I like to think that I have a pretty resilient immune
system. I haven’t really been “sick” in a very long time, other than allergies
and the like…at least that was the case before I had a daughter. My daughter
attends pre-school now, and I have found that pre-school is merely a facade for
what is really a system of clandestine laboratories that specialize in
producing biological warfare agents.
It all started
innocently enough one morning when getting my daughter ready for school. She
had a minor cough (which for her, was as far as it would progress) that really
didn't seem like any cause for alarm. That is, until I picked up her, her lunch
box, my backpack, her backpack, her milk cup and her bag of pre-school, nap
time linens to carry everything (in the world, apparently) to the car so we
could load up and make our way to school and work. About the time I was able to
hoist myself back into an upright position after being laden like some pack
animal, is when she coughed directly into my face from point blank range. I
felt the microscopic droplets of poison being ejected from my daughter’s mouth
splatter against my eyeballs and into my open mouth. I shook my head in disgust
and disbelief and reminded her that we must always cover our mouths when we
cough, and she obliged by burying her mouth into the crook of her elbow and
uttering a fake cough. “SEE, I DID IT!” Yes, indeed she had. Oblivious to the fate that loomed before me, we
went about our day.
A chain reaction
of biological catastrophes were set in motion that morning which just a few
days later would have me laid up with pneumonia. No doubt, this entire scenario
was brought to fruition by the cesspool of filth and disease known as
pre-school. And, I have my suspicions, that this disease factory is probably
propagated either by some covert government agency whose sole purpose is to use
children as disease carrying weapons against the adult population in order to
make us more susceptible to a hostile alien takeover , or by some unfortunate,
third world asylum seeker who sneaked (walked in broad daylight) across the
border into my country and who hails from a place where an immunization
consists of drinking some bubbling concoction that has been brewed in a rusty
cauldron over an open fire next to a pen of goats and chickens, and any disease
one might already have is treated by dipping a handful of reeds and straw into
a bowl of potion that was stomped into liquid form by some witch doctor’s stinky
feet, and then using that handful of now dripping reeds and straw to thwack the
afflicted about the face, chest and back until they are adequately covered with
enough of the brew to cure their illness and keep everyone they know at least
fifteen feet away until the accompanying funk subsides. Regardless of its
origin, I had grown rather ill.
Two year old
children do not understand the meaning of “daddy is sick” and life doesn’t
pause even when pneumonia is involved. What does happen when pneumonia is
involved, though, is that the slightest physical exertion would send me into a
fevered fit of coughing and gasping for breath, because every breath feels like
you’re inhaling Jello and the desire to not drown makes your body instinctively
try to retch it out. Seeing me in such a state of disarray meant nothing but
fun for my daughter, who whenever I would collapse onto the couch in a coughing
attack(which happened about every three minutes), would climb up onto my lap,
get in my face and scream, “WHAT ARE YOU DOING DADDY? COVER YOU MOUTH! WHAT’S
THAT? I WANNA WATCH STRAWBERRY CUPCAKE! GET UP! I NEED SOME WATER!” My
inability to breathe combined with Doc Holiday style coughing and a two year
old screaming in my face was more than enough to render me absolutely useless.
My condition deteriorated to the point where I was delirious with fever and
lack of oxygen. I watched in a half conscious daze as my two year old
transformed into a teenager and asked me for the car keys so she could go to
work. I sat for hours and watched the same nonsensical episodes of Strawberry
Shortcake (whom my daughter calls Strawberry Cupcake) over and over until I
thought I was living in Berry Bitty City and my name was Rhubarb Ross. I’m
pretty sure at one point when I was nothing but a heap of semi-coherent
wreckage, lying limply on the couch and drooling all over myself, my daughter
was bashing me in the head with one of her plastic frying pans and laughing
hysterically.
After two weeks
of feeling and acting like a one hundred year old man who had smoked for
seventy-five of those years and then was forced to chase a toddler through the
house every day, I began to heal. The myriad of antibiotics, inhalers,
decongestants and codeine laced cough syrup had finally begun to work its
Western Medicine magic and I could feel the strength returning to my worn out
body a little each day. My daughter still doesn't grasp the concept that I've
been ill and that it’s hard for me to pick her up and walk up and down the
stairs as she screams in my face, but I muster the strength and do it anyway.
Sure, I have to stop at either end of the stairs and lean against the wall to
catch my breath, but it doesn't faze her.
I could faintly
see, over the horizon of my days to come, a hint of fully recovered health
returning to me. Then as I picked my daughter up this morning to give her a
hug, she coughed in my face again. I figure that I’ll be nothing but a
shriveled corpse by early February.
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