How do you know if you are sick?

So far in my adventures in solo parenting I have managed to:  not sleep; leave the lights on in the car, running the battery dead; discovered that the car does not have a set of jumper cables; and realized that I can't just "call" AAA.  I am doubly grateful to Lesley and Michael today for waiting when they dropped me off so I could discover the dead battery and for having a set of jumper cables.  Other than that, things are fine except I am tired and I miss Kelly.

No, I am not sick, so do not freak out about the title of this post.  I've been thinking about this topic because usually one of the first things people ask when they hear I had cancer is, "How did you find it?"  Everyone knows about breast self-exams and mammograms, there are countless jokes about the special exams men get at the doctor involving gloves, and "slide down to the end of the table" usually proceeds most ladies 'annual' fun.  No, I didn't run soapy hands over my tongue once a month, nor did it get squeezed in a box or scraped.  It did get palpated with several different gloved hands and eventually had a chunk cut out for biopsy, but those are after the fact.  Always ask your dentist for an oral cancer screening. Always.

When I was growing up, there was an unspoken rule in our house: vomiting = sick.  Fever, rash, cough, or limp would not do it.  The only way out of going to school was to vomit.  My dad was the one who had to make the judgement call as my mom worked graveyard and usually didn't get home before we had to leave. Because of this fact, I learned to vomit very, very loudly so that there would be no question that I was sick enough to stay home.  I also figured out how to ignore most other kinds of sickness.

When I got to college, the first time I had a cold, I honestly could not decide if I was too sick to go to class or not.  I hadn't vomited.  Who knows if I had a fever.  I felt crappy, but did I feel so crappy that I couldn't go to class?  I don't know.  I still don't know.

Somehow I managed not to get chicken pox when everyone else in third grade got them, but I got them spectacularly as a freshman in college.  There was no questioning if I was going to class or not.  I actually broke out on a wind ensemble trip to Elko and had to ride back to Reno in a state car.  I was quarantined from campus and the dorm.  Thank goodness Dawn's family was willing to take me in, or I have no idea what I would have done. But someone else made the judgement call, not me.

Since not all sickness comes with such clear indicators as the pox, I continued to struggle with this problem. It didn't help that my day care employer for all of college and beyond had stringent rules about calling in sick.You weren't sick unless a doctor said you were sick and even then you should stop complaining and come to work, or else.  I worked on various occasions with pink eye so bad I could barely open my eyes, the chills so bad I had a heating pad stuffed up my shirt, crushing migraines, and even one shift where I vomited not only all over myself, but several parents picking up their kids.  My dad's vomit rule didn't apply here-- they gave me a clean shirt to wear and I worked the rest of my shift.

Given this history, it is not a really big surprise that I often let things go to long. It also doesn't help that there is no obscure drug reaction that I can't manage to have.  So let yourself get really sick knowing that there aren't that many medications you'll be able to take.  Good plan.

But when bad things happen, you ignore them and go on.  Not going to graduate college on time? Go to work. Got beat up by your boyfriend and he's in jail? Deliver HIS paper route and then go to work. Have a nearly gangrenous gall bladder that needs to be removed? Down that Tylenol and go to work.

I had a nasty case of bronchitis that took months to clear up and another time a raging sinus infection that, again, took months to clear.  The doctor was surprised and kept asking me if I was taking my antibiotics as prescribed.  Why, yes, yes I was.  What he didn't ask was, had I taken a single day off to get some rest? Had I gone to bed early or drank a lot of clear fluids?  Had I altered my life in anyway other than taking antibiotics and feeling like crud? No, no I had not.

In fairness, I have not had the flu in at least 15 years.  I've only had a flu shot once in my life even though I am in the high risk group and I'm supposed to get it every year.  I haven't had a cold in at least ten years, even when everyone else in my house is terribly sick.  Some say it is because my immune system is great from all those years of working in day care and public schools.  Others say it is because my body doesn't bother to fight anything off and just harbors the sickness, turning it into things like cancer.  I can't say.  I do know that ignoring my health for all of those years probably wasn't the smartest thing I could have done.

I don't know when I am tired, thirsty, hungry, or have to go to the bathroom.  I don't know when I am sick. I don't know how to relax.  Maybe it is a miracle I lasted this long without getting some hideous reminder that I am human and have to pay attention to my body and the messages it sends.

When it sends me a very clear message that ends up costing me my entire tongue, I really need to listen.

By the way, if you feel like you are having an everything is going wrong kind of day/week/month/year, you may want to read this:  http://www.marcandangel.com/2014/01/08/8-things-to-remember-when-everything-goes-wrong/

This comic today made me think of my last post about relaxing.  I have been Cousin Dickie, but I have also been on trips with him.




Things for me to try: an agenda-less vacation, acupuncture, being in tune with my body, relaxing, and buying a set of jumper cables for the car.  Also, taking in more calories as all my clothes are getting too loose. Since I am parent on duty, probably going to bed, too, as I'll need to be getting her up and dressed and on the bus tomorrow morning.  Until tomorrow...