Unsaid

This seems to happen to me every fall. I play host to a common rhinovirus. Apparently, I’m great at making those little buggers feel right at home because they move in and invite all their friends. Some years, I end up with pneumonia. Other years – the lucky ones – I make it through with only a sinus infection, bronchitis and, the worst for a teacher, laryngitis.

The timing of these illnesses is always impressive. Three years ago, Brock and I were in the middle of moving homes and had our annual Thanksgiving camping trip scheduled when we both came down with the munge. Not ones to be easily discouraged, we held to our plans although we had to make a couple NyQuil runs during the trip and I think our coughing kept Tiger up during the night. Two years ago, I was blessed with a bout of pneumonia just a few short weeks before my marathon. I was still able to run although I’m sure the illness had some impact on my race experience. Last year, it hit Brock during our wedding week and me shortly after.

And this year?

No pneumonia, knock on wood. But no voice either. I’ve been attempting to teach math with pantomime and interpretive dance and to communicate in meetings through lip-reading and telepathy. I’m only partly joking.

It’s exhausting trying to get through a busy day with hundreds of people with no voice.

But even worse?

It’s frustrating.

There is always more that I want to communicate than what I can conceivably convey. I’m in the middle of the group yet I feel invisible. Impotent. Dependent and decrepit. Especially when the classroom phone rings and all I can do is stare at it pathetically.

Not a feeling I like.

I’m hopeful, though. Brock and I are both on the mend and hopefully we’ll be healthy before we hit the campground for Thanksgiving. Hiking is more fun without my seal-bark cough scaring away all the wildlife and toasted marshmallows over chilled NyQuil.

And maybe I’ll even have a voice for tomorrow when I expect my principal to do one of my formal observations.

Of course, she may enjoy my interpretive dance about volume instead:)

Stay well, folks. It’s okay to be a bad host sometimes!