Today's post is inspired by two past events and two ladies. The first event happened almost 12 years ago. The second one happened about one month ago. One of the ladies is real, the other proverbial. Sit back and recall with me.
On All Saint's Day, 1999, (yes, I meant to type 1999), I went to an All Saint's Day weekend retreat with some friends in Portugal. (It was that weekend when I stopped drinking milk in my coffee, because, well, there was no milk. But that's another story.) While a fun weekend, it was difficult, because I'd only been in Portugal a few months and was still working my way through learning that language. And I caught an e.coli infection.
Ugg.
It took me several weeks to get over that. On Thanksgiving Day, I was finally feeling better. However, one of my friends at the dinner party I attended that day had bronchitis. My weakened immune system wasn't prepared to fight bronchitis, and well... I caught bronchitis.
Ugg.
It turned into the worst case of bronchitis ever. I was physically incapable of exhaling without wheezing and coughing. (It was so bad I began searching "whooping cough symptoms" on the internet.) About a week before my Christmas vacation was scheduled to begin, I went to the doc and pretty much told him he had to make me better. I'd been sick for six weeks, and I was not going to miss my first Christmas vacation overseas (and my trip to Belgium and France) due to a pesky cough. He gave me some more intense meds and told me to stay out of the snow in Belgium and France.
However...I got caught in a snowfall one evening and there were no taxis to be found. Can anyone say "relapse?"
I spent the second half of my vacation with a high fever, the whooping cough, and feeling utterly miserable. I don't really remember much at all about my first time to Paris because my fever was so unbelievably high. I went to the doctor the minute I returned to Portugal and found out...I had pneumonia, and a 105ish fever. Eek.
When I pleaded and cried to not hospitalize me, but give me one more night in my own bed to break the fever, he agreed. He gave me stronger antibiotics and told me to come back the next day. I didn't want to be hospitalized because I was the only American I knew (at the time) in the country. Everyone had gone on vacation for the holiday, and well...the idea of being in the hospital, alone, and still not knowing the language well made me feel even worse than I already felt...which was like death.
My fever did break. However, I developed a fungal reaction to the antibiotics called thrush, (click the link if you want to be grossed out by the picture of exactly what my tongue looked like)...and well, the doctor was tired of seeing me at his office. He gave me more meds, and quarantined me for 10 days. No one in my apartment, and I could not leave. That was all fine and dandy, except that, since I'd been on vacation the week before, I had no food in the house. And my gas bottle was empty.
Enter small crisis. After several emails and phone calls, a kind stranger (who became a friend afterwards), bought me groceries and a gas bottle and left it all on my door step.
Fast forward 12 years to last month, when I got food poisoning. It came about a week after I'd read an article by The Fly Lady about making being sick a "day at the beach." The Fly Lady's article was about being prepared for sick kids, and how to make having sick kids a little bit more pleasant. I read it and thought, "I don't have kids." A week later, after that miserable night with my head in the toilet, I remembered that article and thought, "I could be more prepared to get sick."
I was lucky last month to have the Real Mrs. McCoy here to help scrape together some chicken soup from what I had in the pantry. I didn't have any Sprite, so we all drank Schweppes instead. She made a quick run to the store and picked up what we needed to eat the BRATS diet until our stomachs could handle more.
After that, I decided I wanted to be more prepared. I live by myself, and don't have someone (roommate, spouse, mom, etc) who can run to the store for me when I get sick...and who knows when that will happen? And while I have plenty of friends around who could help me, I can't help but recall that December of 1999 when everyone was out of the country.
Proverbs 31 says that that superhero of Christian women is "not afraid of snow for her household," (or sickness), and she laughs at the time to come (even sick days, I bet). I'm guessing that she had a crock pot and a deep freezer too. And because she did, she could make the Sick Box, and laugh at those winter colds to come in flu season in France.
The Sick Box is a shelf on my pantry that will remain untouched until the day that I get sick and need it... or Spring next year when I do some spring cleaning and replace it all with new items so that the expiration dates don't bring added sickness. In the Sick Box are: 2 large bottles of Sprite, 2 large boxes of multi-vitamin juice, applesauce, plain crackers, 2 boxes of tissues, and a full package of toilet paper. (Cause what if you ran out while you were sick? Do you really want to go to the store with the shivers and a sore throat just for some TP?)
And the part of the Sick Box not pictured: Chicken Soup in the freezer. Sore throat when I go to bed one night? Pull the Sick Box Chicken Soup from the freezer to the fridge. In the morning, throw it all in the crock pot, and voila! My crock pot becomes my nurse. Can you hear me laughing at the days to come?
Hahaha. Bring it winter in France!
P.S. If you have kids and want a copy of that "sick day at the beach" article, let me know and I'll email it to you.
P.P.S. Pantene, CSI, and the Artist: I made enough soup for each of our three apartments. You can pick it up the next time you come over.
