While dealing with the death cold from Mars this past week...
First of all, being an adult with an illness is a far different thing than being a child with an illness. Being a child with an illness gets you cuddles, time playing video games, and time away from school. Which means watching "The Price is Right" while drinking OJ and eating cereal in your PJ's. Being an adult with an illness gets you the comment "Suck it up buttercup" and realization that you have responsibilities that involve you being dressed and half-way presentable. (That may or may not include drinking your own volume in coffee and other cold medications in order to function.)
Secondly, being an adult with an illness SUCKS. I mean, seriously. For the most part, we have to decide whether or not it's an illness that is serious enough to be seen at the doctor's office, and we have to figure out exactly how we're going to pay for it. If you decide to tough it out without visiting the doctor, you have to navigate through the cold and flu aisle at your local grocers. That sometimes means staring blearily at labels under harsh fluorescent light while the same song plays over intercoms on repeat. Being a kid means your parents make those decisions for you, and you get ice cream and 7-up until your throat feels better.
Third of all, (Thirdly? I dunno, I'm sick, remember?) being an adult also means googling your symptoms and being told it's some kind of cancer from WebMD or some reddit page, and being convinced that at any moment you're going to shuffle off this mortal coil. Being a kid means your parents get to worry about all of that, and you get to snuggle with your stuffed animals until the pink bubblegum antibiotics take effect and you have to eventually go back to school.
Sometimes, just sometimes, being an adult sucks.
