On Drowning

I keep jerking awake. Flailing, usually. Once I fell off the bed. It’s a twin, very narrow, and there was a cat…anyway.

Jerk awake. Flailing. Drowning. Can’t breathe.

We all know life is fragile. Know it in our heads, anyway. But when you wake six times in one night, drowning in the immune response of your own body to something so tiny you can’t even see it…

You get–well, I get, anyway–a little philosophical. What’s it all about, if that stupid little germ, and the lack of a $35 co-pay are enough to bring it all down?

That’s at ten o’clock. It’s easy to think about it objectively at ten at night. At three in the morning, on wake-up number four when you’re coughing so hard the bed jumps while you hope you can stop soon not just because it hurts but because damn it, being woke up by mommy coughing scares the hell out of the kid–it’s not philosophical then. It’s terrifying.

“Get some rest,” everyone says. But you can’t. The germ won’t let you. You can’t get better because you can’t rest. You can’t sleep, and also you can’t just go to bed and stay there till you’re better. Life needs you, and everything takes hours to do.

“Go to the doctor,” you’re told, so you do. But doctors don’t have magic wands. They have tests, and questions, and medicines that might work, but some of them aren’t covered by your insurance. Even the ones that are covered are still expensive. But you can’t breathe. You can’t quibble when you can’t breathe.

You can’t not quibble when your funds are limited. What all do you really need? Groceries and school supplies and a fixed car because walking with pneumonia in 105 ° heat is suicide and you can’t just stay in bed till you’re better. Can you afford all that and medicine too? Who knows, but it’s pneumonia so you better not screw around.

So…antibiotics? Necessary. Steroids to help keep the bronchial passages open? Better get those too. Cough syrup? Coughing hurts, but it’s not going to kill you, right? So don’t get it. Inhaler? That’s a tough one. Breathing is a fond memory; one you’d like to experience again. So get the Rx and don’t fill it. Get it later if you have to. Go home and rest.

Only you still can’t breathe. And now you’re drowning financially too.

Thank God for friends, willing to share a waterlogged board and even to hold you on it when you’re too exhausted to care.