This Stuff Happens When You’re Sick

I’m sick.

Thankfully, this sickness isn’t in my chest, or my digestion. I think the day I took the photo it was in my nose. Maybe a little in my eyes. It’s now full-blown conjunctivitis and it’s in my ears, too. My left ear is filled with sounds of the ocean, like I have a shell permanently attached to it. This means I have three days to get better before the Art of Time concert Monday.

To that end, I’ve been resting up and eating orange foods and popping pills. I’ve taken a ridiculous assortment of sinus and cold medicines, hoping I find a magic combo that clears it all up. I think I’ve taken fifty pills in the last five days.

That’s why it surprised me when I was standing at the kitchen sink, slapped my three daily morning pills in my mouth, and one poorly-positioned one bounced off my lip and plummeted into the garbage disposer.

I spat out the remaining two. Damnit. The one that I last was the Gilenya, the MS pill. The one that costs $210 a day. (Granted, it costs someone else $210 a day: I’m off the hook.) I stared at the garbage disposer and considered the variables.

• Do I really need a pill that kills my immune system while I’m this sick?
• More important, how recently did I run the garbage disposer?

I opted to rescue the pill. After five minutes of fishing out bits of ham, I found the pill and popped it in my mouth, thus killing off the lymphocytes that might make me better. I’m counting on my neutrophils to rally and the baby carrots I had for breakfast.