I haven't been sick in a goodly time and so - I suppose - it's my turn.  This is a mystery illness, this one.  I've got no other symptom other than fatigue and that I've lived the past day and entire two nights feeling in waves as though I'm going to throw up at any moment.  I take the kids to their swim lessons while I sit in the chlorine-infused air of our local swimming pool for an hour and a half and I sit with my head between my knees at inelegant intervals.  I take them to their annual eye doctor's appointment and practise swallowing in quick, tiny succession so as to keep the nausea at a momentary bay.  I then sit out in public parking lots with my car  door open and stare at the dirty pavement as I face it down, willing myself to be ready to drive as the kids anxiously shush one another in the backseat.  It's one of those. 

Lucy asked me today if I thought I might die.  Though I'd been half wondering the same thing myself, I hurriedly assured her that I was just fine and that everybody gets sick sometimes.  I wake up all too often from a nauseated tum and a sharp, localized pain under my sternum. 

At first I thought it must be food poisoning.  Now, umteen Google searches later, I'm wondering if it might not be a hiatal hernia combined with GERD.  I don't know if these things have much to do with heredity, but when Oliver was a newborn, he was diagnosed with the very ominous "failure to thrive,"  which was thankfully quite quickly modified to be called the much more reasonable sounding GERD (gastro-esophageal reflux disease, for those of you not in the know).  He cried and cried and then he cried some more.  It broke my nursing-mother's-hormone-saturated heart.  The only thing that comforted him (other than the hundreds and thousands of dollars worth of medicine he was eventually to consume) was to be strapped to my chest in his Snuggly.  As I sit here at 4:30 in the morning, wracked with pain so substantial that it wakes me up every hour or so with its sweat inducing waves, it breaks my heart to think that my poor newborn had this to contend with until he turned four, which is when he was finally able to go off all related medication.  And to add insult to injury, I think of the times where I felt flashes of irritation with him, wondering why he was so ill-natured at times.  Not my finest hour.

In the meantime, for those of you who do, please pray for me.  I'll be just fine, but this hasn't been a happy ride.
9/3/2010 03:27:11 am

Oh Jen! How horrible!
Thank-you for sharing so that we can indeed pray for you. As all of us mothers know, the house doesn't slow down just because you are not well. You still have to somehow keep up!

If it would be at all helpful please let me take your two boys saturday for part of the day. My boys would be overjoyed and you might be able to get some rest! (or to a doctor?!)
Let me know what you think!

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JoyGirl
9/3/2010 09:14:13 am

Thanks so much, Rhonda. I love that you'd offer! It's ok, though, as Trebs will be home then and I can sleep the day away if need be. Your kindness is always right there at the forefront!

P.S. Did you check out the class lists yet? Big excitement!

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9/3/2010 10:02:29 am

Praying for you Jen!
Being sick just plain sucks!
Feel better soon.
Our little ones are in the same class this year!

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Sylvia
9/6/2010 06:48:02 am

awwwww, hugs Jen! Praying for you for sure!!! ~Syl

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