I stared at the computer screen for a half an hour yesterday willing the numbers to change, or for my brain to glom onto a different understand of them.  Eight lab tests; seven positives; static or rising values.  I copy the names of the various viruses and paste them into Google to try to broaden my understanding enough to convince myself that the direction of the graphed results should not alarm me.  Finally, I message the ID department of Stanford requesting a telephone consult, shut down my computer, and bolt.

Nothing that plagues me will kill me.  Though some of these little bugs qualify as “infectious”, most of the human population throws them off like scattered sand on a beach as you head indoors for dinner.  Me, not so much.  Something about my genetic structure causes me to be particularly susceptible to viruses that most other people experience once as an annoying illness.  I’m not complaining, mind you — just explaining.

So I left the office early yesterday  and drove to CVS to claim the twice-a-day anti-viral that combats the worst of these little buggers and which had been out of stock for the last five days. My need for it rages like the craving of a crack whore.  My joints throb, my temperature has spiked, and believe me when I say that I feel as though I’ve been hit by a car — since I have been, and I well remember the terrible pain of lying on the asphalt shattered and beaten.

Oddly, I don’t take the little pink pill immediately on arrival at the house.  I plop the package down in the middle of the dining room table, pull the clogs from my aching feet, and make a cup of tea.  I walk around the house grumbling about the chores that I’m too weary to undertake.  Periodically I cast a resentful glance towards the CVS package, muttering about a drug that cost so much having so little impact.  At the laptop, I answer the rash of requests for passwords that has followed from my notice to my Rotary Club about downloading the Clubrunner app.  Eventually, I tear open the package and administer the anti-viral, glad it’s just HHV-6 and not HIV.  I’ll live.  It could be so much worse.

But I know it’s not a competition.  I accept that I’m allowed to feel discouraged.  At some point in the evening, I publicly acknowledge my disillusionment on social media, not anticipating the instant wave of support, comment after comment of encouragement and devotion from my tribe.  Friends from coast to coast respond, sending love, hope, humor, and one or two swift kicks in the bottom.

This morning’s cup of tea has just begin to hit my synapses when I hear the call of a text message on my phone.  I lift the device and swipe the screen, expecting a notice from the water department about a main break or from KCPD about a missing person.  Instead, I see my friend Phyllis Norman’s cheerful words, wishing me a brighter day, complete with illustration.

And now I’m smiling.

It’s the eighth day of the twenty-seventh month of My Year Without Complaining.  Despite a bit of a setback, my life continues.

Benton, son of Phyllis and Ivan, brother of Morgan. Because who doesn’t like beautiful pictures of babies?