Catch Up

It's been a few days and I've missed being here.  Geoff was away for about four days last week and for two of those nights, I basically didn't sleep.  At. all.  By the second night I was getting worried.  Every time I relaxed enough to drift off into dreamland, my throat closed up and I literally could not breathe; so my body jerked itself to waking with a big gasp and the whole process would start again.  I lay awake for hour after hour, desperately tired but unable to do anything about it.  So I cancelled a few scheduled activities and took it easy during the days and let the kids watch lots of tv...because, frankly, I wasn't capable of a whole lot.  I was a walking zombie.  When Geoff got home on the third night, he suggested that I try using his c-papp machine (he has sleep apnea).  I did and, although it felt strange and left some bruises on my cheeks, I finally slept.  Thank God.  The next morning, I went to the doctor's while he stayed home with the kids.

Turns out, I had strep throat and a fever.  The doc said I was actually quite ill.  I was so shocked that I asked if he could do the test again (which he not-so-graciously declined to do).  Although I'd had a bit of a sore throat during the week, my memory of being a much younger woman with strep throat involved raging pain in my throat and I certainly did not have that.

I guess the fever explained why I'd been so sweaty all week!  I was hot much of the week, and a wee bit achy.  I just figured that my body's feeling off was because I'd missed so much sleep, and I also know from my history that I sometimes get minor sore throats if my insomnia has been acting up and leaving me tired.  Also, the pain in my cheeks likely wasn't caused by the c-papp machine but by the (minor) sinus issues I was apparently having.

Now, I am aware that I am generally not a very body conscious person, but the doctor's diagnosis all seemed rather exaggerated to me.  I really didn't feel sick...just very, very, very tired.

We've had a couple of fabulous winters of being relatively free of sickness around here.  Matthew's had an occasional stomach bug that's lasted for a day, but no one else has caught those things and, other than easy, one-day colds, we've fared pretty well.  I don't know why, because the world around us seems continuously caught up in some nasty flu and I doubt that we do anything differently than those families, but whatever the reason we've been spared, I'm grateful.  I'm not even sure how to classify last week because I didn't feel ill and, despite my taking it a little more easily for a few days, we were still functioning.

But whatever.  I'm sleeping at night now and, although my body is still tired and in need of some more make-up sleep, this week should see us getting back to 'normal.'  Good thing, too, because I feel almost a week behind in school work and Easter prep.

This week holds plans for school, baking for Easter, house clean up, laundry folding (the piles and piles of clean laundry around here are staggering) and other such normal stuff.  I'm grateful and simply glad to be back to a more normal.