Sitting on the other side of the desk.

Being this ill has proven to be very lesson-worthy.

I will never think lightly of a patient again.

Because now I know what it is like to sit in a waiting room for over an hour knowing that I will now have to find someone else to pick up Liv from school because I am not going to be out on time.

I know that when I say that this fucking medication makes me nauseated and barely able to function, that there will be an empathetic nod but that really, that's it. Because I have to take the medication and well, nothing can really be done. Part of the process is that yes, it makes me nauseated. At the end of the appointment, the doctor will remind me that I really need to try to take all that medicine with food and I will look at him incredulously because I just told him that I can barely keep a cracker down. I will snap at him and ask him if he was listening when I told him that the medication made me nauseated.

At least I will have the pleasure of making him blush.

I will know what it is like to miss the Democratic National Convention because I am so tired that I will be in bed by 7. And the weird thing? I won't really care all that much because basically, it bothers me more that I am missing time with my child than that I am missing television.

I will listen to the alarm go off and wonder how I am going to get out of the bed.

I will get out of that bed because I need to keep this job so I can get that ever elusive really good health insurance. I will find that a long hot shower helps but that if I have to smell the hummus that Bing smears all over her toast in the morning, it will send me right back to the bathroom. This will cause her to skip her favorite breakfast because she feels so awful.

Work will be not so bad but really, I don't want to be there. And it is hard to be there. But, there will be compensations. There will be the unknown med student in the ladies room on the fifth floor who must have heard me throwing up because when I walk out of the stall to splash some water on my face, she will be standing by the sink with a cold dripping washcloth and a sweet smile.

There will be jelly beans. The green ones tend to stay down for some reason.

There will be my dog, Socks, at the end of the day who wags his tail so hard when he sees me that it looks like it will fall off. His perked up ears will go back with the shy adoration of dog love and when I take him outside, he will hurriedly do his business in the back yard and then run to sit with me in the sun and nestle as close to me as his body will let him. I will be shivering even if it is 90 degrees and he will work hard to be my blanket.

There will be Bing, who takes over every single chore in the house and never complains. The laundry will get done, the dishwasher emptied, the floor swept. She will help Liv with her report on Spanish explorers in the 16th century even though homework is usually my job.

Liv will be there too, bringing a wobbly tray of chicken noodle soup into the bedroom that she made herself. Even though looking at that soup will make me a little nauseated, I will take several bites and she will smile with pride that she actually helped me. Bing will stand at the doorway and she and I will beam at each other because how did we get so lucky, really, to have this angel child?

And some days will be very good. Other days, not so much, but that's okay because tonight we will turn the Cornhusker game on the radio and I will curl up on the sofa with Socks to listen to it and Liv will bring her jewelry kit to the floor to work on and Bing will sit in the recliner and we will all listen together and when there is a touchdown (and THERE BETTER BE SOME), we will all cheer because we are Huskers and we love our boys in red.

The circle goes around and there is much to be learned.

But, I will never take a patient lightly again.