The Real Reason Strep is Going Around

It's amazing how many people sat on Oprah's couch and said I saw it coming, but that didn't stop me.   I reached for the ice cream and I thought I felt a foot in the deep freeze, but his eyes were just so blue, I couldn't tear myself away.

We watch, amazed that someone could see that their wife spent every penny she had, kept mumbling under her breath about Bingo, but still left the bank account in both our names because, hell, her macaroni and cheese was just so damn creamy.

We would never do that, we say to ourselves.  We would recognize the writing on the wall and run shrieking in the other direction.

But when it comes to our bodies, how many times to we ignore symptoms or put off going to the doctor until it's really too late?  How many times to we ignore the throbbing pain in our shoulder just so we can keep on knitting? Or maybe that last one is just me.

My friend C has strep.  She called to complain.  (I know you also have strep, but since you didn't call me to complain, this story is not about you.)  C's complaint is that her kids were sick and she thinks she picked something up in the festering swamp of germs known as the pediatrician's office.  

I reminded her that last week when she was forcing me to climb hills more appropriate for first year marine boot camp on our walk, she was already feeling run down.  She was exhausted.  She was depleted.  She had nothing left to give.

She saw the signs. 

But did she heed this warning, book a ticket to Tahiti and blackberry be damned?

Did she crawl into bed with a good book and lay there for 24 hours?

Nope.  She went back home, back to work, back to the kids and continued to burn the candle at both ends until, well, until she got burned.

So, the soapbox statement of the day is -

If you take a preventative break when you start to realize you need to, you can probably heal yourself in a half a day.  If you ignore the flashing red light over your head until you end up in an ambulance by yourself at 3am because you threw your back out, it may take six weeks to recover. 

Ladies and gentlemen, if your body is trying to tell you something please heed that message.  

Otherwise you are no better than the suburban mom saying she noticed most of her spoons were missing but figured her boys really liked ice cream.