Sick Day

I called in sick to work today. I *never* call in sick. I get this horrible guilty feeling that is a result of my parents too often accusing me of faking sick when I was little (which, most of the time, I was). Today, however, I really am sick. It started with headaches about 5 days ago, 3 days ago the shaking chills started (or was that just my post-Halloween hangover? Who knows). Then yesterday it was fatigue, nausea, headache and general malaise. This morning at 3am I woke up with facial pain, tooth pain, congestion and that damn headache again. I got myself up, forced down some hot tea and went back to bed. I really tried to make it to work...I got up on time, threw myself in the shower and everything, but the noise of the water hitting the tub was making my head pound (which was just the last straw), so I dried my hair and got right back into bed.
And proceeded to sleep until 11:30am.
Now I'm faced with the daunting task of being productive...because I really don't have the luxury of wasting more time, even if I'm sick. I have barely started my homework for this rotation, so that needs to be done. I have to turn in our ballots at my local ballot drop-off location (votes are too precious to go through the mail). I need to buy stamps, fill prescriptions, mail off the receipts for said prescriptions so that my SHITTY health insurance will actually reimburse me, log my patients in Typhon, go to the bank and cook dinner. If I have time, I need to go to Les Schwab and get winter tires put on my car, as well as purchase chains (and have them teach me how to put them on), because in 6 days I leave to spend the next 4 months in Northern Idaho. Something tells me its gonna be cold....
Am I being whiney? I'll chalk that up to being sick.
I'm looking forward to my next rotation. I LOVE family medicine. I love managing diabetes, treating simple colds, helping people to quit smoking, doing preventative health screenings, etc. Most people get frustrated at the monotony, or the inability to change a patient's self-destructive behaviors. For some reason, this doesn't bother me (yet). And besides, there is always the 10% who actually do listen to you and change for the better.
My preceptor will be a PA which should be interesting, because so far I've worked with 2 physicians, a family nurse practitioner, and a PA who owns his own clinic, and is therefore essentially a physician. It will be interesting to see how autonomous this PA is in his practice. He sounds super nice on his emails...he told me there was no need for me to wear a white coat (yes!) and that he hopes they will have some interesting cases for me. Most preceptors respond with something like, "Show up at 8am sharp, see you then."
Oh, perhaps I have just added one more thing onto my list for today...fix my camera. I suppose if I am going to be in one of the most beautiful parts of the country in a Winter Wonderland, I should take pictures.
Coeur d'Alene...are you ready for me? I'm not really ready for you...but I'm determined to have a better attitude than I did in Havre, MT, so BRING IT ON!
Jen