In Food Poisoning and In Health

Food poisoning struck my home on Friday. I don't know the exact culprit, but the most likely suspect is a salad I ate for lunch on Thursday. It contained some highly questionable chicken. The most embarrassing part of all this is when people ask me, with a gasp of shock, where I got the food poisoning from. "What restaurant were you at??" they ask, eager to avoid a similar catastrophe. Then I have to sheepishly admit, "I made the salad myself." Yes, I did, and I didn't bother to check the expiration date on that chicken. Lesson learned for next time.

So Friday was pretty awful. I wasn't able to leave my bed until about 3 pm, and even then only to hobble to the kitchen for water and orange juice. I had to call people at work and ask them to do all my usual tasks for me. It was quite embarrassing. Isn't that odd? I was too sick to leave my bed - why did I feel embarrassed? I thought about that, lying in bed all day. Why is it so hard for us (or at least for me) to admit when things are beyond our capabilities? Why is it so hard to allow ourselves to be helped?

Besides being embarrassed about missing my work obligations, I was most upset about missing the rally for religious freedom. Honestly, I had been looking forward to it for weeks. I thought about that too, lying in bed (Turns out that being sick is a great time to think!) For some reason I don't understand, God let me be sick in bed rather than healthy and attending the rally. In my disappointment, I thought, I'll do the next best thing and offer my sickness for the success of the rally. But then I re-examined that statement. Really, Tess? I thought. Prayer and sacrifice is always the best thing you can do for any cause. It's never the 'next best thing.' I realized that praying for the rally from afar is much better than attending it and not praying for it. Comforted by that thought, I prayed for the rally all day, confident that I was doing as much good for the cause as those who actually got to attend. But I still wish I could have been there!

Frank, because he is an angel, left work early to come to my aid with giant bottles of Gatorade in tow. I wasn't capable of doing anything more than lie pathetically on the couch, but he comforted me and brought me toast and cut up a banana for me to eat and made sure I was properly hydrated with Gatorade. I felt pretty pathetic but also very loved. It reminded me of the last time I was sick, when he brought me chicken soup. I'm usually very healthy so it's a little funny that I've been sick twice since we started dating two months ago, but I feel really lucky to have him to look after me in those times.

Hang on, that thought deserves its own paragraph. Today I've been officially been dating Frank for two months. Two months! We understand each other so well that it feels like we've been together for much longer than that.

Frank said yesterday, "We've actually been together for three months - January, February and March!" Quite the brave new counting system, darling. However you count them, these months have been among the happiest of my life. I have a sneaky suspicion, too, that the best is yet to come.