News That Stays News

Being sick in the field STINKS June 22, 2017

June 22, 2017

Especially when there’s a big disconnect between how sick you feel and how sick you sound. Yesterday, I started the morning with a sore throat that quickly turned into a nasty hot, stuffy headache. I was drinking ginger tea constantly, but apparently looked perfectly normal, since no one was asking if I was okay or edging out of the germ transmission zone. I was cold all night, and it only took me until 3:30 in the morning to realize that turning off the fan might help. Then when we were out in the field, I suddenly started feeling much better and sneezing a lot.

I’m still going to take it as easy as I can for the next few days, since I really don’t want a repeat experience. Aside from the obvious reasons to stay healthy, the problem in the field is that each day contains data that can either be collected or lost, but can’t be postponed. So unless you really are too sick to move, the instinct is always to get up and get the data, even if you’d normally decide that you were sick enough to put off work.