July

The first two weeks of July were spent being sick. It was awful. The doctor said to drink fluids, get rest and take cough syrup because it was a virus- medicine wasn’t useful in this situation.

This will sound melodramatic, but it was one of those illnesses where you consider your life and decide, on the whole, that you’ve accomplished enough and was blessed with times of joy.

Then, because you can’t breathe (and everything you learned in biology class leads you to believe that filling your lungs with oxygen is important)- you prepare for death.

Sleep deprivation toys with your emotions, whispering bits of nonsense that suddenly seem illuminating:

“Think of all the times you’ve been on antibiotics. If you had lived hundreds of years ago, you would have died 7 or 8 times already. You’ve had a good run.”

“Maybe the doctor was wrong. You need a lot of medicine. Perhaps medicine that hasn’t even been invented yet.”

“They weren’t spraying for mosquitoes the other day, they were infecting the neighborhood with illness.”

After several days of this on-going foolishness, I awoke, capable of breathing just a little through my nose…my ribs not as sore, from all the coughing. This is progress, I thought. I’m getting better.

Even now, a month later there is an infrequent, nagging cough that hasn’t completely left me. A reminder that, by all accounts, this may be my ninth life, so I’d better make it good.

In the end, embracing foolishness is a small price to pay for someday having an opportunity at wisdom.