who needs insurance?

Today is my first day in a week wearing real pants instead of my awesome organic sweatshop free yoga pants from Maggie's Organics (www.maggiesorganics.com). I have been sick for about 10 days now, and didn't leave the house for the last 6 of them except to go to the thrift store to buy decorations for an Edgar Allan Poe party.

The worst part of this illness, which I at first referred to as tuberculosis until a friend mistakenly thought I actually HAD tuberculosis, is that I am so unused to being sick. I don't get sick, and if I do, I'm over it in a day, two tops. I often joke that it's OK that I don't have health insurance this year because I have the strongest immune system in the world, with the only caveat being that I am incredibly accident prone.

In the past 8 years I have fracture my skull, broken my ankle, ruptured an ear drum, and sustained three compression fractures, several bone chips, and a ruptured disc in my back. I have had to seek emergency medical care for a severe allergic reaction to an antibiotic and been hospitalized overnight for a drug overdose. I contracted a parasitic worm and, as a result, dysentery while in Kenya. I haven't been to the ER in over a year, which is the longest I have gone without going to the ER in 8 years. Some would say I'm due for an accident of some kind, and I am inclined to think they might be right.

I deal with pain pretty well, and know the drill for riding in ambulances (which, by the way, is really, really fun, except for the intense pain and fear of death part that often comes along with the ride). But sickness I do not do well with. I get incredibly frustrated- irate, even- when I am unable to breathe. I refuse to give in to the sickness, which means I often refuse to rest or stay home from work. I try to show the virus (or bacteria or evil mutant space germs) who is boss, but in this case, I just ended up feeling worse and worse. I TRIED to go to work, and they sent me home because I looked and sounded like death herself. So, I stayed home for a whole week. I cleaned everything in our house, drank my weight in tea, drank a WHOLE BEAR full of honey, and made cupcakes (which will probably infect everyone else in the house, oops!). I stayed in my pajamas and sweatshirt and caught up on my reading. But it was still awful. For all the days I lie in bed and wish I could stay home from work, I now know that the flip side, staying home all day every day, is worse. So today, despite a lingering cough and brief periods of light headedness, I am at work. And I'm not in yoga pants. And it feels good.

Please pass the honey.