[Note: I promised a Dear Jackrabbit entry for Thursday and it’s technically still Thursday for a couple of more minutes. Today’s topic is about being sick. We’ve been a plague house this week. We’re shaking off our various colds and flus, and now it’s time to play catch up.]
Dear Jackrabbit,
Welcome to the Plague House–the first of what will likely be many to come in the years ahead.
Yeah, so everyone is sick–even you, to a smaller degree.
This is my favorite cartoon about being sick. The caption reads “You’re a very sick poet.”
You may recall from an earlier writing that I had a touch of pneumonia a few weeks ago. That was unpleasant, but we managed it fairly well because your mom had my back. This time, your mother was the one who got sick first, so we got her back–letting her sleep as much as she could stand, feeding her, fetching tissues, and so forth.
Then you picked up a little sniffle. Nothing serious. Sniffles lasted about a day. A bit of coughing, a few more sneezes than usual. No temperature to speak of. The only real hassle is you’ve been a bit fussier than usual when it comes to sleep-time.
Then I picked up your mother’s cold just as hers got a bit tougher.
So we’ve all been sick. And we’ve found we can both be sick and still cover each other and take good care of you. Neat how that works.
So… how do we get sick? Lots of ways. Your mother works with a lot of different people, so there is that vector. I don’t come across a lot of people in the course of my work, but I do hang out with other people sometimes. Game night, for instance, could be a source for colds. Conventions certainly are. I rarely come home from a convention without some kind of bug ( we call it “con-crud”). Colds, flus, etc. happen.
We can’t really “cure” colds right now, but there are medicines to treat the symptoms–so that’s good.
The thing is, boy, is you’re gonna get sick from time to time. It’s going to suck. Your head will feel like it’s full of wool. Your breathing will sound like a broken buzzsaw. Snot is going to pour out of your nose like a New Orleans levee. Your head will pound. You will feel hot. You will feel chills. You will sweat and shiver at the same time.
It’s going to happen.
How do I know?
Because it happens to everyone.
Everyone.
I don’t say this to diminish your experience or pain. I say this only to remind you that it will pass. Take heart.
Case in point, I’m fairly confident I’ll be shaking off my cold by the weekend–just in time to spend the weekend catching up on work I’ve missed. Your mother is considering going to work tomorrow. You seem to be doing fine, and we’re making sure–to the best of our ability–that
Sick happens. It sucks, but it happens.
So buckle up. The good news is that gettng a cold or flu won’t happen all that often in the grand timeline of your life. It’s a sometime thing.
Hokay… as for me… it’s time to take some more cold medicine. See you on the other side.
All my love,
–Dad
