On Tuesday before lunch, our eldest son came to my classroom and told me that he had a fever and a sore throat and wasn't feeling very well. My first thought was "oh, shit"! For months we've been hearing about H1N1, we've been taking all the precautions (vitamins and other recommended supplements to keep us healthy and the boys got vaccinated as soon as they were eligible). While our youngest son had been vaccinated 12 days before his brother's fever hit, our eldest son, despite being asthmatic, had only been eligible four days earlier. And now he was sick. Shit, shit, shit. I took him home, took his temperature, gave him Tylenol, had him take his puffers, made him soup and started getting him hydrated. His conditioned worsened by Wednesday so I got him to our doctor, who put our son on Tamiflu. And by Wednesday at 2:00 I was sick. Shit, shit, shit!!!!!!!! My parents continually offered to come and stay with us but I didn't want to expose my parents to this illness (my mom had just been vaccinated and my dad still wasn't eligible). I had two very kind neighbours call and check on us a couple of times with the offer of being available for anything we needed. But they hadn't been vaccinated nor have they had it, so there was no way I was going to expose them to this. Our youngest son seemed to be immune (thank God he got the vaccination when he did), so he
This illness has been the worse I have ever experienced. By Monday, my Tamiflu-taking-son was better and back to school. And I, the non-Tamiflu taker because-I-didn't-have-a-fever, was still sick. I now had secondary lung and ear infections. That's when it really got scary, 'cause having breathing issues is just damn frightening. I have to confess I had one long night where I didn't sleep because I was so worried that I was going to die from this damn H1N1 and my children were going to be orphans. During my long night, I spent much of it in tears and as I sobbed I asked God how much we were supposed to take. First losing Austin and then living through H1N1 without him. I mean, come on. Enough is enough already! I was a worried mom who couldn't do much for my ill son because I was so ill. Why were we having to deal with this without Austin??????
I spent time really praying, for the first time since Austin died. I prayed for my kids. I would be happy to be with Austin again, and my faith tells me that is exactly what will happen when I die. But my children really need me now and I did not want them to have to deal with becoming orphans 8 months after their Dad died. So I prayed to God to spare me for them. There's nothing like watching the H1N1 death toll rise on T.V. to bring my mortality into view through every wheezy breath I took.
But God answered my prayers, this time (unlike 8 months ago), and today I am finally feeling better. The antibiotics are working. I'm still not "over it", but I do feel much better than I have in 10 days. It has been rough and making it extra rough has been Austin's absence. We didn't get sick a lot in our house but when we did, we looked after each other with tenderness and caring. And living through the worst illness of my life without my tender caretaker has made it even harder. But we're on the road to recovery. A very slow road but a road pointing in the right direction nonetheless. And I'm yelling, "enough already"!!!!!! But I'm also thankful that we have survived, and hopefully I'll be back to work next week so we'll have some sense of normalacy back in our lives.
In the spirit of American Thanksgiving (which I have seen a lot of reference to as I've watched way too much T.V. this week!), I've been thinking about what I'm thankful for. I'm thankful for my parents, who wanted to come to look after us since we first got sick but respected my wishes that they not come until I was no longer contagious. They arrived two days ago and have been taking great care of all three of us. It is such a relief to have other adults in the house to lessen my responsibilities for a few days, which I'm sure has aided in my recovery. I'm thankful for my sisters and friends who have called and emailed to check up on us, to let us know they're thinking of us from far away. That has helped our spirits. I'm thankful for my neighbour who called to ask if we needed anything a couple of times and then showed up with homemade soup. I'm thankful for my caring, patient doctor and antibiotics. I'm thankful for the vaccination that kept my youngest son healthy and I'm sure helped speed the recovery of my just vaccinated older son. And I'm thankful for God, who is still listening to me, despite the fact that I've been angry with and then ignoring him/her for over 8 months. That's patience, and I'm grateful.




