Tuesday, April 02, 2013

Waltzing Mathilda...no, that's not right

Walking Pneumonia, not Waltzing Mathilda--that's what I have. An insult to me, who claims to never get sick. My mom had a philosophy: if you woke up not feeling well, you just got up and went about your day and pretty soon you felt a lot better. I applied that to my kids so much that one friend complained that they had to have a 105 fever before I let them stay home from school. But they are healthy people today! I remember once when Jamie was six or seven and given to dizzy spells that no one could diagnose, he told me he was too dizzy to get out of bed. "Nonsense," I said as I hauled him to his feet. "See? You're just fine." Then I let go and he crumped in a pile on the floor.
Well that's sort of what happened to me. For six days I kept telling myself this deep cough would get better; indeed I was improving. But this morning at five after a sleepless night I suddenly decided that was hogwash and it was time for the doctor to confirm my own diagnosis: walking pneumonia. I blustered through a long morning in the doctor's office, an x-ray clinic and finally a pharmacy, but I could feel I was losing it. I left the prescriptions at a pharmacy by Jordan's office so she could easily pick them up and went home to bed.
Jordan did pick up the medicine, 7-Up, cough drops, soup, saltines, etc. and came and tucked me in. Then she got Jacob from school, which I had until noon been prepared to do and discovered I had no more stamina for that than for running around the block. She takes good care of me, and I am most grateful.
Coming home at noon was a changing moment: I went from carrying on for the world to being sick and treating myself like an invalid, which I guess I'll do for the next couple of days. Slept all afternoon, got up for a couple of hours, and crept back to bed. Now I've been up an hour and a half, and I'm about to go back to bed, armed with cough drops, 7-Up, and a syrup that is supposed to help me sleep.
In a way, it's kind of nice. I can do this in-and-out-of-bed thing for a couple of days--reading, writing, sleeping. And yet I've ignored all the work that's piled on my desk in favor of reading a mystery. Tomorrow I may do a little menu planning--though I'm not much interested in food right now, and I may get back to the book I was almost finished editing and the guest blog I need to write.
Maybe there's something to giving in and occasionally admitting that you really don't feel well--as long as it doesn't become a habit.

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