stages of sickness

Denial: The only reason your feeling queasy is because you’ve been cleaning up everyone else’s lost cookies, including the cats. Who wouldn’t feel rotten with those associated smells. Plus you worked out for only 30 minutes but your muscles felt like they had just finished that blasted half-marathon again. You've probably just been working out too long and your body wants a day off.

Acceptance: Can’t deny the fever any longer. You still have to wear three layers of clothes, and the only way you can stay warm is to curl up on the couch, under a blanket, with your feverish two year old. But acceptance isn’t all that bad. You can lay around in your P.J.’s all day long, sip fruit smoothies occasionally, cancel appointments that you really didn’t want to go to in the first place, only pull your self from a prone position to visit the bathroom to lose the smoothies or take a bubble bath. Plus you get to let the house fall apart and be too tired to care, or have guilt about it. Wow, and you can lose a couple of easy lbs without even trying.

Reality: Can also be Called the Sick and Tired phase – with more movement. Yes you still feel like something the cat dragged in from the local garbage dump, but your sense of smell is returning, and your eyesight improves to the point where you see the damage that can be reeked with mom taking a single day off. With that, the guilt comes back. And even if you still don’t feel like eating, the kids still need to eat. How is it that losing a couple of pounds to sickness makes you feel a hundred pounds heavier when you climb the stairs? Oh and I get to add another thing to my list of what brings on my tremors – anything, while sick. The girls still need school but I’ll hit them heavy with Signing Time DVD’s so I don’t have to do anything strenuous or actually use my brain today.

On the mend – O.K. Well I’m not there yet. I’m still in the Sick and Tired phase, but the good news is T-Rev, Princess, and Hope are all feeling a wee bit better. They just sound like barking seals now. Lea, Abner and I are still feeling sick and tired. Evo-man wants to be sick in the worst way but so far has avoided the fever, nausea, cough, and lack of appetite and movement that would make me keep him home from school. He even admitted to me that his cough sounded fake this morning. So far six family members contracted the dreaded flu-like illness. The jury is out on when and if the other two will catch it. As for me I'm going to go back and crawl under a blanket on the couch with Hope. Maybe I'll even try and feebly copy the signs we are learning.