Long, dark tunnel
I feel I have just emerged from a long, dark tunnel. It is seven days since I last wrote my blog and this is the first morning I have actually been able to contemplate sitting up at my computer and writing. I tried yesterday to write something on my phone email, with the intent of mailing it to myself for placement later, but the piece was an unintelligible ramble. I have been sick – sicker than I have ever been in my life. And even today, a week later, I am still nauseous, still weak, and still feeling pretty unwell. I thought once my fever left me on Friday that I’d rapidly return to normal, but that hasn’t been the case.
We had family and friends coming on Saturday, a pre-planned event. Fortunately for me, my son Levi did the cooking. What surprised me was Murray, a friend of Stephen’s, had exactly the same bug as me, right down to the Tuesday-night onset. Like me, he was unable to get off his bed on Wednesday and felt sicker than he’d ever felt too. He’d been out for a visit a week or so prior to this, as he needed to fix his laptop and thought I might be able to help him, so that was our common contact point. But why was it just he and I sick and not Stephen? I thought back to what we had eaten that day and I did recall that both Murray and I had eaten a lamb shank, while Stephen had opted for another meal. Was there some bug in that, one that took a week or so to incubate? Murray was feeling exactly like me on Saturday. He had hardly eaten a thing since Tuesday and was feeling seedy as hell. Both of us placed a small amount of food on our plates, unable to tolerate more. All I know is that this was not the common, run-of-the-mill, 24-hour bug. It was something much nastier. That was a shame because the meal was fish and paua, along with pan fried chips and would have been a wonderful meal, ordinarily.
When one is sick like that, one just wants an end to one’s misery. The nausea was intense, especially the first night, which included vomiting. Anything I had to do, I had to put in a huge amount of mental effort, just to achieve it. Going to the toilet was hard, especially Wednesday, when the fever was high. I didn’t take any paracetamol for two reasons, one that the nausea was so intense and secondly, I wanted to let the body fight this bug in the best way it knew how and that was by increasing the body’s temperature. I do marvel at the way we are designed with all these built-in defences. Bugs really do stand little chance.
I had to cancel two things, one a training with Chiara, and secondly, a birthday healing I had offered a friend. I will do the healing tomorrow and I am waiting to hear from Chiara as to when she is next available. I am so fortunate at this time in my life that I am not working and not having to let anyone down. However, we have a grandparent’s rendition at Willow’s school to attend on Thursday, and we are picking her up tomorrow from school as her mother has an appointment in town. I am glad these things are this week and not last.
The other thing I missed last week was the sunshine. By the time I finally emerged on Saturday, I noticed seedlings were wilting. We’d had an unprecedented week of solid sun, though it had passed me by. Today is glorious. I shall try and spend some time outdoors.