The Final Week

Although I've ended my summer Text Skills class on a high note with positive feedback from pleased and caring students, I've developed some stomach bug.  The peak of these symptoms were Thursday night & Friday morning.  For about 4 days before that I had minor stomach problems that did not interfere with my daily routine, but whatever I have made me take notice then.  I let the staff and my supervisors know of my condition in case things got worse.  Thankfully, administrative director had some medicine that would last me 24 hours.  I noticed that, about 30 minutes after ingesting the medicine, I became incredibly thirsty.  This made sense as I was tempting fate by not drinking a lot of water for the past week during extreme hot and humid weather.

Unfortunately for me, Friday was the last day of class and the day of the midterm party, which is actually the farewell party for all the short contract visiting faculty like myself.  The best food in town was served and I could only enjoy the rice and bite-sized sandwiches.  I am happy that my colleagues and my students had a wonderful time.  By the end of the party, I was not feeling any symptoms any more.  I thought I had gotten past the worst of it.

Now it is Saturday and I am better than the worst of it, but not back to normal.  I've put myself on the BRAT diet, with pineapple slices in the place of applesauce (the A in BRAT).  I believe what I have is one of two things: 1) a combination of stress & dehydration, or 2) a viral infection.  I was definitely stressed and not drinking enough fluids before I got this thing, but it's behaving more like a viral infection.  If I still have it by the time I get to Iowa, I'll check myself in at the clinic.

I only have 4 days left here, and I'll definitely have internet connection all day tomorrow.  My phone line gets cut on Monday, but I don't know if that applies to the internet as well.  All I have planned for tomorrow is to start packing away stuff I don't need for the next 3 days.  Monday & Tuesday will be spent returning keys, finishing up all my reports, and getting my final payment and tax documents.  Then I'm off to Iowa starting Wednesday morning!