Are there people who truly rock when they’re sick? Do their friends say things like, “Gosh, Fran, you’re funnier and brighter and more delightful than ever. You should get shingles more often!” Let me be clear. I’m never going to be the life of the party while I’m hooked up to an IV, taking a break between hurls into the toilet or nursing an owie from a hangnail I shouldn’t have pulled. I’m like most of us (except for, maybe, extreme hangnail sensitivity). I hate getting sick and, frankly, I suck at it.
I remember getting the flu during my first year in law school and my friend, Adrienne, banging on my apartment door, awakening me to check up on me. (Apparently, Adrienne didn’t ascribe to the belief that sleep is part of the healing process.) Naturally, I did not answer. I most likely had vomit remnants on my shirt, perhaps in my hair, and most definitely on and around the toilet. I was in no mood or condition to invite her in for tea and the latest stories about our most notorious ass-kissing classmates. (They were Republicans of a different era.)
To my horror, she let herself in. My surfer dude roomie never locked the damn door. I was lying in a lump on the living room carpet. It was a change of scenery from the past thirty hours moaning and puking in my bedroom. (I get the flu so rarely that each vomiting episode comes as a complete surprise. More? How can there be more? That’s not a kidney, is it?) The sheet that I’d wrapped myself in suddenly enveloped my entire body as if it were an invisibility cloak with a fundamental defect. I was certain she could see me. My frightful state must have been apparent because she was gone in seconds. It’s possible I yelled something nasty. To repeat: I don’t rock it as a sick person.
It's fortunate that I rarely fall ill. Adrienne and every other person who has seen me when I’m sick would tell you I’m a complete wuss. I’m well aware of this. I will never be the guy who wants a little bell by my bedside to ring someone every time I want more veggie broth, some Vicks VapoRub or an extra squeeze of lemon in my ginger tea which, incidentally, could use a little heating up. I will want you to go away as much as I want the sickness to go away. Misery does not always love company.
But it’s different when I’m dating. Sorry, Marry Poppins, but a boyfriend is way better than a spoonful of sugar. I don’t have to tone done my level of wuss-ness. My boyfriend should come to expect it. He should find something endearing about it in an absolutely-no-photos sort of way.
I don’t have much to say about John, the first guy I fell in love with. I was devastated when he dumped me—it didn’t help that he wanted to pursue things with a friend of mine and may or may not have already booked that flight to Detroit to meet the parents. (What?!) We weren’t much of a match, but you have to start somewhere, I suppose. Still, one of my fondest memories involved him driving through crawling traffic from Silver Lake to Pacific Palisades in Greater L.A. to see how I was doing when I came down with the flu while studying for the bar exam.
“You came!” Yes, I was thrilled to see him and perhaps a slight fever could explain why I didn’t take cover in a bedsheet as I had with Adrienne. Maybe this was the moment when my soon-to-be ex-friend, Rick, started to look more appealing. John witnessed and/or heard a couple of epic hurls, one spew landing mostly in the soup pot I’d placed on the floor by my bed just in case. He cleaned the pot and the toilet bowl—most likely the surrounding area, too. Add in the obvious risk of him getting sick because of me and I couldn’t shake the one clear thought that emerged from my fogginess, my nausea, my misery: This is love!
Haven't watched in years, I swear.
Yep, forget about the extravagance of some surprise helicopter ride to Catalina Island, the classic simplicity of a dozen red roses or being the second (of three) people to get an overnight Fantasy Suite invitation at a beachside resort in Bali—Why can’t I shake the clichés of “The Bachelor(ette)”? Cleaning up someone else’s vomit without being paid to do so is the ultimate romantic gesture.
Got the shot! But one nudge and
it wouldn't have mattered.
At present, I have COVID. I got it from my boyfriend’s best friend. I keep telling myself not to read anything into that. If he really resented me, he could have “accidentally” slipped and pushed me off St. Mark’s Summit a month ago as I leaned forward at the edge to take a picture of a cluster of black pine cones that appeared as though they’d been sprinkled with sugar. But then it was crowded with other hikers. So many witnesses.
Evan and I had spent an extra-long weekend together again, with me showing up at his place in Seattle early Thursday evening and heading back home to Vancouver Tuesday morning. I’d awakened that last morning with a bit of a cough, one that sounded and felt different from my standard cough that always triggers Evan to ask, only half-jokingly, “Do you have COVID?!” He didn’t ask this time. He just pulled his home test kits out of the medicine cabinet and we did that sexy dance of shoving Q-tips up our nasal cavities. I’d done these tests at least a dozen times, as part of requisite travel protocols and from when Evan got COVID from my mother. Not once had I worried about my own results. Even when Evan, my mother and my father all ended up getting COVID from a suddenly too memorable meet-the-parents lunch after their cruise disembarked in Seattle, I’d had full confidence I’d test negative every single time I checked. COVID couldn’t touch me. This was the first time my conviction wavered. Fifteen minutes passed in slow motion. Evan: negative. Me: negative.
It was a harder goodbye as I loaded my car. We wouldn’t be seeing each other for a couple of weeks. I was flying from Vancouver to Ottawa the next day to be at the family cottage for the first time in three years, a chance to see my parents again, my aunt, uncle and cousins—one of whom was getting married—and to see how much the youngest ones in the family had grown…walking, talking, reading…the oldest one mastering the art of tuning out every perpetually annoying adult to text SOS messages to friends. Evan was flying to New Mexico two days later to see friends and family. We’re still in the early stages of our relationship so it still feels odd balancing a feeling of looking forward to seeing familiar places and faces while dreading our own time apart. I should replace dreading—such a twenty-something’s overly dramatic word choice—with a healthier, more evolved description such as being inconvenienced. It would have made this paragraph more concise, to boot. Alas, this is me—wordy and not all that evolved.
Evan was present when I did test positive. I was holding him in my hand, his voice and image showing up on my phone screen as we FaceTimed. I’d taken too long getting back to him Tuesday evening after I said I was going to take another COVID test. My energy level had dropped significantly during the day, I had a headache and my other symptoms seemed to be spiking. I tried to will positive thoughts about testing negative. I wondered how Evan would respond after he realized what a hypochondriac I was. Who feigns fever sweats?
I delayed the test because one particular sign was especially hard to dismiss: I’d skipped exercising. I have an eating disorder. Exercise, doctors have told me, is my way of purging all the food I tell myself I shouldn’t have eaten on any given day. I have biked, jogged, swam, hiked or gone to the gym six days a week without fail for more than two and a half years. There are never acceptable excuses. Something was definitely up. So, yeah, Evan got on FaceTime and we waited for the timer to go off for me to check the test. I may have said, “Oh, shit,” but there was so much woven into that expression which I use so rarely. No cottage, no visit, no wedding, no gym time, no grocery shopping, no writing in cafés…and all of it without Evan.
Yeah, yeah, we’d still have FaceTime. It was the responsible thing, even if he seemed to have COVID immunity for now since he’d gone through his own recent bout. It was practical since this is another reality of long-distance relationships. It was not sitting well at all.
I went decades with an automatic internal messaging system sounding the same embarrassing, wimpy, illogical alarm whenever I got sick: I WANT MY MOMMY! Rationally, I know there is no curative power that comes with either a bowl of chicken noodle soup or regular doses of “You poor thing!” Still, Sick Me secretly likes a little coddling when I’m unwell. As Adrienne learned all those years ago, friends can’t fill that ticket. Let the baton pass from mother to boyfriend. Dammit all, both of them are off enjoying their travels, each duly texting at least once a day: “How are you feeling? What are your symptoms?” The only difference is that my mother’s come with punctuation and emojis and Evan’s include selfies with him in yet another western outfit perfect for his time in New Mexico, his smile both a comfort and a menace.
It’s Day 7 since that first positive test. I pulled out the last kit from box I got for free at the pharmacy and went through the routine yet again. “I’m fine,” I told myself. Symptoms? Not much more than pesky sniffles.
Positive again.
All this positivity is
stirring up negativity!
An hour later, I was sacked out on the couch, covered in a blankie, feeling exhausted while knowing a nap was utterly impossible as it’s been this whole week. (It has to do with my dang antidepressant meds.)
“I’m sick.”
I could’ve texted Evan but why? He’s hiking today. I’ll be treated to some great pics. Let this latest round of Woe Is Me pass. I may be missing out on one of those perks that’s supposed to come with having a boyfriend, but I’m positive Evan is one extremely lucky guy right now.
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