I’m NOT Down with the Sickness
I am sick, and contrary to “Disturbed” I am NOT down with the sickness. It is not fun, it always depresses me and right now I feel absolutely worthless. Whenever someone says that they are sick and whines about it I never really have that much sympathy – I usually just wait for the complaining to stop and move to another topic as quickly as possible. However, when I am sick I suddenly become sympathetic to everyone’s plight and I vow to be more considerate to others when they are not feeling well. Then the sniffles go away and take that feeling with it – putting me right back to square one. Whenever I get sick I always think of 2 things:
1 – I am happy that I am not working in any type of a manual labor job. Right now I can kind of zone out at my desk in a Sudafed induced coma. If I had to be all “Deadliest Catch” right now and pull up crab cages and avoid getting tossed into 33 degree water I would be dead in a week. Being physically worthless at a desk job is only mildly aggravating but in most other jobs it can either be a severe handicap or much, much worse. I have not used a “sick day” at work for actually being sick in about 10 years and I am not going to start now. Unless I have vertigo and/or lose a limb I can come into work and gut it out for a few hours on almost any conditions. All that I need to be able to do is stay upright for a few hours which for most ailments is do-able. That allows me to use my days off in a more useful fashion – like vacations, sleeping in and smoking crack with my homies.
2 – When I am sick I always vow to not take my health for granted. As I am rendered useless on the couch clutching a box of Kleenex and trying to gag down soup I think about myself when I am healthy and wish I was that person. In those dire moments I make a pact with myself that I will never take being healthy for granted – that I will always have a smile on my face whenever I have my health and nothing will bring my down. Cut to a few days later and I could care less about my health and I am pissed off at something else even though I am healthy (almost like my mental state has been normalized or something). Being sick is such a quick rearrangement to your “normalized state” that it is difficult to get used to and by the time one is used to it the sickness is gone.
It is amazing how much your physical status effects your mental one. I usually think of a clear separation between my mind and my body (or souls and bodies, whichever you prefer). Being sick is an effective way to see how much our bodies and our minds are connected.
So basically I am calling a sick day today – and yes I am complaining, and no, you can’t change the subject. Enjoy your health readers!
