Stages of Illness

Just about every time I get sick, it goes down like this. (I've had a lot of time to break it down because I've been sick all week.)

• Feel itchiness in back of throat/slight about of nausea. Think, "Oh, no, I might be getting sick."
• Go to work anyway. Leave work upon feeling feverish/nearly hurling into the office garbage can. Decide am actually sick.
• Somehow get home driving through a haze. Sweat/shiver/get intimate with toilet. Be grateful the sheets got changed and the toilet got cleaned recently.
• Spend sleepless nights staring at the street lights on the wall. Drink glass after glass of water, trying to rid throat of irritation. Imagine tonsils red, angry, and pulsing in throat.
• Wish someone could be there to put cold towels on forehead and serve cold ginger ale.
• Have fever dream about Norm MacDonald as Burt Reynolds rescuing self from doldrums.
• Pull all the sheets off bed tossing and turning.
• Decide am too unloveable and no one will ever be there, for nursing purposes or otherwise.
• Gargle with saltwater at 4 am and confirm unlovability: snot, red face, sick person breath, sweaty body.
• Despair.
• Feel less like dying.
• Despair still because of 4 am revelations.

I'm not sure what comes next, as I'm still in the despair stage.