I've been hacking up a lung. I wish I could say, figuratively. But it's getting a bit obscene. And each day I was getting worse and worse until, on Tuesday, I took a sick day and went to see my doctor.
He glanced the surgical mask I'd dutifully taken from the box at the front counter and knew exactly why I'd come. He listened to my breathing with his stethoscope and then declared me stricken with bronchitis.
I was almost relieved to have christened my affliction with a name. Now I could curse it directly in the throes of one of my nocturnal coughing fits. But also, if it had a name, then there was probably some medicine he could give me.
And he did. And I additionally treated myself to Nyquil.
And so as I coughed and dozed into restless sleep last night, I realized that motherhood forever and irreversibly changes a person's perspective. This thought came to me when my worry wasn't so much whether I would be healthy enough tonight to sleep, but rather, would my children stay healthy. Not purely for the altruistic reasons of children being the ultimate gift, yadda yadda yadda. But rather that when I'm sick, I'd rather not be tending to a kid's night cries, vomit explosions or taxi-ing to and from the emergency room. Save that fun for when I'm fit as a fiddle again.
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