I apologize for dropping off the face of the Earth the past several days.  I fell victim to a very swift-moving, nasty, nasty virus that felled our entire office, and continues to threaten anyone within its reach.  It is Day 4, and after having spent Days 1-3 flat on my back in bed, I have finally come out to sit on the couch.

My mom came over for a bit to take care of me on Day 1, making sure I had aspirin at regular intervals, Gatorade to drink, and a little bit of soup before she had to head off to work.  You don’t know how often I wished I’d had my mom to baby me like this when I lived up north, but it was never even remotely as bad as this.  She was worried about me.

The Man was the epitome of awesome, taking care of getting The Boy off to school in the mornings, packing lunches, making breakfast, stuffing backpacks, and also making sure I had Gatorade and anything else I needed before he headed off to work in the morning.

I slept when I could, moaned when I couldn’t. And coughed, and coughed, and coughed some more until my abdominal muscles were shredded.  I had a fever and chills, and just about every inch of my body was sore at one point, and my head increasingly began to feel like it was in a huge vice grip, clamping down on me from all sides, especially my face.

The scariest part for me was that I can remember feeling like I didn’t have control of my own thoughts – irritating pictures and snippets of strange and random songs kept flashing through my brain, and I couldn’t “change the channel”.  I couldn’t open my eyes for very long, because it took too much energy, and just the very thought of watching TV or reading hurt.

And then I realized I could hear the silence.  As an adult who has two burst eardrums in the past 15 or so years, I can tell you that when I get fluid buildup back there, the silence can be deafening.  Unfortunately it has remained, and here on Day 4, I have to wait and see what happens.  If it starts to hurt, I will need to take my uninsured ears to some doctor to get some uninsured antibiotics, I suppose…  and hope they start to work before the fluid ruptures an eardrum or two all over again.

In any case, I’m on the road to recovery, very thankful to have family around to fill in my gaps, inexplicably feeling a little guilty for dropping the ball (3 unpaid days off work!! *sigh*), but very happy to at least be sitting upright in my living room.

Time for a nap…