Be Thankful For Your Health

I was sick this weekend. So disgustingly sick. I blame chicken. Those filthy dirty birds with skinny scaly feet. Ya, I said it. I hate chicken.

I spent two nights on the bathroom floor hugging the porcelain throne. My wonderful Mother dropped everything she was doing and raced to Target to buy all of their anti-neausea medications. Upon dropping them at my back door she wisely declared, "It smells in here. I am leaving."

So it was bad. After being confined to my closet-sized bathroom for the weekend, I took an adventure to my sofa with a bucket and watched 4 consecutive seasons of SVU followed by 3 of Glee which was followed by all of Orange is the New Black and then ended with Grease, Hairspray, The Sandlot and finally Pocahontas. It was a colorful weekend. And I am proud to say I am back in the office this morning laughing like a mad woman because I feel so healthy. 

At one point, around 5 a.m. Friday morning, I stood up and looked in the mirror. Half of my face was checkered by the grooves of my bathroom floor tile. I looked in the mirror and I thought, how do people do this in Uganda? I was surrounded by modern plumbing, air-conditioning, down comforters, a pharmacy of drugs, Gatorade, Jello & Netflix. And still I was miserable. How do they do it? Returning to my tiled floor I imagined it was the red dirt of a Ugandan hut. My heart shattered into a thousand pieces. All of the sudden I imagined what it really felt like to be so terribly ill and not have access to anything that could take the pain away. I started crying which led to convulsing which led to heaving which led to more crying and then convulsing and then you get the idea.

I've written before about how extremely grateful Americans should be for their access to healthcare. This experience really shocked the core of me (and not in the obvious way my core was shocked this weekend). What if I lived somewhere else in the world. What if. What if. What if. I feel healthy today but I do not feel better.

And I am slapping myself for not going to medical school.