3 posts tagged “sick”
As you may remember I am sick. I have a cold. At least I'm about 99% sure that it's nothing more than your garden-variety, run of the mill common cold -- you know cough, low-lying malaise, and all the good mucus that comes with the cold. I don't have a fever or sore throat or anything else like that.
What I have is a cough. A pretty steady, annoying cough. My cough is legendary. It frightens small children and woodland creatures. When I cough it comes from my pelvis and sounds like I'm trying to expel the barking dogs of hell from my lungs. It is loud and deep and sounds painful. Hell, it is painful.
But it's just a cold, even if it sounds like death.
So on Wednesday night, I'm sitting in class coughing. Once my teacher arrived he made a crack about how he was so happy to see a few of us (four of us were in class already yapping) because so many people had called in sick. I told him, between gasps, that I was pondering going home too. "No," he said, bugging his eyes. "You have to say or they're be nobody here to talk."
I stayed.
About two minutes into class, one of my classmates pulls on a mask. "That's because of you," The Comedian who makes me want to punch people in the throat said.
"I just really can't get sick," Mask said. "I mean, really can't. It would be catastrophic."
I was stunned. I didn't know what to do besides sit there awkwardly and blush. Part of me thought I should leave. I don't want to cause a catastrophe. Part of me thought she should leave. If you're that worried about getting sick what are you doing mixing with the general, unclean public? Besides, I'm pretty sure that I picked up this cold from The Loft since everyone else I know is healthy.
What would you have done?
I've manage to catch some sort of plague-like infection and it's totally put a damper on my weekend. What I had intended to be a weekend filled with working on short story has turned into nothing but whining and coughing and sleeping and sobbing.
In general, I'm kind of a crybaby. Even on my very best days. When I get sick, I'm leveled. I sobbed through a "Roseanne" marathon this morning, and because that wasn't quite enough I decided to watch the original "V" I TIVO'd last weekend, and cried through a lot of that too. "The Amazing Race" too.
I didn't cry during "The Maltese Falcon" though, perhaps that's progress.
Read a fucking book, you're probably thinking. I thought that too, but the pressure and burning in my eyes made reading nearly impossible. In fact, I tried and gave up because it just wasn't working for me. Some people are really good at working through the sickness. I'm not one of those people. My brain doesn't function well when I have a cold. It just feels slower and filled with mud. I try to think, but fail miserable. I don't get jokes and barely understand what people are saying to me. It's not good. Really, all I'm capable of is laying around being generally unhappy and whining about how much being sick sucks.
It does suck. I'm going to bed.
I'm sick. I have one of those colds that makes it feel like you skinned the inside of your chest every time you draw a breath. The skinned-chest feeling is accompanied by the rattling lungs and muzzy-headed thinking. It's great gobs of fun. Wish you were here!
