Last Sunday evening I was in Opera San José‘s rehearsal for Silent Night. I had felt a cold coming on for a few days, but it was, thankfully, quite mild.
Well, Sunday evening it all changed. Partway through the rehearsal my cough went from “I can deal with this” to “I can’t possibly play the oboe if this continues.”
Continue it did.
I had to bag the Monday night rehearsal. The cough got worse. I called my doctor and was given a prescription to suppress the cough reflex. That didn’t work. I had to cancel out of Wednesday morning’s rehearsal and shortly after that knew that Thursday night was out as well. So was opening weekend, which is this weekend.
This is something that happens to all of us on occasion, but it sure does make me sad. I also had to cancel every student for the week.
I love my job. I love the freedom and the flexibility. What I don’t love is that I am now losing thousands of dollars of income (yes, really) AND I miss my colleagues and students. In addition, this opera is new to us (and fairly new as well to all) and I love doing new works. It is very powerful. It is incredibly timely. I want to be there.
But I can’t play and cough at the same time, and I can’t expose my friends and colleagues to what the doctor highly suspects is whooping cough. So I’m home, and I’m trying hard not to feel sorry for myself or our pocketbook. So far that’s not been easy!
I must remind myself that I have a roof over my head, a good bed on which to rest and recover, a wonderful husband who tends to me during rotten times like this, and that even though our income has been hit very hard, I will not starve. I won’t even go hungry in the slightest. Not everyone can say that.
Gratitude is what I will practice today.
