Exhaustion
Originally uploaded by out_of_rhythm.
The summer I turned twelve years old and could go to girls camp for the first time I got really, really ill. So ill I was in bed -or more acurately on the couch for days and I was so ill my mom finally took me to the doctor. Now some background on the doctor in question might be in order. We always went to Dr. Withers and Dr. Withers was always really nice and always gave lolipops and he wasn't a pediatrician (did they even have pediatricians in small towns back then?) but he was our whole family's doctor. Anyway, he would do things like give you a shot of kenalog (sp?) when you had allergies - which is kind of like giving someone a shot of morphine when they have a head ache and really only need an aspirin. But we liked that about Dr. Withers I think. Anyway, he diagnosed me with "exhaustion" and said I just needed to stay in bed for days. (maybe there was some paragoric invovled, I don't remember...but paragoric was usually involved in any illness situation in my house - my parents did not have any idea they were just giving us massive doses of pain killers and not curing anything - they thought it was some sort of miracle cure all drug and they gave it to us for everything - now it's a highly controlled narcotic - my mom always made me drink it and told me it was like"black licorice" which is why I can't stand black licorice to this day...but I digress)
Anyway, what they heck is exhaustion for real? I did not get to go to girls camp. And I really did feel horribly ill. But more in a "there's no way I coudl get up out of this bed if I wanted to" kind of way. And now...it seems odd.
Because what on earth could have been so EXHAUSTING when I was 12. I mean, I almost wish I could get it now - but not really, because I don't have time to be ill for heaven's sake, I'm a mom.
Does this condition really exist or was this some weird psychosomatic reaction I had to the idea of going to girl's camp? I really don't know.
But I sure have a lot more reasons to be exhausted now than I did then.
3 comments:
There is a "method of exhaustion" proposed by Greek thinker guy Eudoxus. It involves measuring arbitrary objects by defining them as combinations of multiple polygons or polyhedra.
French child psychologist Édouard Claparéa who was important for pioneering a lot of stuff including sleep disorder research - now we're getting somewhere!
sleep: the natural, periodic suspension of consciousness during which the powers of the body are restored.
Your old Dr. Quack was right! All you needed was a heavy dose of narcotic-induced 'restorative' sleep, silly.
You can still have that...call me. I have little blue pills...
Hmmmm....maybe I just really needed some sleep.
All my little blue pills are gone - I needed every last one of them during my in-laws visit last month!
When did you take that picture of me!
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