Thoughts on Teaching and Life

About midway through last week, I had started to have difficulty closing my mouth. My jaw hurt to move and it made eating difficult. I thought I pulled a muscle. Fast forward a week, and after I left work, I sat down and felt overwhelmingly dizzy and fuzzy, followed by a high grade fever and a burning sensation when I breathed. After a visit to the doctor’s, it turned out that I had such an advanced sinus infection that it went into my jaw and my ears. I pretty much had a face infection which is probably from a URI I powered through the last couple of weeks which I probably got from being sick all the way back over the summer while backpacking and never taking the time to take care of myself and trusting the advice of an Austrian doctor that seemed more impressed with my German last name than with really helping me. Seriously, what is it about Austrians/Germans being so in-awe of Americans with German ancestry that come back? I’ve experienced that several times in my travels and always at the strangest of moments.
 
I’m taking horse pills for antibiotics that are killing my stomach and caused me to cough and vomit at the same time today, nearly coating my trusting feline companion that has been within inches of me since I came home from the doctor’s yesterday. It was the weirdest sensation of my life wherein I stood and just looked at the mess in disbelief as in; did that really just happen to me?
 
I know I’m not the only one that has had a really stressful and difficult year. I’m not even complaining, because within all of it, I’ve had a lot of good too. I guess in this ridiculously long blog, I’m just realizing how important it is to take care of you and not focus on everyone else all the time. It’s a hard lesson to learn, especially as a teacher where we’re pretty much paid to do nothing but take care of everyone else and worry about every little detail. 
 
Or maybe I’m just loopy on decongestants and antibiotics. Kudos if you actually read this mini novel.