Songs From The Wood

For the past almost eight weeks, I’ve been ravaged by a cough. I don’t recall being this ill for this long as an adult.

The symptoms began on a Sunday with a cough that quickly escalated in intensity. Just a little talk would trigger a bout of coughing that sounded worse than it felt, though it didn’t feel good either. After a day at work talking almost non-stop, I decided to give myself some rest by taking the rest of the week off. Besides the cough, I felt weak. Over the weekend, I slept most of the day. But, come Monday, the cough hadn’t improved at all.

On Thursday, with the cough persisting despite being off work, I went to a doctor. She didn’t find anything wrong and declared it a viral infection. She prescribed an antibiotic to kill a mild case of bronchitis. The antibiotic messed up my stomach, triggering loose bowels every morning. The cough reduced in intensity over the weekend. Come Monday, I felt much better.

The next round began on Friday of the following week when Maya came down with a fever that spiked as high as 102 F. We had planned to spend the weekend in San Francisco. Despite some hesitation we, unwisely it seemed, decided to go ahead with the plan anyway. Maya was miserable. She clung to me like a leech. I couldn’t put her down for more than a few minutes before she started wailing. The poor thing. San Francisco was cold, dark by five, not the same place we so enjoyed a weekend this summer. We hurried home by Sunday afternoon.

On Sunday night, Maya refused to permit us to brush her teeth. When I insisted, I noticed that her gums bled. A call to the doctor led to a conclusion of a viral infection of the gums that was going around. Nothing to be done except let the infection run its course was the doctor’s advice.

By Thursday, the fever subsided and Maya was back to being a happy camper. But on Saturday, she developed rashes on her face. Small, red blotches at first turned to larger, redder blotches that also began to show up on her arms and legs. Another call to the doctor and a colleague of Shanthala led to a diagnosis of an infection by the Coxsackie virus. It was a human hand, foot and mouth disease. They were the reason for her tender gums, the fever and now the rashes. The only good thing about the rashes is that they didn’t bother Maya.

Two days of the children’s version of an antihistamine seemed to take the sting out of the rashes and Maya was back to being completely normal by Wednesday. A close friend’s college age daughter arrived to spend Thanksgiving with us and we were glad that the illness was finally over.

The third round began the same week. By Saturday, I started feeling miserable again. I was so tired in the afternoon, I wanted to sleep. Shanthala was out of town for the day, attending a close colleague’s wedding. Maya who already had her afternoon nap, seemed to sense my not being well. When I lay down on the bed to give my aching body some relief, Maya shut the door, sat on the bed next to me and entertained herself while I fell into a restless doze for about an hour.

That night, I developed chills and couldn’t stop shaking. I took some Ibuprofen to reduce the chills. The next day, I was wiped out. I lay in bed all day, sleeping most of the time.  When the chills worsened by evening, Shanthala urged me to go to urgent care. A viral fever, the doctors concluded again and asked me to rest. That night, I told Maya that I couldn’t do the usual bedtime routine and that I wanted her to just lie down and fall asleep. She turned off the light, shut the door and proceeded to lie next to me. We were both asleep shortly.

On Monday, the chills were mostly gone, but I had a sore throat of immense proportion. Attempting to eat anything solid was painful. I hardly ate that day. I went to urgent care that evening because I felt the symptoms had worsened over the day. The strep test was negative and the doctor repeated his diagnosis of viral infection. Rest and gargle continued to be his advice.

Tuesday, exhausted, I just slept all day. Wednesday, I went to work, more to get rid of the growing backlog than anything else. Bad idea. With only soup to sustain me and a long day at work, by Thursday, I was worse off than before. Shanthala said that the back of my throat looked very red and had white splotches. I went to urgent care again. Worried over my third visit in a week, they did an X-ray which yielded nothing, the strep test was negative again and after two hours in urgent care, I still had no medicine to take. I went home and started an antibiotic on my own. We had some supplies from India.

By Monday, the sore throat was gone, but the savage cough of the weeks past decided to rest for a while in my throat again. The weekend found me lethargic again. Despite sleeping most of the weekend, I got no relief from the cough. The cough continued to inhabit my throat for the rest of the week.

Finally, this last Monday, I felt much more normal than I had in the past eight weeks or so. By Wednesday, I was feeling pretty good. When I returned home from work on Wednesday, Maya had come down with a cold. Her nose was running all over the house. And now, my throat feels a little sore and my nose is clogged up.

No running, no writing. I tried running on Monday after a hiatus of six weeks or so and was tired at the end of three miles. What a comedown for someone who ran 7-8 miles at a 7:30 minutes per mile pace pushing a stroller. I had run 4.5 miles in 28 minutes at the beginning of October, my best for that distance. I had no energy to write, a blank mind reflected in the maybe vacant, tired eyes. Shanthala has had it rough, doing just about everything in the house, for many days. Luckily for us, she’s held up without falling ill all this time. Maya has been a great support, letting me rest when I felt drained, while Shanthala was at work. She’d put my head in her lap and pat my head gently or rifle her fingers through my hair as I slept. 

Talking to a few colleagues at work, it appears that I’m not alone in being this sick. A few others complained of similar symptoms. A friend from France told us that he suffered similarly just a couple of weeks before he came to visit us (the doctor there had prescribed him antibiotics on his very first visit). The mercury has dropped quite a bit this year, tying with a record set back in 1994.

Seeking comfort in shared discomfort, looking for reasons such as record lows. Sigh.

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