The virus

The Lord has blessed me. For 17 years I have not missed a performance. I have covered for peers that got sick from something acquired in Cairo, or bad seafood, or mysteriously passed out and hit their head on the floor, (no alcohol or drugs were involved, that is not how we roll). And I have never felt superior, the phrase: but for the grace of God resonates.

We made it through VA Beach. But my brother in law picked up the infection by Wednesday in my voice and WOW. That was the prize fighter punch, but somehow we managed to make it through the entire show. **And deliver good scores, thank you Richard **

I try to be careful. At my church in WA state, when they stop praise and worship for meet and greet, it was interesting to find another individual. (Jeff), heads to the bathroom to wash his hands. I have been in the hand shaking business for a long time; the rule is simple. Until you sanitize your hands, do not touch your face.

Eventually, even living a disciplined life, your luck runs out. My luck and sadly Kathy's as well, ran out.

No idea how we made it back, we were running on fumes on a three hop flight of all things. We could not go out to a store, we opened a few canned goods, but food was not a priority. We helped each other stay hydrated, filtered water, for some reason a drop or two of lemon juice helped.

There is no concept of a sick day in our world. This virus wanted to make us sleep all the time, Missed a phone call and am very sorry, but think I am up to date with grading/advising all the student papers. You sleep until you have the energy to accomplish one thing, then you do it. Then back to bed.

Ten days went by; the lost ten days. We have to drive today. Think we can do it, coffee will probably help. Miss our church and small group, but surely do not want to share what we have. Where we go, we will isolate ourselves for the first day or two; there has to be an ending to this thing. After ten days, (or more), it has to have run its course. The lovely thing about being high tech is you can do a lot of your work virtually.

Normally, if and when we get a bonus, we tithe to either our church in Washington or Hawaii or Compassion International. For some strange reason, this month I felt strongly led to send the tithe to Samaritan's Purse; the story of Dr. Brantly, the guy that went to treat ebola patients on purpose really motivated me. And that was before we got hit.

Please do not get me wrong Whatever happened to Kathy and I is the tiniest shadow of Ebola. But it was a good wakeup call. We lost ten days. We have to get back in to operations today. Almost certainly there will be some coffee and perhaps raw cacao involved.

Blog posts should have a conclusion. Here it comes. I do not care how strong you are, you need to get your flu shot. A virus is a tiny thing, but it can take down the strongest man or woman. Kathy was a teacher in the public school system. I have been a teacher in adult education. We have been exposed. But this month we got reminded, at the end of the day, the virus gets to win. Get your flu shot already!