Flat on Your Back

Rest is hard work. When you are a productive person by nature, laying flat on your back (well, slightly propped up because flat puts too much pressure on your already beat up kidneys) is excruciating. The pain of your unattended to-do lists. The burn of emails piling up in the inbox. The torture of the unchecked boxes mocking you…it’s almost too much to bare. But, the feeling doesn’t last. Because the fever kicks in. The next 12 hours are a blur. You are a baked potato wrapped in foil, broiling in the oven. You drift in and out of sleep, aching waves of chills, pins, and needles cover you from head to toe. You stumble to the bathroom every hour— the doctor said to drink as much water as you can. Your eyeballs feel like balls of yarn inside a ziplock bag of sand. Your lips flake and crack. Twelve hours later, put a fork in: you’re done. You know your body is in all out warfare against an infection when you go from baked potato for 12 hours straight to bed for another 9 hours of sleep with just a 30 minute break for a few bites of food in between. On the outside, you feel like a lump of flesh and bones but just beneath the surface, a highly organized and systematic campaign is underway. If you try to deny that this battle is taking place by, say, getting dressed and driving into work to teach your classes. You may fool yourself into thinking that all is well. Two hours later though, it’s all you can do to park the car, strip down to your couch ware, and get horizontal again. The war isn’t over. Your body needs you to rest.