A Miserable Weekend and a Dreaded Monday

I had a terrible weekend, but unfortunately, it wasn’t unexpected. I got my COVID vaccine Friday afternoon, and as usual, I had a pretty miserable reaction to it. I got the shot around 3 p.m., and almost like clockwork, twelve hours later, at 3 a.m. Saturday morning, the headache, body aches, and fever began.

This happens every time I get the Pfizer vaccine, and thankfully, it generally lasts only about 24 hours. Of course, knowing it’s coming doesn’t make it any more pleasant. I spent most of Saturday trying to sleep because I figured that was better than being awake and feeling absolutely miserable. Thankfully, around 3 a.m. Sunday morning, the fever and body aches finally subsided.

The headache, however, decided to stick around. On a pain scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the worst pain imaginable, Saturday’s headache was about an 8. Yesterday, it had dropped to a 5, and this morning, it’s hovering around a 2. At least it’s moving in the right direction, though I’d be much happier if it would just go away altogether.

Unfortunately, feeling miserable wasn’t the only thing that made this weekend unpleasant. I’ve also been dreading today at work, and that certainly hasn’t helped matters.

I have a meeting this morning that I’m not looking forward to. Without going into too much detail, my director and I have to deal with a situation involving our boss that should never have become an issue in the first place. Something relatively minor has been blown completely out of proportion, and now we have to spend time and energy trying to convince someone that he’s wrong and being unnecessarily difficult. Frankly, I think he’s being an idiotic asshole about the whole thing, but I suppose telling him that wouldn’t be the most productive way to handle the meeting. As tempting as it might be.

Then there’s the class I have to teach this afternoon. Normally, I enjoy teaching classes at the museum. It’s one of my favorite parts of my job. This particular class, however, has been giving me fits. The request was an unusual variation on something I do fairly regularly, and for whatever reason, I’ve had a difficult time figuring out how best to approach it. I think I’ve finally gotten the presentation into some sort of shape, but I still have some polishing to do before this afternoon’s class. I’m still not looking forward to teaching it, though. Hopefully, it will go better than I’m anticipating. Sometimes the classes I worry about the most turn out to be the ones that go surprisingly well.

The rest of the week is going to be busy, too, although thankfully, there’s nothing else on my calendar that I’m actively dreading. There are plenty of classes, meetings, and events to keep me occupied, and I’ll be putting in some long hours. I also have to work Saturday morning, so my workweek won’t officially end until 1 p.m. Saturday.

At this point, I’m already looking forward to Saturday afternoon, and it’s only Monday morning. After the weekend I just had and the week I’m facing, I have a feeling that one day off on Sunday isn’t going to be nearly enough time to recover.

But first, I have to get through today. Maybe another cup of coffee will help. I doubt it will make the meeting any more pleasant, but at least I’ll be properly caffeinated when I have to bite my tongue.

Here’s hoping the week turns out better than I’m expecting. It certainly has plenty of room for improvement.