NUH MATTER WHA’ ya do, ya nevah seem tuh be able tuh catch up wid life, and it like it nevah seem tuh run smooth fuh too long. From the time it looks like ya getting ovah one hurdle and ya think dat ya gine breeze li’l bit, another one does be round the corner just waiting tuh brek ya up again. Life doan gi’i ya a break man, if it ain’t one thing, it is another.
Recently, or I should say ovah the past year or so, all I was struggling wid was serious pain in my knees, the right knee especially. Sometimes after sitting fuh a while wid ya legs in the same position, tuh get up and move off like before, dat wasn’t working nuh more. Ya had tuh wait and try tuh stretch the foot, massage it and pamper it til ya could move off wid a li’l limp til it come back. Talk bout pain?
Well, after x-rays, it is arthritis, then medication and more medication, and I ain’t nuh medication person; I ain’t one tuh be constantly popping pills all day long. Well, it was either dat or endure the pain. Because duh wasn’t nothing else medically wrong wid me, and as the doctor say, some people at your age worst than you, I decided tuh take the meds and hope fuh the best.
Well sitting down here writing this column, I in all sorts o’ discomfort. I won’t say pain as such ‘cause most o’ dat like the headaches and joint pains gone a’ready. Muh two hands still hurting and the fingers still stiff and slightly swollen li’l bit. Muh mouth still ain’t got much taste and the appetite ain’t there yet, I trying tuh eat but from the time ya get tuh the third spoonful, nuh matter what it is, the body shut down. Duh tell me it is the Zika.
Zika? What Zika? My daughter tell me dat I had this Zika Tuesday gone. Wha I does hardly see any mosquitoes round here by me but ya nevah know, ya might not get the sting home, it might be somewhere else and you didn’t even realise it. But I gine be honest wid you, I nevah thought this Zika virus used tuh treat ya so. This thing hit me fuh a six just sudden so.
The thing dat got me is this; only last Monday I was talking tuh a lady friend o’ mine and I was telling her dat I hadn’t seen her in a while. She told me dat she had the Zika virus. I asked her if dat was still stirring ‘cause ya haven’t been hearing much bout it since before the Olympics in Brazil when the American press was talking bout it all the time, or even since duh was using all kinds o’ eradication methods in Florida tuh get rid o’ the mosquitoes. Well we talk bout it and moved on tuh something else.
Now I was very good, not one thing wasn’t hurting me nor nothing so, not even my knees, but by the night time I started tuh feel real miserable. My skin start tuh itch me, the back o’ my eyes start tuh feel real hot and tired and by the next morning, I was wash in rash all ovah my body. All I did want tuh do was sip something acid evah once in a while, lie down and close the two eyes. I nevah see nothing so yet. This thing happen so fast.
As a young girl growing up I could remember having some o’ anything dat pass by; I mean like the flu maybe measles and dem kinda sicknesses so. I nevah had mumps nor chicken pox and fuh sure I nevah had the red eyes. As a matter o’ fact I cahn remember even hearing bout the red eyes ‘til I was a big woman. But this is years now dat I wasn’t sick wid any o’ these kinda viruses dat does put ya flat pon ya back fuh days; dat is why I had tuh ask the girl if Zika was still stirring ‘cause I wasn’t hearing or reading nothing much bout it recently. Well it show me dat it is still very much around.
I ain’t know what it is about this mosquito but lemmuh tell ya, it does tek ya down in one; it small but it deadly.
• Mavis Beckles was born and raised in The Orleans. She has an opinion on everything.
