Ugh – traveling while sick!

You may have noticed that I once again dropped off the face of the earth last week.
I seem to have come down with something that just really knocked me out and after I got home from Houston last Thursday I just slept and slept and slept.
Fast forward to this week when it came time again to head back on the road. I really hate traveling when I’m sick. It’s not fair to other passengers first and foremost. Either I’m hacking/sneezing in the same recycled air as everyone else in the plane (and that’s most likely how I got sick to begin with), or I’m unable to make the meeting because I’m too sick to make it.
Working from home is a whole different world than working in an office. My policy is that if I can stay awake during business hours and read/write with normal comprehension I should not take a sick day. Since I was able to stay awake during business hours (but slept the rest of the day) and my mental faculties were not dimmed I decided to work. My metrics for working in an office are different though. I do not go to work with a communicable disease or excessive sneezing/coughing that would prohibit my coworkers from working or get them sick.
Now we get to the fun part. I needed to travel out so I could spend a day meeting with my coworkers before the actual prospect meeting. That means that if I got sick on Wednesday/Thursday of last week I should hopefully be functional enough by Wednesday/Thursday of this week so if I cancelled my ticket for Monday I would end up fully recovered and home for no reason. I decided to take the gamble. Actually, I checked my temperature several times throughout the day and at no point was I ever running a fever. I took that as a sign that the cough is not as serious as it had felt.

The worst symptoms to travel with (for you) are definitely anything that causes the head or ears to feel plugged up. That is just miserable when you feel like you need to pop your ears and none of the tricks (swallowing, yawning, holding your nose and blowing) unplug them.
The worst symptoms for anyone else: well…being contagious with anything is rude. After that would be vomiting followed by coughing/sneezing.
Maybe I should have looked harder to find my Germbana before I left. I just made sure to follow basic hygiene and washed my hands with warm soapy water and made sure to always cover my cough. I also tried to touch as little as possible.

Now here’s to hoping this gets wrapped up ASAP so I didn’t travel when I should have taken a sick day.