No perfect time to be sick

A week ago today, my sinus infection, that I "thought" I'd finally kicked, decided to return and with a vengeance! I mean, why I would want to feel healthy? It had only been hanging on since the first of January. Head colds are supposed to last eight weeks, right? So the first round of antibiotics and 18,000 vitamins apparently didn't cut it so there I was again.

I couldn't be sick! I didn't have time! I had too much coming up and I was NOT going to miss it! My middle daughter's State Dance competition was that Friday, along with my oldest daughter's last regular season basketball game that night. Then on Saturday, my 10-year-old had her last basketball tournament but most importantly on Saturday was my firstborn's 17th birthday. My 14 year old had been practicing for months so I had to be there to witness her first dance competition, and with my oldest flying through high school faster than I could believe, there was no way I was missing her basketball game, and no matter what, I was not going to be laying around sick on her birthday. I was gonna have to tough it out!

I decided to take Thursday off work to try to kick the sickness before the weekend hit. It was a beautiful day for February but instead of enjoying it, I spent it laying around, napping and eating chicken noodle soup, and chugging down cold meds and vitamins. I was going to will myself to feel better, for Pete's sake, too many things to look forward to. However, as the day wore on, the sickness hung on, not improving like I had hoped. But then things went from bad to worse.....

One of our family dogs suddenly got very sick that afternoon and passed away that evening. Our easy-going and goofy 11½-year-old chocolate lab, who resembled a friendly grizzly bear, unexpectedly left us. The shock and sadness of losing our buddy caused our gorgeous sunny day to end pretty gloomily. And so much for kicking my head cold before the weekend. As if I didn't feel bad enough, bawling around for 4 hours just left me with a fever and a whopper of a headache. And a full night's rest was not in the cards either, because the 14-year old's bus was leaving at 4 a.m. that next morning. When I finally went to bed, I prayed first for my puppy and second, for some small ounce of strength and health so I could there for my kids those next few days. They especially needed it now!

The 3:30 a.m. alarm wasn't welcomed, but I made it through that, and with the help of more meds and tons of water, made it through the rest of the day too. Survived the all day long Dance Competition and evening basketball game. I'm sure I looked like junk but I slapped a smile on my face and enjoyed every minute of it. The 6 a.m. Saturday alarm was just as despised as Friday's, but I conquered that, and cheered on my 10-year old through her tournament and forced myself to make the best of my 17-year-old's birthday. I did slip in an "oh my gosh, if anyone knew how bad I really felt" nap in the afternoon, but sucked it up that evening, and took her out for a great birthday dinner downtown.

But Sunday morning, as I dragged myself to church, I had reached the end of my rope. I was still very sad over the loss of our dog, couldn't breathe through my stupid stuffed up head, and was sick and tired of feeling sick and tired. I had made it through the weekend and hopefully made my family happy, but I couldn't drive myself to the clinic fast enough after lunch to beg for help. So here I sit again, back on antibiotics, praying this does the trick. Mom's just can't be sick, that's all there is to it. We don't have time. There's always too many people to care for and too many things that need to be done. There's never a perfect time to be sick, but last week definitely far from perfect for me. Sure hope this is the end of this for a little while!