Sick.

It seems like forever since I've written here. Apparently it's only been about 2 weeks, but that shows you how slowly times passes in the land of the sick. Sick. I've been sick. For what seems like forever.

At the beginning of October I had some sort of 2-day fatigue-and-oogy virus. No big deal. Except the next week I caught the Head Cold From Hell - which started out for 3 days feeling like allergies (although Claritin and Zyrtec did NOTHING), but by day 4 I could tell it was a cold with all the lovely phlegmy things a head cold entails. This cold stuck around for about 10 days.

Even that might not have been so bad, but then the last week of October I caught The Plague. O.K., it wasn't really the plague - just a bad flu-like virus. I'm guessing coxsackie virus, a..k.a. Hand-Foot-Mouth disease, based on the blisters in my throat. Then again, I'm not a doctor. But I saw one twice in the space of  5 days - that's how bad I felt. 101.8 temp for several days, chills, aches, severe sore throat, severe sore ears and swollen neck glands. Phlegm phlegm phlegm phlegm phlegm (I went through 7 boxes of Kleenex ON MY OWN). And a hacking, nasty cough. I just felt gawd-awful. And it lasted for pretty much 14 days.

2 + 10 + 14 = 26 days of illness in the space of about 5 weeks. Is that enough to discourage you? It was me. Because of course I'm not sick in a vacuum. I'm not sick in the times when it was easy to be sick - childhood, and college. I'm sick as a stay-at-home mom. That means I have to try to deal with my kids and every other mundane detail while sick. Or ask my husband to help, which means he misses work. And which means he gets in a bad mood after about a day or two. I don't exactly blame him, but I could do with a little more empathy and a little less Bitter Martyr Syndrome.

But by Tuesday of this week (11/9), I felt awesome! I went to the gym! I gloried in the sunshine! I had energy! Life was good! By Wednesday, my voice was hoarse for half the day. By today (Thursday), I have a mild sore throat and mildly sore ears and a SEVERELY bad attitude. I'm praying this does not turn into something bigger. And if it is, I'm hauling myself back to the doctor to find out if I have HIV or cancer or something. Because I don't know what else to do and I feel like I'm going to snap from the stress and frustration.

I guess it's like that dude from The Princess Bride said, "If you haven't got your health, you haven't got anything..."