How was my Valentine's Day weekend, you may be wondering?
Spent under a warm blanket holding the hand of an adorable male nurse named "Josh," and lifting up my boobs for him.
But let's not get ahead of ourselves... here's the story from the beginning.
My last entry was Thursday, in reference to the fact that my infant son and four-year old daughter were now both sick. Ughh. I was running on fumes, especially coming off the heels of a full week of sleepless nights, spent running from one bedroom to the next, giving amoxicillin doses, Z-packs, Benadryl, albuterol nebulizer treatments, and oral steroids until the wee hours of the morning. By Friday, everyone in this house was exhausted and frustrated, given that neither of the kiddos seemed to be getting better with the medicines. We all wanted to cry. Everything culminated early on Saturday morning with yet another trip to the emergency walk-in clinic and a diagnosis that Ava had an ear infection too. Fantastic. So at this point, the score was as follows:
Aves: RAD, random fever-inducing virus, bronchial infection, horrific wheezing cough, fluid-filled lungs, and now ear infection to boot.
Gav: same fever-related virus, identical cough (except that he's too little to know how to cope by spitting out the mucous, and was so sad, :-( fluid-filled lungs, and ear infection as well.
Pretty much a tie, if you ask me.
When I woke up that Saturday morning, I was starting to feel "a little off" and so Jeff took them to this appointment alone, in very high hopes that whatever I might be coming down with would resemble nothing like the monstrosity that had infected our children. Unfortunately for our little family unit...this would not be the case. By the time Jeff got home with the kids around noon, I was huddled in the living room recliner under three blankets shivering and sweating simultaneously. My head was pounding, my ears were becoming clogged, and -- Oh dear God-- THE COUGH. Jeff, being the eternal optimist, made me some loose-leaf white tea and told me to drink it. "I'm sure it's just because you're run down...just take it easy today and you'll be fine tomorrow!"
Silly husband- wishful, wishful thinking.
By seven that night, everything was a haze and I could feel my fever spiking; (a kids' ear thermometer confirmed this with a 101.7 reading, which I was glad to see since I was expecting something much higher.) Jeff brought me motrin and tylenol which I took, and then remained in the recliner, where I had spent the entirety of my day curled up in a pathetic, lifeless ball. In the foggy distance, I could hear the kids in the bath, Jeff arguing with Ava to do yet another nebbie, and the baby coughing and crying. I wanted to help but I couldn't even muster enough physical strength to stand up. I was useless.
Eight o'clock, and the kids are finally in bed. I hear Jeff in the kitchen making a sad phonecall: "Hi, I had a Valentine's dinner reservation for tonight-yes, nine pm-- under Jeff. Yeah, I need to cancel that. My wife is sick. Ok, thanks. You too, bye." As sick as I am, my heart sinks in the realization that we have officially missed our (ONLY) big night out in several months. And if I wasn't so dehydrated, I probably would have shed a tear about it.
Ten p.m. and things are going downhill fast. I am hallucinating that the oscillating fan in the living room is making me cold (*we do not own an oscillating fan) and beg Jeff to turn it off. All this while watching Apollo something or other skate in some sort of big-shot skating competition on the 46-inch plasma in front of me. Man, he must be cold, I think to myself as I watch him on the shiny ice, and I shiver with more chills. Jeff takes my temp again: 103 point something. Not good considering I've been taking tylenol and motrin religiously all day long. My cough is out of control and I am expelling yucky, thick phlegm. It's not pretty.
Jeff's OCD must kick into high gear at this point and he decides that I must now be quarantined in my bedroom. At the pace of a snail in a wheelchair, I stand up from the recliner. Every joint in my body throbs with pain and my eyes pound. Jeff leads me down the hallway and gets me into bed. As I am drifting off into a fever-induced sleep, I hear him in the living room ferociously Lysol-ing, clorox-ing, and opening windows to give him a fighting chance of not catching this. (And for the first time in my life, I find these OCD rituals to be completely warranted.)
I do manage to fall into some resemblance of sleep despite the hot-cold-hot-cold-hot episodes that my body is experiencing, during which point I have a very realistic dream that we are at my parents' house in Maine, and I have turned into a maniacal Frosty the snowman, chasing Jeff around the cottage with my magical neon broomstick. Sidenote: there are only two times in my life during when I tend to have very bizarre and vivid dreams: sickness and pregnancy. (and the answer is NO to the latter, in case you were wondering.) Throughout the night, I repeatedly hear poor Gav coughing and crying in his bedroom next door, and wish there was any way that I could help Jeff...especially around 2am when Ave wakes up coughing herself into a vomit frenzy, and Gav wakes up screaming and coughing and gagging at the exact same time. By some miraculous measure though, my warrior of a husband does in fact survive the night, and so do the kiddos. I can honestly say that I've never felt more helpless for my family, or more empathetic for my children- especially since I now know first-hand exactly what kind of pain and suffering this Flu-mageddon thingy has done to their tiny bodies. In and out of consciousness, this is what pains me the most for the remainder of the day as I lay in bed, still quarantined. My poor, poor babies :-(
Sunday morning comes and I am now experiencing a constant ringing in my left ear and nausea beyond belief. My cough worsens, my phlegm is more abundant, and any hint of light in my bedroom is like daggers to my eyes. I haven't eaten in 2 days, since the thought of food makes me sick to my stomach. I've endured 2 full-blown nosebleeds due to the dryness in our house and the massive amount of nose-blowing that has ensued in the past 3 days. Sunday afternoon, my mom comes over to help out for a bit and give Jeff somewhat of a break. She holds Gav on the couch, who is still so sick that he has no interest in doing anything but nestling up with Nana and sleeping on her shoulder. My poor, sad little buddy. :-(
That evening, around six o'clock, I am beginning to wheeze tremendously with my coughing fits and am having sharp pains in my chest, which scares me a little bit. Still quarantined in my bedroom, I take my own temperature but can't even open my eyes enough to read the results after it beeps. With the little voice that I still have, I hoarsely call Jefffffff? and have to do this a few times before he hears me and comes running to the rescue. I ask him to read the thermometer: One-oh-four point two.
Yikes, this isn't good. Especially since I just took motrin and tylenol an hour ago. And the shooting pains in my chest....
We decide to call the on-call Dr. from my practice, who is alarmed by my fever and the fact that it seems non-responsive to medicine.
"I know it's probably the last thing you want to hear on Valentine's Day," he states, "but you need to get to the ER immediately, you could very well have a bacterial pneumonia."
Valentine's day? I think to myself. I had completely forgotten that today was in fact February 14th.
Jeff calls my mom and makes arrangements for her to take me to the hospital, since the kiddos are both still sick & waking up at night, and his priority needs to be at home for them. Jayne speeds over to our house and I feel like I am walking in a Jello mold as I saunter down the hall, out the door, and into her car. I begin shivering immediately and the movement of the car makes my nausea worse, so I just close my eyes and pray to God that I make it to the ER without hurling...
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