Everything Stops (Blog #319)

Shit, the flu.

Last night I took Mom and me to a walk-in clinic. We both have the flu. The doctor said I was probably “on the front end of it” and Mom was probably in the middle of it. Later Dad said he hoped that meant he was at the end of it, since he got it first. Anyway, we’re a fine crew around here. Mom and Dad are currently watching Days of Our Lives–hacking their way through every minute of it–and I’m laid up in bed.

Today is definitely worse than yesterday. I spent the night cold and hot, cold and hot, and now am starting to get congested. It hurts to stand up. It hurts to think. The doctor last night wrote me a prescription for Tamiflu, so I may pick that up shortly. Well, my aunt said she would. Either way, I have mixed feelings about it. I don’t always do well with pills and side effects. Then again, I clearly don’t do well with the flu either.

One upside to being sick is that I don’t have much of an appetite. In other words, I already feel skinnier! (Gay guys think about their waistlines constantly, Mom.) My therapist had the flu recently, and as she said, “I’m only two more viruses away from fitting into my favorite jeans.”

I’ve been thinking about how everything stops when you get sick like this. Yesterday I blogged but didn’t journal, something I’ve done every day for the last six months. Likewise, my chi kung session, which is normally thirty minutes, got cut to five minutes. Today I’d planned to do some marketing work, then get up early tomorrow to interview someone on the phone for a writing project. But all of that is coming to a halt for now. My body simply can’t. (Stop, stop, stop.) Instead, I’ll probably finish this blog and watch a movie, maybe try eating a piece of fruit, even though chewing feels like it should be an Olympic sport at the moment.

I’m not exactly sure how to wrap this up. My brain has stopped too.

Shit, the flu.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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We can hang on and put everything safely in its place, and then at some point, we’re forced to let go.

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