Sick, Sick, Sick

Well dear reader, I'm back from the precipice. Wednesday evening I came home with a fever and flu-like symptoms. By Saturday and no signs of improvement, it was time to seek professional help. Off to an urgent care facility (places my father, who used to work in the pharmaceutical industry, refers to as a "Doc in a Box") where it was determined that I had managed to severely dehydrate myself. Three liters of saline later, I was sent home feeling somewhat better. By today, Monday, I had taken myself to another doctor (my newly assigned Primary Care Physician - but more on that later) for the as yet unstoppable fever and congestion that I was suffering from. I seem to have turned the corner and might live for a while.

I will be the first one to admit that I am a lousy patient (most men are). However, over the weekend I was too sick to even be a problem patient. It got me thinking about being sick growing up. In school, I was, what my mother called, a mollygrubber. My mother and the school nurse were on a first name basis. Years later, my mother admitted to conversations she had with the school nurse where the nurse gave the lowdown to my mother and my mother told the nurse to let me lie down for an hour or so and then send me back to class. Probably all I wanted anyway.

There were several occasions when I scored the big win, getting to stay home from school. First, the set up. I got to move from my bedroom to the den sofa (hello, home from school and no TV, I don't think so). Then of, course, clear the coffee table of only the essentials:

• The cable box (back in the stone age, cable television on Long Island actually came with a cable box (about the size of a cigar box), where you depressed the buttons for the channels you wanted to watch). The box was connected to another box on the television, BY A WIRE!
• The TV Guide for planning the day's watching.
• A box of tissues - my usual complaints involved my nose A tray for food to be brought to me by my loving mother
• A drink - orange juice, ginger ale, maybe a coke, but always in a glass, and yes there has to be a flexible straw (so you don't have to exert yourself to drink)

Bring my pillow from my bedroom and a good blanket and settle in. Maybe if you were particularly unlucky, school work might arrive, but usually, is meant morning game shows:

• Wheel of Fortune - remember when contestants actually bought things?
• Password Card Sharks and, of course -
• The Price is Right

Afternoons brought soaps and, hey, I'll admit it. I used to watch. My mother was a CBS gal, starting with the starting off with Search for Tomorrow, then the Young and the Restless, followed by As the World Turns. At three o'clock, it was Guiding Light and the endless feuds between the Bauers, the Marlers, and the Spauldings. There are times when I come across one of these and I swear I can tell you exactly what is happening. It's because the characters were doing (or not doing) the same thing ten years ago or that time never changes on soap operas. There is even an affliction known as SORAS, or Soap Opera Rapid Aging System, where a character is sent away and returns a few years later, but the character is now fifteen years older.

4:00 and the soaps over, my mother would usually head off to start on dinner and I was returned to my own television choices. That usually meant a couple of choices. CBS was fond of the detective genre showing such classics as The Rockford Files or Barnaby Jones (loved Buddy Ebsen). One could usually find an episode of CHiPS, or in later years, Magnum, PI.

Being sick is never fun, but somehow, being sick in your own place makes it just a little bit better. There was at least one point over this past weekend, when I managed to find myself on the living room couch with a glass of ginger ale in my hands, plastic straw to my lips. Right then, there was hope.