Fever dreams suck

They really, really do. You'd think with all our advanced tech, we could remove things like flu bugs, colds, etc. Its bad enough I'm waking up feeling like death, after having trouble going to sleep because of a god awful dry cough. No, I have to experience an endless sequences of painful delusions that don't make any sense. Like a really bad trip.

Anyway, I'm stuck on my bed, miserable right now, and I've decided to embrace the saying that misery loves company to its full extent. I want to hear stories, painful, yucky, visceral stories of times you were sick with something. Be brutal, I want to believe that this is mild compared to other illnesses people go through, but I feel too much like shit to believe that.

I'd get horrific headaches and sort of zone out every now and then starting late last year to early this one- It lead to flashback nightmares, nosebleeds (that I didn't notice for several moments) and zoning out, during which I'd wake up in a different place or having done something I wasn't completely sure of- (Ie, I'd snap to in the shower in the middle of the night, or I'd be wandering around the apartment complex with no recollection.) My biotic implant had seriously malfunctioned and was damaging a nerve cluster in my brain.

I had to have surgery to fix it.

Back when I was with the Asari Commandos, I was involved in some counter piracy operations at the border of asari space. Ran into a batarian pirate gang attempting an assault on a colony. We had landed a couple of hours ago when I got shot in my thigh and it got infected. I was around 100 at the time, and we were days away from any sort of serious medical facilities. For 3 days the Company medical officer tried to bring down my fever, but I was delirious for most of it. I had to be moved around a couple of times because the area was contested, (Chemical weapons on Casualty Collection Points are a bitch) which was hell, since I was passing out and couldn't move without assistance.

The gas attacks were the worst. I literally could not tell what were fever nightmares and what was the actual bombings. All I remember is seeing a lot of death in both, and wishing I was with them. Eventually the pirates were eliminated and I got out. Took about 3 months of rehabilitation before I was back in full condition from the gunshots, the infection, and the lung damage from the chemical attacks.

Recovering from malnutrition's a bit of a bugger for a biotic.
Whole parts of you that are used to getting more energy than your average person start going nuts, spasming at weird times, glowing and sometimes just stopping working for a few seconds. Which can be awkward if you were using a certain limb to carry an object, open a door or stand up.
I was bloody lucky not to break any bones, now I think about it.
Then there were the splitting headaches, shooting pains striking whenever they felt like it, and wanting to eat everything in sight despite knowing it'll do more damage that way.

That leads to some pretty serious sleep deprivation, too - half the time I wasn't sure whether a spasm or glow was real, or if I was just going bonkers and imagining the whole thing.

Years ago, back when I was still walking a beat in Enforcement, I heard an emergency medical call over the comms. It was to a mostly-Turian apartment block in a bad part of the foundations, so I thought maybe somebody got stabbed or mugged or whatever. I got there before the paramedics did, and it was just unbelievable. Half the building was keeling over in agony, discharging just about every fluid known to modern science that CAN be discharged. The source was some guy on the 6th floor who had recently done some contract work in the jungle on Invictus. Apparently he had picked up some sort of extoic jungle flu that only hits its stride a week or two after it enters the body, leaving plenty of time for him to get back to his place on the Citadel and spread to most of his friends and family, and their friends and family, and so on. The Health Department had to quarantine the building and put the entire district on medical alert for weeks.

Anyway, because I had been in direct contact with all these sick people at the source of the outbreak, they had to put me under quarantine in case I started showing symptoms. And sure enough, about a week and a half later, I was a complete wreck. If you can think of it, it was being forced out of me; mucus, vomit, whatever. I was so delirious from the fever and pain I barely knew where I was half the time. They had to restrain me at one point because I was freaking out so much; when the nurse would try to change my IV bag I thought she was some kind of demon coming to suck out all my blood. I also kept tearing my blankets off because I felt like I was being broiled from the inside out, so I was freezing in the hospital room and I didn't even know it. On top of all that, there was the pain. There wasn't a nerve in my body that wasn't screaming in agony; I swear, just feeling my heart beat and the blood move through my veins created pain in itself.

Long story short, I pulled through ok. They had started me on a treatment early, and for how terrible the virus was in the short term, it goes through you pretty quickly. At any rate, it's cemented my desire never to set foot on Invictus, and to keep a clear berth from anyone who's ever been.

Yeah, I see your story and raise you mine.

Ever get swamp flu? Taetrus is crawlin' with it, at least on the eastern continent. Just rollin' over made me barf, never mind sitting up, so you lie there, feelin' your neck crick and your muscles ache, gettin' bed sores, afraid to move. Sometimes it don't work and you barf anyway, heavin' an' heavin' an' only yellow bile comes out of you 'cause you ain't got nothin' left to chuck. So you're dehydrated, burnin' with fever, and havin' crazy hallucinations.

...Did I mention I was living off the land, all alone, no medication and nobody to know I was out there? And that there's predators out there more'n capable of eatin' a turian? I was either lucky, or I smelt so bad none of the predators wanted to take a bite.

The odds of me dyin' in a puddle of my own juices were way higher'n I want to think about, then or now.

Well, looks like I got what I asked for. Jeez guys, now i feel like shit for complaining about a regular flu bug.

...well, I do have one comparable story. Once when I was still doing a few social pieces for the Alliances outer colonies, and got stuck in a salmonella outbreak. Truly revolting disease, cramps, vomiting and diarrhea, it produced this uniquely disgusting sickly sweet smell that I will remember till the day I die.

...Ok. I think that definitely tops my story. At least when I was heaving and aching and hallucinating and shit, I had the luxury of modern medicine to help me through it.

I'll be the first to admit I'm a city-Turian at heart. I did my time humping across spirits-forsaken rocks when I was in the service, and don't plan on going back to that anytime soon. Now I consider someplace a backwater if it doesn't have a Grox-wrap stand, let alone a hospital. I'll gladly take the city-slicker badge in that case.

Fever dreams suck? Oh miss, I beg to differ. I got brought down with something nasty a couple of days ago and for a few nights I had the wackiest, clearest and most interesting dreams I've had in years. Normally my dreams are boring but those nights? Ever dream about a boy waking up on a giant mattress in the middle of the ocean, only to land on an island and have to fight off little african zombie girls that are trying to steal his octopus toy? Or about going to see a surreal dance show with your parents, only to have half of the performers dance whilst stark bloomin' naked? Or about falling from the top of a planet's atmosphere, marveling at how tiny everything seems beneath you, only to be saved at the very moment before you hit he ground because a giant pelican swoops down and grabs you in its bill? Or suddenly deciding that you absolutely have to go hovercraft racing with friends you haven't seen or heard from in more than a decade? Fever dreams are amazing and you should be appreciating that strangeness while you can! I dunno, maybe you military types just have more to have nightmares about, I guess.