To my regular readers, I’d like to explain why you won’t find my column this week.
It’s because for the first time in 358 weeks, I haven’t been able to write one. I could make up a ridiculous excuse along the lines of “my dog ate my homework,” but my 13-year-old Daisy is so fussy these days she wouldn’t eat it if it were smothered in smoked salmon and peanut butter.
Honoring the journalist’s code, I feel it’s my duty to tell you the truth. I typically write in advance so I have columns to fall back on should there be a last-minute problem, but right now I only have one. And while you can already find Christmas decorations in stores in August, I doubt a tale I’ve been saving since last year to run in December would be appropriate right now.
In a perfect storm, the heavens have aligned so any plan I had to whip up a fascinating feature in plenty of time were scuppered.
It started a couple of weeks ago when my husband came down with COVID for the second time. As a caring wife, I did what anyone would do in such circumstances. I threw him into my home office and told him to stay there until he tested negative. Judging from the angry tones slithering from beneath the door minutes later, I’d say he was pretty negative already, but I wouldn’t let him out until I saw proof on the test.
Technically this has nothing to do with why I couldn’t write my column. I was worried sick — not about how Grumpy was faring but whether, despite my best efforts, I would come down with the virus again. Even with inoculations, no one is completely immune and I didn’t want to interview anyone in person just in case.
A few days later another problem developed. If there’s one thing I fear more than COVID, it’s having a condition that prevents me from sitting at my computer 90% of the day. A slight back pain I’d had over the suddenly ramped up and in addition to making me walk differently, I sprained a muscle in my lower back.
I quickly made an appointment with a local chiropractor who usually fixes me right up but sadly, this was one of the times when things had to get worse before they get better. And while I understood the premise, I didn’t expect to get a toothache as well.
I was confused because the pain seemed to emanate from a bridge that was put in only five years ago. The fact that I was in mild pain for an entire year after that procedure didn’t fill me with confidence when the dentist took impressions to make a replacement. Nor did it make me think, “This will be a funny story for my column.”
After a week or so of back treatments, my chiropractor advised me to get some heavy duty painkillers from my primary care doctor. Oh, and have him toss in something to help me sleep because the spasms across my shoulders every time I moved in bed weren’t helping the situation.
I can’t say I didn’t have enough time to write a column. When you’re up all night apart from a couple of 15-minute naps, you technically have double the time most people do. The prescribed drugs made perfect sense on paper but in reality it was like an episode of “Chopped,” where competitors use a bizarre collection of ingredients to come up with something supposedly delicious.
When your most successful sleep is an hour at 10 a.m. and you are only relaxed when taking your 3 a.m. nap, the idea of producing a newspaper column is the last thing you’re thinking until it’s two hours before your deadline. And with the muscle relaxants that make you feel like you’re wading through quicksand in a thick fog, it’s impossible to think clearly.
Anyhow, with no exaggeration, these are the reasons why I won’t be submitting a column this week.
Please accept my apologies and enjoy the Labor Day holiday.
Hilary Decent is a freelance journalist who moved to Naperville from England in 2007. She can be reached at hilarydecent@gmail.com.
