Meditations on Being Sick

Aren't we too young for this?

At my lowest, scrolling through fb, I see a reminder of a friend 

Acquaintance 

She's now been gone 15 years; I remember

A note on her passing, though, led to me to another's

That note reminded me of a person

A person I hadn't "seen" in awhile here

Scrolling through fb

She's now been gone at least a year, I learned--a mother, too

Aren't we too young for this?

 

----------------

I thought I'd evade

With my mom strength in spades

This sickness that's hovered around

Cycled through all of us

Especially the small of us

And by that snot I had definitely been bound

Unbound! Not you! I'm The Mom!

I'm invincible! 

I'm not.

 

-------------------

At my lowest

3 full days in

Graduated to the living room couch

So lonely, being sick

All the comings and goings, while I stick

Right here

In my grossness

"Watch out, there are tissues in the bed!"

I'd said

Tossing, turning, all night, all day

No rest

Just to reach for the water, too much

To pee? Herculean

Hot, shivery, thirsty, nauseous, tossing, turning, sore

I finally took a medication, to take the edge off the ick

That 3 days in

So lonely, being sick

I started to have a (mild) allergic reaction (my fear)--or was it a panic attack?
We'll never know

Stood up, thinking I couldn't breathe, thinking it was the medicine, used my phone for something helpful, like looking up what to do if it's a panic attack, like not looking up what it feels like to have your throat close in cause why would I want to indulge that thought

Name things. Name things that are certain colours. 

I walked around the lonely, messy home. Started with green, because it was the only colour that didn't make me automatically think of asphyxiation, or blood. 

Green lego, green plant, green letter B, green thing on the wall, green truck...

Yellow, too. Orange. Ok, I'm ok with blue now. Red too. It worked!

As I did that ritual, the panic lifted with the existential crisis

I felt more of my symptoms lift, too, and I realized I was standing, moving, around the house; I realized, at what felt like my lowest, that I must be getting...better?

"The body loves to heal itself."

...

(Just, sometimes it can't. And, aren't we too young for that?)

...

Grateful, for just merely being quickly (but agonizingly) sick for a few days. In my home. Not stuck for ages in a hospital, like can be the fate, of even such as young as us.

To:

HRL--and so many others: too young for that


 

 

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