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This is kind of like donating your body to science, but while you’re still alive. This gives you the lucky bonus of being self-aware enough to recognize that those working on you are just as clueless as you are as to the cause of your illness.

I guess it’s kind of like being a detective. You take your clues (in my case, a 102° fever, tonsils slightly smaller than golf balls, throat gunk and soreness, dehydration, nausea and vomiting, and an aching everything), apply what you know (which, in some cases, wasn’t much), and pronounce a treatment.

And it was so much fun that I decided to take some PTO days from my honeymoon so that I could do it all again. And boy, what a good decision that was. Because who doesn’t love spending entire days prostrate before the toilet, watching the Olympics on the TV that your gracious fiance moved to the bathroom doorway to keep you company?

By the end of everything, I’ve had at least six nurses, five ask-a-nurse phone calls, four prescriptions, three physicians, three big-ass insurance bills, two urgent care visits, two blood tests, one hospital visit, one catheter, one IV, and zero diagnosis. But hey, if you’re cured, it doesn’t really matter what was wrong… Right?

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It was never intentional to take this long of a break. It just sort of happened. I didn’t really notice it until a friend of mine mentioned he still missed my blog. And I’m thinking, “Oh yeah, I used to write a blog instead of just reading other people’s.” And then I’m thinking, “Miss my blog? Why?” And I got curious. So I logged on.

It’s funny how time changes things. Going back and reading everything…it made me smile. Time had mostly erased the self-consciousness I’d had about what I’d written. Then, I went through and read the dozens of half-written blog posts that I didn’t consider quite good enough for publication. In retrospect, they seem kind of sweet.

And there’s a part of me that can’t shake the idea that maybe this is representative of how I handle my entire life…intensely critical of myself in the moment and much more forgiving thereafter.

I’m suppressing the urge to apologize for this. I’m sure in a month I’ll be just fine with that.