There's being blindsided, then there's being run over by a train that two seconds before was a hundred miles away.

Like most people who get sick enough that they have a hard time functioning in a regular way, I was convinced I was completely alone in my suffering when my temperature hit 125 degrees (only a slight exaggeration) and I coughed so much that at one point I'm pretty sure I saw my spleen running down the sidewalk yelling, "I'm finally free!"

Being that sick gives you tunnel vision, but I have come to discover that I was far from alone when I stood in a 45 degree wind and said, "Ah, that feels good!"

Of course, there was a patient zero. There always is. I've narrowed it down to either my mother who, despite acting like she was ready to finalize her eulogy, showed up for Thanksgiving dinner, or a Dollar Tree Clerk who sniffed and coughed and sounded like a bullfrog as he rang up my purchase.

Oh, missed work time and praying for the grim reaper all in the name of a dollar beef jerky stick! To be fair, it was an oversized beef jerky stick.

But I'm not one to hold a grudge, so whoever patient zero was doesn't really matter in the end. And there must have been several patient zero's as I found out the following people were also infected, and I had no contact with most of them prior to becoming sick myself.

The wife (who recovered much faster than myself), my sister-in-law, our ad director, our circulation director, a sheriff's detective, the Madisonville police chief, one of our ad representatives (who was first… hmmm, a new patient zero candidate?) and, oddest of all, Los Angeles Lakers super guard Kobe Bryant! Coincidence?

Now, Bryant got doped up by the best doctors his team can afford and he went out and scored 40 points in a game. I took some store brand Dayquil and Monday night made the wonderfully delirious statement, "I think I'm melting!"

I'm not prone to sickness. Yes, as anybody who knows me will testify, I feel "bad" most of the time, but that's from getting old and watching all my hopes and dreams get crushed under the foot of reality. But when it comes to sickness like this? Very rare.

My editor commented that I seemed to miss a day due to illness once every three years, but the truth is, aside from surgery I had in 2010, this was the first time I'd missed a full day of work since the 1990's.

That's not bragging, unless you consider acknowledging an incredibly amazing streak of luck to be bragging. I must have mentioned it recently and forgot to knock on wood for it to have happened this time.

I've always attributed such a lengthy streak to not being around kids and, for the most part, working alone. Yeah, I see people all the time and lean on germ infested counters at various government offices, but I have learned the trick of not touching anything on my face before I can get to a bottle of hand sanitizer.

For what it's worth, I once read that you really should avoid touching your nose before washing your hands and that the mouth isn't as bad as some people think. Something about there being so many bacteria killing acids in the mouth and none in the nose. Eyes are bad also.

Either way, we're heading into that time of the year. Do everything you can to keep from descending into coughing fits and having a temperature that makes you think you're melting like a crayon in a microwave.

And we won't even mention fever dreams. It's exhausting running from zombies.

michael.thomason@advocateanddemocrat.com | 442-4575