment. I think I waited six months into dating Alex to tell my sister about her, just in case. I waited months to mention her to coworkers even at socially liberal NPR. But five years into our relationship, I had finally allowed myself to picture "forever" with her. She seemed to be able to picture it, too, so I took her cues and ran with it. I imagined we'd get married in St. Louis at some point before her PhD was done, assuming gay marriage became legal in Missouri. We'd buy a small house or condo. We might even get a second dog. And in a few years when she completed her program, I imagined picking up all over again and moving to some new place for another adventure. I didn't need to picture where, just as long as it was our little family, us and our dog(s).

As I sat next to her on the couch while it all ended, my mind was racing with these thoughts. On top of them, I had some absolutely stupid regrets. Why had I brought her to Christmas last year? If I'd waited longer, aunts and cousins would have never known this had started, or ended. Why did I buy two sleeping bags and a tent (and remove the tags, god dammit) in advance of the camping trip I hoped we would take and now never would? And why did I encourage my sister, her family, and my brother to visit me in St. Louis? Their tickets were already booked. I had been excited to show them my new life, my little family. Now they'd only see me a mess. Then, another concern. Should I invent a new story for why I moved to St. Louis? Up until now, people I met always asked why I was here. I had always answered "for my partner's PhD program." Now what?

I imagined throwing in the towel and leaving for Boston, my go-to backup plan. Before I left DC for St. Louis, I'd quickly (and jokingly) mentioned to my sister that her basement was my Plan B in case everything went to shit. A year and change later, I guess it had? But it didn't seem like an easy plan to implement. How would I get me, my stuff, and Spencer there? Would I give up a great job in St. Louis for uncertainty in Boston? It seemed like a lot of work, not to mention risk, just to give up. So, within an hour of everything happening, I made up my mind to stay.

I emailed my realtor a week later, and today -- two and a half months after everything changed -- I'm writing this from my very own home. I'm happy with what I have. I feel accomplished for pulling it together when everything was falling apart. I'm excited to have a garage and take a bath in my jacuzzi tub. But in the week since I've been here, I've also caught myself thinking, "Wouldn't this be perfect... if it was our home?" I guess I did buy a condo after all, just not how I had imagined.

Double Flu

My Head During A Breakup