the unbearable lightness of being

I rarely get sick.  I am disgustingly healthy, to the point that the only time I go to the doctor every year is to make sure he hasn't forgotten what I look like since the last time I saw him.  This week that changed.  I was struck down by a virus.

My son and daughter in law had it first.  They caught it from one of her family members.  I never catch viruses...you know those viruses that last a few days and make you think you are going to die, and at some point make you wish you would die...that kind of virus.  I took off Monday to work on some art samples for our studio classes for January.  I can remember it like a dream.  I was standing in the bedroom cleaning up and making the bed and I got really dizzy for a minute.  Then about an hour later I had a small wave of nausea.  That was the only warnings I got.

Then WHAM, my muscles  started aching, I started having chills that lasted about 5 hours, and eventually I was trotting to the bathroom so often the seat never had a chance to cool off.  That was the mechanics of it.

The other side of it was the weirdness of the thoughts I was having.  I was laying flat on my back most of yesterday and today looking at the ceiling.  Things look so different when you are feverish and just slightly delusional.  I felt like I was almost outside my body...it was this weird lightness, like I was floating.  I knew I wasn't really floating, and the only thing outside my body by then was my butt hole from  those trips to the bathroom.  Your thought patterns are different when you are sick.  I noticed at one point that the toilet paper Steve bought was that ultra strong, soft kind that doesn't leave pieces on your butt when you wipe.  I remember thinking that it was almost psychic that he bought that kind (we had an ongoing argument about toilet paper, I theorized that kind might last longer than that thin stuff that has a million sheets in a roll, and he kept snorting at me when I would bring the subject up).  I was so grateful that Steve had brought the soft kind home the other day, and it probably saved my butt from scarring.

I also noticed that my appetite was gone.  I mean totally gone.  And I remember thinking that if I could stay at that point for about 3 months,  I wouldn't have to make dieting my New Year's resolution for the thirtieth year in a row. 

Then there was the lightness of emptiness.  Believe me, after that many trips to the bathroom, the floating sensation I was having was becoming a reality.  I was a wisp of my former self, a hollow shell.  It is the only benefit of this thing that has ravaged my gut.  I am sure when I put my jeans on again they will just hang on my frame.  To the point I may need a whole size smaller.  It's no problem though, I have the wardrobe of three different women, and could dress for three years in just about any size without shopping.

Ok, so I'm still delusional.  And off to sample the toilet paper again...