Brendan Quealy: A life lived with avoidance
Apr. 2—I've had a pretty significant cough now for about the last month. I haven't done much about it other than popping Hall's honey-lemon cough drops like breath mints, downing two packets of Emergen-C Super Orange and tickling my brain with a Zicam nose swab every day while hoping it will just magically go away.
Surprise, surprise. It hasn't.
I certainly haven't gone to see a doctor or even picked up the phone to make an appointment.
And this isn't some petite, little cough that pops up sporadically throughout the day. No, this is the booming, hacking cough that wakes up others in the house and scares the dogs. This is the kind of lung-horking, chest-clawing, throat-scratching, phlegm-flying cough that would put an 80-year-old lifetime smoker with bronchitis to shame in a world championship coughing contest — if such a competition existed.
But my unwillingness to go to the doctor isn't simply due to my Irish Catholic stubbornness or my laziness or even just pure stupidity. I know I should go to the doctor. I do. But I really just don't feel like it.
It's the inconvenience of it.
And I'll admit that it is quite ironic that I'd deal with the inconvenience of a four week-long cough that wakes me up in the middle of the night, disrupts my day, and sends strangers running rather than take an hour or two out of one day to go to a doctor and get myself on the mend.
Then again, maybe it's not the inconvenience. Maybe it's the fear. The fear that — however small the chance — there is actually something "wrong wrong" with me. You know, beyond a run-of-the-mill upper-respiratory infection.
And that improbable possibility keeps me away. Because I'd rather just hang out with Schroedinger's cat and not know — bad news or good news — for as long as possible.
That approach isn't limited to just this cough. Unfortunately, it's one of my biggest character flaws, among many. Avoidance.
Anything bad or possibly bad, I avoid. Honestly, it's the "possibly bad" that I run away from like a shy kid when his crush walks down the hallway — which I definitely did more than once growing up.
Bills that I can't pay? Stick 'em on top of an ever-growing pile with the rest of their unopened brothers and sisters. Difficult conversations that need to be had? Wait until the last possible moment or until the tension boils over and blows up into something worse.
I wish I wasn't that way. I wish I could face problems head-on. Sometimes I can, but sometimes I just hope the problem goes away because I don't have the strength to deal with just how bad the reality could be.
When I found that lump in my dog Guinness' neck, I acted immediately. But it didn't matter how quickly we caught the cancer, that aggressive form of T-cell lymphoma was going to win in the end.
But when my dog Luna, who has been with me for almost 15 years, started losing weight and throwing up more than a year ago, I was just so terrified of what the vet would say that I didn't bring her in for months. Fortunately, at that time when I finally did bring her in, it wasn't cancer. She just had IBS. But my fear let it go untreated and let her suffer much longer than necessary.
Unfortunately, now Luna does have cancer. The bad news that seems to always come for every dog has come for mine. Again.
My Luna, the strongest dog that has ever lived continues to live, despite the unavoidable end coming. I could learn a few lessons from her. She certainly doesn't avoid anything bad that comes her way. She takes it head-on, fights it and comes out the other end stronger.
When she is gone, I know that example will live on.
Email Sports Editor Brendan Quealy at bquealy@record-eagle.com.
