CDC Says Sleep

I have the flu.

I have spent a lot of time this winter caring for Boy 2 and fighting off all the small viruses I have gotten from him in the process. Otherwise, I don't get really sick very often. I cannot remember the last time I had flu. But, just like riding a bike, it all comes back to you. The fever, the cough, the aches. Even my skin hurts.

Most people, I am told, sleep a lot when they have the flu. In fact, the World Health Organization, the CDC and the Mayo Clinic all advise flu sufferers to get extra sleep in order to facilitate the healing process. I, however, have not been able to sleep through this. Despite the medications claiming to be "so you can rest" medicines, I have been wide awake since this morning.

Daytime in an empty house when you can't do much because your skin hurts and every move you make threatens to cause a house-wide flu pandemic is amazingly boring.

Lacking the brain power to read, I watched TV for a few hours this morning. Today, Rachel Ray, a little bit of the View. And to top it all off, I watched a full episode of "Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader."

Having hit bottom with that last prize-winning show, I clicked off the TV and turned to streaming episodes of LOST. But in an effort to be good stewards we recently reduced our home internet speed, leaving me with more mud puddles than stream.

So here I am, waiting eagerly for LOST to buffer fully in hopes that I can go back to it in its full-stream glory, writing about being bored with the flu.

If any of you out there have any suggestions for inducing sleep in a sleepless flu victim, I am all ears. Or, if you have ideas for passing the time that don't take too much brain power, but do take more than daytime TV requires, I'm listening.