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Christina M. Currie

Christina M. Currie's Touch of Spice column appears Fridays in the Craig Daily Press. E-mail her at director@craig-chamber.com

Katie hates her life.

She spent several days last week ranting about life's unfairness and asking "Why me?"

I expected that. I went through that phase when I was 12 or 13 (and probably several times after that).

But Katie's 9 years old. It's way too early for her to be wishing she'd never been born.

Realize now that Katie is, and always has been, my little drama queen. Extreme overreactions are her MO.

So, she's kind of like the boy who cried wolf.

She is overreacting, but she hasn't exactly had the best couple of weeks.

Two visits to the emergency room and three visits to the clinic aren't exactly the formula for a good time.

First there was her infection-riddled supper massive zit that turned out to be a staff infection.

Then, we returned to the clinic only to find that she had succumbed to a super, summer flu, the remedy for which was a viscous, white fluid with a translucent glow and an aftertaste like battery acid (yes, after Katie absolutely freaked out when she took the first dose, I had to taste it to see if the reaction was justified or Katified.)

Yep, mostly justified.

Katie said she'd rather die than take it again.

That reaction was Katified.

This process is teaching Katie a lot about the health care system.

And she's not really happy about it.

"I like nurses better than doctors," she told me. "Nurses are gentle. Doctors are boys, so they're very rough."

I didn't think it was the appropriate time to talk about the feminist movement and equality among the sexes, which means that boys can be nurses and girls can be doctors.

We'll get to it when she's a little less distracted by oozing sores on her stomach and a twice daily dose of pure vileness.

Yep, gotta have your priorities.

Right now, I'll start what will be a long series of talks that deal with the fact that life is hard, but you put one foot in front of the other anyway.

It's hard to embrace life when you feel like it's stabbing you in the back, but overcoming that is a lesson we all have to learn.

And a few days of sickness are just the beginning of learning to get a little perspective.