When I get sick, I get selfish

I said to myself, “Relax and rest. GOD has showered you with blessings. Psalm 116:7 (The Message)

Maybe it was my New Year’s midnight dance in the foggy pasture chasing my horse or maybe it was the hoards of people that I mingled with after one of the largest attended funerals I can remember seeing in a long time. Whatever the cause, the New Year started with a raging sinus infection that progressed to my throat and lungs. I spent the first work day of the New Year in the doctor’s office instead of at my desk. I don’t believe I have written here before of my love affair with our allergist. Not only is he handsome and kind, but he is a Christian who prays for you and sends home a bag full of samples so you don’t have to brave the pharmacy when you feel like crud. Armed with an arsenal of inhalers and high powered antibiotics, I came back home instead of rushing to work like I have been known to do. To heck with the piles of paper and the New Year’s resolutions to be proactive finishing tasks in a day, I went to bed. Because when I get really sick, I get selfish and I do things I would not normally do. Like drink the last of the orange juice without asking if anyone else wants any first. Like telling adult children to fix their own lunch and while they are at it they can fix mine. Like making cinnamon toast with extra sugar and leaving the cookie sheet on the stove for someone else to clean. Like walking past dirty floors and piles of laundry to my bedroom where I take a nap in the middle of the afternoon and threaten anyone with death who wakes me up banging the microwave door or thumping down the stairs. They believe me for a change because my raspy, asthma induced breathlessness reminds them of Linda Blair in the Exorcist. I sleep all afternoon so that when husband comes home, I am wide awake simultaneously surfing the internet and hogging the remote. Forget husband’s desire to watch bang, bang shoot em up television shows. I am in the middle of a “Say Yes to the Dress” marathon. I have a closet addiction to wedding shows that I manage to keep under control unless under the influence of sinus pills and Advil. Except for Bridezillas which no medication can make me enjoy, I love a good wedding. While husband tossed restlessly in the bed beside me, I stayed glued to my spot until 10:00 when I noticed he had a pillow over his head. For a moment I thought he might be trying to kill himself until I heard snoring and decided I too should go to sleep. And now, the day after, I feel better and it is time to go back to work. I wonder whatever came over me. Why didn’t I scrub floors or do laundry while I was home all day? I can only blame it on a bad case of selfishness!