The woes of calling in sick

Being sick is tough, but having to call in sick to work really upsets my stomach.
Why is it that I find it impossible to wallow in illness with a guilt-free conscience?
I woke up on a recent Tuesday morning and felt like sometime in the night, strangers had quietly crept into my home and beaten me severely while I slept. They really went nuts on my head. It was pounding. My body was shaky and weak and my stomach, oh my stomach!
My first thought was, “I can't possibly go to work today!” My second thought was, “That means I have to call in sick!” and that's when things really started to go downhill.
The thought of calling my editor (who is very nice by the way, usually) and telling him I was too sick to come to work took me from feeling extremely unwell, to feeling unwell and a little panicky.
It's been my unfortunate experience in about 98 per cent of the news rooms that I've worked in that calling in sick is what the weak and the deceitful do.
In fact I recall one of my college instructors telling my class that unless we were being planted six feet under, there was never an acceptable time to call in sick.
So, I hauled my butt in to work only to find that three out of our eight staff members who were supposed to be there that day were at home, sick.
What made things really weird though, is that my editor still seemed genuinely concerned about how I was feeling. So much so, that he actually suggested I go home early.
This interchange was strange to me. I was conflicted. So many feelings of guilt were replaced for a nanosecond with feelings of gratitude which were replaced in a millisecond with a mental cocktail of guilt and gratitude fueled by a fever and my stomach! Oh my stomach!
In a whirl of confused emotions I acquiesced and left early, heading home to my nice soft bed. I was excited at the thought of getting a couple of hours of quiet rest before having to pick up my daughter at daycare. Then I thought of calling my mother to ask her to pick my girl up because I was feeling so horrible, and, well, you can imagine where my thinking went from there.
I was, though, feeling so utterly ill that I did, eventually, call my mother and glory of glories, she agreed to pick up my daughter and expressed sympathy that I was unwell!
It was an unprecedented day! And in a confused vortex of fever, pain and, more than anything else, guilt, finally Morpheus stole into my room and I let him take me away. The great thing about Morpheus, he refused to let me take my guilt along for the trip.