Live From the Sick Bed

This evening I’m coming at you live from the sick-bed. I’ve had a recurring, ridiculously painful sore throat for nearly a month now, and yesterday it felt like I was swallowing knives, so finally I gave up and dragged my sorry ass to the walk in clinic for a ten-day dose of the evil, yet effective penicillin. I say evil, because it always wreaks havoc with my system, even while clearing up whichever problems I am having, so now I’m eating sauerkraut by the jar full and chugging kefir to stave off the yeast infection I will almost certainly get on day eleven. TMI? Sorry, but I need to vent. Thank god for modern science and drugs that help us, I’m not ungrateful, believe me.

I took a sick day today, even though all the kids were home from school. It was an almost proper sick day, where I spent a lot of time in bed, reading books and magazines and catching up on a bit of work. My favourite new job allows me to read the work of other writers, and I’m so enjoying the piece I’m working on now, but I haven’t had nearly enough time to get into it. It’s a modern-day noir caper with a darkly hilarious supernatural twist, and it’s got real laugh-out-loud moments. I put a huge dent in it, which was a highlight, and I also got to curl up for a midday nap with the baby, which is a rare treat, and something I miss from his infant days. Another highlight was the thoughtfulness and empathy from my two wonderful daughters who are blossoming in their emotional maturity in such a beautiful way.

Meanwhile, a small mountain of costumes awaits purging and selling. The members of my former cabaret troupe have raided the collection and taken the choicest pieces for themselves, as I hoped they would. I’ve decided that what remains isn’t really worth selling, at least not to the general public. The stress of a sale was making me panic, so I’m abandoning that plan.

This is something I’m learning – if an idea, a task, a plan isn’t sitting right, or making me plain uncomfortable, I do everything I can to shift it. My gut seems to be the wisest voice to listen to these days. When I pay heed to Ms. Gut, all the other voices in hear quiet down their clamor, and I can feel, and think, and breathe. Ms. Gut wants me to start exercising more, and I’m dreading that one a bit, but I know she’s right. Sigh.

How did your week get started? Residual ham coma? Chocolate stolen from you kids’ Easter basket? A screw the pooch kind of day at the office, where nobody is really ready to be there? I’ve always thought that long weekends might as well be four-day weekends, because nobody gets anything accomplished on the Friday or the Monday leading up to the holiday.

Unless that something is medical attention, one-on-one time with your son, quiet time to read, a luxurious nap, some catch-up on work, and some meaningful correspondence with friends. Hmm…maybe what we really need are more sick days?

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