Wednesday, December 29, 2004

Sick Life on the Farm

I'm feeling some better. I first noticed last evening that I was quite grumpy. Grump grump grump am I the only person who can see this needs to be thrown away or this picked up grump grump grump. I took that as meaning I had turned the corner.

So today I actually did a drainer or two of dishes (way behind). And cleaned the bathroom (you know how those get when a whole family is sick). And swept the bedroom. I ate something. I wasn't nearly so grumpy after I ate something.

The past three days all I did was barely drag myself out of bed to don pants and coats and hats and things (it was very cold) over my pjs and further drag myself down to the cow shed to milk, morning and evening. A few milkings husband had to come to carry the milk up the hill for me. And husband really wasn't feeling any better than I was and he's been sick for longer but he still picked up more slack than me. I just milked. And slept.

But as much as I hate being sick, there are parts of it that are delicious, especially in a fever sickness. The drifting, the intense physical sensations, the visions. It is not unlike a vision quest except none of it need make sense or have meaning, it just is. The strongest one this time was of being so very cold, chilling, and then developing a "hot spot", usually starting somewhere my head was touching the pillow, maybe my cheek or ear. The hot spot would feel like it must be about to spontaneously combust and in fact made me recall stories I had read in high school about people who had, supposedly, spontaneously combusted, burned at such a high temperature that even their bones had been consumed and yet the chair they were sitting in would only be charred at one edge. I would sink into that hot spot and find relief from the cold and sometimes it would spread to my entire body and then I would lay under all those covers and just sweat. Happily.

And of course, we get sick the week my friend Laura is in for a visit . . . but she'll be in for another week so we should be all better by then and get to see each other.

And of course, this is actually the last darn thing the husband brought home from that workplace. Which is, like, telling, meaningful.

1 comment:

laura said...

oh but there are no updates!! guess that gives me time to go back and read what i didn't have time to read at the library. i loved seeing you today!! needed more eye contact though. i keep telling myself...i am not simply passing through, i am not, not just passing through.
i wish i could love a fever like this. this last fever i had with the kidney infection whateveritwas was just awful...but now that i think of it there was something (once my pain was nearly managable) about all the covers i was drowning in to spike my fever, and the unbelievable sweating, just buckets! it takes you places, but unlike silas, i do not get to halucinate. i'll just have to go on a vision quest for that.
did i mention i lovelovelove you??