Prisoner

If only I had seen this coming.  Just when I thought I was feeling well enough to clean the sick right out of our house it all came crashing back down on top of me.

It was Sunday.  I had to call in sick to Sunday school because Alyssa Lu needed me.  She was still sick and was my little shadow.  I was determined after drugging myself up with Aleve Cold and Sinus and ES Tylenol that I would take the bull by the horns and get this super bug out of our house.  Things were coming along perfectly.  The sheets were all cleaned, the house dusted and vacuumed, the dishes disinfected and finally all the Kleenexes picked up and deposited in the garbage can.  Daddy went to the grocery store to stock up for the week and I was so proud to have my lettuce lunches all chopped up nicely and in containers ready to grab each morning.  We sat down to watch a little TV before bedtime and I thought I had just overdone it by cleaning to hard.  My whole body ached, I was chilly and sweaty and pukey feeling.  I went to bed early and tossed all night not able to get comfy.  My alarm went off at 3:00 and I got up slowly feeling absolute misery coursing through me from my head to my toes.  I thought that if I could just get a Dew in me and follow that up with Tylenol and some more Aleve I could make it through at least 4 hours of work.  Wrong.  My legs shook the entire drive to work.  I was so weak I threw up from the concentration it took just to walk into the hospital.  My body was moving like a 90 year olds and I couldn't even sit up straight.  I was shivering with a fever, my head was at least 101 lbs and I was about to burst into tears from the misery.  I have been sick with a sinus infection before, you just have to fight through the pain until the meds kick in but this was different.  I couldn't even keep my head up.  I left work at 6:13 and hardly made it home before literally collapsing into bed.  The rest of the day I stayed in bed fighting through fever after fever.  Waking up with the covers shellacked to me only to get another fever 30 minutes later that left me clinging hopelessly to those same covers trying to stop the shivering.  D had to work so we had to have Uncle Kyle come over to watch the kids.  It was decided that the best thing to do was to shut the bedroom door and just let the kids think I was gone.  So I laid in bed, miserable, alone and unable to do anything but toss back and forth and stare up at the dots on the ceiling.  This continued into Tuesday and by Tuesday evening I lost it.  I couldn't hide in our room anymore but I still couldn't move.  I desperately missed our kids and I needed someone to touch me.  I hadn't been touched for more than 24 hours.  I laid there praying to make it to our Dr's appt on Wednesday and sweating out fever after fever.  I actually devised a plan that when I got the uncontrollable shivers I would take a bath so hot that it would numb me up enough so that I could go back to bed and sleep until the fever broke.  I took 7 baths between Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning.

By Wednesday morning I was a shell of a person.  My left eye was sealed shut with gunk, I hadn't showered since Sunday.  I missed my kids so bad.  I felt so miserable.  I hadn't been able to read or even watch TV so I had been staring at those stupid dots on our ceiling for 3 days.  The tension was building between Derrick not feeling good himself and him having to take care of the house, the kids and his job that was keeping him to busy to rest all the while I laid in bed, hardly moving.  We made it to the Dr and 2 hours later it was found that Alyssa had her first ear infection, D had a sinus infection and I was severely dehydrated, had super swollen glands/throat and had a very high WBC count which the Dr felt very confidently was from strep.  I was too weak to fight him on not caring a little more to find out what was wrong with me and just went home after the negative strep with antibiotics and anti-nausea med to help me keep food down.  I wanted answers to why my body ached so bad that my bones hurt.  I wanted to have an answer to why my brain had been on a low sizzle for 3.5 days fighting fever after fever.  I had been crying all day long.  I was wallowing in my own self pity and when we got back home and I made it back to bed I just continued to cry.  I cried myself into a deep sleep and woke up once again with a fever.  Everytime I had to get out of bed it was like a thousand pounds of force reigned down on me pushing me towards the ground.  I had hit rock bottom.  That is when my Mom called and said that dinner was going to start being delivered to us for the next week.  I cried some more.  A very sweet long time family friend brought over a chicken, croissants, caesar salad, grapes, carrots and cookies and I ate for the first time since Sunday afternoon.  It is amazing what can come from the love of a warm meal.  I no longer felt bad for myself.  I wrapped myself up in the goodness that came from her heart and slept, slowly but surely fighting my way through the fevers that were starting to be farther and farther apart.

By Thursday I was able to turn on the TV and watch a little at a time without my head wanting to explode and my eyes watering uncontrollably.  I had created this little sick sleeping hole in bed so that I was elevated and really well cushioned as my body was still very sore.  I slept on and off until Friday morning when I woke up fever free and was able to leave the bedroom and take refuge on the couch.  I laid in the sunshine and napped without numerous blankets.  I drank water and tried to taste the homemade mac and cheese my family was raving about from Thursdays delivered dinner.  I couldn't really taste it but it looked to good to ignore.  I drove for the first time since Monday to my parents house and spent the next few hours sitting down and just watching my kids play.  Riley golfed and Alyssa just toddled around finding anything to keep her busy.

Today is Saturday, I am weak and still so very tired.  But this is finally a cold/sinus infection I can handle.  My throat is still sore and enlarged.  My ears feel like they are bleeding and could explode at any second.  My eyes are very sticky and red.  My Kleenex use has gone up dramatically but I can sit up and I just read my daughter a book.  I can finally control how good I feel with 1000 mg of Tylenol taken regularly, antibiotics and Aleve.  I am pretty sure I will be in liver failure after all of this but what can you do?

I am angry still over the week that was taken away from me.  I don't like not having any answers but after talking to my allergist he said that a few of his severe allergy patients (I should be living in a bubble according to him and my degree of allergies) have reported mono/mump like symptoms and have been taken out of their lives also.  That gives me a little peace of mind but I am a mother and I wasn't able to even hold my children or touch them until Thursday.  I am a wife and I didn't lift a finger to clean, cook or contribute for 5-6 days.  I am an employee and I didn't make it back to work all week.  I feel like a failure.  I didn't even know it was May!


I am so sorry I have been such a debby downer.  I am so sorry I missed out on so much and let my family down.  I have hope that this week will be better.

I am reminded of love by Chris, Penny, Melissa, Kyle and my Mom who have brought us food.  Kyle watching our kids for us, bringing me shakes at 10:30 at night that I couldn't even stomach after a few sips.  My mom fighting through her own version of this super bug to watch the kids even when she was feeling shaky knowing that I couldn't do it.