After going through the various stages of sickness - denial, anger, bargaining, you know, the usual - eventually you hit acceptance. No amount of Vitamin C will save you now. The preemptive strikes have all failed and here you are: a walking plague. You're either Patient Zero in the office, or muttering curses under your breath to that cube neighbor whose kids go to daycare and bring every manner of infection home to daddy so he can breath them at you all day. Doesn't matter which, either way, you are just plain sick.
Now it becomes a kind of miserable choose your own adventure book... Do you go to the doctor just to have them tell you to go home? Which over-the-counter meds do you want to add to your rainbow mix - and can you wash them down with brandy? Are you sick enough to stay home from work? Do you go to work, but quarantine yourself to your cube until after your morning meeting when you finally say 'screw it' and go back home?
When you were a child, a "sick day" was awesome. Even if you spent the day puking and your sister brought home a stack of schoolwork that you had no idea how to do since you missed class. Because as a kid, it also meant that you got to watch cartoons (or soap operas) while your Grandma made you chicken noodle soup. You got slathered in vapo-rub and could stay in your PJs all day. You got extra attention from your mom because poor you, the wee child with a sniffly nose, you need all the love and affection to feel better.
FAST FORWARD back to you now, as you've made your pick and are skipping forward to page ten. Where you give up at 3 o'clock and shuffle past your glaring coworkers who say, "Hope you feel better. See you tomorrow... if you're better... else stay the fuck away." There's no love and affection there, only self-preservation (which is totally fair, we all hate the asshole who shows up sick and puts us all in danger, even when it's us). There's no one at home waiting to make you soup (and daytime TV sucks now anyways), so you stop at the store. Gallons of OJ and NyQuil, all the chicken soup mix you can hold, a forest worth of tissues, and plenty of judgement from the cashier. You've purchased your weapons and it's time to go home to fight.
Now, don't get me wrong, when I feel an illness coming on, I will struggle like mad to try and prevent it. BUT once it's hit, and there's no way around it. And I get home. And I'm all alone. Just me and my pestilence... I become the single most melodramatic creature on the planet.
Donning the world's ugliest hoodie and rattiest PJs, draped in blankets, the malady monster that is me mopes about the apartment, leaving a trail of used tissues in its wake. To the couch, to the bed, to the bathtub, laying about coughing and sighing audibly. The beau calls to see if I need anything, the response is no... just leave me here to die. Cauldrons worth of soup are brewed and consumed; but, even the soup becomes a misery as I make myself eat, despite my lack of will to live. Feeling too awful to move, I still force myself to walk around - largely in part so I can glance sideways at my misery in the mirror and commiserate with the bedridden beast. No one is around to take care of me or see the ridiculousness of my theatrics, and so the feverish fire is fueled. Woe is me who lies beneath the mountain (of tissues). One foot in the grave, alone and forlorn...
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| Don't mind me, just walking through the valley of the shadow of death. Or creeping - yeah, more like creeping #sorrynotsorry |
Typically, this lasts until nightfall, at which point, out of sheer exhaustion (it's tiring being so over-dramatic), I throw back a swig of the Quil and go to my slumbers. Being sick is just one of those things that loses its luster as an adult. Thinking back to being ill as a kid, I only really remember the good parts. Here's hoping that later in life, I'll look back at being sick in my twenties and remember the good parts. Like how silly I looked pouting at myself in the mirror, wearing every blanket I own. Or something. Cheers, friends, and pass the pill pile!
*Note: I could (and probably eventually will) write volumes about the misadventures of my maladies, so if any of y'all are squeamish to that talk, apologies in advance.
