First Z, then SJ, then me. We were dropping like flies. One after the other week after week. Everyone hates to see their children sick and I've noticed many comments online that say things like "I wish I could be sick and not them, it just breaks my heart". I said the same thing, only I realized two things about that statement.
1. Kids are much more resilient and what was a 5 day minor bug for them was a 3 week desolation period for me.
2. When your kids are sick you can take care of them. When you are sick they don't take care of you. In fact they still need you to take care of them. So everyone looses.
It's a nice sentiment, but as long as we are "wishing" for things, I think I will just "wish", or better yet pray for everyone to be well.
Now for those wondering what in the world attacked my body and had me down for 3 weeks plus, I will torture you with all the gorey details. The first week was flu like symptoms, and just when my fever broke and I thought I was on the mend, I started coughing my head off. So after a week of this I got Google and social media to get remedies.
I tried everything from honey and cinnamon, to lemon ginger tea, to gargling salt water, and yes I did resort to plain old over the counter medications. On one of the many sleepless nights of relentless coughing I had a fever and I ended up throwing up from all the drainage, so I decided I had better get my butt into an urgent care. They immediately put me on a breathing treatment and conducted an X-ray. It turned out to be a really bad case of bronchitis. They gave me 4 different prescriptions including a steroid, cough syrup, an antibiotic, and an inhaler.
About three days later I still felt like garbage and I couldn't ignore the painful stitch in my side. Overnight it felt like it wrapped around my chest and became very difficult to breath and coughing was even worse. The pressure and pain was almost unbearable. I called the Doctor and although it was extremely inconvenient I was advised to come in again. I ended up having (and I am still at the tail end of) PLEURISY. Not fun. I know one other person that has ever experienced this and they commiserated with me. Pleurisy is an inflammation of the lining of the lungs. If you look up "sharp stabbing pain in the chest" you will find Pleurisy. Literally.
When I saw a picture of a knife on one of these medical websites, I almost laughed at how perfectly the description fit, but laughing would hurt so I just smirked. I also smirked about this description from wikipedia
"The defining symptom of pleurisy is a sudden sharp, stabbing, burning or dull pain in the right or left side of the chest during breathing, especially when one inhales and exhales"
Don't worry, it's mostly just painful when YOU BREATH! Do you see why that might be a bit debilitating? Anyway, it's caused by an infection, and to treat the pleurisy you have to treat the underlying cause of the infection, which I had already been doing. The Doctor gave me another prescription (long story short I ended up not filling it). I took pain medicine to get through the worst of it, and as my coughing and other symptoms subsided I became a functioning contributing citizen again.
I like to take a natural approach to treatment whenever I can and I embarrassed, but grateful for all the ways the pharmaceutical companies have helped me this year, but I really hope I don't have to go down that road again. I can't take any more sickness. I quit. I am done. We have been dealing with all of this since 2014 began and I am just going to declare in faith that the worst is absolutely behind us! I hope you all are well. If not, you can gripe to me. I will feel your pain, and potentially a sharp stabbing sensation in my side.
5 comments:
It is horrible being sick yourself, I agree. I don't know which is worse- being sick and having no help with the kids, or the stress of seeing the kids sick all winter. We've had a rough winter too. In the last week we were all sick with something (we had at least 2 viruses of different types running around the house). Henry has another ear infection. I'm taking Celia to an ENT in a couple weeks because I've been convinced for a while that she has a hearing loss. Hopefully it's related to fluid in her ears, but the doctor never sees much fluid so I'm hoping it isn't something more. Anyway, horrible winter. If we aren't done being sick after this last week I'm running away or moving south, or something. I feel for you!
man, that stinks!
and while it's sad to see the kiddos sick, I concur that I'd rather it be them than me. maybe the other moms that said that only had one kid?! lol. ;)
Well, I have heard it a lot, but the last time I saw it on Facebook (a few days ago) it was dad. Not to belittle dads, but that would make sense ;)
When you kids were little I remember saying, "If I could just be sick and rest for a while. LOL. There is no rest for a mother of four. I learned the hard way. Never said that again.
I had a horrible cold when I got home from India. As far as I know, it was just a cold. It lasted three weeks, though. Combined with jet lag, it was not fun! You're right, though, it's easier for kids to get over this stuff!
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