Sorry to be MIA – I’ve spent the last week-and-a-half in a fog. Like that commercial where the (cartoon) woman has medicine head and her head lifts off like a balloon. Yep, whatever evil, nasty cold that’s been going around finally caught me. And it was as described.

And while my Minnesota it-could-be-worse mentality still peeked through to some degree, I can think of few things less pleasant than basically not having a functional head for a week-and-a-half of grad schooling, working and Halloweening.

But there’s good news! I made note of my brilliant coping strategies to help you survive what’s bound to be a gross cold/flu/etc. season. Good luck (and wash your hands)!

Take advantage of couch time. I spent a whole lot of time chillin’ in my PJs, on the couch, with a box of Kleenex within arm’s reach—but my laptop wasn’t any farther away. Because I didn’t want to leave the house (felt like crap AND didn’t want to be a germ-spreading machine), I finally had the time and motivation…sort of…to just sit down and get all the tedious homework things I’d been avoiding done.

Be nice, and take one for the team. Especially with the H1N1 freak-outs going on, I found that people were very understanding of anything I had to cancel, miss, reschedule or adjust. My best strategy was being very nice and apologetic and really, really stressing the fact that I don’t want to get anyone else sick. Once people picture themselves in your shoes (see description above), they’re usually pretty quick to let you off the hook.

Suck it up. Now I realize resting is ideal, but sometimes that’s just not possible. So I—a usually super anti-medicine person—took my DayQuil every four hours, drank a lot of water and just pretended I wasn’t sick when I had to get something done. I admit to having a relatively miserable day at work, class and lab, but I did what I had to do and felt much less stressed out later knowing I didn’t miss anything.

But know when to let go. While I do believe in sucking it up to some degree, there are times you’ve just gotta let your body take over. For me, that meant sleeping a good 12 hours one day…then going back to bed a few hours later. It’s hard for me to let myself do it, but sleeping, relaxing and not trying to push a recovery can be the best medicine.

[Update on our user poll -- as expected, stay away from friends and family to avoid getting sick. And twice as many of you said work or school were the most likely sources of contagion.

[Unfortunately for you if you're reading this, an equal number picked "reading this blog" as the most probable way to contract the flu. Sorry! ]

Photo by blisschan