I’m young and strong. I’m rarely if ever sick, at least to the point of being at all encumbered. A runny nose here and there, maybe a headache. But I’m starting to feel a little older, and being 18, that means almost nothing. Years of playing soccer and other sports has taken a toll, one most felt in my knees. But I’m incredibly lucky, thank god for that.
The last year I’ve really noticed people around me in bad health. My mom was diagnosed with a thyroid disorder, which amounts mostly for her losing ability to remember a lot of the little details she was always so good with. No big deal unless one of those details is that she has medication to take to remedy the effects of having a thyroid disorder. In which case she becomes a stressed out and tired wreck in a few days.
Friends and siblings, kids my age, have also seemed uncontrollably sick lately. My sister and foreign exchange student brother all winter were staying home from school often, sharing their lousy symptoms with all the family, sauf moi.
My grandpa has had two heart surgeries in the past year, recently his gallbladder was removed, and he’s spent nearly one of every four weeks since January in the Hospital. He’s there right now, and each time he gets out it takes him a more time to recover his fitness.
Just the other day my sister puked the duration of a two hour car ride from Portland south to Boston, struggled through a flight to Milwaukee, recovered overnight in a hotel before our delayed flight back home left in the morning.
And just today my neighbor dropped dead of a heart attack. Traumatizing I guess, but mostly because of the family he left behind. He was about fifty years old, his wife a few years younger, and his only daughter nine. Nine years old. Life really can suck.
I would have never expected it. Figured the fire truck stopped a few houses to rescue a cat or something. I shrugged off the whole ordeal until an ambulance, two police cars and the medical examiner stopped to pay their dues.
Sometimes you really don’t know how lucky you are.
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