since our babysitting fiasco on friday, we have had a very sick house. last week’s sore throat wreaked havoc on my body big time on saturday; so much so that it landed me back at the doc in the box that we took jackson to when he had his stomach bug the previous weekend. i was diagnosed with a throat infection (not strep, i have no tonsils and told this to the doc in the box, but they administered the delicious throat swab test anyway) and sent me home with antibiotics. honestly, i’m not one to typically complain about feeling lousy, but this has seriously been the worst sore throat of my life.
within the time that i went to the doc in the box and then the pharmacy to get my prescription, jackson began a vomiting cycle and paul contracted the stomach virus that jackson had the previous weekend. this time the vomiting cycle was induced by the two new teeth that have made themselves a home in my son’s mouth. super.
come saturday evening, jackson could not keep anything down but applesauce, and paul couldn’t even keep water down. i had the sweaty chills from the fever that accompanied my throat infection, and found myself on the phone with mom in atlanta asking, “what the hell do we do? we’re both horribly ill and can hardly stand let alone hold jackson.” the decision was made to suck it up through the next few hours til jackson went down for the night and then paul and i would go to bed and miraculously be cured.
the thought crossed our mind to lean on paul’s family who is local, but we couldn’t possibly send a sick child into someone else’s house, nor ask a healthy person to come into a disgustingly sick house to care for our sick child while paul and i lay in bed with sore throat spray and puke buckets.
so we sucked it up and made it through sunday. my antibiotic started to kick in and while my sore throat still feels like sandpaper rubbing against a bed of nails, my energy level is better and i’m able to care for jackson… sort of. paul’s stomach virus has passed through his system enough for him to get to work today (he had to take yesterday off as he was still puking), and jackson’s vomiting cycle seems to have passed since the teeth broke through the skin.
my point in sharing all these glorious details is that i have learned a really important lesson through all this puke and illness… and that is that the primary caregiver, in my case “the mom” never gets a chance to fully recoop. i have been sick more often than i have been well since we moved to annapolis 6 weeks ago. reason being… i am never given the time i need to heal, to rest, to get well, to be unsick, whatever you want to call it. i can never get caught up on rest and thus never operate on a full tank for my child. more often that not, i operate on fumes.
a fellow mommyblogger posted this tidbit recently regarding the infamous mom of octuplets. interesting perspective, and i’m always stoked to hear about parents who have the “perfect baby.” gives me hope for any future kids…
but for now, i’ll stick with the one child i have who occasionally goes through cycles of vomiting… the thought of 8 is starting to make me want to puke.