1. You feel a slight tingle in your nose. It is coming.

2. You are curious if the slight tingle will continue or end.

3. It continues. You wonder who did it.

4. You stop wondering because now the headache has come.

5. You begin to let those around you know of your strange bodily symptoms.

6. What you crave is a hug, but what they give you is more distance.

7. Just kidding. What you really crave is some soup. You now have a sore throat.

8. Suddenly all of your symptoms have magnified by a rate of 7,000.

9. You daydream about the times when you were mobile.

10. Just kidding again. You don’t daydream. You just sleep. You then have real dreams of when you were in good health, frolicking in the fields of life.

11. The nightmares kick in and you see yourself: you are laying in bed, finding breathing to be labored and difficult. In this nightmare, the sickness goes on for 40 days.

12. One single friend begins to recognize your state of need and brings you a chocolate chip cookie.

13. You cannot taste it, but still you devour the cookie.

14. 10 minutes have passed by and you now have Earth’s most severe stomachache.

15. Fear not, the stomachache subsides. In its place is your urge to use the bathroom.

16. You are having difficulty moving your body. How will you make it to the bathroom?

17. You determine that rolling out of bed is the best move.

18. Suddenly you find yourself on the ground, feeling like the carpet around you—dead and immobile.

19. Your fall of the bed left you with third degree bruises and your walk to the bathroom reminds you of the carpet again... filled with lifelessness.

20. You have somehow emerged from the situation and are returning to your bed.

21. For some reason, you decide you are so tired that the walk back to the bed will occur with your eyes shut.

22. You suddenly feel a wall against your head. You have bumped into it.

23. You decide the eyes must be opened so that you can find your way back to your home stretcher.

24. There you lie again, curious if the day will come when you return to health.

25. You dream again about being a part of the middle ages, having someone wash your feet and feed you because of your unspoken illness.

26. Somehow, three days have passed and you remain in bed, praying to live again.

27. The fourth day comes and the magnitude of your symptoms has subsided to a mere one thousand sickling-meters, which gives you hope for a future.

28. Solid foods are able to be in your diet again, and your taste buds seem to be reactivated.

29. The Gatorade tastes like Gatorade and the soup tastes like chicken. You are pleased.

30. You are told to rest although you wish to stand, and you begin to enjoy the seven seasons of your favorite Netflix show that you just finished.

31. Soon you recognize that you must begin to function as a human again, and feel your first bit of concern about what you may have missed during your illness.

32. You have made it past the worst, stand up the next morning, and decide to try to operate normally.

33. You succeed.

34. You can breathe.

35. You have been healed.

36. You are pleased.

37. You are healthy.

38. You are thankful.

39. You are alive….

40. Until next time…