Chicken Pox Rut.

It was a snowy morning, the kind where the town plows are making their rounds throughout the neighborhood at 4:30 a.m., making it possible for the young children to go to school in somewhat-safe conditions. I had a very restless sleep, but this time is wasn't just because of my sister still unable to sleep through the night. I was having very lucid dreams, most of which had someone repeating a word softly at first, but getting louder and louder until I woke up in a cold sweat, my head pounding and my body aching. I shivered violently, almost able to feel every small movement of air through my blankets onto my burning body. I could have sworn I could feel the draft of my shut window 5 feet away. Once I was somewhat conscious, I walked from my bedroom to across the hallway where my parents were. Before I even said a word, they asked what was wrong, but instead of answering, I let out a deep dry heavy, and began to cry. Anything that had do to with vomiting sent me into hysterics. My mother picked me up and carried me to the downstairs couch. I curled into a blanket tightly, trying to keep my soaring body heat from leaving me into the cold of the room. I could feel goosebumps lining up my spine. My skin was sensitive to every touch, every glaze of fabric, every movement. On top of my overwhelmed senses, I was itchy. The itch went further than just a small area of my body. I was covered. Before my mother had even came back from the bathroom with the thermometer, I had diagnosed myself with the chicken pox.
Riding out the chicken pox wasn't as bad as everyone made it out to be. I was sick for about three days with the actual virus, and it took an additional 7 days for the pox to be gone. Being covered in an assortment of lotions wasn't the most comfortable thing, but staying home from kindergarden was something worth cherishing since most of the kids made fun of me for I don't even know what. My friend from down the street also got the chicken pox at the same time, so our parents let us see eachother during the whole thing.
There was one complication, though, and it had to do with my thumb, and the awkward addiction I had to sucking it. I was told that I could get chicken pox inside my mouth from my thumb if I put it in there, and I did not want weird itchy-spots covering my mouth and throat, because that just sounded like horror to me. To just stop sucking my thumb all together seemed impossible, I had been doing it for five years, for as long as I can remember, and even before that. It was a comfort blanket for me, among many other things. At night, in order to fall asleep, I needed Jimmy Baby in my hand, puffy on me, and my thumb in my mouth. Back then, I spent a lot of time at my Nana's, so I'd come home with everything smelling of cigarette smoke, and I liked it. So I'd sit, sucking my thumb, while inhaling the residue smoke out of my babydoll. It had to be Jimmy Baby, too. It couldn't be Bo Baby, or the seven others I had, only Jimmy Baby. She [or he] was favored by me the most. It got its name from a time when I spilled icecream with jimmies on its bow, and they stayed there for a quite a while.
Now, I had no understanding of how I'd fall asleep, or even function. Sucking my thumb was like what smoking is for other people, I had to have it or else I'd get upset. Most 30 year olds can't quite smoking, so how was a 5 year old supposed to kick her habit?
I remember clearly what went through my head while deciding what to do. I sat in the dimly lit livingroom, contemplating hard on how to do this. Then I thought to myself 'I can do this.' And that was it. I put babydoll down on the couch and walked to the diningroom for dinner, and never again did I suck my thumb. It was a miracle, because I have a really addictive personality. I don't even recall being miserable, at all.
This is still one of the things I'm most proud of.