On being sick
*cough cough* im dying
There’s something about being sick that seems to conjure up the memory of every time you were sick before. Whenever that Sickly smell invades my nostrils I am suddenly seven again, and my mom is tenderly pressing the back of her hand against my forehead and swaddling me in a blanket before grabbing a wet towel to put on my head.
I’ve noticed everyone seems to have their own little rituals when they are sick. Whether it’s a medicine they swear by, an at-home remedy that Always does the trick, or somehow they are that lucky little bugger that seems to Never, Ever have a sick day in their life.
My ritual involves reminiscing of the time I was sick in 8th grade, and it led me to sit around at home and discover the joy of Hamilton animatics on Youtube, and subsequently, the joy of Hamilton the musical itself.
It involves flashbacks of the time I had pink eye in 2nd grade, which started out as the average cold but gradually developed until I had to take antibiotics with a syringe down my throat and wear an eyepatch for a week. I thought I’d look like a cool, jaded pirate when my mom put it on me, but I looked in the mirror and only saw a sick disheveled little girl who had missed an entire week of school and was therefore Behind.
It involves me living through the first time I got COVID in 2022, and my family had me quarantined in my parents’ bedroom—I attempted to learn to crochet and binged through the entirety of Bojack Horseman, which became my favorite show. But I felt heavy FOMO because I had to miss an outing with my coworkers.
It involves remembering the time I had the flu at six years old, and I had borrowed a joke book from the library and read it every night to myself before going to sleep. I hid that book beneath my pillows and blankets until it was overdue, and then tried to keep it. It was eventually found and returned over a month past the due date (sorry to those librarians if I returned it with all my sick germs on it).
It involves remembering being sick two years ago, right around Valentine’s day. I’d stayed up all night making my Valentine’s gift for my partner and felt the fever coming on but only figured it was due to immense concentration, only to wake up and really Feel It.
Being sick as an adult makes me realize in some ways how much better it was to be sick as a kid. Maybe it’s because the sense of responsibility to get better is on who is taking care of you–who’s buying the Dayquil, who’s boiling the ginger tea on the stove, who’s rounding up every blanket in the house. But as an adult… you half-consciously drive yourself to work and slap on a mask and hope you can get through the shift without making a scene because your boss still wants you to come in. And then on the way home you pass by a CVS and grab whatever seems cheapest off the cold and flu shelves–thank God for that ExtraCare discount.
Suddenly, it’s not my parents trying to force me to take medicine, saying that if I keep crying about it I will just have to take more. Suddenly, it’s me standing over the sink trying to muster up the courage and willpower to swallow a pill because, yes, I still struggle to take pills but I Absolutely hate liquid medicine even more.
And you forget about all the advice people give about being sick because there’s so many remedies but all your brain wants to do is rot in bed with a box of tissues, some water, and your phone, because you gotta check your emails even if it makes your eyes burn a little bit more.
As I grow older, I’m learning, slowly, to try to take care of myself, and how much I miss the Times Before when it wasn’t on my shoulders. And realizing one day I will have to be that person taking care of someone else while they are sick.
I don’t know how to end this. I just wanted to write something while I’m here… yes, I’m writing from the Land of Sick!
Take care and take… your vitamins.
Kat
Brainsprout 🌱
