Being Sick

I usually do not like blog posts about people's health. But I can see why people do it. After all, when you are sick, you feel absolutely miserable and it is a call for help and for sympathy.

I never get sick. Not really. Or at least, that is what I like to tell myself. I get run-down and worn out and occasionally a sniffle or two will show up to tell me that my body does not appreciate being sleep deprived. However, every once and a great while, I get miserably sick.

While I am sure there were times before this, I remember fairly distinctly coming home from Church one Sunday and demanding that my mom pull over the car (just by the railroad track bridge that you have to go under when headed from Troy to the church building...) so I could cast up my accounts. I was humiliated. But of course, I was also running a terrible fever - which is fairly miraculous in and of itself, because my family seems to hardly ever get a fever when we are supposed to. Except Mark, who has gone to the hospital several times for a really high temperature. I remember laying on the couch with a cold compress on my head, wrapped tightly in blankets, watching The Cutting Edge while my mom ran to the store to get medicine. It is the only time I remember my mom shopping on Sunday.

I'm pretty sure I went to school the next day (third grade with Mrs. Lemkeuhl) and having to go home early because I was still feeling poorly. And I think I was out a week.

I remember being out of commission for pink eye. I got sick once on Christmas Eve and had to stay home from the live nativity (I think). And I definitely got sick one year on New Year's Eve. I remember we were down in Kentucky for that one, and on the drive back, I was curled up into a ball with the chills and about three blankets piled on me one minute, and then extreme heat flashes the next. Once I had strep throat - no fever, and I still maintained regular eating and drinking habits (I was told, however, to stay away from deep-throat kissing). I had a cough that lasted for 6 weeks to 6 months... I can't really remember. Two years ago, I'm fairly certain (through a neighborhood nurse's diagnosis) I had the piggy flu for three days.

And that's it. I really don't get that sick.

It's a good thing, too, because when I am sick, I am a complete baby. I want to disappear from all responsibilities and sit in my bed... No, scratch that. I would rather have someone pushing me around in a wheelchair as I wheeze and cough, looking at English roses and such, with a blanket over my legs and a shawl wrapped around my shoulders.

Because I really, really hate feeling like I am going to pass out and throw up at the same time while my chest rattles and my cough gives me a major headache. I hate the feeling of having been in bed all day because my muscles are sore, and I can't tell if it is because I am sick or because I've been in bed all day. I had the stuffiness. And the heat flashes that turn into chills. I don't like being uncomfortable, and there is nothing more uncomfortable than being sick.

Especially when you know you have to go to work in the morning. On the plus side, liquid medicine does not usually bother me. You know people who hate cherry flavored candy because it tastes like cough syrup? I love cherry flavored candy. The kind that I bought for my chest cold is not the best tasting, but it certainly isn't as bad as all that. It's sitting here on my nightstand, just waiting for three more hours to pass so I can take my next dosage.