Life Gets In the Way

[Content Disclosure: Illness, Life Interruptus, Stamina]

It wasn't a swarm of hornets, the swine flu or a drunk driver but merely a morsel or two of food but that was enough to remind me again how fragile a little creature we can be. I awoke in the middle of the night about sixty hours ago with a full blown case of food poisoning. I have not eaten now in 66 hours and have no immediate plans to end that fast. I should note to my perhaps not as frequent readers that I have an aversion to scatological references and deeply descriptive accounts of passing maladies. so you will be spared discomforting details but not personal reflections.

At first I thought it was the flu, probably because of the sound and fury on the news the last several days and secondly because when you wake very ill in the dark of night, you tend to focus on physical symptoms and not mental acuity. Besides being sick, I was also thinking in start-up mode with no peripherals connected. Friday and Saturday, I spent in bed. Sleep was on the top of all agendas, so I slept. The "no-details" interruptions of sleep were followed by cold towels and more sleep.

Today, I can type but I am guessing my wit, wisdom and insight are running without enough coolant. What I have noticed is how fortunate I am to have a life that I was able to simply go to bed. I wasn't going to be fired, no pressing corporate proposal was going to be derailed, no deadlines would be missed. I admire and pity those individuals who literally would have slugged through this illness by keeping up with their appointed rounds. Parents come to mind, particularly parents who are caring to kids who have the illness too. Small business owners--you don't go to work, the business doesn't open. I grew up in a family like that, I know my dad went to the store many times when he should have stayed in bed. I admit when I ran the business for several years after college that was the only job I have ever had where I would and did go in feeling like something nasty warmed over.

Now, well I am fortunate that when life gets in the way, I can pull a comforter up over my head and wait until the dark cloud moves on. Right now, I think I need a nap.