I have been ill for four or five days, but the long nights of retching coughs that burn the muscles in my chest make it feel much longer. The snot factory has gone into overdrive. My body fights a perennial battle between the need for sleep and the overarching necessity for breath. When I rise, coughing and spluttering, it is because my lungs are drowning in this excessive production of mucus.
For the first time in my life, I have lost all appetite. This is worrisome. I never stop eating. Miserable, happy, distraught, or beyond grief — my appetite has always been faithful. But not this time. I cannot face coffee or tea and force myself to sip water like medicine. Our vital organs, after all, require at least some liquid.
I felt the faint flicker of recovery yesterday and managed breakfast: tea and toast. However, last night brought a full return to snot production, and I, like a long-distance swimmer, lifted my head for coughs and then for air.
It is a strange business, this being unwell. I never understood the expression weary unto death, but I think I do now. I’ve learned a great deal these past five days and nights, and for those who wrestle with pain and discomfort year after year — what can I say? I drop to one knee in homage to your resilience and strength. None of us knows the loads carried by others, the dangerous paths they are forced to tread.
To judge is, indeed, a flawed act. Even this bloody snot factory has taught me something.
