Occupational Therapy

There was a moment yesterday afternoon when I thought: I feel strange. I need to stop drinking caffeinated tea. Soon after, something hit and I realised: I'm sick. Not dramatically so, but my joints ache just enough to make knitting unpleasant and a planned trip to Ikea is definitely out of the question.

I'm so rarely sick that I tend to remember bouts quite clearly. Today I've been remembering a time when I was hospitalised with fever and severe abdominal pain. I was eight or nine or ten. I was hallucinating that I was a character on the TV show The Sullivans. Or rather, that I lived in the world of the show, which at the time was nearing it's season climax. My father, a doctor, gave me an injection of something before taking me to the hospital. I was admitted to a children's ward in which there was a kid named Elvis with severe burns. He lay in bed under a wire frame so that the blankets didn't touch his skin. By the next day, I felt fine. In occupational therapy, I started stitching a leather wallet. I was in the hospital for a few days with something which may or may not have been appendicitis, and every day I went to occupational therapy. It was a severe blow to be released, perfectly well, but with my wallet unfinished.