I wonder, sometimes...

...what it's like to be healthy.  My health limits me in little ways people wouldn't think.

For example: We are going to Disney World later this year.  Originally, instead of summer, we discussed going during one of my school breaks.  I vetoed the February break week immediately, with the words, "I'm usually recovering from somethign that week.  I don't want to spend my vacation sick."

I don't shake hands with people in church (I'm Episcopalian) during the winter at all.  I tell people I have a cold and would rather not, because I don't want to give it to them.  (Thank you, H1N1; people are a LOT more accepting of this ow than they used to be!)  In reality, though, I don't shake hands because I am afraid someone will give ME something.  This is the same reason I "dip" the Eucharist and don't drink from the Cup. 

I have to plan my schedule around my medication schedule.  Any medication works best when it's taken at or around the same time every day.  This means every 12 hours, I have to use my Symbicort inhaler.  Every night around 7pm, I have to take a few other pills.  Every morning as soon as I wake up, I need to take Nexxium.  And so it goes.  And, yes, I do notice when I forget or am late to take my meds for whatever reason.  When I go out in the evenings, this also produces a dilemma: do I take everything before I leave, and be able to breathe, but take the chance that the various meds will make me too drowsy to safely drive home, or do I wait until I get home, and hope that I don't have a coughing fit or asthma attack while out? 

Most of the time, I'm of the opinion that my situation, having been sick my whole life, is much easier than for someone who was healthy and now has health problems.  I don't know what I never had, so how could I really miss it?  But sometimes, like tonight, when I'm feeling melancholy, I wish that I could experience just for one day how it feels to not have to take any medications, or remember my inhaler, or hear someone sneeze or cough and not immediately worry that I can feel the little disease-filled droplets making their way into my system.