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Calling Doctors of Interplanetary Craft

Oh, genetics.

How I love thee. What fun you’ve had constructing an immune system from defunct parts, every conceivable recombination long past warranty.

Making me grow up envying Tiny Tim’s health, rolling my eyes while watching him hop around on his little crutch, being all like, “Look at me, I’m sickly.” *Cough cough*

Dramatic little poseur.

“Look, you know you catastrophize illness. It’s not like you won’t recover from this,” Andy, the voice of reason, chides.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I protest, rearranging my black lace garb and reaching for my smelling salts.

Sickly

Fine.

I acquiesce.

Perhaps I do read too much into illness. But I get it naturally.

Aside from the fact that my pediatric file was about six inches thick, and I do actually get sick fairly often, I’m sure my paternal grandmother’s robust hypochondria-informed catastrophizing is hard-wired into my DNA.

“How’re you doing today, Mom-Mau?”

“Oh, my eye hurts. I think it’s The Eye Cancer.”

That was an actual conversation.

But rarely is it the case that the malady we think will take us down actually does. This has been true with every family member who’s passed, including Mom-Mau.

And I’m sure I’ll be no different.

I’ll probably dab my nose with a tissue, look up at a beautiful sky and curse my luck with my latest plague, glance over and see a new antique shop across the street, start crossing, and not even hear the Prius coming, because it’ll be in electric mode. I’m not saying Andy will be behind the wheel, having grown exhausted from 40 years’ worth of my crazed malady ramblings. But he does have a Prius.

It’s probably no help that, while infirmed, I watch movies I really shouldn’t. Like earlier this year, when I had some bizarre pneumonia-bronchitis combination and watched Contagion.

Or yesterday, when I watched Outbreak. And then started feeling worse halfway through. Which meant I had the virus in the movie–not my doctor’s sinus infection-strep throat diagnosis–and the Army was going to “clean sweep” my apartment.

Fine. I didn’t really think that was going to happen. But I did start feeling bad about myself, about missing work, being lazy, gross, and completely useless.

So I watched Mommie Dearest. After which I ran to my closet, ensuring I had no damned wire hangars!

But then Andy came home with dinner after a ridiculously hectic work day, and I felt much better. Mostly because all I’d had for sustenance was Gatorade.

Kidding!

So, I channeled my best Rene Russo, smiled at him, coughed, and mentally chided myself.

You’re fine. Now that you’ve got all your antibodies. 

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Those Days

We’ve all had those days.

You know.

When you have horrendous nightmares and wake up with a sore throat, a harbinger of a future week of infirmity. When you swear it was 2 AM two minutes ago when you got up to take Ibuprofen and Mucinex, but now the first of your three alarms is going off. When you find some ginger tea in the pantry, make a mug full, and scald the top of your mouth with the first sip.

Tea and tissues

When you think about the other day when you couldn’t remember your age and were left wondering what you’ve done with your twenties. When you think about performing a PIT maneuver on the incompetent Sebring driver hovering in your blind spot, just so the burning embers of the ensuing wreckage will shine in your eyes—give them some dimension this somber Monday morning. When you find yourself on the side of the road crying “I’ll never let go, Jack!” as Celine Dion bellows about how her heart will go on.

When you finally get to work, see the pink mold growing on the office wall, fight the urge to vomit, and realize you have a massive rust stain on your sweater.

You know, those days.

Not that any of that happened this morning.

***

So then you think the day will pick up. It won’t be so bad. Cheer up, buttercup! And all that bullshit.

Your coworkers filter in. One of them blows up the bathroom, and another chatters your ear off about purple or penguins. Still, you try to be optimistic. Even when the rust stain doesn’t rinse out. Even when it’s easier to cry and give up.

Because, after all, the new hire is coming today. Perhaps they’ll be a sociable savior, a respite of sorts from the spineless amoebas with whom you work. Then you see pleated pants. An unkempt beard. Detect the slight inadequacies specific to a socially-inept anthropologist.

You fight the urge to eat your feelings. And then convince yourself it’s the only alternative.

So you lip sync the chorus of “Bleed Like Me” as he’s introduced by the office’s Numero Uno Nutbag (NUM).

And imagine yourself somewhere else.