I hate being ill. I REALLY hate being ill. It’s a waste of time that is too precious to be wasted and all I do is lie there and fret about all the things that I ought to be doing rather than indulging my inner patient. Now, Dear Reader, we aren’t talking about seriously ill here and I don’t want to upset anyone reading this who might be or have been seriously ill – this is merely a ‘from my perspective’ little missive because I haven’t got anything better to do I feel the need.
Yesterday I awoke with the mother of all colds. The sort that feels as though Hannibal Lecter is trying to remove your face with a rusty chainsaw and that whilst he was doing that he took the time to fill your sinuses up with expanding foam. My head felt as though, given time, it could easily explode and my legs seemed newly fashioned from jelly. I lay in bed at about 6 in the morning trying to decide just how awful I felt and by 9 had called my various employers to tell them that I was having the day off. Now, this is very unusual for me as I am very rarely ill (lucky me. I know, I know) apart from the current dose of cold and my annual visit from the Norovirus (fantastic if you get it just before a holiday or Christmas – how to lose half a stone almost instantly) and I do think that the reason that I am rarely ill is because for the most part I refuse to be. There is the ‘mind over matter’ school of thought and I do subscribe to it. What would happen if God forbid I did get something awful remains to be seen but I like to think that I have sufficient strength of mind to at least try to fight whatever might be thrown at me.
I heard an interesting thing this week. My mother has recently been diagnosed with diabetes and her reaction was one of complete horror, despair and she declined into a visible depression almost instantly. Whilst trying not to really annoy her, I did suggest that maybe a little perspective might help, that she is 72 and has never had anything wrong with her before and that what she has got is entirely manageable with some lifestyle changes but none of my comments went down very well at all. She booked herself in to see a professor of endocrinology because she decided that paying for advice was more likely to make that advice accurate (there is no reasoning with her sometimes). He said that she will be fine with drugs and some lifestyle changes and made an interesting observation. He said that my Mother’s reaction of ‘oh my God’ when he confirmed the diagnosis of diabetes was wholly at odds with a cancer diagnosee who is more likely to reply to the bad news with ‘I am determined to fight this’. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to belittle diabetes – it can have far reaching and nasty side effects and I wouldn’t like to have it, but the reaction was an interesting one and apparently, in my Mother’s case, entirely expected. The professor also went on to say that we (my Mother’s children) should all be tested as the disease can be genetic and I should be tested at some point in time I suppose.
So, there I was yesterday. Snot flowing, coughing and looking a real sight. The cat thought that all her birthdays had come at once and lazed in bed with me for the morning until I couldn’t bear doing nothing any longer and got up and did some ironing. I know, it’s sad and I should be able to just be ill, but I can’t. The guilt seeps in and that’s it. Not so TG who managed to laze in bed with me for quite a lot of the morning before muttering something about ‘getting started’ and meandering off to make some more tea and toast. He finally got started at about 3 in the afternoon. I envy his lack of guilt, his ability to do bugger all and that fact that he is blissfully unaware of the fact that he is in fact doing bugger all. It’s a man thing. Isn’t it?
Amberlife 