I am sick

Mother, mother I am sick, call the doctor very quick,

Doctor, doctor, shall I die?  Yes, my darling, by and by.

A nursery rhyme from my childhood, with ad libs from me. I woke up feeling a slight discomfort in my throat.  It wasn’t painful like when my tonsils were inflamed. My throat just didn’t feel normal. It raised my concern because my husband is not a hundred percent well. I don’t want him catching anything because that will complicate our already muddled life. Also our two-bedroom condo isn’t massive so even if I sneeze in the kitchen, the germs quickly fly to him. There’s not much protection possible among the three of us who live together — my husband, his caregiver and me.

I found my throat chamomile spray that a doctor prescribed around two years ago and sprayed that in my throat. I also found my mat of Biogesic that I have in case of emergencies like this one. Fortunately it was a Tuesday, the day when my apartment cleaner comes in. I sent her to buy me Fluimucil, the medicine for cough that another doctor prescribed. With these three medications I hoped to survive.

As the day wore on I felt progressively worse. I had no fever but my nose ran like a broken faucet. I used up mounds of tissue. I kept remembering my high school classmate Jean Celis when we last ran into each other. I sneezed. She suppressed gleeful laughter and said, “Hoy, Concepcion (my real name in high school), hanggang ngayon may Kleenex ka pa?”  When I was in school then I was tissue-dependent, always sneezing every morning, always carried a box of Kleenex or Scotties around. But my nose never ran the way it did this time. And now I coughed endlessly. I felt terrible that first day. I prayed for death to take me out of my misery. “Keep drinking your meds every four hours,” our caregiver Benjie said. “You will feel better in the morning.”

I managed to sleep at around eight that night. Woke up at midnight for the usual bathroom trip, drank my medicines. Woke up again at 4 a.m., couldn’t sleep, went into my workroom to make rosaries and there had the worst coughing fit of my life. I took my medicines but they took around half-an-hour to work. Until then I coughed and coughed and coughed. There were bursts of air like burps. I turned on the electric fan to give me more air.  What is this? I thought.  It is either a very bad cold and cough or COVID or cancer. It’s a “C,” definitely, but nobody knows if it’s small, medium or large. And I’m not going to find out. If it’s the Big C and a doctor tells me that I know I will die tomorrow.

The second day I finally read a long text about what life was when we were small, when you paid five centavos for a bottle of Cosmos and 10 centavos for a bottle of Coca-Cola and Pepsi Cola, when one US$1 = P4. My goodness, I thought, I remember when US$1 = P2.  I am that much older than you. There were 40 items on the list. No. 38 captured my attention. It said in Tagalog that all ailments were cured by Vicks VapoRub.

On the one hand, this reminded me of Jokoy, a Filipino-American comedian my husband and I used to enjoy watching on TV. I thought his best joke was about his Filipina mother putting Vicks VapoRub over his eyes when he couldn’t sleep. I thought that was very funny because — on the other hand — that had happened to me. My mother didn’t do it. I did it. Accidentally. But believe me, you will never forget the experience.

I have news for you. I have Vicks VapoRub! The sight of it at Watson’s a few years ago made me nostalgic and I bought it, together with a foil sack of Vicks candy, whose flavor I loved when I was little. So now I rub Vicks on my chest and under my nose before I go to sleep.

This morning I woke up at 5:30 a.m., an hour-and-a-half later than yesterday. A good sign, I guess. I went into my workroom again and as expected, had another coughing fit: as long, though not as wrenching, as the previous day’s. I am also feeling much better surrounded by my lozenges — Fisherman’s Friend Spearmint and Lemon Menthol Valda Pastilles.

Contrary to what I believed earlier, I don’t think my time has come. Please pray with me that my husband does not get it!

Also, I realize that once journalists were forbidden from naming brands. But times have changed. The world is overflowing with brands and if you can’t name them you mislead your reader. If I broke that rule, please blame it on my advertising background.

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