On Sickness

Being sick used to be distant history for me. The last time I was sneezing and confined to bed (by a mysterious flu) was more than 5 years ago. Since then I never missed a single working day. I pride myself in running everyday and having a healthy diet. However, this week I was hit hard by a flu. I have the bitter taste of sickness again, and it humbles me.

When you are sick, you body turns against you. You have burning pain in your nose, ear and throat. You chest is itching with congestion.  In your agony, you want to get rid of your body because it is your worst enemy. The virus that multiplies in your body snickers at you and you cannot do anything about it. Such agonizing moment made me even jealous of people who lost their legs. It seems the pure pain of having limbs cut off are much more tolerable than this inner suffering in your chest and head.

In sickness we lose interest of interacting with the world. All I want to do is to lie down, to rest, and not to spend energy to talk. Thus I never made a single phone call to others in this New Year’s eve, and only answered friends and family’s call with very short words. This is very much like a self-absorbed person. He or She is simply not interested in talking to others. Social interaction does not mean much to such a person because there is no desire.  I used to feel hurt by lack of communicaton from one of my relatives who is self-absorbed. How come she never calls me? Now I understand she does not have desire to communicate. The best thing I can do is to leave her alone. The danger of prolonged sickness is that we will lose our connection with the outside world as communication winds down. Our lack of response or outreaching will estrange our friends and family members.

When we are sick, we lose all the ambition and desire of doing great things. My New Year’s resolution is sitting somewhere and not been touched. For the first time in 3 years, I missed the annual Run on New Year’s Day. There is simply no energy left to go out, to dream and to plan. If I ever doubted the connection between body and mind, now I know how much our body controls our mind. It’s a sad fact.

In sickness I think about elderly people and their deteriorating health. Sickness is a disabling factor. It must be fought against. In the US, more than 200,000 people are hospitalized from flu complications and about 36,000 people die from flu each year. This is the same number of people who died from car accidents each year, and the same number of people who died from gun shot in US each year. Fortunately the US government has a system tracking flu nationawide. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has a website specificly about flu.

Being healthy is a blessed state. Let us cherish every day when we are healthy and contribute as much as we can. When we are in a healthy state and being productive again, let us help those who are in sickness and lift them out of misery.