"Fried! Deep fried brain!"

When I was a freshman in college I got sick. Surprise, surprise. My roommate quarantined me to my room. I was not allowed to attend any of my classes. I was not allowed to leave my room, not my bed either. I was so antsy I had to do something! So, I started exercising. When my roommate came back she found me planking. She looked at me. I looked at her. She said, "What are you doing?"

"I'm not exercising if that's what you mean."

"Get. Back. In. Bed. You're sick."

"I might feel a little sleepy-."

"You're sick! Oh, my gosh! You're sick!"

To this day, we're still best friends. Thank God.




So, I haven't changed much since then because a couple nights ago I suddenly caught something. When I say 'suddenly' I mean suddenly.

I was sitting at my desk job, typing away, bopping my head to the music playing in the background when my arms fell to my chest to keep warm. I couldn't breathe properly, but I was like, "No, I have to keep working." So, I kept working. Seriously, no big deal. People get sick all the time. Except me. I don't get sick, and when I do get sick I'm not actually sick because I feel well enough to exercise.

Anyway, that night, after work, I went directly to bed. My head and torso were uncommonly warm, and the rest of my body was uncommonly freezing. Still, no big deal. However, half the night later, I woke up in a cold sweat (I think it was a cold sweat), which would explain why I was swimming in my dream, so I turned the fan on to cool down, but I only felt colder. I felt so weak.

Feeling weak is for weak people! BAH!

The very next morning I decided to bake cookies & cream cookies (hey, I'd baked vanilla cupcakes the day before), so I did. But my back ached. My arms ached. My cookies didn't turn out as well as I wanted, but everyone else loved them.

ADVIL. I took just one Advil. Felt fine. NBD, BRO! I can go to work. I need the money.

So, I went to work. I felt fine.

Slept fine. I got this. Ain't dreaming about swimming, therefore no cold sweat.

The very next morning, I drove my sister to school. Drove my mom to her carpool. Then I went to my aunt's house to drop off more of cupcakes and cookies.

Except, that I started convulsing. My arms were crossed so tightly over my chest, I could not unravel them. I couldn't breathe properly, and when I did I was wheezing- I was practically singing. my death song (haha, I just made that up). My stomach muscles were contracting I felt they wanted to eat my insides, but I hadn't eaten that much in the first place. My aunt first called her husband, a nurse, down to take my temperature, things like that. I was so glad none of them panicked because I already didn't want to die.

Seriously, I thought to myself, "I don't want to die yet, I still have a story I need to finish." And then I thought, "What is wrooooong with me. One little reaction to what could be a flu... Don't be ridiculous."

They called my dad over. He came, and something about his presence, I calmed down after that, but that didn't stop my body from attacking itself.

Then I stopped convulsing, well, after I swallowed some Ibuprofen, so stopped whatever it was I was doing, or reacting to, and finally just lay there on that leather couch, under three blankets (I think), listening to the adults in the room talk.

I lay there and thought, "So, this what this feels like. This is what this feels like." At the time, I couldn't quite label 'this' I just knew I didn't like 'this'. 'This' wasn't a good feeling.

My aunt said, "Wow, when my kid's get sick they just get warm."

My dad responded, "Oh, she doesn't get sick like this either. At least not since she was a baby. We were still living in the city when she was just walking around, when she fell over. I thought, 'Why is she sleeping like that?' but then she turned over then, aha!- she's having a seizure!'" Of course they laughed. Then I laughed, or tried to laugh, ish. I laughed-ish. "Fried! Deep fried brain!" my dad yelled, joking, "That's why this is happening now."





I lay there for another hour or so. My dad left for his dentist appointment. My aunt and uncle went back to real life. I felt pathetic. Thankful, but pathetic.

I am a freaking working woman! I can't let sickness stop me! And yet, if I keep working while I'm sick, do I really want my body to collapse on itself because I was too stubborn to admit sickness in the first place?

But this is a better idea for a blog post than asking more existential questions. Right?

Next time, I'll just wear a coat when I go outside during the fall and winter. I don't want to feel 'this' ever again. Oh, and never exercise when you're sick, no matter how well you feel because, at that point, you're totally lying to yourself.

STAY IN BED!

DUI

Last summer I received my first ticket (only $15) because I parked against the flow of traffic. I parked against the flow of traffic because I was just so exhausted, and simultaneously understood the street to be invariably traffic-less, that I didn't bother turning my car around; I just wanted sleep! I was so tired.

Not that I was expecting a ticket the next morning, but when I first saw the ticket sticking out of my window I thought I totally deserve that, and continued eating breakfast. What else was I supposed to do? React? I only react when I think something's funny. Okay, I take that back--I do react, but usually when it's something funny. (Seriously, I have, like, the most obnoxious laugh.)

Since then I've never received another ticket. I mean, it's been less than I year, I might be speaking too soon. You know, if I may be frank, I'm surprised that my first ticket was because of a parking violation. I'm surprised it wasn't for speeding (I'm a reformed speeder), or for texting (I know! I'm a horrible person!) or eating! 

And no, I've never gotten a DUI.

I can't ever get a DUI.

Not because I couldn't possibly be susceptible to drugs or intoxicants (I'm as weak as anyone else). but because I just don't like medications in general, legal or illegal. When I was in middle school I used to pretend to swallow my allergy medication, then I would sneakily spit it out. I was too afraid to choke on it. I didn't like the idea of swallowing something I'd never chewed! What if I choked and died! In fact, I did choke on one once and it left such a horribly dramatic scar that I was so worried I'd have to take my pills chopped and dipped in peanut butter for the rest of my life! 

(Nurses do this for their elderly patients, I know this because my parents are nurses and so made me take my pills like that a few times. Trust me on this: no matter how much peanut butter is mixed with the pill you'll taste more pill than peanut.)

I also don't think I ever get sick. Especially when I am sick, I am in an impenetrable wall of denial: I AM NOT SICK.

I can take pills now, so no need to worry.

And I only partially believe I can get sick.

But anyway, I've never gotten, and cannot get a DUI. (knock on wood)

I can't ever get a DUI because the kind of DUIs of which I am guilty are not the same kind of DUIs for which people get arrested. 

My DUIs are of a more spiritual nature. (Argue all you want that snorting drugs is spiritual, hence hallucinatory, but that's besides my point.) 

I am supposed to be under God's influence, yes? Yes. As a Christian my main influence is God. In everything I do, I must consult God, allow Him to speak through me; work through me. Lately, I've allowed myself to be influenced by my own plans (which aren't that great anyway), and have allowed the world to impose it's limitations upon me. 

I seem to be obsessed with hidden potential, and obsessed with how I am much more than I appear because I will be more if I'm less now. Not because I'm all that and a bag of chips, but because King David was one a shepherd. Moses was a murder and coward. Jacob was a trickster. Lucifer was an angel. 

(So was Islington, thank you Gaiman; speaking of which, Richard Mayhew became something great in London Below, so much so that he left London Above. You and I both know how difficult it is to leave behind the familiar and comfortable for what is dangerous, exciting but fulfilling.)

All these characters, real and unreal (only Islington is unreal), show that I have the potential to become better or worse than what I am now. 

I want to be better than what I am now. 

I want no queenship. I just-. I just want to stop talking about potential and start fulfilling my potential. 

And the only way I can do that is if I'm guilty of a (forgive me) godly DUI. (I am murdering all good and decent colloquialisms today!) It doesn't matter if I read my Bible daily if I don't practice what I'm learning. I know, I know. I've heard this before. You've heard this before. But the amount of hearing such truths makes them no less truthful. Redundant, but never less truthful.

So this morning I've learned (again) that I really need to step up my prayer life. Again, and again, I need to be reminded that if I want to be as great as I hope to be I need to believe on something greater, outside of myself. Even Richard Mayhew didn't know where he got such courage to kill the Great Beast of London, and he's hardly under godly influence. How much more should I, could I, be if I've got God on my side?

But truly God has listened;
he has attended to the voice of my prayer.
Blessed be God,
because he has not rejected my prayer
or removed his steadfast love from me.