breaking leads to change

When I moved to Thailand, my grandmother sent me with a first aid supply of band-aids, bandages, gauze, and three thermometers. I've always been a bit of a hypercondriac. Perhaps it is hereditary. Considering I had two thermometers too many, I loaned one to my roommate. But then I dropped one of the thermometers on the tile floor in my one room apartment, and mercury beads went rolling everywhere. Into the little crack between the tiles. Trying to pick up hazardous mercury, that rolls away when you try to clean it up is very difficult. Trust me. I was thankful that I had my spare thermometer. Because I tend to need to take my temperature if I think I might be sick.
Yesterday morning I woke up with a sore throat. I assumed it was the result of all the yelling I've been doing lately. But then I began to feel worse throughout the day. When I woke up this morning, my throat was still very sore. And I felt awful. But I have a rule: I am not sick unless I am running fever. Well, I recently broke my thermometer when I accidentally stepped on it. I'm not sure why it was on the floor. Luckily, I was wearing shoes. And it was the kind with alcohol, not mercury. But I went from having three thermometers to no thermometers. Since I couldn't prove I was sick, I decided to go to work.
I still felt awful all day. I did go to the school nurse to check my temperature. No fever. I'm thinking of getting rid of my rule. Because I felt sick all day. On my way home, I stopped to buy a new thermometer. As I looked around the selection, all I could find were digital ones. I'm probably the only person to inquire about the old-fashioned kind. I don't need a fancy digital thermometer. As the salesperson told me that they don't sell the mercury kind anymore, she kind of gave me a funny look. I asked if they had the kind with the red alcohol. No. Everything is digital now. I know I'll get used to my new, fancy thermometer. I'll grow to love the fact that I get a reading in 30 seconds instead of 3 minutes. But sometimes change is just hard.