It Ain't Easy Feeling Green

“Health is the natural condition. When sickness occurs, it is a sign that Nature has gone off course because of a physical or mental imbalance. The road to health for everyone is through moderation, harmony, and a 'sound mind in a sound body'.”
― Jostein Gaarder, Sophie's World

Being sick is nothing short of hell. 

Your head aches from swollen sinuses and mucus. Your bed has become the Gravitron ride, never ceasing its infernal spinning. Your stomach feels too full and wont stop jitter bugging. There is no control over body temperature or the room's air supply! There is no dam to ebb the flow of your fever sweat. Every stitch of fabric is trying to snuff your life out, but it is better than being outside the protection of it in the harsh 'cold' room. Sneezing hurts, and no amount of soft tissues will sooth the burn that's encasing your nostrils! Your lungs are having a tea party outside in the garden every time you cough, and your throat cough light up Amsterdam its so red! You're achy all over and just want to sleep. No matter how tired you are, sleep eludes you.

However, none of that is worse than missing something you have been waiting weeks for due to illness or injury. I have had to miss three fun days out due to awfulness! I was so tired and busy, I have not even checked the blog. Sorry y'all. Needed some rest desperately! I missed a goofy party, a live game show, and the Pride parade! Thank god for fantastic friends, or my theatre tickets would have gone to a total waste too! 

Is it just me, or do people judge others severely when they are ill or injured?

I always feel guilty when I cannot attend something or do something because I am under the weather or my foot has decided to become troublesome again. It makes me self-conscious. People will think less of me or look at me in a different light because of it. At least, that is what the little voice in my head says. That's the reason I usually push myself to go further, to do more, when I am feeling lousy of in a bit of pain. I once broke my ankle and performed in a walking cast that same day. A few weeks later, in another show, I was doing cartwheels in that same walking cast. All so I could show how dedicated I was, to prove I was reliable and could pull through. An ankle is no foot though. And an injury is not illness.

Honestly though, what blows more than missing out on fun due to . . . well, blowing chunks? Sorry for the visual, and the tacky puns, but a party girl is loosing out on fun due to tummy troubles. Whatever was bugging me has finally been resolved! The relief is undeniable and unending! I think the only truly good thing about being sick . . . possibly the way you can kinda let go and accept doing nothing. I can watch cartoons, eat matzo ball soup, listen to an audio book. Nothing really that physically or mental active. Just enough that I can distract myself from feeling icky. 

Was Getting Sick Better When We Were Small? Do I Remember That Wrong?

When we were kids, our parents had ways they would take care of us (or not, if you had a different sort of childhood/parenting situation going on). My mom always makes chicken noodle soup with broken angle hair pasta, extra celery, and would bring me lime juice. My dad would make very un-amusing jokes about me being sick, or tell me stories about how he was sick back in the day. I cannot tell you the amount of times I've heard the story of how he got drunk, ruined his mother's brand new carpets, and was told he'd get to sleep in the backyard if he was not better house trained. The punch line of this tale from my father's childhood? He got to sleep outside the second time he pulled that. Sometimes the five of us would just sit together. Other times I was kinda left in my room so no one else would get sick, and mom would check on me. She'd come bearing gifts (of soup, water bottles, a towel, a magazine, a thermometer, medicines) and then be off. When you live in a house with three kids, and only one of them is sick, you are desperately trying to keep everyone as healthy as possible.

 

Wish I had thought about the oven mitts!

I could miss school, I could stay in bed all day to paint, relax, do my homework that was due the next day. Being a kid and being sick was the best, unless it was serious sick. Like the chicken pox! That was a hell of a bad time! I remember throwing up right before my mom saw the first dot, in front of my entire first grade class. Not smart was I. She taught me what to do instead of scratch, slap the spots or put on calamine lotion. Any and every itch was met with the same love as a mosquito on the back of your neck.

What do you do when you are sick?

But now, my audience, we are but humble 20 somethings who have just flown the nest. We are just starting out on our own, living in our own spaces, working mind numbing or fun filled jobs. How do we handle getting sick? Do ya journey on, pretending you're healthy until it's true? Do you 'keep a stiff upper lip' and pop some medicine to get through the day? How do any of us cope with illness and injury, now that we are not only responsible for ourselves, but for our jobs too? Someone, anyone, please tell me.  

Bye For Now XX

How To Deal With: Old Injuries 1 (The Morning of the Cripple)

When an old injury acts up, usually it doesn't mean you cannot continue your day right? Maybe pop a few pain killers or some anti-inflammatory pills, and you can push through the day until you can climb back into be and ice it. But when you have an injury to the foot, and one that has required not 1 but 2 major surgeries, your day is shot. Well, to be more accurate, what you had planned on being your day is shot, and a new kind of day unfurls at your...feet...
horrible pun...

 

A lisfranc injury - one you should actually only get if a horse stomps on you, not if you slide 6 feet, barefoot, in a rehearsal space during an acting class warm up at 9 in the morning - is a bitch. You wake up one day, it is a little stiff. you spend about 15 min in bed making sure it is okay to walk on, by stretches and exercises you have learned from over a year of Physical therapy, and then carry on with your day. That night you elevate it for a little while. I am supposed to ice it at night, or whenever it hurts badly, but I don't. Where am I to get ice on a train in the middle of London?? But some mornings, you forget to elevate it the night before (for like 2 weeks), and you do your morning's 15 minute check-if-I-am-good-to-walk test and all seems fine. Until, even through the fog and dreaminess of your sleepy brain, you put your foot on the ground and try to stand. And instantly you are awake, eyes bugging out of your head cause it is 7 am, people are sleeping so you cannot cry out, and your brain tells you in a frightened sad voice, 

"I don't think you can make that long commute today. Yesterday you had no seat on either side of the train journeys and walked back to the house when you should have taken the bus."

After hating myself for about 10 whole minutes, I tried to convince myself it wouldn't be so bad, that I could do it! A good pep talk can make armies run to battle, a girl feel confidant in herself enough to head to school, but not today. The second I tried to bare weight on that injured foot again, I knew I couldn't do it. I wouldn't have been able to walk down the stairs to put my shoes on. Or put my shoes on! So, hating myself for an additional 10 minutes, solely thinking about how my class needs me, and I must get to school to help them with our stuff, my boyfriend just stares at me. Worry, mixed with a bit of awe at the conversation in my head maybe, and trying to put his foot down...god I hate these puns...about making me stay to nurse myself for tomorrow and relax today.

Now I am in bed, with three elastic tension bands, an ice pack, a laptop, and a cheap top-up mobile to call into school to let them know I cannot come in. You feel guilty with an injury like this. You are needed or are desperately excited to do something vital for the day, but you have to take care of your injury instead. After a while, some people - who shall remain name-less on here but not face-less in my head - have thought I was milking my pain out so I could get out of doing things, or faking the injury for attention. 

Trust me bitches, FUCK YOU. 

 

If I could fake this, I would be so much happier. Then I could wear high heels again, dance all night and still be fine to go to the gym in the morning. I hate that this happened to me. I was isolated in a room for 3 months after the first surgery, my whole summer spent in doors and in such horrible pain (I had to crawl down the stairs, more than once, to use to bathroom. You don't know dignity until you had to hop on one leg for 3 weeks every time you had to throw up or pee or god forbid both.). Then, not fully recovered, pretended that the pain had ebbed and went to school in another country. Anytime it was unbearably awful, I had to tell a faculty member, and it was embarrassing. The second summer of pain was not as bad, because I know knew the joys of the internet (previously, all I used it for was research and online games. I now know of reddit, pinterest, and other just addictions) and what to expect of the pain. 
Today is the first in many weeks I have been physically halted in my tracks...fucking puns...

I will be fine, is my mantra. 
It will get better, the other mantra. 

I hope so, inner me. I do hope so.

Bye For Now!