Poached Eggs

Okay, so here’s a vacation update. Friday evening I was out working in the yard, and Cal said, “Is everything packed?” I pull another weed that had the audacity to grow in MY yard and said, “Yep. Everything’s locked and loaded.” Cal’s face took on the pondering look, a combination of a faraway gaze and a rubbing of the chin. “Why don’t we just leave now? We’ll get there by 1:30am.” I bagged my weeds. “Sounds good. Let’s do it.” So we filled the van, brought our pets to their temporary homes, packed the kids in, and left. Little did I know that this was going to be an amazingly providential decision.

About two hours from Orlando, the van seemed to get amazingly cold. I was driving at the time, and I kept switching from the heater to the air conditioner. You would think that I would realize something was up. But I didn’t. When Cal took over the driving, he cranked the air conditioner. I shivered. But I didn’t say anything because I know he drives better at night when the van’s cool.

It wasn’t until I climbed into bed at 2:30am that it occurred to me that my eyes were hot. Eyes are part of my internal thermometer system. Low fevers achieve the status of unimportant—they can be ignored and worked through, i.e. we-laugh-at-sickness stage. Then, comes the 100 to 101. While this frequently can be worked through, it occasionally forces me to lie down on the couch. But this is the ideal stage of sickness because I can actually read through this kind of illness. This is fun sick, although I have to make up for it later with tons of housework. But, still if you have to be sick this is the way to do it.

The next stage of sickness involves hot eyes. This stage has a fever that ranges from 101 to 103. The problem with an illness of this range is that the eyes begin to feel like poached eggs. (For those of you who are ignorant of poached eggs, which would include my children, poached eggs are a pre-progeny food delicacy associated with Eggs Benedict, and it involves bringing water to a gentle boil, cracking the egg and carefully placing it into the water so that the yolk stays whole and the egg is cooked.) But back to being sick. At this stage of illness, it’s too hard to read because the eyes feel like they are being boiled.

Of course, the nastiest stage is from 103 on up. Not long after Cal and I got married, he went to work and I stayed home because I was sick. When he got home, he said, “How are you feeling?” I said, “Not good. My fever’s 105.5” His eyebrows drew together, his nose wrinkled, and his lips pinched. It would not be an understatement to say that his face took on the look usually reserved for someone trying to pass off heresy as orthodox theology. He picked me up, held me under a cold shower, muttered what sounded close to imprecations upon my lack of health sense, and then drove me to the hospital. (And Cal wonders why Luke can have an ulcer for months without complaining—it’s my fault. I take full responsibility.) At this stage of illness, my eyes pour fluids. Cal is sure it must be cerebrospinal fluid—in his mind nothing except leaking brain fluid explains why I’d be so calm about the whole thing.

But thankfully, my sickness didn’t reached the poached-eggs-boiled-dry stage. Just the poached stage. Apparently, I contracted the 72 hour Florida Upper Respiratory ‘Flu. Now that the 72 hours are over, I’m feeling much better and very, very thankful that we drove on Friday just as I was getting sick. (Yeah, I know it can’t be the Florida Flu if I contracted it on the way down—but since I got it on Florida soil…) I can’t imagine a nine hours car drive with poached egg eyes. My eyes are now happy, hen eggs in their chilled shells. Good health is a tremendous blessing!