Accidental Blogger

I have been meaning to write something substantial for my first post
to Accidental Blogger, but my brain has been roasting at a pleasant
39°C (that’s 102°F for the Imperialists) for a large portion
of the past week. It has simmered down to near normal now, and the
pox are on the retreat.

I was not planning on getting Chickenpox at 30 years of age, indeed, I
thought it to be nigh impossible. The social wisdom on the matter is
clear. You get the pox once, likely as a youth, able to enjoy the
ministrations of your parents, yet endowed with the ability to feel
guiltless about your whining. After that, you never get it again.
Secure with this common sense, I happily accepted an invitation to
dine with some soon to depart friends, aware that their pre-school
aged twins were showing the first signs of the pox. A vague memory of
horrid itching was all the protection I needed.

Fast forward two weeks, and I felt a little malaise. And then it
hit. Chickenpox isn’t like a cold. It doesn’t slip between your
chest and head, desperately trying to outfox your immune system,
knowing well it has no chance to make it to the big time. The
pox announces its intentions loudly and boldly, splashing them with
color (red) all over your chest and back: I am here, and I am going to
try and kill you.

In response, I fell back into old routines developed in childhood,
possibly during my first experience with the poxs, some 25 years past.
I remembered again why feeling cold is bad (fever is high), and
sweating is good (body is trying to cool down). In an attempt to
seize a little control in a situation where I had none, I tried to run
my body as if it were a nuclear reactor. Mentally, I would call up
the control room in put in orders, “divert resources to keeping core
body temperature below 39°,” or, in a moment of extreme headache,
“alert, alert, make sure the brain isn’t swelling.” I had been
reading about encephalitis, a possible complication from Chickenpox.

All very childish I suppose, and I can’t say I persisted at it very
long, but it did provide some much needed distraction from the
monotony of persistent full-body throbbing. At the core, that is what
a illness like Chickenpox comes down to: monotonous waiting, waiting
for the fever to subside, waiting for it to come back, waiting for
someone to go shopping for food, waiting for your eyes to stop
hurting, waiting for life to start again.

The Internet makes the waiting worse. It keeps one connected and
aware of the outside world. I know what all my friends are doing
today, so I know exactly where I want to be besides here in bed, with
just my laptop keeping me warm. It’s a little taste of a phenomenon
I have come to think of as Hypothetically Lost Opportunity Syndrome
(HLOS), where one pines for an event or person that seems remarkably
close, with the Internet informing you of their presence in big bold
letters, right there, just in front of you, but actual physical
attendance is not a real possibility. There is a form of mental
discounting taking place, with a fire sale on reality. Being sick
shrinks the HLOS radius until it is acutely felt. It’s enough
to make one think about disconnecting for a time. Not knowing can be
mentally healthier.

The fever is mostly gone now. I can read for hours at a time without
my eyes tiring, and I’m discovering which friends make the best
selections at the supermarket. The waiting isn’t over yet, maybe
another week to go, but at least I can function with some capacity
again. Heck, that was only a week, right? Seems silly to even
complain.

My father contracted the pox twice as well, years apart. This turns
out to be not so uncommon. Some people only gain partial immunity, or
their immunity fades with time. There are possibly apocryphal
on-line reports from people who claim to have had three or four bouts
with the virus. So much for the social wisdom. Here is hoping
that two times is enough for my body to get the antibodies right.