The Five Strands of A Sedentary Empress

*Jacob has a dream*

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I have great respect for doctors. I respect anyone whose primary goal is to help other people, particularly in the area of easing their suffering. When in pain, the only thing a person craves is the end of that pain, the gentle release of all the tension and delirium which always comes with it. When feeling sick, the only thing a person wants is to be restored to the natural rhythm of things. When another person has the knowledge and skill to liberate us from whichever ailment is owning us, we call them godly. I can't say that they don't deserve it.

Last night, I fell asleep certain that I would be completely healed from the flu when I woke up in the morning. Somehow, though, during the dark hours it reclaimed its strength and then some. I woke up with pains in my chest, a constricted, pulsing sort of pain which alarmed me a little. How is this possible? It's been, like, forever since this thing started. I thought about my wee one who has had it as long as I have and wondered if sending her to school were a wise idea. She seemed okay, still coughing but feverless, and frankly, she's been extremely sarcastic and petulant the last couple days so I was eager to send her off for the day. I brushed it all aside, decided I was being too delicate and pushed ahead with some of the small goals I'd set for myself for today: cancelled the therapy appointment (can't spare the $140 right now to be told, once again, what I should already know), took the career survey as directed by employment counsellor, dishes and...that's as far as I got. I had to dash off to class by noon, so I bundled up (it's sunny, but bitterly cold today), and started to walk over to the school. Once I got there, I knew things were not well inside. I was coughing a lot, much more than is normal for me when I have a simple cold, and I knew the coughing must have sounded like cracking, wet ice. I caught more than person looking at me, sympathetically, and I would smile and ignore them because it's just a cold, right? An hour in, the teacher looked to me and said 'Tara, you're sick!', like it just occurred to him and he thought I'd like to know. I mumbled something about it being a persistent bug of some kind, and he moved back a couple steps, careful not to come close. I now know how Typhoid Mary must have felt. Being ill in a room full of skittish types and senior citizens is a lesson in humility and prejudice. I packed up my book and put on my coat and gave him a look to indicate I was on my way out the door. His expression was one of understanding and relief. I can't say I blame him. I tapped A.M., the woman I vaguely know in the room, with the back of my hand and said I'd see her later. She nodded and smiled, as if to say 'you shouldn't have bothered coming today, you know?'.

I walked home feeling miserable. First off, the kind of cold outside is not just bitter, it's invasive. It slaps the face and doesn't let go. It pinches the nose, the ears and it hurts the lungs, like breathing in ice water. At least there is no snow, that's something, but I'm done with winter. I've never been a huge fan of it but as I get older, it becomes less tolerable with each flake of snow, each dark afternoon. This flu, or whatever it is at this point, is a roadblock to productivity, like I needed another one. I have to attend that seminar tomorrow and it is three hours worth of sitting and listening, something which is nearly impossible to do when you're feeling each breath come in slowly, getting caught on the branches in the lungs, tickling your throat on the way back out. By the time I got home, I was wishing for something dramatic to happen so I could at least weep about how I feel. Crying about an incessant cough is basically laughable, unless you vomit when you do, or you begin spraying droplets of blood. Now, that would be worth crying about in the eyes of the onlooker.

M. made me take two cold tablets, which I don't think are going to help much. Thankfully, he's managed to stay clear of this round of sickness, but expecting him to take care of me would be foolish. He's a man. Nurturing is not his thing, which he'd deny if I bothered to say it out loud. He's practical when it comes to sickness, he's logical about biology. He gets how germs work and he doesn't usually get morose when they best him. We should have got the flu shot!, I whined the other day, and he went on to tell me about how the scientists developed a vaccine for the wrong strain(s) of flu virus this year, that it wouldn't have done me any good, anyway. It's the luck of the draw, he said matter-of-factly. The thing is, the flu is killing people again. It's killing the elderly en masse and it's killing young children too. Why is there such a focus on manufacturing erection medication and botox when this highly contagious, highly anticipated sickness rips through the population yearly? Oh, I know it's about the money, but I'm fairly certain that if a viable drug were developed to prevent/cure influenza outbreaks there'd be some coin made off that. It's like no one has a bloody clue how to prioritize.

Which makes me wonder about the way we 'celebratize' certain diseases, (I know, it's not a word, but it works). While I agree that AIDS needs to be stopped, I don't think it should get more attention than cancer, or heart disease, or even diabetes. For a while, it appeared to be a cause that celebrities got behind because they were at risk to get it, through shared needles or unsafe sex or what have you. You saw red ribbons everywhere, some bejewelled, some silk, and if you were wore one, you were not only politically conscious but highly fashionable. Have I known anyone who has died of AIDS? Actually, yes, and both of them contracted it through acts which they knew beforehand held risks. In short, they initiated the disease with bad choices. Did they deserve to die? No, let's not be ridiculous, but I do think they were accountable for their disease in that they made conscious choices which directly contributed to their infection. What about in countries like Africa where the children are dying by the minute because of it? Well, that's unfathomable to me. I could never understand what that must be like, losing a child to that disease or any other. What's important to note, though, is that I personally know two doctors who have worked with those afflicted with AIDS in Africa. The problem is education, apparently. The reason why a lot of these infected mothers continue to have unprotected sex with the intention of getting pregnant is because they figure that the more children they have, the greater the odds that one or more will survive. In other words, they know they're infected, but they want children, but the odds of having a healthy child are considerably low, so, to bump up their odds, they have more children in the hope that at least one of them will make it. Warped thinking to us, but to them, common sense. If the education were better, if they could break down some of the barriers that their culture has put up, there might be an end to the plague. Until then, it is what is.

I don't have a favourite disease. I don't wear ribbons and I don't donate all of my extra money to one specific cause. I abhor disease in general and think that health care, education and prevention, should be funded by the government. I believe that doctors should be compensated well for their work. I believe that smoking should be illegal, and I don't want to hear all those ridiculous arguments about how alcohol should be too, because we all know that a glass of red wine is actually good for the heart, but there is no medicinal benefit from smoking, and also, other people do not develop cirrhosis from standing next to someone who is drinking a cosmopolitan. If you smoke, enjoy it and feel like you need it, then you are probably addicted and that is actually a sickness. Of course you'll try to justify it to me, even if you know it will likely kill you at some point, a sticky-tar, black-lunged, gasping for air death. You'll justify it because you're addicted, and addiction rarely makes sense to those who don't share it. I do feel compassion for those older folks who are currently dying of emphysema or lung cancer, though, because a great lot of them had no idea what they were getting themselves into. The younger ones I see doing it I have less concern for, and as time wears on, the less likely that cause will be to get my money. I also don't donate to drug addiction causes, not because I don't think it's a serious problem, but because I don't have much money to begin with, and I'd rather the money go into researching something that we don't willingly bring on ourselves. I will donate to breast cancer, heart disease, alzheimer's, multiple sclerosis and most importantly, children's charities because we don't know enough about those yet and we need to.

And, if there is a flu charity, I say sign me up.

Jacob, maybe you could start there.