Seventeen days ago, I got sick
with a virus. The sudden intensity of how hard and fast the virus hit
me apparently gave some kind of nasty wallop to my autoimmune
system and thyroid. In these past 17 days, I have been hospitalized for
nearly a week, readmitted to the hospital for another 24 hours, and
have spent the rest of the time in my pajamas, trying to both get my
job done (my boss
has been AMAZINGLY WONDERFUL about letting me work from home) and
mother my children, plus be some kind of wife/friend to poor Jon, who
has been stuck doing everything I cannot do (which is a lot when you
are talking about 4 kids, 3 dogs, a giant old house, and - yes, believe it or not - his own paid employment at which he's actually expected to appear on time each day and do good work.
Even after all the CAT Scans and blood tests and spinal taps and MRIs, the
docs still can't tell me exactly what the virus was that did this to
me. All I can tell you is that right now, I feel like I was hit by a
Mack Truck and I am trying to recover. The last doctor I spoke to
(during my hospital readmittance late last week) said he strongly
suspects H1N1, but we will simply never know for sure. Whatever it was,
it has given me a really excellent reminder of what it means to be
humbled in the face of something bigger and more powerful than I am.
You
see, I am used to being in control, on top of things, busy and very
productive. And ever since this illness hit, I have been unable to be
any of those things at even close to the level I am used to. I remain
absolutely exhausted - bone tired in a way I cannot even adequately put
into words. Getting dressed wears me out. Standing up for periods
longer than 10-15 minutes wears me out. I am able to sit in a chair at
home and work - phone and computer at hand - but even that still kind
of wears me out. At this point, I have not yet returned to my actual
office. I had hoped to do that today, really hoped to, but there is
simply no way I was up to it today.
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