All Better Now

As good as this sky is beautiful!!!



Let me say this right off the bat ... being seriously ill and being alone are not a good duo.

I felt fine most of the day on Sunday. I got the futon put together in just about three hours, spent the next few hours making a pot of chili, cleaning house and doing several half finished projects around here. Then I sat down to watch the commercials Super Bowl. Gail called and I invited her to stop and have some chili, but she had just finished eating with her brother and his wife. In retrospect, I’m glad she didn’t come over.

Toward the end of the game, I began feeling odd. Not sick, just not quite right somehow. A couple spells of vague dizziness that just passed quickly, and some muscle achiness. I thought I'd over done it with the futon building and tasks, or perhaps the fibromyalgia was kicking up.

From there on, it was all down hill. I spent the night going to and from the bathroom. I'll spare you those details. In between trips, I lay in the bed in a kind of fog that I've experienced on a few other, rare occasions. I was very near hallucinations. I knew I had flu medication, but I couldn't quite figure out where, or rather, I couldn't quite get myself to look for it, although I was walking/running past it every trip. I wondered if I had a fever, but, like the medications, I couldn't make my body go get it. I debated in my head whether I had flu or food poisoning, leading to the realization I'd left the chili, packed for the freezer, on the counter top. But I was unable to get myself to the kitchen to put it away. My mind vacillated between my illness, the chili, the medication, the thermometer, and back again, without me being able to do anything about anything. The only other thought I had was how alone I was.

This is the first time I have been seriously ill and completely alone. At the risk of sounding melodramatic, in my daze I truly wondered how this would turn out. I was frankly too sick to be scared. I thought of calling Allan or Gail and just telling them I was sick, but I couldn't figure out whether it was a good idea or not. The fact that it was the middle of the night seemed to say I shouldn't call, but........ All thoughts were incomplete, trailing off to the next one, but always in a circular pattern, over and over. When it really hit me was Monday evening and Tuesday morning when I began to realize just how sick I was, how “out of it” it was. It was not a fun realization. During Sunday night, I’m not sure what kept me going and doing the small things I did that helped me get through.

The one and only thing I did that made sense through that night was that I managed to fix a weak tea by dropping a tea bag into a glass of water. I brought that and a tube of crackers to bed with me, and managed to nibble a couple crackers between episodes of vomiting while sipping a bit of the tea to settle my stomach. If possible. It helped a tad.

Monday morning came, and I was better. "Better" in this case means the bathroom dashes stopped at about 6:00 AM. I finally fell asleep until 10:30. When I woke I remembered where the medication was as well as the thermometer. I took my temperature which was, at this time a low grade fever, just over 100. And I knew I needed to take the flu medication, but I could hardly face it on an empty stomach. I managed to get part of a piece of toast down with some tea.

Monday I slept off and on all day long. I was incredibly weak and tired. The aching in my whole body was nearly unbearable. I moved from the bed to the couch to the recliner, sleeping for a while everywhere that I stopped. I had to force myself to eat, but I knew I needed to get something down. It was toast and tea all day long and chicken noodle soup for dinner. I decided to give up and go to bed at about 7:30. Just before I crawled into bed, I suddenly wanted ... an ice cream float!! /at that moment, I knew I would live!! After drinking about 2/3 of it, I fell asleep sometime around 8:00 and slept until 7:30 Tuesday morning!!

I was still weak all day today, Tuesday, but at least I could think clearly. I spent the day just being lazy and letting my body heal itself. My biggest physical complaint was a severe backache, something that happens when I am in a reclining position for very long. In other words, I laid around too much! Fortunately I had one of those wonderful one-time-use back muscle warmers, and I wore it most of the day with wonderful relief. By the time I went to bed I was feeling my old self.

I want to thank everyone again for the kind thoughts, prayers, encouraging notes. Gail offered to bring me more soup. Da Boss called me to see if he could bring me anything. Coworker AL was running errands in Ruidoso, and she stopped at my vet’s office to bring food for the babies. I was planning to pick some up Monday as I had just enough for that day, so she made the babies happy. It was nice that everyone thought of me, in spite of my concerns about being alone. It is good to know that some friends are around that “have my back.”


I took some pictures of the mountains and sky this morning. Not sunrise, but a beautiful morning already under way.






And it was just a lovely this evening. Some things are simply beautiful, no matter.

Life is beautiful!!!