Mmm mmmm good.

Cinematic Moment:  Did we need another reason to dread adulthood?

Do you remember when you were a kid and you got sick or broke a bone?  As much as it sucked not feeling well, you still got to miss a day or two of school and lay around all day watching your favorite movies.  People checked in on you every half hour.  You got coloring books and ice cream to soothe your sore throat.  Your mom stroked your hair, took your temperature, brought you your meds with a warm bowl of chicken noodle soup.  Being sick as a kid was like going to a child spa.  

Medical issues aren't so fun as a grown up.  Coughing, fever and pain aside, you still have to go pick up your medicine on your own.  Sure you can have ice cream--just grab it as you schlep through Rite Aid, bleeding from your mouth and waiting an hour for your pain killers (which you can't take until you get home.)  Life doesn't stop just because you don't feel good.  There's no magical caretaker the doctor can prescribe along with those antibiotics.  The dogs still need to go out, the garbage men will be expecting your trash at the usual time, the UPS lady expects your signature at 8 am and more than likely the sky will decide to snow just to prove a point.  

An upside is you get the day off.  A downside to that is you will pay for that day off in cold hard cash one way or another.  Your mom can't write you a note explaining why you should still get paid.  But staying home sick doesn't mean you won't feel obligated to work.  You'll spend the "day off" staring at your laptop while trying to keep the keyboard clear of snot, as you attempt to do a little guilt work between lapses of Nyquil-induced unconsciousness.  It's not pretty.  You stare at the door, waiting for someone to arrive with a coloring book...or a gun with a single bullet.  But no one comes.  

So you hobble to find your second dose of meds and make yourself a can of Campbell's Chicken and Stars.  You're too weak to change the movie in the DVD player and too cheap to invest in the movie channels on TV (not that you could afford it with all these sick days you've been taking.)  So you flip back and forth between Trading Spouses and some Lifetime movie about identity theft while the ice pack on your head slowly comes to a boil.  Isn't it fun being a big girl?

(Please note, this blog is a dramatization of a medical problem on a typical day.  It doesn't reflect my current wisdom tooth situation which involves me laying around in footie PJ's while mommy takes care of me and scratches my back.  There may also be some singing of Rock-a-Bye baby in there.)