I just heard from the lab: strep throat. Despite the original doctor telling me he was ninety percent sure it wasn’t (this was the thing I kept repeating in my head as my throat swelled and my body ached and I rushed headlong into feeling worse and worse) and despite feeling silly I was having so much trouble. But God. It was as bad as I’ve ever heard strep can be. Now I’m so glad I went in the very next morning and asked for antibiotics against the original diagnosis. I’m so glad I am currently no longer contagious because I went on medicine. I am so glad I did not have to suffer in agony for two days more while waiting for a culture (a culture they were over 24 hours late to report results, oddly).
Right now I feel better. I felt good enough today to take a short outing. I almost cried with relief that I could sip a hot chocolate and hold my children’s hands as we walked downtown. I do not feel good enough to eat “real” food nor do work. But I trust I will be there soon.
Gratitude needs to be expressed now. I am so greatful at how I was treated in the hospital on my second visit. I am so glad they were able to do something for me – not just antibiotics, but the (felt like lifesaving) saline IV, the morphine, and the gentle humanity in their ministrations. I was so dizzy and achy and miserable and my heart was racing and I couldn’t take care of myself.
I consider myself very blessed by my family. For one, of course, my husband. He has had to do all the work I usually do, plus his own work as well. Today he had to take time off his job (although he still performed work duties from home a bit). He has had to put off most anything he would normally like to do. He has been at my beck and call and not too irritated by it. He has done every dish in this house, washed every piece of laundry, since Saturday. At my request he woke me at midnight on New Years and I hugged him before drifting back into blissful drugged sleep. He held my hand when I was feeling good enough to watch TV and hold his hand. He put kids in the bath with me and took them out since I couldn’t do it for a while.
My children. They have been unbelievably sweet while I’ve been sick. When I run a hot bath (a daily ritual I don’t miss no matter how ill) they have climbed in the bath next to me. Nels laid on me on Sunday and buried his face in my chest and I heard him say, muffled, tearfully, “I … love you… so much!” Sophie daily asks if I am sick then she talks to the “germ” in my neck. “You’d better stop being mean to my Mama, germ,” she says, “or the immune cell will come eat you!” She climbs on the bed and kisses my cheek. She delivers scratchy stuffed animals into my arms while I sleep.
I still plan on making my New Year’s resolutions and my ’06 grats – it’s just I can’t really sit up or write much right now. I haven’t had a Vicodin since early morning in an attempt to wean off the headaches that too many of them in a row seemed to precipitate. Currently I am choking through a peanut butter sandwich in hopes of getting my pain fix and a nap.
Thank you all who have written and said nice things to me.