Going Viral

Last weekend we vacationed in La Crosse, WI with our son and his family. It was a lovely time. We have wonderful memories, like seeing our 11 month old granddaughter have her first ice cream. She thought it was pretty wonderful. We also took away a nasty upper respiratory virus that Granddaughter brought from her daycare. Son, Dil, and Grandson all were ill by Sunday evening. Husband seems to have avoided it. I got it on Monday. By yesterday I was running a low grade fever, had lost my voice, and was coughing my head off.

I don’t get sick very often, but I must give the impression I don’t take care of myself when I do get sick. because I have never felt so bossed around as I felt this week. Husband insisted he drive me to the doctor after he and Boommate made sure I made an appointment. Boommate ordered my out of the kitchen when I was just trying to straighten up, and they both made me set up a nest for myself on the sofa. The dogs even got in on my care by lying on top of me so I couldn’t get up. Then Boommate started to work on a big pot of homemade chicken noodle soup that takes hours to simmer. I feel very loved.

It has been ages since I had a summer cold. The doctor told me that the symptoms would be the worst on the fourth to sixth day. There was very little she could give me aside from something for my cough. I don’t like going viral this way.

What sort of a patient are you? Any good “first” stories?

30 thoughts on “Going Viral”

  1. I am an extremely compliant patient. This is due entirely to my father, who was awful when he was ill. Just awful. He would almost always catch something just as my mother was starting to feel better from whatever bug had hit the house and he could do nothing for himself. Nothing. I think I’ve told the story about how he caught pregnancy from my mom? For some reason, he thought that milk toast was the greatest comfort food ever so he always whined for that when he didn’t feel good. YA is even more stoic than I am although to be honest, the number of times she’s actually been sick in her lifetime hasn’t actually hit double digits yet.

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    1. It is the ongoing mystery of WP. My son tells me that these problems in software are given to young engineers in India as learning projects. Owners are not serious about fixing it because other software is now dominant (i.e Substack).

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  2. I am an impatient patient despite experience as a caregiver. This makes me really bad at “taking time to heal” as that is always so nebulous. I also don’t do well with “we’ll have to wait and see”.

    I try to be patient with my caregivers when I have them.

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  3. The “first” that always comes to mind is my first airplane ride, into the Grand Canyon. We were on vacation and it was in a teeny 6-seater piper cub. I still remember the feeling in my stomach when we flew over the edge!

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  4. Freya had her first pup cup yesterday. She wasn’t quite sure what the deal was, but she figured it out pretty quickly and licked that cup clean!

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      1. Dairy Queen.. we had Freya in the car with us because we had just been to PetSmart to get a doughnut because she’s having her surgery on Sunday.

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        1. Whipped cream. Someplaces fancy it up with sprinkles or a little dog treat but at Dairy Queen it was just the whipped cream.

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  5. My parents told me the first time I got to taste a soft serve ice cream cone I wasn’t satisfied with just a few licks. I threw a tantrum and they had to buy a cone just for me.

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  6. I can only imagine what kind of patient I’d be. I haven’t had anyone take care of me since my mom did when I was little. I don’t think I was any worse than any other child when sick, but that’s hard for me to know. I can only imagine the kind of patient I’d be now – maybe a little challenging, due to my independent nature.

    I like John Prine’s lines from the song “Fish and Whistle.”

    “My very first job I said, ‘Thank you,’ and ‘Please,’
    They made me scrub the parking lot down on my knees
    Then I got fired for being scared of bees
    And they only paid me fifty cents an hour

    Father forgive us for what we must do
    You forgive us and we’ll forgive you
    We’ll forgive each other ‘til we both turn blue
    Then we’ll whistle and go fishin’ in heaven”

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  7. I too am rarely sick enough to stay in bed, but I think I’d be a pretty patient patient. : )

    I may have told how son Joel reacted at this first chocolate bunny when G’pa and G’ma were visiting at Easter – I think he was three (I had really tried to keep candy out of our diet at the time.) His eyes got big, he looked up and said “Is it wood?”

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  8. I got too much to do to be sick very long. 🙂
    Get some Sunshine and sweat it out. And rub some Dirt on it.

    Often we get the show open, then we get sick. It’s the push to the end that gets us.

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  9. I have never been sick enough to be bedridden for more than the length of time I could go without having to pee. Then I get up. Then I figure I might as well stay up, as long as I’m up.

    Sometimes I hear people talk about being so sick they “could not get out of bed”, and I wonder, did somebody bring you a bedpan? If not, how long did you endure not being able to get out of bed? Was an ambulance called?

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