Sick Sucks

My suspicion that this wasn’t a run-of-the-mill cold was confirmed very early this morning at the Labette County urgent care, by way of having my brain poked. Well, sort of.

I went to bed feeling about as crappy as I had ever felt the past two days and laid in bed, tossing and turning, having chills so bad they hurt, feeling like I was losing my mind. Around midnight, my temperature hit 100 and I took some Tylenol an hour later when it showed no signs of going away. Instead of abating, it kept going up and hung around 102 for a couple of hours. I really wanted to make it to the morning but my body wasn’t having any of it. So, I woke up Nana & Pops and off to the hospital we went. It was probably 25 degrees or so when we got in the van, and I was sweating and pulling off my coat.

The ER was pretty busy for a small town in the middle of the night. Unfortunately, it was mostly babies and old people except for me. And they all had the flu or bronchitis. After an exam, the doctor sent an evil, mean lady (I can only assume she was, she made all the babies scream) in to my room to stick a swab up my nose and test for flu. I’m pretty sure she got a piece of my cerebellum on the end of her q-tip.

A half hour later, we had the diagnosis: I have the flu. Since it has been more than 48 hours since my symptoms appeared, they can’t give me anything for it. Apparently, if I had come in before the 48-hour window, they could have given me Tamiflu, which helps alleviate the symptoms and clear it up sooner. Nope, I just get to (literally) sweat it out.

The worst part of the news is that I’m not allowed to touch or hold or breastfeed Keyven until my fevers stop, which could be another day or so. I have to pump and someone else has to give him bottles. That sucks even more because I’m not used to pumping so my body doesn’t really dig it and I can’t get enough to give him full bottles so we have to use formula instead. When we got home this morning, I felt so weird laying in bed without my little man with me. It’s a very icky feeling to be a mama and not be allowed to hold your baby.

Please keep us in your thoughts. I pray especially that Keyven does not get sick. The doctor said this strain of flu is bad enough that it would probably result in hospitalization for him because he’s too young to get the treatment for it. 😦 In the meantime, fluids, sleep and Motrin are my friends.