The morning after seeing Varekai, I woke up with a mild sore throat. I assumed at first that it was the result of screaming and cheering throughout the performance, but as the weekend wore on the pain intensified pretty dramatically, eventually spreading to my jaw and tongue and into my left ear canal, with concomitant sinus headaches, a low-grade fever and swollen lymph nodes. That Monday (a week ago) was a holiday for me, so I was able to rest instead of going to work, and I ended up taking last Tuesday off as well to continue to recover. Fortunately, last Friday morning the aches and pains finally largely had receded, allowing me to start our weekend road-trip in a much better state of mind (more about that in a post to follow). There’s still some mild sore throat pain and related symptoms, but for the most part I think I’m past this episode without having required antibiotics.