I wish I could start this out by saying that I feel tons better and all I needed was a good night’s sleep. But that would be a lie.
And even though I was in bed at an hour when chickens are still awake, it’s hard to sleep well when you’ve lost the ability to breathe through your nose. It’s also unattractive, just in case you’re wondering.
Before someone says that I always seem sick, I just want to clarify that this is my first real illness since last October. I mean, sure, since that time I’ve been sick in other ways like sick of going to the grocery store and sick of cooking dinner, but I haven’t been officially diagnosed with those things.
Anyway, I remember that it was last October because it coincided with my visit to Tyndale (my book publisher) and, needless to say, I think they felt pretty good about choosing me to write a book after they heard my smoker’s cough and saw the glassy look in my eyes. Those are the kind of attributes that inspire confidence.
Normally, I would wait this kind of thing out, but since I’m leaving for dotMom on Thursday morning and they are expecting me to have a voice that works, I decided I needed to go ahead and go to the doctor. So that’s what I did. He diagnosed me with bronchitis and gave me an antibiotic and, most importantly, prescription cough medicine. Otherwise known as liquid heaven. I hope he didn’t judge me because I knew to ask for the kind I wanted by name. This ain’t my first bronchitis rodeo.
Needless to say, there isn’t much going on around here.
Yesterday morning Caroline decided she had a case of the Mondays and made a desperate attempt to stay home from school, citing vague symptoms like “I kind of have a stomachache” and “maybe my throat hurts”. There was a time when she was younger that I could immediately tell if she was faking an illness because I’d ask her to list her symptoms. And then once she’d rattled them off, I’d give her a sympathetic look and say, “Poor baby. Does your elbow hurt too?”
I knew if she said that her elbow hurt too that she was just trying to conjure up ill health and felt like the more symptoms the better. But she’s on to me now and that doesn’t work anymore. P had left the house already for an early morning appointment so I had to put on my best tough love face and tell her she was absolutely going to school. To which she replied, “What kind of a person makes a nine-year-old who doesn’t feel good go to school?”
Yes. What kind of person does that?
I’m a monster.
But after texting her teacher to inform her of Caroline’s possible ill health/propensity for drama, she sent me a text back informing me that Caroline had made a miraculous recovery between the walk from my car to her classroom. So while we don’t share a bronchitis diagnosis, we do share a flair for drama.
And that’s probably all for today. I’m going to go get some rest and take some cough medicine. I usually like to take advantage of the current state of my voice to turn into a cranky octogenarian smoker named Hazel. But I’ll be honest with you, things are so out of control in the world right now that I don’t really trust Hazel.
If I let her loose, she may never shut up. She may start with the frustration of carpool lines with no discernible correct way to maneuver through them and move on to the absurdity of standardized testing and how we’ve all bought a bill of goods if we believe that’s the best way to measure a child’s intelligence and, ultimately, she’d move on to the upcoming elections and then she’d never shut up.
Which is why I’m calling it a night. Or a day. Or time for cough medicine.