I have succumbed…

“I have succumbed…” seemed the right title for this post somehow. Although now that I’ve typed that post title and checked the definition of “succumb,” I’m thinking the word may be a bit strong. I meant it as the first definition “fail to resist” rather than “die from the effect of a disease” — because I have (unwillingly) failed to resist the effect of the disease that has been plaguing my son and husband this week. I am sick. I am not dead.

My throat is sore, my nose is runny, my cough has begun in earnest. My head aches. Thankfully, I don’t have to go to work today, but it is not how I wanted to spend this rare day off work.

I sit at the computer, having digested a mucus relief pill and the generic for Sudafed (which requires more I.D. to purchase than does voting), and I’m sipping warm orange juice with melted coconut oil. Yummy. Well, not exactly, but it does serve two purposes: medicinal and instant lip balm while I sip.)

Retail therapy, you suggest? It has cured what ailed me before. And it is Black Friday. I could venture forth into the crowded stores and cough my way to the racks and shelves, certain to win friends and influence people — at least to get away from me. (I could hire myself out as shopping cougher, ready to clear paths to the most-desired shelves in a single cough.) But I am not up for that. Instead, I view my usual Black Friday shopping spots via computer and am disappointed. Bath & Body Works no longer carries my two favorite scents for lotion.The disappointment saps my energy to visit other stores online.

Perhaps breakfast will bolster my strength for shopping.

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Seven hours later:

I didn’t have the strength to make breakfast, and my husband saw my need and filled it with some cheesy scrambled eggs. When I still lacked energy, my son worked his technological magic and played a movie for me. I took my blanket and positioned myself on the couch to watch — a treat that gave me enough energy to eat a little soup and clean up the remnants of the Thanksgiving dishes.

Meanwhile, companies are frantically sending me emails, alerting me how many hours I have left to shop for Black Friday deals. What? Sara isn’t shopping? And I don’t care. All I want for Christmas — actually, all I want for Black Friday — is my health. And sleep, which eludes me due to this blasted cough that unproductively tickles my throat and ends any attempt at sleep.

A fellow blogger nominated me for an award — more on that tomorrow — and that lifted my spirits. But overall, this is a day of little accomplishment, even in my attempts at napping. Maybe the coconut oil will have worked its magic by tomorrow… but today I have succumbed to this disease. I don’t like it.

Prayers please.