March 20, 2024
A funny thing happened last
week as I was preparing to compose my weekly essay. We had an unexpected visit,
here in the Ashbury household, from a very nasty, unwanted guest: a tummy bug.
The visit was so unexpected and
so sudden that at first, I didn’t even realize that a bug was the culprit. I
thought, originally, that perhaps I had eaten something that was off. I looked
up the symptoms of food poisoning, and I had most of them.
The only problem with that
theory was that I couldn’t think of a single thing I’d eaten—and there really
hadn’t been a lot I had eaten on Tuesday for lack of appetite—that it could
have been. Or on Monday, the day before, for that matter.
It wasn’t until the next day,
Wednesday, when I was in my recliner, eyes closed, trying not to whine about
how icky I felt that my brain kind of started to work on the problem. In
retracing my time, I recalled that I’d been out with Jenny the day before—Monday—and
that we had gone to two grocery stores, one new to me. This trip was supposed
to have happened on Sunday, but Jenny spent most of that day sleeping, because
she hadn’t well. No appetite, a mild case of “plumbing problems”, and no energy
whatsoever.
The pieces began to fall into
place. Then when I roused myself enough to chat with a couple of friends
online, I realized that what I had was not food poisoning, but a gastrointestinal
bug. A bug that has been busily making the rounds lately and has hit a lot of
foks.
Note to self: try not to self diagnose
and stay away from Dr. Google.
Our daughter had at first
believed that her own symptoms were thanks to her sometimes uncooperative
cycle, because that has happened in the past. Her symptoms were not my symptoms
at all—but they were her father’s, who awoke ill on Wednesday and told
me to go away, because I had given “it” to him.
The major difference between
David and me when we’re not feeling well, is that his first, second and third
choice when he’s ill is to sleep. He doesn’t want to be checked on; he doesn’t
want any fussing whatsoever. Just let him sleep, which over the years, and as rare
as those occasions have been, I have learned to do.
I don’t require a lot of fussing
either, but appreciate a bottle of cold water and can of ginger ale from time
to time. And quiet. Please, just give me either complete and total quiet, or
country music at a minimal level.
Today, as I write this essay,
is day number Bug plus eight. I first felt not well on Tuesday just before the
supper hour a week ago, followed minutes later by my “as mad a dash as I can
manage” to the bathroom (where resides the toilet and the bucket). That first
phase of being sick was the worst ever, but only lasted about three hours.
I am getting better; but
mornings, which have always been my best times, have not been so these last few
days. They’re actually when I feel the worst. I know that this will all
soon be just a memory, so I’m not worried. Impatient, yes. Worried, no.
Yesterday, as I was sitting in
the kitchen while my daughter, on a work break, had a snack, I mentioned that I
was nearly, but not quite “there” yet, recovery wise.
She suggested that I should
just push myself to do as much as possible; after all, that’s what she’d done,
as she’d had to go to work on Tuesday (the day I fell ill) even though she didn’t
want to because she didn’t feel good.
My friends, it was a moment.
And there were so very many different ways I could have responded to this very
expert-sounding advice.
I could have told her that the
history of my working life, from the day I got married until I finally retired
was a story of my pushing myself even when I didn’t want to because I didn’t
feel good. I could have told her that there was a difference between us, her in
her 46th year and me in my 70th. I could have raised my
right eyebrow and skewered her with “the look”, the one that would remind her
that I am her mother—if only my right eyebrow was capable of performing such a maneuver.
Instead, being older and wiser
and, yes dare I say kinder, I simply made a sound that could have been
agreement and took a small sip of my coffee.
Love,
Morgan
https://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury
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