Sickness: the absence of health

so today I am sick, and have been for three nights and 2 days (so far). for me, it is the once-every-two-or-three-year sickness, the kind that always begins in the middle of the night - waking up to find that someone has jammed a ball of rusty barbed wire into the back of your throat making it almost impossible to swallow. sore throats are the worst - and the worst-named. "sore" simply does no justice to the past three sleepless nights. why not call it, "the throat of death" or "torture by swallowing"?

so you lie (or lay if you prefer) awake trying with all your might not to swallow - and all this effort causes your mouth to water profusely until you must either spit or swallow - so you swallow, wincing, and gritting your teeth and become amazed that you have to swallow so much at night and never before realized this phenomenal human need for incessant swallowing. you begin fantasizing about being able to throw your head back and drink long cold swallows of ice cold lemonade - what an untold luxury!

and then there's the fever - this is the one that really puts me over the edge of non-commission. I don't know where I register on the pain-tolerance scale - but a good hearty fever can completely disarm me - and push me to test the limits of the pill-per-hour tolerance allowed by physicians everywhere. (why are you always allowed to take more pills hours after the pain returns?) in the midst of a good fevered pitch, every movement and thought is a conscious, painstaking effort. I begin to dread going to bed at night. the darkness becomes first hours and then minutes of painful intervals that must be passed; dark steps over treacherous landscape that must be plodded - on and on and on until the morning finally comes.

fever and darkness . . . for me, this combination pulls back a curtain in my mind opening into a subconscious, horrific abyss. as I innocently drift off to sleep, my feverish dreams become an endless series of tasks, decisions, obstacles that must be completed, decided and overcome. the mental effort to do so mutually coincides with a half-conscious swallow - so I wrestle with this dark, subconscious, terrorized frenzy and alternately sweat, chill, wake up - and repeat ad nauseum. all the while swallowing, swallowing, swallowing. and you tell me this is merely called "sore throat"?

enough of that - what are the good points to such "death-by-swallowing" sicknesses? not many but I can think of a few.

1 my voice sounds like a combination of emphysema and puberty. its painful, but altogether a great voice for reading Lyric's library books. suddenly my voice if filled with new color and nuance for dramatic characters' voices.

2 I have come to more deeply appreciate a good cup of tea. I've drank more tea in three days than the past three months. it's simply one of the few things that is worth swallowing.

3 I've come to appreciate one simple hour of uninterrupted sleep. as a father of a newborn, I'm already accustomed to sleeping in only three or four hour intervals, but lately I'm lucky to sleep an hour at a time. Maggie is sick too, and wakes up needing to be held and rocked until she stops choking on mucus. but lately I'd rather do that at three in the morning than subject myself to the "throat-of-death" nightmare attempt to sleep anyway.

so today I wonder how many more nights of sleep deprivation I can take. but I am encouraged by my sudden appetite at supper - provided single-handedly and seemingly effortlessly by my wife: marinated chicken, rice, sweet potatoes and homemade "dinner rolls". we've had dinner rolls so few times that Lyric couldn't remember what they were until she saw them come out of the oven. so Lyric and I ate chicken and rice like hungry soldiers and put away three rolls apiece. I complimented my wife profusely and told her she missed her calling. she should have been a stay-at-home mom and I, her plump husband. while making the rolls today, she explained that she just couldn't bring herself to buy them - she wanted to at least teach her children how to make them before she begins to thoughtlessly swiping them out of the grocery store aisle.

this afternoon, after a restless attempt at napping on the couch, I was inspired to take Lyric for a walk down to the "little park" with one slide, a swing set and a bone-shaped jungle gym. I wanted to take nothing along - no bikes, no dog, not even my camera - just the two of us. we looked for colors, pointed out flowers, cats, people and everything we saw. I explained to her how the sun coming through the leaves makes them look like they're on fire. we played tic-tac-toe on those big, silly plastic cylinders you find at dumpy parks. we climbed on the bone-shaped jungle gym and I helped her laugh her way across the monkey bars. The air was crisp and clear, anticipating a 32 degree low. the sunlight was bright and low right before it dipped behind the trees beside the ball field. I pointed out the church steeple in town and we picked up different colored leaves. I gave her a piggy-back ride down the sidewalk towards home in order to hold off the cold penetrating her light jacket.

maybe it's just me but being this sick has helped me appreciate small moments of life.

man it was tough not taking my camera.

Maggie's innocence

Maggie's pondering (the recent economic downturn)

Maggie's self-assurance (regarding her 401k)

Maggie's horror (to learn her parents have not started her college fund yet)

Maggie loved regardless

Lyric's new braid