They call it the common cold for a reason. We all get sick. It’s supposed to be normal, and then we all recover. Except when your immune system’s been compromised, you’re never quite so sure. You scrutinize every sneeze, sweat the fevers, choke back the sore throats, stress over the aches and coughs.
And standing up to 15 hours of watch a day, you don’t have a chance to slow down and sleep it off. You dope yourself up with cold medicine, swallow gallons of water and hot chocolate and cough syrup, and hope the watch will be busy, to distract you.
Eventually the cold medicine wears off, or maybe you’re just building up resistance, or maybe the cold is getting worse (you worry). The pseudoephedra starts clouding up your vision like the steroids did; you’re blind when you first wake up, and no amount of blinking and squinting focuses the picture. The fever’s broken, but you can’t stop coughing. You lose your voice at first, then it abruptly returns, but only in lower, raspy registers; and when you try to sing, out come these strange chirps.
You’ve tried not to think about it, but you’re counting the days, and when, after 7 days you’re still sick, you can’t escape the lurking despair anymore: I had an immune system disease, after all.
Your fingers start reaching, feeling, searching for swollen lymph nodes: neck, collarbone, armpits, thighs. It doesn’t matter nothing’s there. You still worry. You still look.
The recirculated cold air blowing down your throat, the short nights of just a few hours’ sleep before waking for another watch, the close-quarters contact with other ill folks, the stress and noise and uncertainty that keep you up even when you’re in the rack; maybe this is why you’re not getting well, but that’s not the thought foremost in your mind, undercutting all your conscious powers.
One day you wake up after a decent amount of sleep and your head is clear, your chest clear, your sinuses clear. Your voice is back and the cough has stopped, but you open your mouth to sing and still it’s the chirps coming out. And your hand instinctively starts feeling again, searching, dreading.
You still wonder. You still worry. You still feel.
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2 comments:
Hey V!
Just checking back in - always love to read your stuff.
All of us survivors share this lament, and, while it eases after a while, I'm not sure it ever really goes away. When our lives get turned upside down so unexpectedly, I'm not sure we ever trust as completely as we once did.
Fortunately - it's usually just the common cold!
I had voice issues early on as well - and as a singer myself that was upsetting. But I'm singing again - and rarely crackle! Time does heal.
Hope you are feeling cold-free!
That is reassuring! My voice seemed to be fine initially, until I got sick and coughed a lot. Even when I felt better - even now - my upper range is gone entirely and I just croak like a frog.
I hope eventually I get my vocal chords back, but hey, Beethoven composed while deaf!
Did you ever have a problem with scars not healing? I've gotten a variety of scrapes and bruises on this deployment, all minor, but they're leaving scars all over the place.
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