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It was dark and dank, the night he discovered
what it was like to hold a handful of floor.
He crawled out of bed as if mired in thick molasses, each movement slow and painful, every muscle and joint aching.
He knew at last that he had entered Zombieville. Those laughable actors-on-screen, sporting more makeup and reconfigured profiles than a gated-community trophy wife, were no longer funny, pretending to be Zombies. Now, he was feeling what they were only acting.
That’s about what dozens of friends, customers, family members and acquaintances describe to me these past few weeks. And, unlike most illnesses, it won’t go away for a long time.
Everybody nowadays calls it the flu, but we oldtimers know better. It’s just a really, really bad cold with all the trimmings, and it makes you feel like life could be over at any moment. There is absolutely nothing funny about it, so the term feeling funny doesn’t quite fit.
We call just about every temporary affliction the flu. In my day and my parents’ days, it might have been termed the croup, the influenza, bronchitis, whooping cough, the crud, under the weather, or, for lack of anything specific, opportunity for a sick day.
The most annoying and fascinating aspect of this brand of flu is that it sucks your energy away in recurring waves. One moment you’re feeling energetic and hopeful, the next moment you hit a brick wall and find yourself sitting and staring into space, not even summoning up the will to read or engage in media or even talk.
We’re in this together, but nobody has enough gumption to throw anybody else off the lifeboat. We’ll sink or float and eventually get past this, but for the time being all we have is the knowledge that we are not alone.
Fact is, this particular sickness is relentless, long-lasting, infinitely variable, configured differently each day, and very competitive with the Wellness Gods. What I have found helpful and strangely comforting is the constant act of comparing notes. Each time I mention the Symptoms of the Day to someone, they verify that they had the same exact symptoms just two days ago. Everybody who describes what’s going on today gives me a chance to comfort them by saying, “That’s just part of this thing…it happened to me last week and it will probably recur one day when you least want it.”
Comparing notes, even with medical professionals who are going through the same symptoms, at least lets me know that I’m no worse off or better off than just about anybody else.
Strangely enough, the more extended the illness, the more episodes I have to look back upon and ponder, the more humor does creep in. It is kind of funny, the fact that every superior thought I ever had about being less ill than others, healthier than my contemporaries, wiser in my choice of lifestyle, the more humble I become. I now know that I’m no more damned immune to the vicissitudes of life than anybody else. Whether I like it or not, I’m as human and vulnerable to Nature as you are. I just hope we can all block this out of our conscious minds in a month and disremember the idea of illness. One fine day, you and I will feel so good that we’ll not even recall the Great Croup Flu of 2013.
It will feel good to be smug once more
(c) 2013 A.D. by Jim Reed