Fuck you, cold.

Over the past year or so there have been several times where I wondered if I had a little cold. There are a couple times it's possible that I had just a 12 hour sniffle or such. But it's been so long since I'd had a real cold (viral infection), that'd I'd forgotten how very different to what I usually get (bacterial infections), they really are.

The best way I can describe it (since everything must be described) is that viral infections are like being beat up in a public place with plenty of nice helpful people around.

It sucks, it can involve pain everywhere, but it's really not that bad. I'm not awesometasticfighterman, but I can at least make attempts to defend myself, I can struggle, I can cover my head, I can kick and bite and scream for help. Generally just make it difficult for my attacker and eventually fight him off or make him go away. He's not really that dangerous, 99% of the time he runs away before any of those helpful people around can even call the police. They might even get a few kicks in, on my behalf.

On the other hand, bacterial infections are a bunch of fucking ninjas.

I'm in my nicely fortified mansion asleep, they sneak in, drug me, drag me down into a deep sub-basement, tie me to a chair and torture me. Nobody can hear me scream, I am tied down and cannot fight back, and even if I'm not, I'm still stuck in this room with fucking ninjas.

Now, they may often be not very bloodthirsty ninjas, they may just continuously kick me in one area, say my leg, causing me considerably less pain overall then the random attacker in the previous example, but being much more demoralizing due to the situation. And it may seem like it's much more pain being that it's all focused on that poor leg, instead of spread out. It's made very clear that I cannot get myself out of this situation, I just have to deal with the torturing ninjas until my government sends a strike team in to dispatch them and save me. Hopefully the first strike team aren't duds and I don't have to wait till the second wave.

Fortunately I'm the most important person in erisland (the place would go to hell without me!), so that strike team has always come, eventually.

Digressing from my entertaining (to me) examples, this cold has fucking sucked. But somehow has been more fun than the ninjas. I had forgotten one of the oddly pleasant aspects of having a cold, because (it feels as if) I'm being attacked from the outside, I don't feel as sick, even if I'm half delirious with fever, it doesn't get to all of me, parts of me are safe, somehow.

And there's this wonderful euphoria that happens with each stage of getting better, like it's a personal accomplishment somehow. Like Wednesday I couldn't laugh or I'd have a terrible coughing fit, as of Thursday I have a laugh, although odd sounding. I did that.

How? I'm not sure, but it's still got that tang of accomplishment. I fought off the guy, nobody had to call the police, now I'm just dealing with the bruising. I.Did.That.

Every few hours since Wednesday (when one of those helpful passers by gave a few well placed kicks to my attacker), has been twice as good as the previous few hours. Every moment better than the last, it's impossible to not feel awesome about it even while still being somewhat miserable.

I.fucking.did.that. Myself and my friends and my immune system. We did that, yes we did.

Today, life is awesome, excuse me while I go cough up a lung.