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The tsunami of all flus hit me a couple of weeks ago. It was as if someone took a flu baseball bat and beat me over the head with it.
I was down and I was out. I never postpone trainings, but did that week.
For four or five days I was nonfunctional. I had not been that sick for decades. Seriously. I cannot recall the last time I was sick enough to not work for a week.
I was constantly exhausted with pounding headaches and a burning throat. I lost my appetite, weight, sleep, my voice and I'm quite certain a lung somewhere in the house. I was fevered and chilled at the same time. My body ached and I was drained.
I spent most of the week on my couch in a half asleep daze in front of the TV with the colors of reruns and commercials flitting just on the other side of my closed eyelids. Used tissues and ineffective medicines were strewn everywhere.
Even now as I write this I'm still hacking, tire easily and just recently got any desire for food back.
This is no big deal. This stuff goes around. I'm not the only person that has ever gotten a flu, even a bad one.
But I had a thought...
One night, when I was at my very worst, had to be about three in the morning, while I was laying on my back on the bathroom floor staring through my brain fog at the ceiling, something occurred to me.
We count on our bodies to eventually respond to these intruding germs and oust them. We rely on the fact that at some point the miraculous resources in our makeups will gather their strength, our bodies will bounce back and health and wellness will be restored.
But, I thought, what if that didn't happen?
What if the miraculous regenerative powers of my body didn't come to my rescue? What if I remained in a perpetual state of sickness, and, by that, a perpetual state of suffering?
It's a despairing thought. To be that low, that weak, that ill for the rest of my life.
But, what if? How long would I want to exist in that state? How patient would I be? What would be my disposition? Where would I find motivation? How stoic could I remain? How long could I have hope?
And then I thought that there are people actually going through that very thing. There are cancer patients, for example, going through chemotherapy who are in perpetual agony. They are exhausted and in pain, nauseous and weak constantly.
There are those who suffer from Rheumatoid Arthritis who can't move without shooting crippling pains in their joints.
There are kids with distended stomachs suffering from starvation every day.
There are other ills, too many to name, that berate humans into the most awfulness of suffering.
Ironically, the very next day I shuffled to my front window long enough to see EMTs strap a neighbor to a gurney and roll her out to an ambulance. What suffering was she enduring? I thought.
When you're in it, even just the flu, you'll do about anything to get out of it. Even to find a position on the couch for a moment that eases your pain is such a gift. You lay there as long as possible because you're experiencing just that little mite of relief.
Suffering is man at his worst and most vulnerable.
Seems to me then that quite possibly the best thing anyone can do on earth toward another human being is to relieve their suffering even just a little bit. God bless nurses and first responders and social workers who do it every day.
Conversely, the worst thing one can do is to cause the suffering of another. A close second is making a mockery of suffering by faking it and gaming others using their compassion as leverage.
I'm about 75% of my normal self as I write this. Sometime next week, I suppose, I'll be as good as new.
But what if?
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