Vitamin C And Will Power

There are several terms and metaphors by which I refer to my work environment: dungeon, sausage factory, Star Trek convention, nerd farm, nerdarium (kind of like a terrarium or aquarium, but for nerds) and many, many others.
Among the metaphors I most often refer back to is that of a germ incubator.
After all, it’s an enclosed environment full of germ-laden specimens who are all breathing the same recirculated air. Further, these people are nerds and are therefore unlikely to pay attention to things like diet, exercise, or personal hygiene, so they tend to collect germs and viruses even more voraciously than they do comic books or Magic: The Gathering cards.
Fortunately – at least since I quit drinking – I’ve got a very strong immune system, so I’ve been able to fend off most of the opportunistic infections that are as abundant as detailed descriptions of Everquest raids.
After all, in over three years of working here in the infectious disease ward I haven’t called in sick once (The one time I did call in was because I’d been in a car accident and needed the day off to deal with getting a loaner and whatnot, but that was back in 2002).
However, after a couple of days of hauling heavy things up and down stairs and not getting quite enough sleep, yesterday I found that my immune system was at an all-time low and I could feel that telltale tickle in the back of my throat along with an ominous tightness in my chest.
So when I went home last night I mega-dosed on Vitamin C and as I was lying in bed waiting to fall asleep with a low-grade fever, the chills, and the beginning of the sniffles I willed myself to not get sick, absolutely refusing to give in to the demands of whatever virus was attempting to hold my immune system hostage.
As it pretty much always does, this combination of Vitamin C and will power worked its magic and today I feel perfectly fine and am breathing as clearly as a mildly asthmatic former smoker can breathe.
Once I leave work tonight I will stop by my apartment to watch the few shows that the DVR recorded, then I’ll pack up what I can and load up my car. Tomorrow Brian and I will haul the remainder over, and I will be totally moved into my new place.
Over at the condo I’ve found that leeching the signal from one of the unsecured wireless networks is (mostly) fine for surfing Web pages, but doesn’t really work for any kind of sustained transfer.
Not too big of a deal, though, as my cable will be hooked up tomorrow.
Today it’s just me and Brian manning the desk, as Scott is out sick (he’s the one who tried, unwittingly or not, to infect me), and Chris, who will be leaving us for good and heading back to New Mexico after next weekend, is off. One of the guys from the overnight shift was going to just work a double and stay and help us out in lieu of working his regular shift tonight. However, while that was agreed upon when we left last night, this morning the overnight manager decided that he wasn’t okay with that, which is more than a little irritating.It’s already been a long two hours, and there are ten and a half more to go…