1522: Esuna

If only the “Esuna” spell was a thing. (For the non-Final Fantasy-literate, Esuna is a spell that immediately heals all negative status effects.)

That would have sorted me right out on Monday night when I felt this bug hitting me. It would have prevented nearly a working week of lying in bed coughing, moaning and realising that actually, my bed isn’t all that comfortable at all, really, particularly when you’re in quite a lot of pain.

Still, what’s done is done, and unfortunately it’s not as if I could have done anything about it anyway. You can take all the preventative measures you want, but if an illness decides it’s going to strike, it’s going to strike. Fuckers. I do find it slightly worrying and ironic that the last couple of times I’ve felt particularly bad recently — this week and one day last week — have been immediately after I made a conscious effort to do some exercise. It’s like my body doesn’t want to get fit and healthy. I’ll show it who’s boss, though. (Unless I get struck down with the plague immediately after going swimming again. In which case, fuck everything.)

One thing I’ve never been able to shake out of my mind is a hangover from my days working in schools, and that’s the guilt I feel at being ill. Taking a day off sick when you work as a teacher is a massive inconvenience to all of your colleagues, you see, and in many cases you actually end up having to do some work anyway to ensure you have some stuff sent in for those covering your lessons. In most schools, pupils don’t simply get a free period if their teacher isn’t there, after all, and when you teach a specialist subject such as music you can pretty much guarantee the person covering your class will not be a music specialist. (They will almost definitely be a PE teacher, which is pretty much the polar opposite of being a music teacher.)

Guilt at being ill when you’re a teacher is somewhat justified, then, as it often has a significant impact on a number of people’s days — the office staff have to sort out who’s going to cover your lessons, the staffers who were looking forward to a free period or two now have to cover your lessons and, more often than not, your head of department has to check that the kids aren’t killing the poor cover teacher.

But in other jobs? Variable. I felt particularly guilty this week due to the fact that my USgamer colleagues are at GDC and could have done with some support on the home front, but I have no doubt that they successfully handled it between them. And if I had a job that didn’t face the public at all, like my ill-advised brief jaunt into temporary office work? My absence barely mattered at all; in fact, I don’t believe anyone even noticed when I wasn’t there, since none of them talked to me anyway.

Anyway. I think I am on the mend. I still have a nasty cough that keeps flaring up, but the headache and accompanying dizziness appears to have faded. I’m not sure how well I’m going to be able to sleep tonight, given that lying down seems to exacerbate my cough somewhat, but we’ll see. In the meantime, Hatsune Miku is keeping me entertained.