The "geezer" at the gym

I was dripping sweat.

 Feeling pumped and invincible after my cardio workout, I waited in the hall of the gym for the "core strength and stretch" class. I felt especially spry as I watched a scruffy, old, man hobble slowly down the hall with a dirty backpack swung over his tired shoulder. I almost pitied him, thinking he must be at the gym for recovery or therapy purposes. Imagine my shock when I saw him take his place at the front of the room to teach the class!

A mother and her teenage son were the only others to take the class with me. I overheard the woman telling a passing friend, (to her son's obvious embarrassment,) that he needed the stretching in this class to help with his recurring "groin injuries". Ah, mothers and their talkative ways.

We three spectators watched the knobby-kneed fellow waddle to get a mat, lay it down and, with effort, place his rump precariously down upon it, only to mutter gruffly to himself, "towels... everyone will need a towel.... I'll get some towels". Slowly he heaved himself off the floor again and practically limped across the room to accomplish his said task. Every step and gesture was as rusty and deliberate as those of elderly women who take up an entire aisle at the grocery store, and, with squinting eyes, carefully inspect every single orange to find the perfect produce.

We laid out our mats, doubtful that this geezer could give us a workout worth paying for. Little did our abdominal muscles know, just how traumatic the next hour of their lives would be. This class was being taught, not by a cripple, not by an old man, and not even by a normal human being; this class was being instructed by a machine.

Just to give you an idea of the kind of torturous monotony we endured for an hour, I'll explain one exercise set we actually did. I should say, "what he actually did and we attempted". Laying on our backs, we extended our legs out straight, barely hovering above the floor. (That alone is pain. Just try it!) From this position he did fifty leg lifts with the right leg, followed by fifty on the left, followed by fifty with both, followed by that entire pattern in reverse (legs starting up in the air and lowering them to the hover position.)...!!!

Being the ex-dancer I am, I started the series with confidence and perfect, straight-legged form, but by the third set, the burning muscles in my legs and stomach were screaming "if you don't stop this nonsense, we're going to blow up!" so I continued with weaker and increasingly pathetic form as I simply struggled to survive. The woman next to me took many breaks to rest her legs and by the end of the series, her breaks were twice as long as her spurts of exertion. The boy gave up completely on the first set.

Meanwhile, the machine plugged along just as in the beginning, without a hobble or a hiccup.  There was even a moment in the class where he did a headstand and expected us to follow along as if it were a clap of the hands. All the while, he mumbled seemingly senseless, out-of-order, numbers, which made the experience all the more troubling. Even when I discovered that he did have a pattern with his counts, one couldn't always distinguish his husky "five" from his mumbled "nine", or his whispered "three" from his rattled "fifteen". I once found myself wondering in desperation, "Are we in the fifties or the twenties? What are you saying mister?! My limbs and sanity depend on it!!"

Like all trying events in life, the torture session eventually came to an end. The clock actually had been moving the entire time, incredibly, and the hostages, though greatly maimed and debilitated, were set free at last. What did the captives do with their first few minutes of freedom? We laid face-down on the mat to recover from whatever it was that just happened to us! That's what!

We watched the "geezer" get up, roll up his mat and put his things away with the same slow but able movements as in the beginning of class. I'm sure my fellow pupils felt just as much respect for the old gentleman as I did,  for now we were the teetering, grunting invalids, and he the spry body of strength.

Another set of humbled whippersnappers exited the gym.

Whooping Cough

Coughing, hacking, choking, wheezing, gasping, and "whooping".


When Paul was still a newborn I listened to a disturbing audio clip online of a baby with Pertussis, or the "whooping cough". I imagined the baby's face turning purple from the violent coughing fits, hardly having a chance to breath. I remember thinking, "what could be more frightening than watching your infant suffer through Pertussis?".

These are the awful sounds my five-month old has been making for more than a month. What started as a mild cough, slowly turned into the frightening sound I heard in that audio clip.

The first few weeks he started making that awful "whooping" sound were the scariest. During his coughing fits, which were more frequent at night, I'd ask myself, "Can he breath? Will he damage something in his delicate little body?" I felt so helpless as I held his convulsing body face-forward in case he brought up mucous or vomited, as often happened during a fit. His face would turn bright red, his eyes would bulge as his tongue protruded from his gaping mouth. Every string of coughs seemed too long for his lungs to handle, and every high-pitched gasp for breath cut my own breath short. All I could do was hold him and wait for it to pass.

Once I started to suspect Pertussis, I tried to keep him indoors and away from people more diligently. If not for others' health, than for my own dignity. There were many times when I frantically tried to cover Paul's hideous, spewing outbursts while in public, only to find every set of concerned eyes on us.

One time, while I was trying to put Paul in his car seat, a man walked around to the back of my car to tell me I was in his way and could I "please hurry it up?".  (Or so I assumed by his brisk, determined stride.) However, when he heard the rattling, gasping explosions and saw the violent ejection of vomit all over the parking lot, the man stopped dead in his tracks and watched the entire display with horror. After wiping up the resulting residue with the swiftness of recurring experience, I turned to him and said, "excuse us". The man took a step backward  and quickly replied, "oh no! don't worry about it" before rushing to the safety of his car and escaping for his life, I'm sure.

Paul acts almost normally during the day between coughing fits and, of course, he wouldn't cough in front of his doctor. That meant I had to awkwardly describe what his cough sounded like. His doctor said that Pertussis was a possibility, but that he thought it might be something else. (I've since concluded that this added remark was to temper my motherly wail of worry.) However, he didn't give me any reasons why it wasn't the whooping cough. Instead, he prescribed an antibiotic that fights certain bacteria including Pertussis "just in case". Hmm...

Those antibiotics didn't make a bit of difference... at first.

A few days ago, we started to notice an increase in Paul's energy and a decrease in the frequency of his coughs. He also slept through the night for the first time since being sick. His cough still isn't completely gone and he is still waking himself (and us) through the night, but he's not as ill as he was a week or two ago. He is still sick, however, and that makes almost two months (or two-fifths of his life) of coughing! I'm so ready for this to be over!

In conclusion, we're all managing much better than I thought we might with something this serious. It really isn't that bad now that I see he's getting better. I don't think Paul's any worse for it, in fact, Blair and I think it's made him stronger. Plus, his pediatrician said he shouldn't be contagious anymore. I certainly hope not, since we'll be seeing our families with their new babies during Christmas break. We'll keep our distance "just in case", and keep our dignity intact. ;)