How I Deal With It

I deal with sickness in many ways.  It evokes a plethora of feelings and responses.  However, I can pretty much narrow them down to the following:

 Railing Against An Unjust Universe:

This is where I howl to the heavens and compare my trials to that of Job himself.  There has never before been one so persecuted as I.  I defy anyone to name another person so put upon.  I have been selected from billions of possible targets to suffer that which no one has ever faced before.  I will do this for the merest of sniffles.  It is amusing at first.  Then it gets irritating.  But I can't seem to stop...

Whining Pathetically Until Someone Finally Agrees To Coo At Me:

  Much like an infant, I am capable of great fussing.  Fussing allows me to make it clear to people that I do not feel very well and helps them to clarify their own roles in this process.  I demand nurturing and will make that unpleasing keening sound until someone gets with the program and asks if I need anything.  This is never amusing and only works with people who don't know me very well.  Anyone who has been in my presence for any length of time will have developed a tolerance to this kind of thing.  

The Brave Little Soldier:

Here I am the very definition of a Trouper.  I am a martyr to the ideals of Worker Elves everywhere.  I refuse to give in to the symptoms that are so blatantly obvious to anyone bothering to look at me.  There is a reason why these symptoms are obvious.  I am making certain that they are so.  That way people will see how sickly I am and offer to assist me.  They will often send me home to lie down.  That is the goal.  You wouldn't believe how often I can fool people into thinking that I am really brave.  The downside of this strategy is that you have to work kind of hard while you don't feel very well and I am not capable of this for any length of time.  If no one steps up to the plate to play the game with me, I often find myself in quite the pickle.  I am now at work.  I have resolutely agreed to perform my assigned duties no matter what the universe throws at me.  I am committed to this course of action and my credibility will be shattered if I break down and admit that I really don't have it in me to be a Brave Little Soldier.  I break down a lot on this one.  The best I can hope for is that the witnesses have had no experience with my other techniques and think that they have managed to convince my hard-working self to take it easy.

Fear:

Have you ever found yourself so sick that you actually scare yourself a little bit?  You start to think that you might be in some trouble here.  You begin to realize that you have made a judgement error of epic proportions and that you should not have let yourself be fooled into thinking you have a cold.  You are really, really sick and maybe a little bit incapable of doing all the things you used to do back when you were healthy.  I've been that sick only twice that I can remember.  It is chilling in its ability to make you realize your own limitations.  You even find yourself calling people to Make Them Aware Of The Situation Just In Case.  If the worst happens, it might be nice if someone noticed you were missing...

I am not at the fourth stage of coping.  But I am starting to see how things could get to that point in the very near future.  Now, before you all start scampering to the comments to tell me I should be at the doctor, please know that I am aware of this fact.  I knew it a while ago and tried to get in for an appointment, but then things got better.  I've felt better for two days.  Markedly better.  Well enough that I believed I was on the mend.

Today was awful.  It reached the point where The Husky Red-Headed Kid Who Reminds Me Of My Cat sat me down to point out that I am sick and have no business being at school, much less trying to teach.  When I told him in no uncertain terms that I was most certainly not sick and that I had no time for this nonsense, he explained how sometimes telling yourself this can offer a bit of a placebo effect.  (I'm paraphrasing....he doesn't know what "placebo" means)  He then told me that I was fooling myself and that I was really, really sick.  He also recognized that I might be thinking I couldn't stay home because he and his classmates don't behave very well when I am not there.  He didn't think this was a very good reason for coming in to work sick, though.

It is a humbling experience to be taken to task by a fourteen year old, much less one who has every reason to not be empathetic.  It tends to make one defensive and less likely to listen to reason.  Who is the grown-up here, anyway????

By the time I staggered out of the building, I felt like every inch of my body was being pummeled by hammers.  I set the heat on 90 and blasted it the whole way home.  I could feel the skin on my legs burning and was even starting to smell cooked Sheepie, but could not bring myself to turn down the heat.  I was shivering so badly that I feared I might drive right off the road.

I checked my temperature when I finally got home (after stopping for a big bottle of Mountain Dew) and discovered that it was now back up to 100 degrees and change.  Within an hour, I was roasting nicely at 102 degrees.

I'm not scared.  Not yet.  Not like I was back when I had The Monkey Pox That Was Really Pneumonia But Monkey Pox Is A More Funnish Kind Of Word.  I think, however, it is safe to say that I am concerned.  I am concerned enough that I put together a few plans for tomorrow and went over them with my teaching assistants in case the fever remains.  I may have been shooting for Brave Little Soldier, but even I know that a fever means trouble for me.  I get them rarely.  They are significant.

I'm not the only one feeling poorly, I think.  When I checked the panda-cam today, I wondered if maybe my panda friend might be feeling a little sick, too.

He's doing my Pathetic Whining bit.  I don't blame him for stealing it.  It's a classic.  I'm willing to share.

Someday, this will become a knitting blog again and not just someplace where you get to come and listen to me rail, whine and be all concerned.  In the meantime, I'll just see if I can't sleep it off tonight and hope that tomorrow leaves me functional.  Or that the doctor has an opening so that I can get some of that sweet, sweet prescription relief.

I am not a Brave Little Soldier.  Not one bit.

SA