Flu

Two weeks ago, I had to go into the office to work. After a few nights of very little sleep, two very long days, being couped up in a room with a sick co worker, coupled with forgetting to take my vitamins I started to feel sick. By Tuesday of last week, I was feeling pretty off, so I made an appointment with a new doctor, but by later that afternoon, I had convinced myself that it was just a cold and didn't need to go to the doctor, so I cancelled the appointment. That night we had Godfather and Auntie over for dinner and I felt a lot better. Now I see that was the calm before the storm.

Wednesday morning, I woke up and literally couldn't get out of bed. Phil took the kids and I stayed under the covers. I had the chills, but I knew I had a fever, my head hurt when I moved my eyes around, and I had to cough, but my chest and throat hurt so bad when I would. I finally decided to drag myself out of bed and down to get coffee...which was sure to be the cure. Well, standing up I realized that I was so achy I could barely stand, which meant that I had to hold on to the wall to stand up. Perfect! I got some coffee and promptly called the doctor and scheduled an appointment at 1:45 that afternoon. After two meetings, I cleared my schedule, and decided i needed a shower and sleep. I showered in the hottest water I could stand and then tried to fall back to sleep. Woke up 30 minutes before I had to leave for the appointment and tried to put my shoes on without falling over. I joked to Phil that if you had seen me you might remark, "how did that homeless woman get such a nice coat". I looked pretty much like a street person.

I got to the doctor, got back into the room where the nurse took my temperature, 103, and then took my pulse rate. She stopped, looked and me and said, "wow, that is one of the fastest heart rates I've ever taken." Pretty much at this moment, I thought they were going to rush me to the emergency room. However, they didn't - they made me wait for the PA to come in. She said she felt like I had a lot of things going on, but most likely the worst symptoms were being caused by the flu. So they swabbed me for that, which involved sticking a long brush thing up my nose - I don't recommend it. And even though I had gotten a flu shot while pregnant, the swab came back positive. The doctor gave me Tamiflu and I went on my merry way.

I went home, started taking the Tamiflu, and tried to fall back to sleep. Phil got home and wiped everything down with Clorox wipes and we waited for my parents to bring us dinner. They came over, my mom helped me change the sheets on the bed downstairs and get it ready for me to sleep. We ate dinner, I fed Philip and then everyone left. The next day, I had two meetings then took the rest of the day off and tried to sleep...but couldn't, so I rested my eyes. My parents brought us dinner again and helped us wipe everything down with Clorox once again. By Friday, I was starting to feel a little better, so Phil and I decided to get take out and stay close to home. We had a nice night, until I realized that the reason my nose was hurting so much was because I had fever blisters all inside my nose and around the edges. It pretty much broke me, as if the flu wasn't bad enough, now I had to deal with this. Not only are they painful, they are contagious - one more thing to protect the kids from and they are not attractive. It was a blow I wasn't expecting.

I crashed that night and felt much better on Saturday. Other than the fever blisters and an occasional cough, I'm pretty much back to normal. The crazy thing is that I normally don't get sick. In the over 5 years since I've know Phil, I've only had a handful of colds and I've never had a fever and now in the course of two months, I've been sick twice. Clearly, this is what lack of sleep will get you!