Body... Will... How 'Bout We Find Some Middle Ground Here??

I can remember the first time I fully realized that my body was not going to do what I wanted it to. It was February 1994. I was in Washington, DC, working for the week. The first two days were unremarkable. The usual 12-hour days were crammed with as many meetings as could be scheduled, the customary two-hour evening debriefing, and another two hours of laying out the following day's game plan.

At the end of the second night, I was really feeling awful. I had a fever. My chest hurt. My throat was sore, and my voice was gone. I muddled through two more days of such delirium. It wasn't until the end of the fourth day, when I passed up a trip to The Fish Market in Old Alexandria, that my colleagues began to realize that I really and truly wasn't feeling well. That was the only time I have ever passed up a chance to see that piano player and drink Fish Market Brew.

The next morning, at 4:00 a.m., as I stumbled into the bathroom, hacking, wheezing, and completely winded from the two-dozen steps from the other room, I realized that I may not make my appointed rounds the next day. I scrambled to put together the day's itinerary in something other than my own personal shorthand, and called my back-up to explain that I wasn't going to be leaving the hotel. When she came to my room after breakfast, her face was masked with a distinct cross between pity and horror, as if she had seen a dead person.

Every two hours or so that day, I attempted to crawl out of bed and meet up with my colleagues, thinking I could make at least some of the meetings and the press conference I had arranged for the late afternoon. Each time, I was met with the realization that the bathroom and the phone for room service was really the outer reaches of my kingdom for the time being.

Upon traveling home to northeastern California the next day, I stopped at a walk-in clinic in Reno, Nevada, to find out what the heck was wrong with me. Turns out I had bronchitis.

It's much the way I feel today. I have so much stuff to do-- stories to write, a trip to prepare for (12 days!!!!), and yet, all I can do is cough, choke, and blow my nose. I keep trying to bargain with my aching body, "I don't want to run a marathon here, but can't we at least be clear headed for a couple hours today??"

Apparently, the answer is a resounding NO.