Trajectory - by Sharon Flood Kasenberg

Timeline of a Virus:

Sunday: A tickle and a few sneezes.
Monday: It's on and I hope it soon eases!
Tuesday: My lungs are about to explode.
Wednesday: My nose is expelling a load.
Thursday: I'm guessing I'll prob'ly survive...
Friday: Perhaps I'll be glad I'm alive?

Sharon Flood Kasenberg, March 27, 2019

That's the condensed version of how this virus has unfolded - and the hopeful version too, because as I sit here typing it's still Wednesday and my sinuses are trying desperately to clear themselves. The comparatively gentle sneezes that initiated this cockroach of a virus have been replaced by their mutant offspring. My eyes twitch, and my nose alternates between itching like my tissues are infused with poison ivy, and running until said tissues leave them chapped as they try to contain the toxic ooze. I decided to aim for a drug-free sleep last night, which was probably a mistake. After all, I laid on my bed in a pseudo-napping state for two hours yesterday, which, in my experience, is never conducive to a decent block of sleep. Sure enough, the first three hours my body relaxed (between coughing spasms), but my mind spun like Vanna's Wheel. The next three hours I cycled between coughing, sneezing and nose-blowing. My bedside table is the place old tissues go to die. Finally, between five and eight am, I napped...

Now I backtrack; my husband came home from a two day workshop on Friday night, feeling run down and saying he had a slight tickle in his throat.

Smug Sharon, who considers herself largely impervious to most "bugs" felt confident that IF she were to come down with something it would be nothing more than a minor inconvenience for 48 hours. Oh - how the mighty have fallen!

Saturday husband said, "Yes, I'm definitely getting a cold..." And off we went to run errands and mattress shop and look at antiques. Oh yeah - quality bonding time with a man brewing straight up sludge. And I still said, "No big deal. I'll be fine!"

Sometimes I'm an idiot.

A suddenly felt "tickle"  made its presence felt on Sunday, and I experienced those first subtle sneezes. By bedtime I was chilled to the bone and looked like I'd fallen asleep under a sunlamp. I slid my inflamed body between nice, cool sheets, only to discover that my internal and external thermostats were battling for the upper hand. The latter was victorious, and I reluctantly slid out of bed to find three more blankets and some Tylenol. I climbed back into bed, arranging a warmth-sealing nest of pillows around me and piling the extra bedding on top of it all. (Husband was downstairs in the "escape room", fighting his own germ-war.) Between the chills and the hacking, I managed to sleep five of the nine hours I laid in bed.

Monday the coughing and "aching everything" began in earnest, and the chills continued off and on for most of the day. I took my first serious afternoon nap in years, and awoke two hours later to a spinning head and a complete inability to concentrate. Gah! What an insensitive lout I felt like for thinking my poor spouse a ninny when he napped the day before! Karma, my friends, is one vicious female dog and she bit my butt on Monday! That evening, after ordering in pizza, my spouse dragged his germ-laden being out the door to his regularly scheduled meeting, while I stayed home to feel thoroughly disgusted by the fact that my virus timeline was following the exact trajectory that his was! At least I managed to channel my negative energy into a poetic Facebook update:

Virus

The virus made a sneak attack
and now I sneeze and ache and hack.
My head is heavy and I'm chilled;
I pray immunity will build.
I'm overtired, my muscles sore -
full of complaints I can't ignore.
I guzzle syrups, pills and teas
in hopes they'll cure this vile disease -
and moan until at last they do -
I'm quite affronted by this 'flu!

Sharon Flood Kasenberg, March 25, 2019

Having waxed poetic, I stayed up to make sure he made it home okay, and we toddled off to our respective beds. He barely slept, and I managed six of the ten I spent on the mattress.

Tuesday was cough 'til you drop day. And, much to my chagrin, sometimes cough 'til you "dribble" day too. (You know what I mean, ladies.) I took to carrying a paper towel with me to cough into because I was expecting to forcibly evict a lung at some point. Nevertheless I stoically walked to the post office to get the mail AND managed to clean three bathrooms. My spouse was understandably exhausted, but assured me the worst of it seemed to be passing, and he was fairly confident we'd survive to see another weekend. The chills were only intermittent for him now, and I was comfortable as long as I spent most of the day holed up in the Sahara region of our 125 year old house - my office. The kitchen is the Arctic Circle - but it couldn't be avoided altogether. I pulled a bandana over my nose and donned some disposable plastic gloves to throw together a pot of hamburger stroganoff and toss some dressing onto coleslaw from a bag. Husband went off to his choir practice like a trooper, and I laid low watching Netflix and drinking herbal teas.

That brings me to today. In spite of my varied sufferings, I managed a twenty minute walk - and the same amount of time in the basement tossing darts - almost as spectacularly badly as I did the day I took one of my mother's tranquilizers... Since drugstore medications and I have varying degrees of success together, I decided to go "cold turkey" in hopes of achieving more than three solid hours of sleep tonight. I am exhausted - but hopeful. So optimistic, in fact, that I'm about to vacuum the main floor of my abode without being utterly fearful of imminent collapse.

Update - It's now Thursday afternoon and I've been up for about an hour after tossing and turning until the wee sma's. Rest doesn't come easily for chronic insomniacs - even when they are literally "sick and tired". The coughing is back today but it feels less stressful on my musculature and my bladder. I'm a girl who does everything differently, so this is usually my day for socializing, but I've opted to do my fellow book clubbers and Toastmasters a service and stay home today. I may get ambitious enough to throw some clothes in the washer and finish the vacuuming that I ran out of steam doing last night. I still hold out hope that tomorrow will be the day I wake up well slept and feeling almost myself again.

What I've learned from this experience - or more accurately been reminded of - is that while my tolerance for pain is impressive, my tolerance for illness isn't. I'm more of a "man-baby" (and I agree that's a sexist term, by the way) than my husband is. (Which leads me to wonder if all those Facebook quizzes that identify me as male are tuned in to some part of my psyche that usually gets ignored.) Apparently I'm not invincible, and to make matters worse, I'm a complete whiner on those rare occasions when I do "catch something." It's been long enough that I'd forgotten that.

Perhaps it's illness, rather than drink, that sheds light on the parts of us that like to stay hidden - in my case the need to see myself as impervious to germ-warfare, and to be viewed - if only temporarily - as just another vulnerable human being. This concern that I'll be seen as "weak" if I admit to feeling badly is a truth that I struggle to accept with any degree of grace.

I'm grateful for the good health that I've always experienced, and that the reminder to be more mindful was a 'flu bug, and not a life-threatening illness. Many face trajectories that are dire, and months, years - sometimes a lifetime - of vulnerability.

I am not entitled to good health - and it's time for me to stop taking it for granted.