The content of this post is an adaptation of an original text written by Guy Laliberté.

I slept badly and woke up with a sore throat and a slight fever. Uh-oh. That’s all it takes for me to become paranoid. I start asking myself all sorts of questions. Why do I have these symptoms? Is it the pressure? The lack of sleep? I absolutely refuse to have come this far for nothing! As this is really not a good time to be sick, I prepare myself an anti-flu cocktail: Benylin, homeopathic flu buster, NeoCitran, Vicks… the whole kit and caboodle!

So I could get some rest, I immediately called Renée-Claude to cancel the interviews that were scheduled with journalists that evening. I also decided to cancel the weekend I had planned with friends in Moscow to celebrate my 50th birthday. I wasn’t willing to take the risk of some more nights of poor sleep that would further weaken my immune system.

Taking my glazed look along with me, I nonetheless dragged myself to our workout session in the ISS! Given the limited space, my partners reacted quite strongly to the not-so-subtle scent of camphor I was wearing! I told them I was fighting a flu and was afraid of being contagious, but they didn’t seem to worry…

Perfect timing: according to our schedule, we were supposed to finish at 6:00 p.m. but we finished at 1:00 instead (well, Jeff and I, that is). So I went back to my apartment to rest and was able to take a very sudorific 2-hour nap! Then the telephone started ringing non-stop and I worked on the last details of the press conference.