A Saga of Sickness

Because I don’t really have anything to post about, I thought I’d make a journal of what it’s like when sickness strikes our house.

Almost always, illness hits my husband first. He would tell you it’s bad genetics that cause it. Whatever the case, it attacks him first, then sometimes makes its way around the rest of us. My husband had an appointment last Thursday, the 13th. He left the house just fine, and came home feeling like something had invaded him. (Interestingly, the same thing happened to him at the same place about 2½ years ago.) He knows the signs. There is no such thing as a “6 day incubation period” for him – more like 6 minutes. Sure enough, by that evening, the fever and chills, the aches and pains had hit him. He spent most of Friday in bed, and the coughing spasms struck him hard. He found some cough syrup and started drinking that like soda pop. It didn’t help much. He spent so much time coughing, that by Saturday, the pain from each coughing spasm had him screaming in agony. The sneezing had started by then too, so you can imagine how much he hurt. He tries so hard to be considerate when he’s sick too; he won’t kiss us, won’t share his food with the kids, he does everything he can to keep from spreading it to us.

Saturday night, my son started making these odd little hacking sounds – much like the sound a kid makes when they’re faking illness. We weren’t sure what was going on with him so my husband insisted on taking his temperature. It must be said that I’m much more laid back about these kinds of things than he is. Kids get sick. Unless they have a high fever that lasts more than 4 days, or they’re projectile vomiting, I don’t worry about it too much. My husband on the other hand, worries about every little cough and sniffle. It’s probably related to the things we went through when we were growing up. Anyway, when my son started that little cough, my husband took his temperature. Sure enough, he was running a low one. Not enough to worry about, but it was a sign that the sickness was spreading. My son doesn’t do sickness well. He gets upset, angry and frustrated and takes it out on everyone else. The baby, on the other hand, seems to roll with it as best she can. Last year for instance, when the kids got some sort of stomach bug, she didn’t make it to the bucket in time. I ran to the kitchen to get some wet towels to clean it up, and turned around to see that she’d taken a napkin off the table and was trying to wipe it up herself. Just 18 months old and trying to clean up her own yuck! Talk about a trooper!

Sunday morning the baby got up, and she climbed into bed with me to nurse, and promptly fell asleep again. This was not a good sign. She didn’t get up until 4 in the afternoon, and when she did manage to struggle out of bed, she climbed onto the couch and stayed there. Uh-oh. This is the child who has springs in her feet like her beloved Tigger, and she’s lying still on the sofa. Daddy took her temperature, and she was running a mild one too. We shoved some meds down her throat and she gave us the yucky face, and immediately told us she was “feeling all better!” Of course, she stayed on the couch. Some time later the meds kicked in and her fever went down so she got up then and danced around a little. Then she went and passed out on brother’s bed for a couple hours. Fortunately she’s not coughing very much. That doesn’t diminish daddy-guilt though. I swear my husband almost wept, blaming himself that his babies were sick. How could any mommy not be touched by that?

Monday I woke up with a headache. Damn! Not how I wanted to spend St. Patrick’s Day! I’d been trying so hard not to succumb! Now, how one does that I have no idea. Apparently, wishing doesn’t make it so, and sick I was. Actually, my husband forbade me from getting sick. Can you believe that? This is the 21st century! Husbands don’t “forbid” their wives from doing things anymore! Stubborn lass that I am – blame those Irish ancestors – I just had to join this party. My head was splitting and the all over body aches were awful. If I took too deep a breath, I was attacked by coughs. And the fever! I couldn’t get warm for the life of me. I have this thing too, in that I won’t take meds on an empty stomach, but who can eat when they feel so miserable? I’m not big on meds anyway – I have this notion that if I throw all kinds of meds down my throat, it somehow prevents my body from fighting whatever illness I have. I dunno – it makes sense to me, but my husband disagrees. I am usually never sick nearly as long as he is though, so perhaps there’s a method to my madness? I came out and laid on the floor for a while, torturing myself with SpongeBob re-runs that the kids were watching. Finally I decided to take a bath, a hot one. I ran the water full blast on hot, no cold at all, and still felt chilly. It took some of the ache away though, enough so that I could order a pizza. I choked down some acetaminophen after dinner and that took away my fever and aches. A cough drop helped with the cough. I’m not great, but I’m better than I was this morning. I’m afraid though – I’ve seen what the 2nd day of this sickness brings, and I’m not looking forward to tomorrow.

Tuesday, as feared, I woke up feeling worse. The coughing is worse, as is the pain in my ribs. It’s like being squeezed in a vice-grip. My son said his head felt weird when he coughed and I asked, “You mean like it’s going to explode or pop off?” “YEAH! Like that!” he cried. “Me too!” I answered, “I keep waiting to see my head bouncing across the floor when I cough.” And it’s just a cough. I mean, it’s not like it produces anything – except for my husband. The rest of us, it’s just a hacking, hard cough. I’ve been taking acetaminophen and that sort of puts all my aches, pains, and fever to a low roar as opposed to a loud one. I hate how things somehow sound “wavy” or “watery” when you have a fever. It’s like you can see the sound waves coming at you from across the room and you wait for them to hit – only they don’t. They sort of bounce around the room, muted. And my body can’t decide if it wants to be a furnace or a freezer. One minute I’m sweating like a Protestant being burned at the stake, the next minute I’m freezing like I’ve been dumped in Siberia for pissing off the KGB. Make up my mind, will ya? I can only cope with one, not this alternating hotcoldhotcoldhotcoldhotcold agony! My husband is still reeling, so much so that he had to delay the start of his new phase to Monday the 24th instead of Wed. the 19th. This is day 6 for his sickness, and he’s still in the throes of it. For me, it’s day 2 and no matter how hard I try to just suck it up and deal with it, all I want to do is sleep. The kids are on day 3 and my son seems like he’s feeling better. At least well enough to play Wii. The baby however, just sleeps a lot of the time. My husband and I have developed a new form of communication though. “How coughcoughcough are coughachoocoughcough you?” “I’m coughcoughachoocough fine.” Yeah, we’re just creative like that.

Wednesday. The kids have been sleeping most of the time, but their schedules are reversed. My husband tries to stay up with our son, and I with our daughter. I can’t begin to describe the deep down ache that I feel today. The misery is intense. And I think I can say without any exaggeration that I have not had nearly enough intake in the last 3 days to justify … well … let’s not go there. I see you have my meaning. I’m sorry. The reality is, whatever this bug is, it sucks. Do not get it. I’m thinking I’d like a white casket, with silver trim, not brass. I’m an organ donor, so anything that hasn’t been cooked by this fever is available. The kids seem to be doing better though. My son still has a slight cough, but the baby seems to be her bouncy self. She tires easily and still sleeps quite a bit, but she has no fever. This was day 4 for them, and I’m on day 3. Will I be so lucky tomorrow? My husband isn’t. He’s on day 7 now – still coughing, still aching, ribs still sore. It’s like sickness hangs out in him 3 times longer than other people. I don’t know what I can do to help him.

Thursday. Guess what I woke up with this morning? A hacking wet cough! Yay! Just what I always wanted! Sheesh. Seriously, this is an anomaly for me. I rarely get sick, and when I do I’m only sick for maybe 1-2 days. I kid you not – this is one of the things my husband hates most about me. The kids seem to have gotten my genes in this regard though, since they rarely get sick either, a fact for which my husband is eternally grateful. The kids seem to be doing somewhat better. The baby is hopping around when she’s awake, but she is still sleeping quite a bit. My son has had a constant tickle in his throat today which is causing him no end of grief. Neither one of them seem to have a fever anymore, so that’s good news. It’s day 5 for them, and they seem pretty much done. Me, I’m on day 4, and I’m thinking I’d like yellow satin on the inside of my white coffin. Make it all sunshiny in there. I just can’t take this agonizing pain anymore, my ribs are so sore, which makes my chronic back pain even more difficult to try and cope with. I’d rather not, frankly. I’d lie in bed and cry, but it hurts too much to do that. My husband is on day 8 and I can’t tell if he’s getting better or not. He’s still coughing, still sneezing, still aching. We’re all too sick to take care of each other.

Friday. My son still has a tickle in his throat. My husband is no longer feverish, and neither am I. Our ribs don’t hurt either. The baby is fine, sleeping peacefully in her crib right now, lucky duck. It seems we woke up today and somehow, mysteriously, the sickness that has held us in it’s tightfisted grip these last several days, is gone. Yes, we’re tired and kind of achy, but it’s not the achy-ness of illness, it’s the achy-ness of recovery. We’re still a bit on the congested and cough-y side so we need to still take it easy, but we seem to be on the mend. We feel most of the way to normal. Can you say “Praise the Lord!”? Normally my husband would still be fighting something like this, and near as we can tell, he fought 2 different bugs while the kids and I fought just one. We can’t even remember the last time I was sick, it’s been that long, and I didn’t get sick last year when the kids had that stomach bug. I hate being sick, and I never understood hypochondriacs. This illness has been a bear – not a cute polar one drinking Coke® either, but a mean, nasty Grizzly bent on tearing us to shreds. The only positive side it had – if you can call anything about sickness positive – is that there wasn’t any puking. Everything else, yeah, but thankfully no vomit. Thank You God there was no vomit! Funny how you learn to be grateful for the little things, isn’t it? When I was little I thought I’d grow up and be grateful for things like diamonds, fur coats, mansions. I never thought a lack of puke would make me want to get down on my knees in prayerful gratitude. Thank You Lord that we are getting better. 🙂