Don't make me laugh.

I think it's cute. Lu, Edy, Bea and I have the same cough. On the cough scale, it's rather mild. I almost forget I have it until someone makes me laugh. Then once I get going, I'm a raging case of black lung. A burning rattle vibrates deep in my chest. Heads turn, children point, until I settle myself down. So I must be careful when reading any of slate.com's Downton Abbey recaps - hysterical - or when sipping appletinis with two of my closest friends and discussing how our ridiculously intense high school swim coach made us lay on the stinky mats in the wrestling room, listen to One Moment in Time blared on a boom box, and visualize our races like we were destined for the Seoul Summer Olympics. (RIP Whitney.)


There's also a post-nasal component to this sick package, but it's not at all cute and is keeping Bea up at night. One can not effectively suck ones thumb with all that drip action. I'm not convinced it's a cold, it might be allergies, but I am washing the sheets like a mad lady and opening windows for fresh air, a process that may, if it is allergies, kill us because this weird weather is multiplying mold spores. Or so I've heard.

What is your history with colds, flus and other common illnesses?


I was a hearty kid, but maybe it just appeared that way next to my brother who had countless bouts with bronchitis all winter, every winter. I have no memory of anything terrible taking me down. Just chicken pox, strep throat, low fevers and the purple boobaleen. If there was ever a super contagious stomach bug floating about town, it would plow right through our family of six. My mom (and her mom, I think) called it the purple boobaleen. It's a strangely appropriate name. Feel free to use it. No copyright is pending.


I admit, I liked being sick. A simple virus could net you:
1) the portable black and white tv carried into your room
2) a barf bucket at the ready
3) a washcloth on your forehead
4) the opportunity to sport your Christmas robe and crazy matted hair
5) root beer in a can with a bendable straw. Maybe to burp yourself better?


During the early months of 1988, I was in the throws of teenage love and soon developed the dreaded kissing disease. Having mono is the sickest I can remember ever being in all of my life. The glands in my neck were so sore and swollen I could barely speak. This disheartened my impatient boyfriend (now husband) who wanted to talk at length on the phone. He's always been super chatty. Some kids with mono would be out of school for a month, but I willed myself better in a weekend, because that's what good and loyal (slightly obsessed, but I guess it all worked out) girlfriends do!

Here's the card Jon gave me when I had mono. It played creepy carousel music to "keep me up??" He claims I throw away everything. Apparently not! You know I want to grab a blue pen and fix his spelling error.

My junior year of college I was selected to represent our school at the Model UN in NYC. It was a big honor. The event came and I got very sick. Like 103 lethargic fever sick. I was super hot and somewhat delirious for several days. When you're twenty and motherless, no one is telling you to take medicine and climb in bed. I believed I could soldier on. As a result, I was voted most apathetic by my committee of countries which, if I wasn't hallucinating, was comprised of pageant-like girls from southern universities in fancy tailored suits. The whole episode is a fuzzy dream.

In college, being sick came with the germy grossness of communal living. Add a host of unhealthy habits and you were always fighting something. Stomach issues are the absolute worst when you share a row of poorly hinged bathroom stalls about forty feet down the hall. I remember my roommate throwing up out the dorm window in sheer desperation. But I don't remember us doing anything about it. Just closing the window and filing it away with so many other cringe-worthy images from those four years.


As a responsible adult and parent, I pride myself on staying very healthy. I keep the house clean, I wipe down door knobs and wash blankets on the hottest, most environmentally unfriendly setting. I am generous with Lysol. It's probably all psychosomatic, but putting the burden on an inanimate source (my sterile, picked up house) keeps sickness at bay. Neat home = healthy family! Winter comes and winter goes and I never get anything I can't sleep off with a Nyquil coma or Benadryl blackout.


I did get the purple boobaleen at the beach a few years ago. Oooof. It was bad. My friend caught it first, but thankfully dads and kids were spared. When I think about that trip, two thoughts come to mind. #1 Every family who rented our house for the rest of the season probably caught the same contagious strain. Over and over again. #2 I looked great in the pictures we took at the end of the week. Who doesn't love an unexpected five pound weight loss?! At the beach!


But seriously, I'm very healthy. I am. And so are Jon and the kids. Edy will have respiratory issues and need a nebulizer treatment every now and again and Bea's nose will run like a faucet off and on, but Lu, it seems, is never sick. Never. Until she scared me to death on her ninth birthday. It's unquestionably the most frightened I have ever been as a parent.


It started when she showed me some weird bruises on her knee. I told her we'd monitor them. They stayed the same for many days. Then on the evening of her birthday, she had an indoor soccer game and scored four goals! We went directly from the game to dinner so it was late by the time she got in the shower. She called for me and I swear I almost fainted. There were purple, red and blue welts all over her legs. Lu is very sensitive to emotions, so I had to calmly ask her to get dressed and come with me calmly to the ER. It's hard to hide your fear (of a flesh eating virus that would require amputation or worse) when you are driving your daughter to the hospital at 11pm instead of tucking her into bed. On her birthday!


After a few tense hours, she was diagnosed with a totally harmless autoimmune disorder called HSP. It has a longer name I can say, but can't spell. It lasted ten weeks and is now gone forever.


So that's it. Perfect timing. I am feeling the urge to clean.


Editor's note: My cute cough took a turn for the worse and I got slightly sicker by the time this post was posted. I still think it might be allergies, but I looked around and decided to blame the basement.