Eustation Frustration

If a person can’t kvetch on their blog, then where can they?

At the end of last year, Marcie, Melody, Julianne, and I drove down to Southern California to spend time with my mother. Overall, it was a very nice trip and the kids had a great time. A day hasn’t gone by when Melody has told me that she wants to visit Grandma again!

The only unfortunate thing about the visit was that we managed to contaminate the rest of our family with illness. At it turns out, Melody was harboring some pretty nasty little buggies (caught from school? her cousins?) and at the end our trip, she came down with both roseola and croup. As you can imagine, the return eight-hour drive was extremely challenging. A two-year-old in full health can get pretty testy sitting in one place for so long. But a cranky, unhealthy two-year-old is a whole other story.

As a result of our visit, my mother got an unpleasant cold and my niece Sarah subsequently got so ill that she needed antibiotics. Julianne also came down with croup and is only now starting to get back to normal. Similarly, Marcie got very ill and contributed quite significantly to our tissue-based refuse.

Needless to say, seeing how much devastation Melody left in her path, I knew my turn was next. And boy was it a doozy. I seemed to get everything and the kitchen sink. I was in such bad shape that upon returning to work after our vacation, I had to go back home after the first half of the day and then take the rest of the week off on sick leave. As it turns out, all that schmutz I collected from the rest of the family evolved into a sinus infection. That’s been unpleasant enough, but then I lost most of the hearing in my left ear and knew that could only mean more bad news. Such calamitous news came in the form of my ENT informing me that I now have an ear infection on top of the sinus infection. Yuck.

I’ve now been taking horse-pill sized antibiotics for three days (seven more days to go) and am only beginning to feel closer to my normal self again. Up until now, my usual high-energy interaction with the kids has been impossible, work extremely difficult, and sleeping full of unpleasant fever-induced dreams. Poor Marcie, herself only recently on the mend, had to pick up even more slack than usual. I really don’t know how she’s done it.

So what have I learned from all this? Well, that:

• Road trips with sick children are tough
• Taking care of sick children is very tough
• Taking care of children while you’re sick is extremely tough
• Taking care of sick children while you’re sick is exceedingly tough

Oh, and I guess I’ve also learned that my head must be quite the bacterial hotspot. I can almost hear the pulsating beat from their little all-night discotheque in my eustation tubes. I just wish they’d keep it down over there. Some of us are trying to get some rest.