Wellness returns

It's odd when you don't know you've been sick, or how sick, until you feel better. Some of us don't become "plastered" with a cold or the flu; we just feel sort of sub-par and don't realize how bad it's been until we feel better. This may be a legacy: I can't think of any adult relation who ever admitted to being ill or who ever spent a day abed, let alone took a sick day off from work. Anybody who did any of these things was thought to be near death, and usually, in fact, was. REH broke a collarbone falling off a bridge (and lost his billfold with his week's pay, also). A couple of folks in one branch suddenly had both breasts removed, along with all lymph nodes, as was done in those days; and they never bothered with so-called "falsies" and just went right back to all the swimming and other activities in which they'd always engaged. It's not that we don't feel pain: we do, and some of us are really quite hyper-sensitive to it and have low threshholds. A sudden and smiting headache, a few days' lack of appetite, not much discernible go-get-'em energy, some peeling skin, the wearing of over-warm clothes, and a brief unheard-of daytime nap were the only signs, noticed in retrospect, that there'd been an indisposition of some sort, accompanied by fever and probably influenza. Any respiratory symptoms are ignored; this is the season during which nearly everybody experiences some reaction to one or several of the various pollens in the air. The wellness part comes in when you feel the way you used to after coming down to, say, anyplace, such as Albuquerque or Denver, 2,500 feet or more lower in altitude than what you've been used to. Watch out world! I'm a whirlwind of energy now.