Old memories and euphemisms
There was time when I was in first grade that I caught some bug and got very sick.
I missed a week of school due to it.
The note my mother sent me to school with said "Frank had diarrhea."
I was 6. I thought that was the name of the sickness. It sounded like I had survived something cool and exotic.
So, I told my friend Stephen about it. But, he knew what it was and went around telling the rest of the class that I had been out for a week because I couldn’t stop pooping my pants.
I faced a lot of people laughing at me.
Half a century later, I still am reluctant to tell people when I experience this symptom.
Sadly, it is one of the ones on the list of Covid symptoms that I have acquired.
When the nurse from my doctor’s office called me Friday to tell me I was positive, she asked for my symptoms.
"Headache, stuffed up nose, very tired and some digestive effects," I told her.
"Oh, don’t worry about lack of appetite, that will come back," she told me.
"Wrong end."
"Oooooh, that. Well, that will end too."
When the state health department called to go over things with me and track who I’ve had contact with a similar question was asked.
"Headache, stuffed up nose, very tired and let’s just say I should stay near a bathroom," I told him.
"Ah, I understand."
There is no one in that first grade class to laugh at me these days. I can’t even remember the last time I saw one of them. Probably some time in high school 40 or so years ago.
But, I am still strangely reluctant to say the word…