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The Loss of Illusions
Dec. 22nd, 2004 07:53 pmWhen you're healthy, there's almost a kind of strange glamour to being sick. Sick people are frail, yet noble and tenacious. They get our sympathy, our help, our respect for being a brave little soldier and toughing it out. And they get to sleep as much as they want, and noone thinks less of them for dozing on the sofa and watching TV all day.
This glamour lasts approximately fifteen minutes past the onset of your own symptoms. Once you're sick, there is absolutely no glamour in having to tilt your head back so your nose doesn't run onto your book (assuming you're lucid enough to read), or in fretfully pulling blankets on and pushing them off again as your body swings from freezing to burning to freezing again. Having a fever of 102 is dramatic in novels, but not when you're trying to type up records at work and you can't stop your hands from shaking.
Everything aches. My eyelids ache. I didn't know that was possible. This is even more unfair because I just got over bronchitis a week ago. There should be a statute of limitations on illness.
And I have to work a 14-hour shift tomorrow. Bleah. At least I have an office cat to curl up on my lap between appointments, and maybe this will help make the lack of anything to do less boring....
This glamour lasts approximately fifteen minutes past the onset of your own symptoms. Once you're sick, there is absolutely no glamour in having to tilt your head back so your nose doesn't run onto your book (assuming you're lucid enough to read), or in fretfully pulling blankets on and pushing them off again as your body swings from freezing to burning to freezing again. Having a fever of 102 is dramatic in novels, but not when you're trying to type up records at work and you can't stop your hands from shaking.
Everything aches. My eyelids ache. I didn't know that was possible. This is even more unfair because I just got over bronchitis a week ago. There should be a statute of limitations on illness.
And I have to work a 14-hour shift tomorrow. Bleah. At least I have an office cat to curl up on my lap between appointments, and maybe this will help make the lack of anything to do less boring....
