I’m ill. Send pity.
Not the covid kind of ill, thank goodness, just the “I’m a teacher and it’s September” snivelling kind of ill, the kind of ill where I’m slow and a bit grumpy and everything seems harder and takes longer than normal. And because everyone else is also a bit poorly, I haven’t had an unbroken night’s sleep in a while, because someone frequently wants to tell me their throat hurts or their nose feels funny, which means I’m in and out of bed passing water bottles and tissues and administering inhalers and squirting calpol into mouths open like baby birds. Last night I put everyone to bed in our room with me for efficiency and sold it to them as a sleepover.
I’ve sent them all protesting into school, partly because I don't want to miss work, never quite sure if I’m doing the right thing or not, and of course covid makes things even more complicated. As the boys squabbled and felt sad, I reminded them that we have to try harder than normal to love each other when we feel like this. When we’re under the weather, family is likely to seem more annoying to us than usual. I’m mostly preaching to myself.
My friend recently had a very cute baby which would normally send me into a spiral of broodiness but instead has made me grateful for the unbroken nights I now normally get to enjoy. There’s lots of good reasons for having babies at different ages, but I’m not sure I could cope with the sleep deprivation now. I feel old. Especially today.
It’s funny to look back at student days when we all cycled around late at night and felt we were invincible (apart from a best friend who told us all she had cancer but then turned out to be a fantasist – that’s another story). Going out ballroom dancing till late then on to a late-opening café or a salsa club was normal, and if I felt a teensy bit tired the next day I could always have a nap (I love a good nap, and the good thing about studying an arts subject is there is low contact time and plenty of reading in bed, which is the perfect recipe for a nap). Oh, those days!
But then I started teaching and got acquainted with the September snivels. My first term as an NQT I also got flu and I was pretty outraged about how rubbish I felt. Like, why had no one WARNED me that flu makes you feel like THAT, like staggering to the bathroom, shivering and head swimming is the biggest achievement you can manage in a day?
I assume it’s worse for medical people and carers. The list of hospital workers (porters, cleaners, nurses, doctors) and carers who have been made unwell or died through the pandemic is sobering and awe-inspiring.
I just wonder if the pandemic will make us more compassionate or simply more fearful about ill-health? If anyone does a tiny cough at school, he immediately shouts, “It’s not covid – I did a lateral flow test!” to avoid being shunned by the rest of the classroom. And shunning is wise when we are trying to prevent transmission. But hearing the stats and seeing family, friends, and colleagues struck down, particularly some teachers I know with long covid, makes me speculate whether we might, as a society, start to have more understanding for people whose health is often restrictive for them even in normal times.
I have three good friends with ME. Their time and energy is more limited but it seems they are the most generous with the resources they have, particularly (lucky me) when it comes to caring for my children. The boys’ godmother’s ME was so severe she was bed-ridden for years, but spent time praying for our boys every day, which is more than I have done.
We’ve just spent a weekend away with our (old) church, and during the weekend, different members of the congregation shared testimonies of how God had shown them grace in times of weakness. Brave friends spoke of their struggles with physical and mental health, and how they had learnt to rely on God through it.
I’m one of the lucky ones who doesn’t (yet) know what it’s like to live with a chronic health condition. But I can’t imagine I’d be like one of my amazing friends or like Paul in the Bible in his letters, finding things to give thanks for the in the midst of the difficult circumstances. I’d probably just complain about it on social media and hoped everyone felt sorry for me.
But I will try to use a sliver of my current enforced extra resting time (I’m in bed typing this) to pray for those who know what it is to really suffer. And I will try to act a bit more thankful for general good health instead of just bemoaning the days I have a cold. We never know when our time might come. But autumn is definitely not the best time of year in our house. And you healthy home-schoolers and working-from-home-ers can feel a bit smug.
There will be no snot in heaven.
And if this whinge-fest wasn't enough, here I am blogging about snotty children: https://sarahhadfi.wixsite.com/website/post/on-the-yuckiness-of-little-children and hospital visits: https://sarahhadfi.wixsite.com/website/post/on-hospitals-and-storm-troopers and dealing with my children's chronic health conditions: https://sarahhadfi.wixsite.com/website/post/on-barometers-and-compassion
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