Side Effects of Falling ill

My father always says that when one is ill, one gets to know his / her level of popularity. As a kid I seldom got a chance to measure that. Not because I never fell ill. In fact it was just the opposite. I used to be sick all the time and perhaps that’s why nobody missed me.

Fortunately both in college and at work, I got an opportunity to taste the flavor of “popularity”. In my third year college, a month before the finals, I succumbed to German measles. The worse part of this disease is that it is highly contagious! So not only I was under house arrest but was also forbidden to meet others so as to not spread the "love".

I still remember how my phone never stopped ringing that day when a friend mine told every single person (irrespective of whether he or she knew me) that I was suffering from German measles. In fact some friends took it upon them to keep me company and I had dedicated slot of phone calls. I, obviously, thank their parents for paying the telephone bills which must have been quite a bit!

However, at work if you are missed when you fall ill, it could mean two things – your files are so badly organized that nobody can find anything important or you are that good at your work that nobody wants to touch your files fearing they may ruin it.

For the first one year the former was true for me. I use to dread falling ill, lest people find out how messy my folder is but gradually I began to realize that the popularity factor also exists in the office domain.

I remember a time when I sprained my back or when I bruised my leg at an accident. I had office colleagues taking turns to visit me, to pick me and drop me off. I remember my boss had sent across her doctor to double check on my diagnosis and a client who wanted to send me flowers.

Today, as I am nursing a ligament pull and living through kidney infection, the phone calls keep pouring in from friends I haven’t spoken for months together, from colleagues offering me their cars and enquiring about my health. 

Therefore, remember no matter how will you are and how bad your condition is, always update your facebook status to –“I am sick”, “high fever and ligament pull”, and wait to be surprised by all the calls pouring in!