Luckystott

2004-10-08 - 2:58 p.m.

(hack) "Ow." (hack) "Ow." (hack) "Ow."

Man, I hate being sick.

I was struck down by one devil of a sinus infection this week.

"Why don't you go to the doctor?"

I have been asked this question a million times this week. First of all, what doctor? I don't HAVE a doctor. Secondly, what could they do beside look into my ears and down my throat and say "Mmmmm. Sinus infection."

I usually soldier thru these things. When I was a little girl, I got strep throat every Christmas. Every. My throat would start to tickle around the 15th. Then, my nose and eyes would start to run. My ears would plug up. There would be a horrific sounding cough. By the final day of school before the holiday break, I was the walking dead.

"CHONK CHONK CHONK"

My little body racked with serious bronchial coughing. My nose red and chapped from futile attempts at drainage. The purple rings under my eyes from several nights of tossing and turning.

December 1983: my mom was picking me up from day care. As she was leading me out to the parking lot...

"CHONK CHONK CHONK"

The day-care lady looked over and quickly figured out that the ungodly sound was coming from a little blonde girl.

"You should see a doctor"

No sh*t, lady.

I gave her a withering glare as I passed her, which was kinda my jaded-third-grader way of saying:

"Look. I'm eight. I'd GO to the doctor if my mom would TAKE me but she doesn't think I am sick enough. Even though I have been coughing all over my classmates like this all week. Even though I've eaten nothing but jello pudding pops and candy canes for the past five days because everything else hurts. Even though we are driving six hours up north to Grandma's house tomorrow and my dad won't stop but once for a pee break...ergo I have to ration my liquid intake. Do ya get what I am up against over here? Can ya shove it with the advice giving? Oh, and Merry Christmas."

And I would have said it out loud except, no, I had lost my voice three days earlier.

I don't have a single memory of Christmas from my childhood wherein I wasn't sick. I consider Vicks Vapo-rub a "Christmas-y" smell because I was always smooshing it all over my poor tissue-battered nose during the holidays. Every gift exchange I participated in, every green and red paper chain I made for the class chrismas tree, every carol sung at Friday morning chapel...punctuated by sniffling and hacking and "omigodcanipleasedienow?"

But basically with my mom, I knew I'd have to be barfing up blood before she'd let me have a sick day. In elementary school, it was a moot point. She worked at my school. One time, she called the office and told them I was sick, but then she BROUGHT ME TO WORK WITH HER had me lay in the nurse's office all day. This, I quickly discovered, was even worse than suffering through the school day at my desk. I had a parade of teachers popping in all day long all chipper and "HOW ARE WE DOING? OOOOOOOH, ARE WE SIIIIIICK?" And...gah. So after that, I just learned to deal with it.

In junior high -- this was the worse -- the only award I received at my eighth grade graduation was "Perfect Attendance". Quite frankly, that's not something that enamours you to other thirteen year olds.

I finally got my first real sick day in high school. I lost my voice two days before the school musical. Mom had no choice but to let me stay home at rest it out.

However, having spent so much of my childhood just "working it out" -- It rarely occurs to me that I am sick enough to go to the doctor.

This week went a little like this:

Fred: "Don't you think you should see a doctor?"
Me: "no -- hack. hack, HAAAAACK. I'm fine."
Fred: "No you aren't. You're sick."
Me: "I know...but..DON"T TOUCH ME."
Fred: "Um...okay"
Me: "Snurfle. shnurfle. ch-ch-ch-onk."

Fred: "..."

Fred: "Sweetie?"

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