This too shall pass

Brian Wilson

“You’ve got that nauseous feeling, Oh that nauseous feeling Now it’s, run, run, run before you make a mess on the floor.”

With apologies to the Righteous Brothers and any readers with weak stomachs, I caution that as I plunk away at my keyboard writing this I am currently feeling less than 100%.

Part of me is hoping it was the egg of questionable age that I cooked and ate for breakfast this morning. When cooking for my personal consumption, I tend to view the dates stamped on the outside of cartons and on containers as guidelines more than absolute limits. This has to do with the fact that I can, at times, be frugal to the point of being cheap.

This is a point of contention between me and my ever- loving wife and children over things like macaroni and cheese. Not being one who is overly fond of any boxed macaroni and cheese product, I will seek out the cheapest option versus exhibiting any sort of brand loyalty even if the taste would be the same if you simply cooked the box along with the noodles — at least you would gain some more fiber in your diet.

In some cases, I have been able to turn to marginally well-respected sources of information that backed my argument against throwing out perfectly good — well sorta good — OK food that vaguely meets the dietary requirements for being good. My family is quick to point out that web sites I make up myself or are on my list from my extreme end-of-the world prepper searches are not acceptable sources of information.

I still think that a commercial freeze drier for food would be a good investment, even if it is more than what I paid for my last vehicle. But no, my family would rather live on the edge as if there was a convenience store on every corner. I’ll have you know I have to walk two whole blocks to get to one. That may not seem like much, but what if there was a zombie apocalypse during a snowstorm. Much better to hunker down and be prepared surrounded by my beer kegs and ingredients and rely on the hops to throw them off my scent.

It is a sad state when you are hoping your lingering queasiness is due to a less than fresh poultry product consumed hours before, but the alternative is to go into a panic attack about having caught the creeping intestinal nastiness that kept a family member home from work earlier this week or worse the lingering coughing nastiness that kept another member of my household home much of the day this week.

For my part, the benefit of having things to cover and meetings to attend is that I can more easily justify avoiding them. It is not that I don’t want to be around them, I just don’t want them to make me sick. Since my wonderful wife Kim has taken my spot in sleeping on our recliner due to a bruised rotator cuff, each night I have taken to barricading myself in our bedroom with my CPAP mask feeding me filtered air with just the right amount of humidity to prevent waking up dehydrated. The added plus is that the sound of the CPAP covers any other retching sounds from other family members that might otherwise cause me to experience sympathetic nausea.

After a truly terrible bout with a stomach bug earlier this winter I will do just about anything to avoid a repeat. Which, you would think, would include being more aggressive in purging eggs of questionable quality from my breakfast plate. Honestly though, have you paid any attention to the cost of eggs these days?

Yes, I realize those words, much like my breakfast, may come back to haunt me. I just have to focus on the shallow breathing that almost got me through blacking out when they talked about treatment of compound fractures in my first aid class. In any case I need to cling to the mantra that, one way or another, this too shall pass.

Brian Wilson is News Editor at The Star News.