FUNNYACCENT: Missing You

On Monday morning I woke up with knots in my stomach, a lot of knots, a dry throat, aching joints and the feeling I'd just wanted to curl up like a fetus back in my mother's belly. I knew I didn't have that feeling for three years. For three years in a row I didn't get sick during the winter. This year my body gave in.

I went to work thinking I could defeat the bad cold. How silly. By 10:00 am my supervisor sent me home when he heard me coughing like a sick dog when he entered the building.

I called the doctor's office hoping some miracles. Miracles or not I wasn't sure but the front desk girl told me there was an open slot at 2:00 pm.

I went home, made a cup of lemon tea. By this time I felt like all my joints were being pulled apart. It was almost 1:30 pm and I walked up to a health center for my appointment.

When the nurse called out my name, I knew I had a fever besides a terrible cold. I was right. My body temp. was 99.9.

The doctor came in. We chatted while he did his routine. She told me the center has been slammed with patients since the past few days. Everybody complained about aching joints, sore throats, high fever and cold.She prescribed me antibiotic, cough meds and benadryl for running nose and sneezing.

I walked to a pharmacy at The Shaw's Supermarket, 15 minutes away from the health center. Tran, a pharmacist greeted me with, "Ana, you look awful."

"Thanks Tran, you look gorgeous too," as I blew my nose.

She looked up my last name in her computer system and found my prescriptions.

The usual 10 minutes walk from Shaw Supermarket to my apartment turned into 15 minutes walk. By the time I walked through the door, I felt like all my muscles were being folded and flipped like roti chanai .

I took the meds, called my supervisor and told him I won't be coming to work for the next two days. He said he was glad I became less hard headed and decided to stay home for the next two days.

I changed my clothes into jammies, wrapped myself with my old favorite quilt my mother handstitched for me eight years ago and went to bed.

I think I tossed around for another 15 minutes before the meds took over. One thing that stood out during the fifteen minutes of agony of muscles and joints pain was the overwhelm desire to have my mother sitting next to me and lovingly rubbed my head, hands and feet. as she always did when I was sick.

Mak, I miss you.