Let Me Tell You . . .

I remember how much I loved staying home from school when I was a little girl. Sniffles, fever, coughing (and the associated cough medicine!) were no problem! (Cue the sentimental music) I'd get to stay in bed and read or crochet all day. There would be a glass of water by my bedside, with maybe a plate of cheese or peanut butter Ritz crackers. I remember emerging from my room only to refill my glass or use the bathroom, or maybe catch an episode of Let's Make a Deal, the $10,000 Pyramid, or The Price is Right. It was even better when my grandmother came out to stay for the day, because she would make me hot soup and tea with lemon or some Junket or tapioca pudding if my stomach was upset. With her there, I could bundle up in blankets on the couch and maybe even have a fire while I watched the birds outside the window. After a few days, I'd emerge from my cocoon, healthy, refreshed, and ready to face the world again. (Record scratch)

Yes, then is not now.

Dan was the first to get sick. I remember telling him, "I've got this. If you need anything, I'll get it done. I've got a decent immune system and I haven't been sick in five years. At most, I'll probably get some sniffles."

I was being sincere. As a cancer survivor, Dan's immune system is still not at full strength. With him being 81, you can understand how we'd both be concerned about "Influenza A" turning into bronchitis or pneumonia. Neither of us were pleased when the hospital sent him home with a steroid shot after giving him an IV drip, but there it was. I made certain his dogs and his chickens were fed, chicken tractors moved, eggs collected and put up. I brought in enough wood to keep his house toasty warm, and shopped for food and medicine. I also managed to keep processing venison, somehow, for the first week.

At that point, someone, somewhere, forgot the rule: The Man and The Woman must never be sick at the same time.

If you're a woman, you Get It. I am not being disrespectful to Dan or to men in general. I'll say it loud, so that even the people in the back can here without me using a microphone: MEN ARE AMAZING! Most men are programmed with a Provider Gene that just won't quit. Dan helps me even when it means that he'll be eating Ramen noodles for the rest of the month. Even when he was getting chemo, he was the first one crawling under the cottage when my pipes burst that first winter that he had cancer. But from the first sniffle, men are babies when they get sick. Never mind that The Woman (especially The Rural Woman) is unable to hold down dry toast, if The Man is sick, she's "doing." You remember the old adage, "a man works from sun to sun, but a woman's work is never done?" <That.

Dan had been sick and weak for about five days when I noticed that my throat was feeling scratchy. I stubbornly fought it off for another couple of days, telling myself that a few doses of cough medicine and a few good nights' sleep would fix me right up. After a few days, I had to give up the venison as a bad job: I was hardly able to stand, the daytime temperatures weren't climbing out of the mid-forties, and the wind was terrible. I was still doing the chores for both homesteads, still driving Dan to the doctor, still doing the shopping. Something had to give. The writing had already gone, given that I couldn't sit up or make my mind focus for more than a couple of words at a time. After the third day of waiting for Dan at the doctor's office and having to finish venison and chores after it got dark and into the thirties, I decided that venison had to give, too. We'll miss it when it comes to buying dog food come May, but we'll survive.

It was when I made the two-hour round trip to Walmart in a thunderstorm to get Dan's medication and our groceries that I decided that I'd had enough. I bought a rotisserie chicken for supper and for soup making--a luxury that I almost never stop to get. On the way home, I stopped at Dollar General and loaded up on their brand of Cold and Flu medicine, cough drops, and Vitamin C with Zinc gummies. And yes, toaster pastries. Blood sugar? Pffft, whatever. If it tasted good and I could keep it down, that was on the menu. I went right home, fed the goats, ate my chicken, and went to bed. Dan had prohibited me from driving up his hill, as he anticipated that there might be ice driving down the hill, and I was actually happy to listen.

The next day, I huddled in bed until 7:15--far later than my usual 5:15 wakeup time. I made coffee, gave the dogs my leftover breakfast of grits and eggs, then crawled back into bed. Sometime around 11, I got up again and made the chicken soup. I allowed myself to lie down again until about 2:00, but that was all the resting on the couch that I got that day. When I was a little girl, I may have been tasked with topping off the kibble bowl for the cats and refilling their water, but now I had a winter garden to cover with plastic to prevent the weather from killing it. I had cats and goats to feed. The trough to check. Quail in their pen. Diva needed to go out and exercise (I'll get into that more in another article!) Marching around to the litany of "I hate dogs, I hate cats, I hate chickens, I hate goats, I hate quail, but I particularly hate the garden," dragged myself through the chores, only to have to go up to Dan's, eat supper, and do chores up there. Naturally, I don't hate any of those things, but at the time you could have given me back my keys to my apartment in Metairie and I'd have taken them, and do so gratefully. Hey, at least there I had access to an in-ground swimming pool and didn't have to do any pool maintenance!

Thus it went for two weeks. Dan had given me an iced tea maker for Christmas, because I'd given HIM one for his birthday and had expressed interest in it. I think that I practically bathed in iced tea with lemon, alternating it with oceans of coffee and at least a few gallons of just plain water. Ramen noodles and dry toast were my boon companions. I knew I was getting better when I felt the urge to have some sweet chili sauce on my noodles. Recovery, like hope and like spring, was just around the corner. After several days of "being able to do stuff," I still have a significant cough, but my energy is returning and I'm able to do more before tiring.

The great news is that I have so much to share with you, some good, some bad, and some, like spring and recovery, a bit hopeful. I look forward to posting more regularly again next week and I hope that you will join me as I journey through the upcoming year. As the late, great Stan Lee used to say: Excelsior!