Tech Sessions: Sick in bed, but connected enough to keep company running

I fell ill this past week. While I wasn’t on my deathbed, I was unable to leave my bed much, and my incessant cough, inability to use my nose for breathing, and absence of a voice for three days made my presence in the office fall somewhere in between worthless and futile.

But with a steady stream of over-the-counter medications, tea, the Internet and my laptop, I was able to keep business moving without having to move more than fingers. Here’s how it went down:

Sunday: Throat is beginning to feel sore, probably caused by the cold air this morning. Had hot tea with dinner at Ingredient with the youth group where we talked about the church’s new Twitter feed and how we can get Podcasting back on the site.

By the time I got home, a bad cough had started, and I knew it would be a long night. Cancelled my morning breakfast meeting and announced I wouldn’t be in the office via text message.

Monday: It’s clear this isn’t going away anytime soon. Made it to the office at the break of noon, just in time to leave for a lunch meeting. Realizing I had lost the ability to think clearly, and my fuse and wit had become very short, I left there for the comfort of my bed, beagle, hot tea and DayQuil. While on infinite hold with a hosting provider, I took the opportunity to catch up on e-mail, Facebook invitations and messages and text messages. My voice was fading fast, so I took to Instant Messenger and Twitter for the rest of the day.

Tuesday: Day begins (late) with a massive headache. Not sure if it was sinus or caffeine related, so I wash down some Advil Cold and Sinus with a half pot of coffee. Did the trick.

I tried to keep focused on a Web seminar about the new DroboPro (http://tinyurl.com/dgh5ca) while watching the beagle watch the bearded dragon watch the beagle. Is this what goes on while I’m not at home?

Made it through my only meeting of the day, and my voice is now completely gone. I find Achieve Balance’s Web site for hours via Facebook on my iPhone and go over for an adjustment.

Wednesday & Thursday: No meetings. Spent the entirety of both days at home conducting as much business as possible via online chats, text messages, Twitter and e-mail. Wrote proposals, e-mailed them, fixed a couple of computer issues via iChat screen sharing and coordinated projects all from the comfort of my home.

Beginning to feel the mental fog lift. My voice is back; the coughing has been replaced by the occasional sneeze. Tomorrow it’s back to the office.

Friday: Back at the office, feeling much better but taking it slow. After rescheduling a few appointments, it was business as usual. Since messages are entered into our project management software, I hadn’t missed any. I dealt with them as they happened while at home all week. While I had to put few projects on hold, I’m surprisingly ahead of schedule on others.

There is no way I could consider this previous week successful, or even tolerable, but it wasn’t horrible. Five years ago, I would have been a week behind. There’s no way I would have accomplished as much as I did this last week. I was instant messaging and text messaging, but clients, friends and family weren’t.
The sick week was an example of technology working the way it should. Though unable to speak or assist physically, I was up-to-date and involved. I picked up projects I could work on and passed along projects when I needed help (or a nap). I entered the next week feeling unrushed, no farther behind than I usually am.