You know you're a writer when you find yourself lying sick in bed, feeling or perhaps even hoping this could be "death's door," framing the words to write about it later. Perhaps it's the novelty of it, I'm hardly ever sick. I'm often the one still on my feet as others drop around me. But this time, this particular flu epidemic, I wasn't spared. It happened for me as I've heard others describe it. "Suddenly," like in the middle of a sentence. I was perfectly fine, going for a walk with friends during an intermission of a workshop I was co- teaching. 

Common Cold and Flu Treatments (Cold and Flu #1)

And then, I felt my energy take a nose-dive. A friend commented that my coloring looked "pastie." The next thing I knew, I was in the rest room, and then headed for home and my bed.

And through a very long night, I was up and down repeated. My husband, who has had a different version of what's going around, a type of cold that will not go away, was up and down as well. In the early dawn, I heard my guest and co-leader in the rest room and realized, she had a third version of the current community illness. So, though we are both dancers with lots of principles and practices left over from our show business backgrounds, we had to cancel the next day's events. It was not possible for the show to go on.

OTC Medication for Cold and Flu (Cold and Flu #2)

Now still in recovery several days later, I reflect on the lessons of illness, especially the transitory type that so many people have been experiencing this winter season.

Some of us forget how vulnerable we really are, and a bout of illness reminds us of that reality. We can be grateful that modern 

medicine has found ways to handle these threats that spread like wild fires through populations. Watching Downton Abbey reminded me that, while 16 million died in the First World War itself, the epidemic of Spanish flu in 1918, carried by its survivors killed 50 million people worldwide. http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/influenza-epidemic/

Once well again, the experience leaves me more grateful than ever for the priceless gift of health that is worth protecting, treasuring, and celebrating.  

NOVA science NOW : 25 - 1918 Flu

Influenza Pandemic of 1918*