A small illness

I wonder how many blog posts/diary entries/letters have begun with "I hate being sick." Or how many have begun with "I wonder how many..." (but let's not go down that recursive road). At any rate, I've had a nasty cold that knocked me out of life other than what was absolutely necessary: feeding Maia, caring for Chloe, going to work because the US sucks for maternity care and I don't have any sick days and we can't afford to lose any of my time. Ahem. I went to bed as soon as Chloe did for several nights running, or tried to; Maia's close to but not yet at the point where we want to start sleep training her (she needs to space out her meals a little longer first) and so if she wouldn't sleep, I couldn't. Theoretically Eric could watch her, but he's got a deadline on the textbook he's writing, and I do want to let him have the evenings child-free when he can since he has them all day. Of course that doesn't, or shouldn't, mean that he goes off duty when I get home, because that would mean I was working all hours while he wasn't, but I can be kind.

I'm still not well, but my body is in cleanup stage: cough winding down, gunk removed not being replaced, hunger starting to come back. I read the other day a description of shingles that ran something like "They don't just give you medicine for the pain, they give you antidepressants to manage your mood" and realized with interest that I'm never depressed when I'm sick. I mean, I'm unhappy about being sick; but I don't have that my life-is-worthless, the-future-is-dread kind of mopeyness. Maybe it's because when I'm sick, the future is bright because in the future I won't be sick. Or that when I'm sick my body shuts down higher-level things like existential angst and focuses on survival, which is wholly appropriate. At any rate, I look forward to being able to afford existential angst.