Rich Dad, Sick Dad

It’s long been a family joke that I always – always – get sick on vacation.

I’d like to be the one to say this is a myth that’s grown out of just a few isolated incidents, but I can’t. It’s true, and I fear it will always be true. I leave the day-to-day stresses of life and am allowed one precious week of worrying about little more than what to read, eat and drink, and my immune system collapses like a bridge built of dominoes and chewing gum.

My friend Chris chalks it up to a variant on the fight-or-flight reflex. During “real” life, he theorizes, we force our immune systems to ramp up their work out of sheer necessity. We just don’t have time to be sick, so we spend a lot of energy fighting off whatever is around.

When that pressure to stay healthy goes away, he suggests, our bodies feel free to pull back, too. Thus the sudden vacation case of strep throat, upper bronchial infection or – hell, for all I know next year it might be Ebola, bleeding eye sockets and all.

But there’s only one previous occasion that I can recall feeling sick enough to stay in bed. It was when The Boy was an infant, and I had that scratchy throat feeling as we departed for North Carolina’s Outer Banks. By day three, I had lesions blossoming in my throat and was laid out in a dark room sipping on ginger ale and hoping to god I’d be able to hit the beach for just a moment before the trip was over.

This year’s incident I fought not with antibiotics or comfort food, but with one of the greatest parental weapons available – sheer, unadulterated denial.

I might not be feeling well, I would say to myself each morning that I felt like warmed over seagull droppings, but I’m at the beach, dammit, and will not let this ruin things for myself, my wife or my kids.

So while Miss K had to deal with her share of husbandly whining, I honestly strove to keep it to a minimum. And as far as the kids knew, everything was mostly fine. “Just feeling a tad puny, son, and yes, I’d love to go throw the Frisbee with you. Just promise to call Mommy if Daddy collapses in the sand, OK?”

What’s particularly interesting is that my aunt’s daily questions about how I was feeling, which under other circumstances I might find grating, became part of that daily affirmation of fortitude.

“Are you still sick?” she’d sincerely query.

“I am moving forward with my day,” I’d reply without spite or irony while I downed a handful of Advil, noting mentally that I had no real choice, and honestly wouldn’t prefer the option of lying abed while precious moments of work- and worry-free time slipped away for another year.