And she's down

I started the day at the house (where two electricians and two carpenters were hard at work) vacuuming all the sawdust we created over the weekend. I want all dust out of the house before we begin staining floors. I vacuumed door panels, outlets, radiators, stairs, spindles. I know I was in the workers' way, however they were to have been finished a week ago so my attitude is they're in my way.
By noon, I wasn't feeling too well. I knew I had to eat something quickly. I walked to the nearby Subway shop (just a few blocks away) and had a sub and a 7-Up. I had a splitting headache and was increasingly nauseous. I had to walk two blocks to get a bus downtown, where I was to take the driver's theory test (50 questions followed by 14 videos of hazards where your reactions are tested). All I wanted to do was go home and go to bed.
I called David and was sobbing because I had just spent my last 3 pounds buying aspirin and I needed cash for the bus. I had to walk two blocks back to the shops, get cash, and walk back to the bus stop. I was freezing cold, the noise from the traffic made me dizzy, and I just couldn't cope. I don't get ill very often but when I do I melt down pretty badly. The bus was late (more phone calls, more tears). I finally got on the bus, which made me more nauseous. I went to David's office and went into a bathroom stall and laid down. I put my head on a roll of toilet paper and had some kind of delirious nap with weird dreams. I woke up and went to the driving center. I had my dust-covered work clothes on, work boots, hair a mess--I was a sight.
My time is up on my U.S. driver's license so I have to get a British license. If I missed the test, I forfeited 25 pounds and would have to wait weeks. The final hours I should have prepared for the test were spent focusing on not vomiting. I had been through only 11 of the 15 chapters in the driver theory manual, and I hadn't revisited any of my wrong answers in the first 11 chapters (hundreds of test questions, many wrong answers).
I couldn't believe when the hazard videos began that they were computer animated films with zombie-like pedestrians and a roller-coaster feeling as your car went around curves and up and down hills. If anything could have been tailor-made to make you ill, that would be the ticket.
Miraculously, I passed both the multiple choice test (47 out of 50, go me--you have to get at least 43) and the hazard test (56 out of 75, 44 minimum). I basically staggered out of the center, stagger-walked seven blocks to a car park, where David put me in the car and took me home. Isn't a warm, cozy, flat, not-moving bed the most delicious thing in the world?
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