Protect your pack mates

I have been sick since the marathon. I'm not sure if I was sick before, and the marathon brought it to the forefront, or if my fatigued body was a welcome mat to any virus walking by.

Anyhoo...I've got some sort of cold/flu thing. During the day it manifests as fatigue, weakness and loopiness. And for some reason, as soon as my head hits the pillow at night, I get this hacking cough. Actually, that is pretty typical when I am feeling ill. I either can't get to sleep, or cough myself awake several times a night.

In the past, this meant leaving the bedroom and staying on the couch so my coughing didn't keep J awake. And this time around, it is pretty fortunate that the roomies are out of town. I can get up at all hours to grab a cough drop, make tea, gargle, and basically hack up a lung without worrying about disturbing anyone. Well almost anyone.

Last night I woke up coughing several times. I rarely get out of bed right away. Especially after a week of little sleep, I always hope that I can just get back to sleep without calling in extraordinary measures. As I lay there coughing and hoping for it to subside, I heard the metallic 'clink, clink' of dog tags. It sounded like my roomies dawg had left his room and was up pacing through the house.

After a while, I gave up on falling back to sleep and went to get up. And I found my roomies dawg curled up on the rug next to my bed. I think he was worried about me, his stand-in human.