I do not have the flu.

I’ve been running a fever of 102 for the past three days, and my back feels like Tony Soprano worked me over with a chain and a billy club.

I’ve got a sore throat that goes from the back of my throat to my chest and a cough that travels up and down my spine.

But I do not have the flu.

Before you ask, I did not get a flu shot.

But that’s a moot point because I don’t have the flu.

This situation is similar to the five years I put up with a cranky gall bladder.

I’d have gall bladder attacks that put me in bed for hours, but I didn’t need my gall bladder out.

It wasn’t until I had gall bladder surgery that I began to quietly admit that, yes, perhaps I did need to have that particular body part removed.

But the flu?

No way.

This denial could also be like the time I insisted on driving my aging mini-van to Louisiana even though I knew better. With 140,000 miles on her and a known cooling problem, I insisted on putting those last 650 miles on our old van, not a brand-new one.

My Aggie boy and I had to stop every 50 miles between Baton Rouge and Beaumont to put a gallon of water in the radiator and to let things cool down before we could keep driving.

He thought the trip was a great adventure and swore there was nothing better than greasy food that slid off the plate at the truck stops.  

I called my husband when we crossed the state line, parked the van in the shade, had him come rescue us and never looked back.

But back to this crud attack I’m having. It’s not the flu. The flu is an ailment other people get. Other people run high fevers, chew ibuprofen and aspirin every two hours and go to bed at 7:30 at night.

Oh wait. That’s what I’ve been doing for the past three nights.

But I don’t have the flu.

My eyelids feel like there’s bags of cement riding on them, but that has to be because I haven’t slept well the past few nights. Waking up repeatedly during the night to put on two or three blankets and then throw them off has to be the reason I’m so tired.

The lack of sleep also explains the reason I want to go to bed at 7 p.m. and why I slept 12 hours straight Saturday night. 

To be on the safe side, I check my temperature again.  

It’s 101.5.

I get a different thermometer because something must be wrong with the one I’ve been using.

It’s 101.7.

Two defective thermometers in the house. Just my luck.

Surely that means my allergies are acting up. After all, a cold front’s blowing in. That has to be the reason my head feels like a helium balloon about to explode and my legs feel like somebody hit them repeatedly with a baseball bat.

But the flu?

No way.

Even though I looked up “flu symptoms” on Google and I have 10 out of 10 symptoms.

Even though my husband is quietly spraying Lysol on everything in the house he thinks I’ve touched.

There is no way I have the flu.

I think I’ll just down two aspirin, rub some Vick’s Vapor Rub on my legs and call it a night.

The flu?

Fahgettaboudit.
This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.