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INFLUENZA sucks.
I say
this with the little strength I can still muster while I
lie in my bed, half-upright, half-comatose, tapping on
my notebook. No energy. No exclamation point.
My bones
are all achy and creaky, while my breath is ragged and
shallow, in between the hymen-breaking coughs that spare
me no mercy throughout the day. My nose constantly
drips, even as my sinuses are congested. I try to seek
relief in sleep, but then I wake up tired and sluggish
as if I’ve downed a whole bottle of Rivotril.
So too
bad for you, dear readers, there will be no advice to
the lovelorn nor intimations of other people’s slutty
behavior. I shall bore you instead with ague-laden
details of the past three days (I write this on a
Tuesday evening) as I lie feverish and pained on my
100-percent jersey cotton bedsheet (yes, the kind that’s
used for T-shirts and just what Oprah likes), surrounded
by my fluffy pillows which, sadly, now hardly provides
me any comfort. And as every sixth hour of my illness is
marked by a round of paracetamol (1,000 mg),
carbocisteine (500 mg) and antibiotics (625 mg), you can
bet that this piece will be chock full of histrionics
and drug-crazed musings.
I don’t
remember the last time I had been downed by the flu.
I’ve been pretty lucky. I hardly get sick despite my
lack of exercise and a mostly unhealthy diet. I make up
for that by eating lots of veggies now and then, and
having seafood every chance I can, walking a distance,
and downing loads of vitamins and minerals. Then, as you
recall, I did go back to the gym. Which is pretty
ironic. Now that I’ve decided on taking the path to a
healthier lifestyle, I get the flu! A friend of mine
thinks I could have picked up the virus in the shower.
Ick! Remind me next time to take a bath at home after my
workout.
The
illness just crept on me, not giving me any fair warning
at all. One day I was up and about doing my yoga poses
at the gym, the next day my muscles were sore to the
bone, my body wracked with the chills, a cough and the
stuffy nose. Of course, in between all that, I had
chomped down a whole bagful of cheese-flavored popcorn.
And as is the usual, my throat got all scratchy the next
day despite the glasses of water I guzzled in between
the fistfuls I shoved in my mouth.
Normally, the scratchy throat goes away after I gargle
with warm water and salt, and suck on two or three zinc
lozenges for a day. This time, it didn’t. I started
sneezing like mad, one, two, three blasts in succession.
Then my scratchy throat gave way to full-blown hacking.
Soon thereafter, my bones were groaning like an old
lady’s and the chills started.
It’s
driving me mad. I go under the covers for a few hours,
trying to seek protection from the cold permeating
through my entire anatomy. Then the next minute, I am
sweating. I would switch on the air conditioner to give
me some relief from the mugginess that was making the
dogs outside my window pant their poor little tongues
out, but also because of the heat that was running the
course through my poor defenseless remains. Then I would
get the chills again. What’s worse is that my mouth is
always dry, and my taste buds have given up the ghost.
Despite the hunger pangs, it’s pure and simple torture
not being able to taste any of the food I eat. So I quit
after a few spoonfuls. I have no joy.
The last
time I got this sick, I was bored out of my wits
watching afternoon soaps and endless repetitions of HBO
and Star Movies. My saving grace this time around is my
torrent downloads of Little Britain, Entourage
and Ugly Betty. (Yup, that’s Betty La Fea
to you, telenovela fans of yore.) And, of course, I had
just finished the much-talked about, endlessly debated
finale of The Sopranos. Was Tony whacked or not?
(I think he was; after all, that’s how mob bosses are
supposed to go. And for someone who has suffered a whiny
wife like Carmela, death would surely be a welcome
release.)
If not
watching my torrents, I am catching up on my reading.
Not books, unfortunately, because I can hardly keep my
eyes open while I’m shot up with all these drugs, but
Vanity Fair. If there is any magazine that you must
subscribe to in your entire life, it has to be VF. It
has a bit of everything. Heavy investigative pieces of
criminal or political activity (yes, crime and politics
now seem to be synonymous with each other), lavish
spreads of gorgeous celebrities with in-depth
interviews, and lots of amusing sections and sidebars
along with gorgeous photography.
But here
is a spoiler alert: get your copy of the July issue.
It’s all about Africa and is guest-edited by Bono, who
says he had always wanted to become a journalist. Now
how cool is that? I just hope you have more luck than me
getting a better cover. (VF shot 20 separate covers for
this issue—Oprah Winfrey, Don Cheadle, Madonna, Barack
Obama, Iman, Bono, of course, among others—with
celebrated portrait photographer Annie Leibovitz at the
helm.) I got George Bush, yes, a first on the cover of a
usually antiadministration publication, with a prayerful
Bishop Desmond Tutu. You can guess who he’s praying for.
(They have Condi Rice, too. Wipe that smirk off your
face. You must understand, this is how Bono gets his
philantrophic work done. He sucks up to the right people
in power. I love Bono but he is human just like the rest
of us.) All I can say is, I would have been happier with
the George Clooney cover in my hand.
Okay,
I’m off rambling more than usual. I just hope I get well
by the weekend. My back is killing me from all this
lying down. And I’m afraid my hard drive will give out
from all this downloading. I’m also running out of VF
issues to read. Mother! I need my drugs!
****
MY
deepest condolences to the family of the late Renato
Faustino, “Mang Ato” to all of us reporters who had
covered the agriculture beat. Mang Ato was an old-time
government publicist who endeared himself to the
journalists who made it their business to investigate
every piece of BS coming out of the mouths of his often
lofty-minded bosses. (True, there have been one or two
exceptional heads at the Department of Agriculture, the
present dispensation not one of them, though.)
Mang Ato
just did his job, disseminating information to the
reporters, getting officials to explain themselves out
of the messes they got themselves in, ringing up editors
to ask for some support to the agency programs. Even
when his beloved DA was dragged in the mud a few times
in the last few years, Mang Ato never cast aspersions on
the motives of the reporters or the columnists for the
negative stuff. He knew they were just doing their job
as well.
The last
time I saw Mang Ato was last year, at a friend’s
wedding. We had joked that he became teary-eyed because
our friend was getting married for the second time. I
imagine the buckets he would have wept if I had been the
one who got hitched! But that was how Mang Ato was. He
was always a softie, and I have never once heard him
utter a harsh word about anyone or anything, even if he
was the one put at a disadvantage. He was truly a friend
we could always go back to for a few laughs as we
reminisced about the good times at the DA.
Thanks,
Mang Ato, for being the kind of person many of us can
only hope to be. |
