I know it's unreasonable, but I think the universe owes me one warm, humid summer day as compensation for the one I was unfairly deprived of.
Sitting at my desk one recent Friday I was set upon by a wave of nausea and exhaustion. Looking back, I realize it had been building for a couple of days, but I'd played the denial card. Tired and achy? Pfft! Shake it off! Get to bed earlier, drink more coffee. I did both, but to no avail. When it comes to illness, the virus wants what it wants, and on that fateful Friday, it wanted me.
I couldn't just hop in the car and go home; my younger daughter was using the family Jeep. I pondered walking home, but knew I couldn't manage even a few blocks. So like a miserable little first-grader, I had to call someone to come and get me. Luckily, my older daughter was available.
As I stood in the doorway of my office building waiting for Jess to rescue me, my co-workers passed by, headed outside. "Hey, Deb, the guys in the office upstairs are having a cookout for everyone in the building. Are you coming?"
"No, I'm sick," I said, trying to tone down my patented "poor me" whine. "I'm going home."
"Aw, that's too bad. Feel better soon," they chirped, giving me a wide berth as they departed.
When Jess arrived I lurched outside and practically fell into her car. The four-minute drive from the office to my house felt as if it was happening in slow motion. Every bump in the road jounced my roiling innards upward. Jess said "Sorry, Mom" at every bump. I would have replied "That's O.K., honey," but my hand was clapped firmly over my mouth.
When we got to my house I broke my personal best speed record for getting to the upstairs bathroom. I'll spare you the details beyond that point.
I spent the rest of that day and night on the sofa, being waited on and comforted by my younger daughter, Melissa. She honored my requests for cold Pepsi and Campbell's chicken and rice soup, piled quilts on me when I had the chills, and brought me a cold washcloth when my fever peaked.
I am, hands down, the worst person to be around when I'm sick. I moan, I whine, I carry on. Worst of all, I feel an uncontrollable need to narrate the course of my illness:
"It feels like someone's driving a railroad spike through the center of my skull. My stomach feels like someone's wringing it out like a washcloth. Brr, I'm freezing. And my knees ache. Why do my knees ache?"
Luckily for me (and Melissa), Showtime was airing a marathon of "Shameless," my favorite series. Just as a pacifier soothes a fussy baby, the trials and tribulations of the Gallagher family lulled me to sleep, and were still going on when I woke up what felt like was five minutes but was actually three hours later.
Indy, my momma's boy schnauzer, kept a loyal vigil, curled up at my feet. Saira, our beagle, tried to join in, but three on a sofa is a crunch. At one point she stretched herself full length along the length of me (thankfully, with her front end at my face), but neither of us found that arrangement comfortable, so she abandoned her post, to the delight of the eternally jealous Indy.
As evening waned into night I considered going upstairs to my bed, but the stairs I'd sprinted up on my dash to the bathroom now seemed as steep as Mount Everest. "Shameless" was still going strong and my knees were still aching. It just made sense to stay put.
I heard my son, Daniel, come home, heard rustles and clinks as he rummaged in the kitchen for a snack, followed by the squeak of the computer desk's chair and crisp clicks of computer keys.
I woke at sunrise and crept to my bed, where I slept until noon. When I awoke I felt like me again; slower, groggier, a little worse for wear, but definitely on the mend.
The benefit of being laid out by a minor illness is the appreciation for good health that comes with recovering. Ordinary activities--walking around the house, sipping a cup of coffee, standing under a hot shower--feel intensely, indulgently pleasurable rather than routine. Maybe that's the point of those annoying illness ambushes; they make us appreciate the gift of living in our usually healthy human bodies.
And appreciate I do. Still, I can't help feeling cheated. Our U.P. summers are fleeting, and I had to squander one day through no fault of my own. Being sick in January, that cold, bitter affliction of a month, makes sense. Being sick in hot, lush, bright green June is a ripoff. Is there a rebate office for Persons Deprived of Summer Due to Illness? I'll be happy to send them a list of each and every symptom I suffered--described in nauseating detail.
Deb Pascoe of Marquette is a freelance writer and a peer recovery coach for Child and Family Services of the U.P. A former columnist for The Mining Journal, her book, "Life With a View," a collection of her past columns, is available in area bookstores.