What Kind Of Sicko Do You Want To Be?
FollowJ wants to take me for a walk in the rain. He thinks it will improve my health and help me lose those tiny fat cells, which are ballooning into a chunk of not-so-tiny adipose tissue. I come back drenched like one of those wretched crows you see on a sparse coconut tree. He beams and wants to know whether all that fresh air has done me any good?
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After I finish coughing, I nod a wet yes. I don’t want to dampen his enthusiasm. On cue, the sniffles start and that night, my fever hits the ceiling and wraps me in a haze of body ache.
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The only thing I register about the doctor is that his phone has a jazz ringtone. He picks it up before I can identify the artist. Three days later, the antibiotics have worked their magic and I bounce on the bed, happy to be alive. I have finally emerged from that long, dark tunnel of fatigue, mild delusion and burning eyelids.
I look at J, he seems a bit weak. I wonder if he is running a fever too when a realisation hits me like an unexpected bitter gourd in a curry. I have been an awful, over-the-top, demanding, whinny, needy patient. I apologise. With admirable grace he ruffles my hair, ‘No-no, it’s not your fault.’
That’s when I make up my mind that I need to fix my sickroom behaviour. The years are passing by and it seems like a reasonable endeavour. After all, we have thought about what sort of partners, employees and employers we would like to see ourselves as. We have agonised about how we come across in meetings and parties with strangers. We have practised smiles in mirrors and learnt to hide the lurking grimace. The time has come to choose with equal foresight on what kind of patients we should be.
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I instinctively realise I can’t be a chatty one. I hate talking when I am sick. I am also aware that I need to curb my authoritarian streak. The ‘Get me that water, NOW! Can’t you see I’m dying?’ school of statements have to go.
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After much thought, I finally settle on this. I am going to be a well-behaved grinch, who will make minimal requests from the caregiver. I will take all my tablets without blaming the tablet-giver. I will not fight to wash my hair when the fever is spiking.
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Instead, I will listen quietly to sensible instructions that are dispersed and follow them with the meekness of a wee lamb. I will at all times be aware that the enemy is the illness and not the poor soul taking care of me. I show J my list. He adds, ‘I will not bawl for my mother at the top of my voice.’ Oh, dear! I am sure though, next time, he is going to love playing Florence.
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I pin-up my list on the medical cabinet and I feel ready for any ailment. What about you? Have you decided what kind of patient you’re going to be? It’s good to figure it out now before you go gaga and think your dentures are attacking you.
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Still Figuring It Out’ a funny, sad, questioning take on adulthood will appear every Saturday on newsable.com. Arathi Menon is the author of Leaving Home With Half a Fridge, a memoir published by Pan Macmillan. She tweets at https://twitter.com/unopenedbottle. The views expressed here are her own.
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