The Doc Searls Weblog : Sunday, November 30, 2003

Sunday, November 30, 2003

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Sunday, November 30, 2003
started 11/30/2003; 6:47:05 PM - last post 11/30/2003; 9:14:55 PM

Doc Searls - Sunday, November 30, 2003

11/30/2003; 10:47:05 PM (reads: 5812, responses: 1)

Reality therapy

I'm one of those guys who likes to believe he doesn't get sick. True, I got sick as much as the next kid when I was young, but a good half of that consisted of dramatics to keep me out of school. My parents weren't easily fooled, but I had a far more vested interest in the outcomes of "Are you sick?" dialogues than they did.

I also like to think our seven-year-old boy doesn't get sick, either. For one thing, he has a long track record of robust health. For another, he likes school. If he could fake health to go, he would.

Well, about a week ago he did the unprecedented: he got sick. And not just any sick. He threw up all over his mom's car on the way home from school, from which he was plucked because, clearly, he didn't seem himself. Mom spent hours applying elbow grease and cleansing agents to leather, rugs, electric switches, door handles and other stuctures not made to withstand a spray of former food and majorly foul digestive acids.

The kid then proceeded to sleep a lot — something he hates when there are more interesting things to do — when he wasn't hanging over the edge of the bed doing a bad job of barfing accurately into a pail. The one good thing about the episode was the short duration of the affliction's diarrhea phase. We are grateful for nature's small favors.

Anyway, it turns out the kid's normal in the sickness respect. And now, it also turns out, so am I.

The heaves and the trots hit simultaneously last night around 1am, after I became aware that I was also half-asleep in a state of mild delerium — that I was having endless dreams that were equally senseless and boring beyond endurance. After I woke up enough to shake off the dreams, I spent the next three hours in the head, trying to minimize the discomfiting sounds produced by what apeared to be the same damn thing that brought the kid low a week before. I thank my wife for forcing a coherent conversation somewhere toward morning after I got back to bed for about an hour before retreating to the head for another round of misery. After half a breakfast in the morning, I returned to the bed-head relay, with increasingly long periods of blessedly dreamless sleep in the midst.

Now I'm up, probably for a brief time, posting here as an experiment in coherence. I want to see if I can be a semblance of myself again; and, more importantly, to get some confidence in my ability to withstand four hours in a car, since we're still at a very generous friend's house and would very much like to release this temporary ward back to her custody and get back to Santa Barbara before the day is out.

It's 4pm, and I'm optimistic.

discuss

George Lowry - Re: Sunday, November 30, 2003

12/1/2003; 1:14:55 AM (reads: 600, responses: 0)

Sounds like you and your son may be in the vanguard of all the flu cases we've been warned are coming this winter. Get that flu shot next fall. Take care.

discuss

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