Who Wants to be Sick?

I don't know about you, but I don't like being sick.

I had strep a lot as a kid, and even had scarlet fever twice. (That might not shock you now, but whenever I would tell people this in the Beforetimes, I was met with incredulous looks and questions about whether I grew up in the 1800s.) I can still remember the dread that would overtake me at that first twinge of pain in my throat. I still remember the bitterness of the penicillin. I remember hiding under the exam table to try and escape getting blood drawn after recovering from my second bout of scarlet fever.

It. Was. Not. Fun.

The only thing worse than being sick myself was my kids getting sick. Spending the night by my child's bedside, listening to them struggle to breathe, trying to guess how high the fever had risen without touching them lest they awaken from their fitful sleep, blearily scrawling the time of the last Tylenol dose so I could remember when to switch to Motrin, debating if it was better to go straight to the hospital for a 105 degree fever or to try to bring it down in a lukewarm bath instead.

I never want to experience that hell again.

It took the onset of the pandemic to learn that there is a solution.

We don't actually have to be sick all the time. Or really ever.

It turns out that if you don't let the germs in your body, they won't make you sick.

It is not always easy to keep them out, of course.

But is it worth it, to avoid being sick? To avoid that stabbing pain in your throat? That hacking cough? That raging fever? Those aching joints? The cries of a child who just wants to feel better and can't understand what's happening?

Is it worth trying to avoid that?

I think it is.