10:34 PM

Enforced Sick Days

On Tuesday, I woke up feeling under the weather. I had a bit of a fever, a cough, and body aches. Figuring that I work in a hospital with lots of not-so-healthy people around, I decided not to go to work. I thought I could just rest lots, drink plenty of fluids, and then report back to work on Wednesday. Turns out, it's not that simple. I showed up to work today and was told that because my symptoms were flu-like, I had to go check in with Occupational Health to get the all-clear from them to return to work. I was thinking "I'm feeling mostly fine, they'll just take my temperature and then I can just get back to work".

Wrong.

Thanks to H1N1, the rules for what they send you home for have changed. Before, it was just fever WITH vomiting or diarrhea. Now, they can send you home for just a fever, cough, or any sort of respiratory problem. I told the nurse that, while I did have a fever on Tuesday, it was gone that evening. She even took my temperature right there, and I was fine. But, the rules are that I can't be at work until 48 hours have passed since my fever ended. She also had to take some swabs to send for testing. Let me tell you, nose swabs hurt! I had no idea they had to go so deep with them.

So, the conclusion of this story is that I am now not allowed to go to work until they phone me with the results of my tests - even though I feel fine now. The nurse suspected that will probably be Monday.

Extra long weekend!!

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