Somi's Stories

It’s never fun to be sick. As a kid, it’s a very helpless feeling. I laid in my bed, I guess I was around 12 years old, sick with a fever. It’s that restless feeling where you feel like your head weighs about 100 pounds, and your body is shivering and sweating at the same time. You want to sleep, but your body will not settle. And so you just want to cry in despair.

But the kid that’s sick dreads the other loathsome necessity… taking medicine. And for me, it was the fight of the dreaded pill-swallow. I don’t know why such a tiny pill wouldn’t go down my pre-teenaged throat. It’s as if the moment the pill went in my mouth, my throat would close up shop. Twice I tried, but I just couldn’t get it down.

Then Dad decided he would take a different approach. He took the half piece of aspirin, ground it into a spoon, added a little sugar, and then fed it to me with a glass of water. Sure, even this inventor-father thought he may have stumbled on yet another discovery for patenting. And I, with much relief at the prospect of not having to play war with a pill, took it willingly.

For the first 10 seconds, all seemed well. Dad was satisfied, and I laid down to wait for the medicine to take effect. And then something started in my stomach. It was as if someone started to blow a balloon down there… the gas widening every so quickly until it stretched no further. And then out it came back through the same orifice it went into.

My Dad, in desperation held out his cupped hands to save the carpet, and save himself from a lot of explaining to do to Mom. One saved. The next one came, and I tried. But my tiny little hands wouldn’t be big enough, and so I ran as fast as I could to the bathroom next door. I never saw my Dad as I looked down in the toilet, but I could feel the guilt from there. His ingenuity did not pay off, and his daughter was paying dearly for it.

But one thing for sure. Exhausted from the whole ordeal, I laid in bed, and fell quickly asleep. And the rest I needed finally came. Poor Dad. Good try. A lesson learned for both of us. Now I’ll always know… take the pill whole!