Ah hell. It was the Ebola.

I was sick all week last week and it got me to thinking. I had these just slightly more than irritating, vague symptoms for days: nausea, but not enough to keep me from eating; cramping, stabbing pains in my stomach after I ate; low grade fever and a headache, just a dull one, but a headache; and every day, as the day progressed, I felt crappier and crappier.

So, that’s over now. But one day in the midst of it, a day when I actually tried to rest, my mind started wandering… It seems to me that most of the really bad diseases start this way. You have some vague upset, feel tired and maybe a little achy, but not enough to really stop you from doing what you need to do (work, kids, facebook). Then BAM! Next morning you wake up and your right thigh is missing. It was eaten by the flesh eating disease, Necrotizing fasciitis. Or you wake up one morning with a high fever and a cough and holey guacamole, you got the Swine flu. Or worst of all! You wake up with blood oozing from your pores, OOOOO struck down by the Ebola virus. Immune System FAIL.

So then, I started imagining me waking up and finding:

Ah hell. It was the Ebola. Damn. I really should have called that one better.

I honestly believe you should let nature take its course, most of the time. The way I figure: any parasite, (bacteria, worms, a barnacle) it’s job is to keep the host alive so as to reproduce. Spread the love, as it were. The little fellas don't wanna kill me, they just want a nice warm vacation destination. So, I usually let my body duke it out with the bastard. Oh yes, indeedy I’ve been whipped; I do keep antibiotics as a last resort. In a drawer, behind the tape. I think.

If a parasite is out for the kill, well he’s being a little short sighted. You get me? He’s the James Dean of the parasite world: BIG BANG little fizzle. Some may say it’s worth the ride. WHEEEEWWWWWW! And I’m sure that it is. But I, myself, like to take a more balanced approach, as do most inhabitants of this place we call our world.

I'm much more for the natural order of things: that bug just wants a spot to hang for a while. How can I blame him? I'm told my ileum is amazing. As long as I'm not down, out, and totally delirious, I'll share.

So, yes my new philosophy, of the way things are, is that basically everyone has a job to do (barnacle, neurosurgeon, pizza slinger, Alaskan king crab). All of these jobs fit together to make one big puzzle, because really, what do we really and truly know about how we got here? So, inside of that puzzle, if any one of us is not filling her space, doing her job? There’s a hole there. One that no one else can fill, perfectly. Some may do a decent job of it, but no one else fit’s the space quite as exactly. Like when the garden hose won’t fit snugly to the faucet; you get the job done, but you waste a lot of water, too. I don’t like wasting stuff.

And that, to wrap this up, is a little heavy for that time my mind wandered in the midst of a just slightly more than irritating illness.