Sick Leave

I’ve had the flu for almost a week now—can’t say I’ve been fighting it. Now that I’m retired, there really is no reason to fight. There are no classes that need teaching or papers that need grading, no children that need caring for. I can snuggle up in my cozy bed and just let my white cells do their thing. My smart mother-in-law, a nurse, used to say, “The flu lasts a week if you treat it and 7 days if you don’t.”

So I have mostly just slept, rested, dozed, and slept some more. I’ve sipped various hot drinks: Lemon Zinger tea, chicken noodle soup (Campbells), and tomato-pepper soup (Costco). I’ve listened to most of Steve Young’s book QB on Audiobooks (I missed some when I dozed off—sorry, Steve), I’ve watched Law and Order, Longmire, and the entire series of The Crown. I have checked FaceBook approximately 2,325 times. I’ve used 3.5 (approximately) boxes of tissues. Twice I have ventured out to do something that seemed important. Twice I have regretted it.

Lying in bed feeling helpless brings me back to my childhood. I was the youngest in my family; when I started school, my mother took the opportunity to go back to work as a teacher. My getting sick was, as all working mothers know, a crisis in childcare. Luckily we had a sweet neighbor who lived through the block from us who was willing to take me in when I was sick. I have fond memories of lying, tucked up on her couch with a box of tissues beside me, watching “The Price is Right” and “Truth or Consequences.” On days when the neighbor couldn’t watch me, my big sister Patty would be induced to skip high school and stay home to care for me. Patty loved school and I’m pretty sure she hated having to stay home with me. I do remember how good she was to me, though. I lay on the couch under the scratchy green wool blanket, practicing braiding the fringes. Patty would make me tomato soup from a can, stirring it carefully to try to get all the lumps out. She would bring the soup to me on an aluminum TV tray, with saltines on the side.

When I was older, in junior high or high school, I was able to stay home alone when I had a bad cold or the flu. The problem was I had a vivid imagination and read a lot of Victorian novels, novels in which the heroine often languished from some incurable disease, usually consumption. So when I was home ill, I would spin fantasies in my head. I was the beautiful princess Esmeralda. The impoverished Duke Roderigo had loved me long, but knowing he could never aspire to my hand, had gone abroad to make his fortune. Just as he returned, rich beyond anyone’s dreams, he learned of my illness and raced to my bedside. We exchanged our vows of love forever, just before I expired limply in his arms. 

Sometimes this scenario was played out in my mind in contemporary circumstances, with my latest crush playing the Duke Roderigo role.

In any case, these fantasies were not the empowered-woman type of self-story I wish I had been telling myself.

If my illness fell on a weekend, my dad would not countenance malingering. If I wanted to watch TV, he would say, “If you are sick, you should be in bed.” And to bed I would go. If I was reading books in bed, he would say, “If you are well enough to read, you can write. Write a letter to your sister.” So I would write a letter to Patty who was in college.

Being sick as a working mom with young children was an unheard of luxury. I had to be REALLY sick to merit time off to be sick in bed. Paul was good to cover for me, both in the classroom and at home. But all moms know that dads don’t quite see things the way moms do. I knew I was really sick when the piles of dishes on the counter didn’t bother me, nor did I mind when he changed my whole lesson plan when he taught my class for me.  I knew I was getting better when the piles of dishes began to bother me.

And so this morning when I picked up the dead leaf by the front door, I knew I was getting better. That leaf had been there for the last four or five days. Every time I passed it, I noticed it. But it didn’t merit the effort of bending over my aching head, it didn’t merit walking those extra steps to the trash can. Today, though, I picked it up and walked to the trash can to dispose of it.

So I think I’m better. Not completely though. Because a nap sounds pretty good right now.