The Exhausted Dad: Being sick is just a state of mind
The Exhausted Dad
My 8-year-old daughter never gets sick.
She says.
No matter the obvious symptoms, my daughter won’t admit illness. She carries great pride in her immune system.
Like every other kid in the world, she gets sick all the time, obviously. But she doesn’t accept cold hard facts about her cold viruses. She’s the child equivalent of those folks on social media who claim to “do their own research” about modern medicine.
Me: “Hon, you’re coughing and sneezing a bunch. How are you feeling?”
Her: “I’m not coughing and sneezing.”
She coughs and sneezes before she can even finish the sentence.
Her: “Sneezing and coughing once doesn’t mean you’re sick.”
She coughs and sneezes again
Her: “Sneezing and coughing twice doesn’t mean you’re sick! It’s allergies!”
It’s always allergies. Allergies to cold and flu viruses.
I will give her credit: She seems to fall ill less often than the rest of the house. Even as a baby, she often seemed happy and healthy despite physical evidence that proved otherwise. I remember when she was 10 months old and playing happily on the floor. I reached over to pet her head and it just about burned my skin. I immediately took her temperature: 106! Girl runs hot and burns bright. When we took her to the doctor, they said, “treat the kid, not the symptoms.” I think she took one dose of Tylenol, moaned through a stuffy nose for about 15 hours then went completely back to normal.
Last year, she caught COVID for the first time (around the time my youngest son and I caught it for the first time). She sniffled a bit while my son and I were crawling across the floor in misery. She was SUPER annoyed by the entire experience.
Her: “Why can’t I go to school?”
Me: “You have ACTIVE COVID. You can’t go to school with COVID.”
Her: “Pssh, I don’t have COVID.”
Me: “Yes, you do! You took a test! You have symptoms!”
Her: “Pssh, YOU have symptoms. I’m fine.”
She even had the gall to avoid me the entire week, either standing six feet away or wearing a mask around me.
Her: “Stay away! I don’t want to catch COVID!”
Me: “YOU HAVE COVID! RIGHT NOW!”
Her: “So YOU say.”
Even when she’s the obvious Patient Zero in the house, she quarantines the rest of us away. And she’s a real jerk about it, too!
Her: “Everyone in my class has a cold.”
Me: “You have a cold.”
Her: “I do NOT.”
After two days of spreading snot around the house, she turns on a sibling if they begin to show the EXACT same symptoms.
Her: “Ewww. Stay away from me, I don’t want to get sick.”
She sneezes and coughs
Her: “Ugh, see?! You just got me sick!”
This one might be destined for politics.
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Tyler Wilson is a freelance writer, full-time student and parent to four kids, ages 6-12. He is tired. He can be reached at twilson@cdapress.com.