I Am No Micah Parsons

This past Sunday evening, the Dallas Cowboys played the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday Night Football. The Cowboys wrecked the Eagles, 33-13, much to the shared joy of Grant and me. The most stunning play of the game, to me anyway, happened in the first half. Micah Parsons, the Cowboys’ dynamo linebacker/defensive end hybrid, lined up on the defense’s left side. He bull-rushed right through Eagles’ tackle Lane Johnson, absorbed another attempted block from an Eagles’ lineman, and still managed to sack the Eagles’ dynamic quarterback Jalen Hurts. It was amazing to watch, even more astounding to contemplate when you know a few other facts. Eagles’ tackle Lane Johnson is 6’6″, 325 lbs, and most observers believe he is bound for the Hall of Fame. Parsons is 6’3″, 245 lbs. While Parsons has a decided speed advantage, that wasn’t the story of the sack—Parsons bull-rushed or, in other words, went straight through Johnson and outmuscled him. That would be astounding in and of itself given the size difference. But here’s something else commentators noted on the telecast.

Micah Parsons was sick and running fever. He was sucking oxygen on the sideline between series.

Last Thursday, I came down with a sore throat. By Sunday night, I had a full-blown head cold complete with pouring nose, congested sinuses, and a developing cough. I worked a half day on Monday, then slept the rest of that afternoon. On Tuesday, I woke up even worse with the cold migrating to my chest. I took the whole day off of work; I slept for at least two hours in the morning and was only awakened when Dobby got mad at me for not playing with him.

Lauren had cold symptoms start about two days before I did, and while they wore her down a bit, they never got to the point that mine did. In fact, they rarely do. My colds are always the worst. They always start with a tickle in my throat, develop into a nasal drip, then descend to my chest. When I was in seventh grade, I had pneumonia for a month and missed so much school that my life sciences teacher gave up asking me for makeup work and just gave me an A so I could go to eighth grade. When I was in ninth grade, I had bronchitis three times in one school year. I’ve always been convinced that these illnesses weakened my pulmonary system so that everything I get feels like a near disaster.

When I was a junior in high school, I had my own Micah Parsons moment. Sort of. We were slated to play San Antonio Clark on a blazing hot Saturday afternoon at Buccaneer Stadium in Corpus Christi. I felt the symptoms coming on the night before, and on the morning of the game, I had a 102-degree fever. Like Parsons, I suited up anyway and played. The comparisons pretty much end there.

Clark’s feature offensive player was Wayne McGarity, a University of Texas commit and an All-State track star who would go on to play for the Dallas Cowboys. I made the five o’clock news by being the last guy between Wayne and the end zone on a long run, and he pretty much juked me to my face. I ate a mouthful of stadium grass while Wayne waltzed into the end zone. Clark won 34-17 in a game that wasn’t even that close.

For years after, I always tried to be the tough guy. When I got sick, I went to work anyway and toughed it out. Probably a decade into my work life, one of my coworkers emphatically pointed out that I was doing a great job making everyone else at work sick. So I started working from home during my illnesses. At one point, I tried taking some time off and getting extra sleep, and it seemed to me that my illness resolved about a day sooner than they had previously.

But then, the phenomenon of the “man cold” or “man flu” became a thing. And it really became a thing in our house. “Ha ha ha . . . no one gets sick like DAD!” “Mom gets sick, and it’s like a small case of the sniffles. Dad gets sick and any movement might kill him!” “No one has more to overcome when sick than Dad!” “Dad’s all, ‘I can’t do anything. Can someone bring me a drink?’ Mom’s all, ‘Can someone grab me a tissue so I can finish making dinner, calling the young women at Church, and doing the dishes?'”

Well, they can all laugh it up. Allegedly, there really is a “man flu” phenomenon, and studies indicate that differences in male and female hormones may be why women generally don’t suffer symptoms as severe as men’s. Whatever the case might be, I think I have turned a corner, and I will be back to work shortly. I will have overcome yet another near disaster, though I will not have embarrassed any future Hall of Famers in the process.