So six weeks or so into the Legislative session, I became Patient Zero at the Capitol.

I roamed the hallways and committee rooms, hacking and wheezing, with handfuls of tissue stuffed into my purse.

Those lucky enough to encounter me on a regular basis soon succumbed. I infected co-workers, lawmakers and reporters.

One day, I approached a member of the Democrat-Gazette’s Capitol Bureau to ask if his roommate, a mutual friend, was feeling better.

“I heard she was sick,” I said.

“So it was you,” he said, backing away. “You’re Patient Zero.”

“It’s OK,” I assured him. “I don’t think … *cough* … that I’m contagious … *cough* … anymore.”

“Uh-huh,” he replied. “Riiiight…”

And then he vanished into the media room. Which locked emphatically behind him.

Weeks passed. Still, I continued to collapse into coughing fits. When I ran out of cough drops, people from other state agencies gave me peppermints and candy. Anything, really, to shut me up.

Now just a couple of years ago, I would have high-tailed it into the doctor’s office, where I would have presented the staff with a list of possible diagnoses, all of them dire and, usually, terminal.

But that whole near-death-in-the-wilderness thing cured me of my lifelong hypochondria. Because really? If you can go out for what’s supposed to be a pleasant hike and find yourself in the throes of renal and heart failure a week later, you realize that there’s not much point in trying to pinpoint what might be your ultimate cause of death.

It could be a spider bite. It could be lung cancer. *cough*

In our household, I am normally the one nagging Rick to go to the doctor.

This time, it was my husband issuing pleas that I make an appointment.

For myself.

“I don’t have time,” I argued, honking into a Kleenax.

He looked at me and shook his head.

“What?” I protested. “It’s my new mating call.”

I honked again and arched an eyebrow.

“You’re already keeping me up all night,” he noted dryly. “And not in a fun way.”

I felt his pain. I wasn’t getting much sleep either. Did you know it’s possible to reverse-snore? Like, instead of making noise when you inhale, you make these hideous mucousy sounds when you exhale?

Yeah. I’ve been all sorts of sexy, let me tell you.

Anyway, today I finally ventured into my doctor’s exam room.

“This has been going on for how long?” he asked incredulously.

Bear in mind, I have more than once burst into his office in a panic.

(Questions I have asked my doctor: “Are you sure I don’t have lymphoma?”

“So these are migraines and not a sign that a bulging brain aneurysm is about to burst?”

“Are you sure it’s mono and not Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever or Tuleremia?”)

Now here I was, all sorts of casual, lounging on the exam table while he looked at x-rays of my lungs and sinuses.

“Given how you sound and the fact that you’re running a fever, I would have sworn that you had walking pneumonia,” he mused.

“Uh-huh.”

“Well. I’m going to start by treating you for bronchitis and sinusitus.”

“OK,” I replied.

People, I came home today with a whole passel of drugs, which will either knock me into sedated oblivian or turn me into a ravenous, raging fiend. Or maybe they’ll just cancel each other out.

Regardless, I promise: The days of Typhoid Cathy are coming to an end.

It will be safe, once again, to enter my office.

And my husband might actually find me somewhat attractive again. Unless, of course, he’s too busy catching up on all that missed sleep.