It's nice to be young and healthy. At least relatively speaking. Not only does one (me) feel better all the time, but one (me) recovers more quickly from the occasional illness. Case in point:
I woke up sick my 3rd morning in San Diego, a couple of weeks ago. I'd driven down on a Saturday and gone to a party with my dad that night, and felt fine. I felt fine Sunday too, but didn't sleep well that night. I kept waking up feeling like my lower abdomen was harboring an overinflated balloon, and by 6am, when I gave up trying to sleep and began the first of several extended visits to the porcelain god, my tummy was gurgling tremulously. I had the distinct feeling that my stomach was full of oog. It felt like I had a bellyful of carbonated pond scum, and that I had to purge myself of it by whichever orifice proved most convenient. Both the upper and lower (orifices) were pressed into service, as events unfolded over the course of the day. And sure enough, I felt enormously better after the second torrential session of vomiting. Had an appetite and everything, though I still felt "sick" in other ways.
I spent most of the day feeling very tired and listless. And cold, oddest of all. I'm usually hot and prone to wearing fewer clothes than most everyone else, and Saturday and Sunday at dad's house I was wearing sweat pants, house shoes, and a light sweatshirt. Monday morning I wore that and was freezing. I put on a second shirt, housepants under the sweats, and thicker socks, without avail. Eventually I was sitting at the dining room table with my new laptop and huge 24" monitor gleaming at me, with a portable space heater under the table pointing right at my legs, and my hands were so cold I could hardly type. Not that I felt good enough to type anything worth reading anyway.
I spent most of that day napping; first on the couch (shivering) under two quilts, and then most of the afternoon fully dressed and rolled up in a thick comforter in bed. I felt a little better on Tuesday, and by that evening I was pretty much back to normal, though my tummy still felt unsettled.
Predictably enough, my dad and stepdad got the virus from me. By Wednesday they were both enjoying the early symptoms; vomiting, diarrhea, chills, no appetite, etc. Sadly, as I foreshadowed in the opening sentences of this post, they didn't shake it off as easily as I. Both were still under the weather, feeling chills and some nausea and upset stomach, five or six days later when I departed San Diego for my snowboarding excursion. Thankfully, Mom proved immune to the ravages of the plague, and was able to travel without discomfort.
So yes, it's better to be younger and healthier, but even when one is able to dodge lingering illness, watching one's elders fall prey to it is discouraging. Not just because it sucks to see your parents sick, but because it offers a preview of our future, declining years. Now I know what to look forward to when every minor flu bug passes through in my 60s and 70s...
Labels: sickness, vacation
