Best laid plans

Well, it's a Thursday afternoon and I'm in the company flat reading the entire Help section for some computer aided translation software I bought a while ago. You guessed it - I'm sick.

I started feeling not so well on Monday afternoon but thought nothing of it. Tuesday brought severe aches and what felt like a temperature. I broke out the remaining Lemsip from my last trip to the UK and soldiered on. After a broken night's sleep I went to deregister at the Burgeramt and picked up some Grippostad C (nearest thing to Lemsip in Germany that I've found) and went in to see what I could get done.

After mentioning that I wasn't feeling so hot, I was summarily sent home by the producer and one of the administrators. And told to find out if it was swine flu, and not to come back until the doctor said I was safe to. So, I spent Wednesday lunchtime failing to see a doctor and wandering aimlessly around the town centre until I headed home and dozed until heading out for my leaving drinks. Not many people showed, but I assume they thought I'd be too sick to go out.

I saw the doctor this morning, and they confirmed I had ticked the boxes to get tested for swine flu (have been exposed to it in last 7 days - it's in the office, aches, fever), tested me for it, signed me off sick and presented me with a bill of 20.10 EUR for the visit - much less than I'd thought - and 170 EUR for the swine flu test. Couldn't believe it. My agency is trying to find out if it should be covered under E111/EHIC but I suspect not - flu medicine might be, but this is just to satisfy the office's reporting requirement to the Gesundheitamt, I think.

So, I was out in the morning, back by around 10:30, rested up, faffed around on the internet, did some very sweet translations for the school exchanges, got tired of the internet, started reading the Help system so I know what I can do with this rather expensive software, suddenly was starving and drained so shuffled across the road and bought supplies to make several days worth of pasta and meatballs and got back just in time to avoid being rained on heavily.

It's frustrating to be out sick for the last 3 days of my contract, especially when I had everything on track to finish up the validation. But, as I've said of others, having no slack is poor planning. I've been working extended hours for almost 6 months now, eating badly, getting almost no exercise and sleeping on a sofabed. I pretty much asked for this.

I'll take it easy today - I felt absolutely fine apart from a sore throat in the morning but the aches are back now and I've started coughing, so I've probably become infectious and should not be in the office anyway. Still not sure about karaoke tomorrow, might not be a good idea. No point in a) infecting everyone b) going when I can't actually sing anyway.

Although I'm not much of a believer in anything, I do subscribe to a karmic-style "it will come back to bite you in the end" theory. Time to try to do things a little differently.