It's been a long time The different symptoms of the common cold intruigue me. I've been sick for a week now, and I've been through a huge range of unpleasantness. It began with a horrible sore throat and chest congestion on Thursday, then I left for camping on Friday and it developped into the worst headache I've ever had combined with hot and cold flashes and minor shaking. Then, on Saturday night, all the congestion that was in my chest moved to my nose and ears. Sunday was more of the same, as were Monday and Tuesday, which I spent off work. Yesterday showed a lessening in the nasal congestion but today it's back in my chest, I can feel it there everytime I breathe. I have a constant urge to cough, even though it's completely unproductive, which makes me think of bronchitis and other nasty breathing related diseases. Maybe I should go see a doctor? I don't know, it doesn't seem particularly bad. I think I'll leave it until after the weekend. If the chest stuff hasn't gone away by monday I promise to go. Camping was fun, or it would have been if I'd been feeling better. It rained both nights, but we were at a group camp with a tight and warm cooking shelter complete with conventional fireplace. I managed to stay mostly dry, except for a mad dash to check on the tent zippers during a short but violent hail storm. Saturday night I went to bed early, around 10, and the Boy had already finished off most of a bottle of vodka by himself. I slept restlessly, and woke up several times to sit up and let my sinuses drain. Eventually, after at least the thousandth time, I noticed that the Boy was still not in bed and checked my watch to discover that it was four in the morning! My mind immediately leapt to all the horible things that could have happened to him on the way back to the tent, and I scrambled into my rain gear to go out searching for him. I'm telling you, I've never been so afraid in all my life, and it never once occured to me that he was probably perfectly fine. So, I emerge from the trees and start to make my way across the the field, remembering that there's a creek that winds its way all around the campsite, and I hear the Boy's cheerful voice hailing me from the cookshelter. I went from being afraid for his life to raging mad. I walked over to him, told him it was four in the morning and that he'd damn well better be coming to bed, and stormed back to the tent. That's the first time I'd ever experienced anger as a replacement to fear. My mom says that anger is almost always a secondary emotion. I can understand the impulse to spank your child after you snatch him out of traffic. So I appologized for yelling, and he told me that he appreciates my concern. He also told me he thought I'd overreacted, which I object to. I think that at four in the morning in the rain with running water on three sides of the campsite, I was perfectly justified in heading out to look for him. What if he had tripped and fallen, or stumbled into the creek, or headed in the wrong direction? At least then someone would have known he was missing and was trying to find him. And, I didn't just go haring off into the bush, I was going to the cookhouse first to make sure he wasn't there before I started waking people up. But, I didn't tell him all that, because he wouldn't agree with me and neither of us would change the other's mind, and it wasn't worth an argument. Overreacting...humph! |