Svee-dish.

Be forewarned: this one's going to be short, nonlinear, and constructed like a high school dropout high on gold paint.

I am sick.

Legs shaking, back aching, chest congested, "I'm hot" - "I'm cold," sick. It feels like someone has punched me in the face with a hot sack of nickels. I read someone's blog about working sick and came down with this monster of a chest/head cold. I blame that blog; simply on it's power of inference. If I hadn't have read that blog I wouldn't have come down with this throat rattling cough, aching head, constantly dripping nose with a raspy Barry White soulfulness in my voice.

Or, I may be because of the last week I spent attempting to tend to my sick wife. The one with all these remarkably similar symptoms.

But, I did go to work one day. The first day of my four shifts. The day I was probably the sickest and most communicable. I apologize to my partner who is surely to come down with these same ominous signs in the next few days. Nothing like sitting 3 feet from one another while the other sprays infected cough particles all over the already disease infested ambulance cab.

But, I digress - again.

You are reading the words from the person that single-handedly, most-probably has infected that bitterly cold, northern country of Sweden. Watch the news, read the magazines, tune into your local public radio. Sweden is about to hypothetically shake hands with a flu-infected paramedic from the Mile High City, the alpha of their invading flu. They're about to realize how everything here is bigger and better - including our flu's.

We transported a mother, and her family, to the hospital the other night. She was in that notorious and infamous Swedish bigemeny. She had syncoped in customs and was now sidetracking her entire family to a local hospital for the beginning of their American land tour. I, of course being the reasonable paramedic that I am, drove that night. Plus, it was just my turn. I sat up front with the father trying to suppress my chronic cough. Sneezing into my sleeve and dabbing my watering eyes with tissue, I drove as quickly to the hospital as I could. We both laughed uncomfortably as we were delayed by possibly the slowest moving train on Earth. I tried not to talk. The Swede sat next to me taking in all the peculiarities of America, probably wondering if we all talked like I did and if all trains here were that slow.

We dropped the Swede's off at the hospital favored by Russians. As I exited, I looked at the tangled messes in the beds. I was sicker than them all. Bed 3, chest pain -I got it. Bed 6, shortness of breath - me too. Bed 12, bloody stool - ahh... not yet.

So, to all my readers in Sweden, I am sorry. I know that this may stain my International Status of Paramedic Blog Story Telling in that community and some may become offended enough as to not read me anymore. My Swedish friends, you have that right to Blacklist me as one of your past, favorite contemporary American authors, but always remember. I like your meatballs.

The above post is probably why they put all those warnings on cold / flu medicine boxes. Too much of one thing can be hazardous, especially if chased with a shot of Jagermeister.