Coyote, Mouse, Pneumonia
Roiling, toiling, bubbling.
When I was a child, I experienced night terrors. I failed my little hands and woke up panicked, saying God-knows-what.
Night things.
A rat loudly munching on cupboard snacks.
My brother sleepwalking.
A neighbour partying.
My son vomiting when he was two.
My husband snoring.
My son sleeps very well. He's as rambunctious and opinionated as a child can be during his waking hours.
Heaving, heating, sweating, pulsing.
Hospitals at night. I was only ever rushed to an ER twice as a child. Once, when I fell out of bed and hit my head, bleeding lots. I was four years old and I still remember it: the Calgary hospital waiting room. The nurse carrying me sobbing, away from my mother. The second time, I believe, was due to fever and vomiting. Maybe pneumonia? Who knows… But, I remember the white hospital bed, the silver barf pan, and the white-sheeted patient cubicle.
My son will remember this. Like most kids, his pneumonia was caused by school. My previously homeschooled, previously only-ever-mildly-ill son’s highest fever, weirdest hallucinations and scariest feelings were caused by public school. Shocker.
He will remember the colourful dinosaur mask they gave him when we walked in through the doors, moments after he’d been speaking to us in another, unknown language for 40 solid minutes. He’ll remember the dilapidated patient exam room, and the old TV mounted on the waiting room wall, playing a black-and-white movie from the ‘50s. He will remember the very old ER doctor who tapped on his ribcage and pushed on his belly, the nurse who took his blood pressure, and the tech who X-rayed his lungs. The weird plastic bracelet on his wrist.
The hospital woke him up. Maybe that’s the least we can ask of our health care providers: that they wake us up when we’re struggling to stay conscious and come to them for help.
They helped, but I’m still terrified. A lethargic, humble child is unsettling. I am doing whatever I can think of to mitigate whatever this sickness is that left behind a whopping amount of unhealthy bacteria. I have it, too. I’ve been as rundown and cognitively impaired as a starved, mangy little urban coyote for the last couple of weeks.
One day, antibiotic-filled microbots will be commonplace in hospitals. They’ll march down into our lungs and devour all of that bacterial debris, leaving us freshly scraped clean by technology.
There’s a reason that mice are used in biomedical research: they are physiologically and genetically similar to humans (whilst residing in a conveniently tiny mammalian package). Hundreds of millions of the little guys are experimented on in labs every year, for our benefit. The least we can do is let them live in our walls…
As long as they aren't the ones making us sick.