the mono.

Yet again, blogging has been foiled by life's little quirks. This time the quirk came in the form of mononucleosis.

Yeah. That's right. At 23, I was afflicted with the disease usually reserved for hormone-crazed 16 year olds.

It's been a rough five weeks. It started with some scariness -- namely involving the doctor's being completely baffled by some impressively active lymph nodes in my groin. A week off work for doctor's visits. A six-hour stint at Suburban Hospital, which included a massive amount of blood drawn, and a CT scan. And ta-da! I have mono.

Really, I'd much rather have mono than any of the alternatives that come with swollen lymph nodes. But still. I'd much rather be healthy, too.

Now, five weeks later, I've almost fully recovered. Still waiting for my liver to cool it and catch up with the rest of my body. And until then, I'm teatotaling it, and minimizing any especially active activities (how's that for redundancy?).

Anyone who's read my blog before knows that I typically like to find a lesson, or five, in the things that I encounter and experience. So here are my lessons, in convenient list form, in no particular order:

01. When you get sick, and you don't know what's wrong, people worry about you. It's an incredibly wonderful feeling to know that there are people who truly care about your well-being and what happens to. I'm not talking about doctors and surgeons, I'm talking about friends and family. I'm so amazingly lucky to have parents close by, and fabulous friends and a boyfriend on-call who would check in daily for updates.

02. Health insurance is a god send. This experience has opened my eyes to just how essential it is to be able to just hand over your card, pay your co-pay and get the care you need. Thankfully, my experience ended in mono, but had it not, I would be even more thankful for health insurance. I cannot imagine life without it, and I'm really glad our government is working toward making it available to everyone. Politics aside, no one should have to worry about getting the care they need.

03. Mono sucks. It's a terrible, rotten, miserable virus. It knocked me on my ass. And it was absolutely amazing to me how little energy I had.

04. Puzzles are awesome. My friend sent me a care package full of "sick activities". A puzzle, coloring book, crayons, play dough. Yeah. I have great friends.

05. Knowing your limits is essential. I've never thought I had a problem listening to my body and knowing my limits. I've always been pretty in tune. But having mono has made me that much more aware.

06. Being healthy is a god send. I have so much respect and admiration for people who grapple with illness their whole lives. It sucks. And I'm sorry. I know I just had mono, but I feel that much more lucky that in a few weeks, I'll be back to normal and feel better. I wish everyone had that luxury.

OK, so I think that's it. I'm sure there are other things that I've learned/realized, but I can't think of them now. Other than the mono, things are going pretty well. Wednesday Night Dinners have continued, and now include another friend who is dead-set on blogging about it. So I'll post about that as soon as it happens.

I know I've fallen off this blogging wagon, and I'm struggling to get back on. So if you're still reading, thanks. And if not, I don't blame you.

b