I did not train on Friday, 8 Jan or Saturday, 9 Jan because I got the flu and wanted to die. I first noticed a general downturn in my overall health on Wednesday and then Thursday I went home early from class because I wasn't feeling well. At first I worried I was overreacting, but then Thursday afternoon I got worse. I felt a little better on Friday morning and I thought maybe it was just a 24 hour stomach bug, so while I missed anatomy lecture in the morning, I headed to class for anatomy lab in the afternoon. This turned out to be a poor choice. I rapidly got weaker and weaker as lab went on, to the point that when I was bending over to plug in the bone saw, I worried I might not be able to stand back up. My declining status was evident to others as well and I ended up having to leave lab early because standing up became increasingly difficult to the point where I was no longer able to be a helpful member of the group.
I thought I was going to have to go to the ER over the weekend as I spiked a fever Friday afternoon and it steadily rose through the weekend up to a high of 103.3. If I had hit 104 I was going to drive to the ER since that's getting into the realm of cooking your brain. I have not had the flu since I was a little kid and I'm not sure if I got a particularly virulent strain or if I just have greater self awareness now then back then, but it seemed to be far worse getting it as an adult than as a kid.
This was not the end of this training block as I still had to deload, but it did cause me to miss two training days completely. I was also very glad to be returning to training starting with a deload rather than trying to go balls to the wall after being in such a weakened state for several days.