We are now entering day #5 of "the illness".
It has been mainly uneventful. No doctor's visits or hospitalization (mainly because we can't afford health care).
I didn't really start feeling the full effects of the germies until Thursday when my ability to swallow and breath magically disappeared. Jon is in the same hellish boat as me so it's basically a free for all for the kids. The last time Jon and I were both sick like this at the same time our kids were 10 & 5 and we allowed them to eat whatever they wanted for dinner one night.
It was one of those moments when we were both burning up with fevers and so delirious with illness that we felt sure that our 10 year old would make a completely logical choice for dinner. She chose brownie sundae's. We were ill equipped to disagree or even care. The next day when they came home from school they both asked if they could have a "real dinner". Honestly the two of them were acting as if we hadn't fed them in days instead of the one missed meal that they had actually suffered. And in truth it wasn't even that because they had eaten.
I was was like what the hell is that supposed to mean. They seriously were acting as if we had tortured them and forced them to eat dessert for dinner.
I think that was one of the moments when I realized my children were definitely one of a kind.
But back to this current sick fest.
Hannah was the carrier monkey that exposed us to the illness. Damn kid.
How many times do I have to tell her to wash her hands, use sanitizer, don't share drinks, stay away from that one boy who's been in her class since Pre-k that ALWAYS seems to have strep throat and who infected her 7 times in one year??? Seriously people, if your kid is burning up with a fever and can't swallow without crying DO NOT...I REPEAT...DO NOT SEND HIM TO SCHOOL!
Pisses me off. I may be lax on ALOT of stuff, but when it comes to illness...I believe that is something you should keep at home.
The year of the "7 times of strep throat" I was pretty sure that our family physician was contemplating profiling me for Munchausen Syndrome. I swear it was the illness that wouldn't go away.
But this time around we are not in strep hell. No we are in flu hell. Or at least that is what I have self diagnosed us with. Thank you WebMD.
By Thursday I was overly tired (more so than usual), chilled, unable to breath and hacking up a storm. I was hitting the NyQuil like it was hard liquor. If I could have put a straw in that bottle and carried it around like a juice box I would have. At one point in a foggy haze of exhaustion and...well...NyQuil, I actually contemplated if I could make it into a cocktail. Turns out it was the 1/2% alchohol by volume talking and when I finally came to my senses, kind of, I figured it not to be such a great idea.
I mean, truth be told, we refer to the cherry NyQuil as "red death" in our house. Jon will gather the kids to come and watch me take it because I have a severe aversion to liquid medication. I'm a consistency girl...and liquid medicine is not something I can handle. I will throw tantrums that could rival a 2 yr olds when it is deemed that I am sick enough to choke down that crap.
I will flail around stomping my feet on the ground with fist balled up at my sides and lips pursed tightly shut. I know that this isn't a good example for my children, but so far all it has done is send them into hysteric fits of laughter to the point of almost peeing themselves. Even at a younger age they would put up less of a fight then I would when it was time for them to take any medication in liquid form. I am still baffled by the fact that Hannah, who can swallow a piece of candy whole, while opt for liquid over pill form medication any day of the week.
My mom says by 7 she forced me to take pills over liquid because she was tired of the sheer madness that ensued from trying to pin me to the floor and get me to swallow and not spit up the medicine that she was cramming down my unwilling throat.
When I turn to the Nyquil, my family knows that I AM SICK!
With all the coughing, snorting, achiness and chills it seemed the only thing that I couldn't seem to do was sneeze. I have the tingle in my nose constantly though but alas...no sneeze. I finally got one out on Friday after 2 days of waiting for it to happen.
One.
Singular.
Pathetic.
Sneeze.
Even now I NEED to sneeze.
God, I really do need to sneeze. My nose is being a sneeze tease.
As I sit writing this Jon is out in the living room sneezing 1..2..3..4..5..wait for it...6 times! His norm is anywhere from 2 to 4 sneezes at one time. In the 12 years we have been together he has never sneezed just once.
Right now...I hate him. That lucky able to sneeze bastard!
God he is such a show off. I would yell that over the t.v., through the closed door in hopes of it traveling down the hallway to make it to his semi-deaf (even when he's not sick) ears...but alas I am too tired and that would hurt the hell out of my throat and then I'd be pissed and still unable to sneeze.
Kind of off the subject, but kind of related too..Thank God Jon got lasik surgery because now we almost make one normal human being. Me, with supersonic ears but so-so sight and him partially deaf (he says from repeated ear infections as a child, which he blames on the fact that he was NOT breastfed as a baby...let it go man it's been 33 years) but with superior store bought sight.
We are both so fucking miserable. The only highlights so far have been the delicious soup (Mmmmmm....baked potato) that he brought me and being rubbed down with Vick's vapo rub.
The rub down with Vick's was actually pretty funny because if you would have thrown in some cheesy instrumental music in the background it could have been mistaken for one of those low budget adult movies. I was moaning and Jon was totally getting turned on. Then I snorted back the snot that was starting to dribble out of my nose and shabam...the moment was lost.
Not that we would have acted on any of the sexual rumblings that began to well up during the rub down because A) both of us are to fucking tired from being sick and B) ok..well there is no B.
Apparently it doesn't matter how sick we are because Jon, like any man, is always in "please I want nookey" mode.
Perfect example: This morning I made my way from the bedroom out to the kitchen bleary eyed. I had barely slept between hacking and snorting. I had tried to wear ear plugs so that I would only have to listen to my bodily fluids being sucked back up into my head and not Jon's futile attempt to achieve air passage through both nostrils but the arrival of an ear infection (or what I have self diagnosed as an ear infection due to extreme pain and a red inner ear) made using those completely impossible.
So it sounded like a lame version of dueling banjo's only with our coughs and snorts as the instrumentals. How either of us slept more than 15 minutes at a time is COMPLETELY beyond me.
Anyways, I make my way into the kitchen and immediately set to making some tea. I ask Jon if he would like some tea. He agrees which is a sure fire sign that he is feeling just as shitty as I am. Or so he would have me believe.
I set about rubbing the sleep out of my eyes and trying to brush down my unruly and unshowered (for 2 days) hair. Then I pick a wedge...I know...HOT! I try to clear my throat and curse the pain that arises.
I turn to whine to Jon and say, "I feel miserable. I can't even swallow".
"Great, there goes our evening", he retorts smiling.
I stand there for a second trying to compute the meaning in my foggy head. And then it hits me...even with all this hot mess of a sicko wife who has become a mouth breather due to the overwhelming surplus of snot in her nasal passages he is making a sexual innuendo. Gotta love that man of mine.
I smile. He smiles. We both hack and then snort back the flem. If that isn't romantic and sexy...well I just don't know what is.
~JP
