If you were wondering, I woke up with a sore throat* the morning we were to leave for Atlantic City. I didn't want to dwell on it, and while I acknowledge that denial only prolongs illness, I was in extreme denial that I was sick. So I spent the trip to Atlantic City ill, though fluctuating between walking and holy-crap-walking-is-dizzy-stuff.
I only write that so I can say that Atlantic City didn't make me ill. New York did!
Luckily, I am back home** and have spent the day in bed, working.
Since this is me, I guess it's no surprise that I put stock in being sick for the first time here. It's like "hey, look at you being sick without your mom near you!" Granted, I was sick about 90% of the time when I was in England, so I guess I shouldn't really read that much into this.
I was a sickly kid actually. I remember missing the last few weeks of school during Winter semester because of how sick I would get. I also remember that watching my sisters' Communion was one of my favorite things to watch during these times too, which was odd. So I strongly remember in fifth grade when I would take my illnesses into my own hands, reading the instructions on the cough medicine, waking myself up in the middle of the night to take it, telling my dad which cold things to buy for me at Publix. Juice, cans of chicken soup, cough drops, Vicks at bedtime, and lemon tea became all part of the regimen, and I was secretly proud at how much I stuck to it, keeping colds at the 3-day cycle I read about.
I realized this when I got myself well enough to attend the Fifth Grade Christmas Party and Sing-A-Long. My throat was better to belt out "Up on the House Top" with my fellow men, build graham cracker houses with our milk cartons, and swig hot chocolate that had a lot of cocoa powder at the bottom.
Sigh. Good times.
And Pam will attest at how much I think that when you're sick, you have to care for yourself. I'll see her lying on her bed, all snotty and coughing, and I'll tell her to get her own chicken noodle soup for lunch.
I kid. I'll do it, but apparently I'm still pretty vocal about caring for yourself.
I've got it down pat, I think. The medicine. The impromptu trash bags I carry around for tissues. The hand sanitizer. I have a system on being sick. Only, in living with my uncle and aunt, it's really weird having someone ask me what my symptoms are or how I am this hour or to even tell me to take medicine, more often than the recommended time frame on the bottle. I don't think he means me to, but if I followed my uncle's advice every time, I think I'd OD on cough syrup.
*not that I imagine you think of my health that often. Though, you could. It would be simultaneously nice and creepy.
**I feel almost as if I'm cheating on my original home calling the apartment home. It's weird. I feel weird. Weird apart from being sick that is.