When Vineyard Gazette editor Julia Wells hired me as a reporter in the fall of 2006, she took a big risk. Then again, at such a little paper, most risks are big.

Growing up on the Vineyard, I long ago came to terms with finding wildlife in my house.

Ticks, spiders, mosquitoes and moths in summer; mice (both in traps and scurrying across dining room floors) in the winter. Once, a pair of baby raccoons camped out in our yard. Had I opened the backdoor, they would have waddled right into our dining room.

But no amount of Island insects, rodents, or bugs could have prepared me for the Cambridge bat.

It’s funny the memories we keep.

There are the expected ones: a first kiss, college graduation, family holiday celebrations. And the not so expected: a sunrise beach walk alone on Christmas morning, the feel of the stiff Florida grass on bare feet used to the Vineyard’s downy lawns.

There it was — on a Sunday morning a few weeks ago, the slight tickle at the back of the throat. By noon I was coughing and by the time darkness settled over Cambridge, I was running a fever.

I had the dreaded flu.

On Monday morning I tried going to work but my boss sent me home. The days that followed are a blur. I woke up Friday morning surrounded by piles of cough drop wrappers, empty tea boxes and a vague suspicion that I had watched the entire seasons of Glee, 30 Rock and The Office in a feverish haze.