I am sick and tired...

...of being sick and tired.

Flu is the worst, short of an illness that is actually life-threatening. But you feel like you're to die.

Oy, my head, the pain 24 hours a day for three days. I tried Advil, Aspirin, Tylenol (or the generic equivalents), decongestants, prescription headache medicine but nothing but a can of Diet Red Bull and a half of a ten year old tablet of Vicodin cleared my head enough that I could get out of bed, call my doctor, and make an appointment....where she said, basically, drink lots of fluids and get lots of sleep.

Gee, thanks very much. (I get sarcastic and cranky when I feel like death). I didn't really expect much help from the doctor for something like the flu but she did point out that I was very dehydrated which can turn a bad headache into one where you want to cut the damn thing off.

I think part of my headache was from caffeine withdrawal....you can't go from three cups a day to nothing for three days and not have your body complain, loudly. That's why I thought of trying the Red Bull...there was no way my stomach could take a real cup of coffee but luckily the carbonated caffeine was much easier to take.

The cramps and nausea...one moment I'm an iceberg, piling blankets on top of me and the next moment I have to take off all of my clothes...the erratic sleep and the mild hallucinations (me, the Rolling Stones living in a bed and breakfast in a treehouse? I'm just usually not that creative. Great furniture though).

When I can stop for a moment from rolling around in self-pity, it makes me realize how relatively healthy I have been, cold and flu-wise. I only get these bouts every five or six years so it is easy to forget what pure misery they are.

Ironically, at the beginning of the week, I actually had a lot stuff I wanted to write about but when you can't lift your head off the pillow, it's hard to think coherently enough to form sentences that anyone will be able to follow.

Hey, maybe those might make for more interesting blog entries than the ones I usually write. Let's raise a glass of ginger ale, eat some saltines and toast to good health.

Blah, blah, blah

I've been wrestling with a cold the past few days and so far, the cold has won. That, plus losing the cat has left me logy (one of my mother's favorite words) and uninspired. No witty thoughts or keen observations or eccentric musings have come to mind so I've basically been shying away from this blog. I mean, we all have our blah-blah days and who wants to read about someone else's?

The only news in my life worth commenting upon is that my class is now taking trips to visit churches in NYC. Last Sunday we went to a Buddhist (BCA) service that was pretty conventional (English language, hymn singing) but was different enough for these primarily Christian students. They seemed to find it interesting which was the whole point of the visit, to get them to "see" church environments with new eyes. We start with the unfamiliar and then they take this keener vision and apply it to their own religious communities.

The people at the church were exceedingly welcoming to us and had fixed a nice meal for us after the service. This Sunday I'll take a different group of students to a Korean church which should be a bit more unusual (all in Korean language) for them to experience. After that, I'll start visiting my student's churches which are spread out throughout the city from Harlem to the Lower East Side.

This should keep me busy as I'm supposed to be doing my own field research at the same time. I have yet to find a church to work with but since there are thousands of churches/temples/synagogues/religious centers in the NYC metro area, it is just a matter of finding a good fit. The variety can be a bit overwhelming though.

I hope that somewhere there is some time during the week to devote to my writing. But it is clear that I'll have to MAKE time for it as there are only 24 hours in a day and right now the schedule seems pretty filled...quite a change from just a month ago!

Oh well, time to take my next dose of Vitamin C and "Emer'gen'C" (tangerine flavor).

Choppers

I just got home from a 3 hour dental appointment....my 12th in 5 months. It's been hard to bear. I hadn't seen a dentist for at least a decade and I avoided them because I'm on a fixed income and I have no health insurance.

But a friend told me about a local dental school that I could go to that had a sliding scale and student doctors with professional supervision. It took a lot of phone calls to actually set up an appointment but I got evaluated and was pleased and surprised to find I had no problems at all (lucky I have good genes), but there was such this minor, optional, elective procedure I could undergo that might prevent a tooth from cracking in the future. But it was up to me. I went for it, mainly because I could actually afford their rates and because it was a teaching hospital and there were dozens of professional dentists around to advise in case my student doctor ran into complications.

Well, here I am, 5 months later and what was supposed to take 3 visits has taken 12 and they told me to plan on at least 2 more...and the visits last between 3 and 3 1/2 hours. It hasn't been torture (they have great painkillers now) but it has been tedious, tiresome and frustrating. And there is no one I can even get mad at about it all!

My student doctor is a sweetheart, young, eager, well-intentioned, and a bit of a perfectionist. But "things", I've continually been told, didn't go as planned. Unforeseen consequences. What they thought would work, didn't work, so they had to start from scratch with another procedure, then ran into problems with that one, etc. etc. It's been an exercise in patience and it makes me wonder how people cope with dialysis or chemotherapy, those uncomfortable and timeconsuming procedures people undergo which can actually save your life. What a trial that must be...I think it would either build my character or leave me a bitter woman!

I guess what I'm left with from this experience is that being well-intentioned might make you a nice person but isn't an integral ingredient to success. They are not opposed to each other (you can be both well-intentioned and successful), but being well-intentioned just isn't enough when you are trying to accomplish something (do a medical procedure, right a wrong, build a career, write a frickin' dissertation, etc.). It's best to try to mesh your good intentions with knowledge, experience, and the drive to reach your goal in a timely fashion, whatever that may be (get this damn tooth crowned) or however long you consider to be timely (last November).

Resilence

Buffy is an old cat who lives in my house. She's tanish-orange, 19 years old, and normally unaffectionate. She has a howl that would raise the dead. Her fur is matted in places and she no longer cleans herself. She spends most of her time sleeping on one of our heaters to warm herself. But, as Willow said in a BtVS episode, she just won't die! She's got a tenacious spirit that holds on despite every indication that she should be on her last legs. She goes days without eating and then bounces back to her normal, howling self.

In some ways she reminds me of my grandmother (grandfather's second wife), a tough, tough lady who was born in 1900 and lived through the joys and pains of a century. She didn't want to make a big deal of it when she turned 100 but her relatives wanted a big party so they threw her one, everyone trekked out to the small town she lives in and she made her obligatory appearance at the party, saying thanks, accepting good wishes, and eating a piece of cake. And then two days after, after all of the guests had left her little desert town, she passed away. She hadn't been sick but she was clearly done with this world and she had the willpower to continue living because she didn't want to disappoint her family. But after she fulfilled her obligation and everyone had been able to gather and celebrate together, she said, "Okay, now I'm out of here!"

I wish I had a bit more of this survivor mentality, not enough to make me as tough as these two are/were, but enough to weather the unfairness and injustices of life without getting so bruised. Maybe I should reconsider one of my grandmother's favorite expressions that she use to say in the last couple of decades of her life: "I never thought I'd be content with so little". I use to think that this was a sign of having overly low expectations but now I think maybe it reflects an attitude of gratitude for what you do have instead of being preoccupied with what you think you are entitled to.