I had planned to log in and update my blogs. Then the flu took my whole household out at the knees. I spent most of my day stumbling around trying to take care of sick kids and it was rough. I am really hoping that Snuggle Bug (my youngest) didn't pass this virus on to the kid next door when they were playing on Thursday. Beloved was the first one to get this and we thought it was food poisoning. Bright an early Friday morning, he was getting sick and actually called out of work. Beloved never does that, which told me he felt awful.
Saturday morning, I was optimistic that the flu vaccine covered the strain that was knocking the kids down and had Beloved sick in bed. Jump to the middle of the day and I discovered I was wrong. About when I was feeling awful, Beloved started feeling better and took over managing symptoms for our household. Neither of us had eaten all day, which had me concerned because Beloved and I have diabetes. Not eating when you have that is not a good thing.
When he got home with the groceries as I spent my time sitting on the couch with a bucket and my head swimming I saw that he had picked up the apple juice I requested and ice pops. My dinner last night was ice pops. My thinking was the ice pops were light enough on my tender stomach to stay down and would melt slow enough that my body would adjust to it instead of expelling it at full velocity. I am fortunate enough to say that theory was proven correct. Drinking liquids wasn't fun because it kept making me sick to my stomach.
This morning I seem to be doing better. The kids are definitely doing better as is Beloved. I still have two sinkfuls of dishes to wash and pots sitting on the stove. I feel well enough to do them, it is my hesitant plan to spend time cleaning up the kitchen on that basis. I am tired but I am keeping breakfast down which gives me hope that I am on the mend.
I did a little bit of dusting on my altar before the flu hit me like a brick to the face. After that, I had zero energy and lots of stomach cramps. This did not bode well for feeling anything remotely like comfortable. My hernia still aches from all of that cramping. I wasn't my typical stubborn self and trying to force myself to get chores done as I felt awful. I like to think this is a sign that I am making progress breaking that habit, but if I'm being honest, I just felt that awful and spaced out from the fever that I spent a lot of my day yesterday staring into space.
Today, Beloved is certain he is symptom free. This is a good thing because he needs to stop by his parents' place to take care of them for several hours as his brother takes a break. My parents-in-law are not doing well. We've all been doing our best to support them, but it's hard. Earlier last week, it looked like my father-in-law was going to die in a few days. As such, Beloved took the day off work and we brought the kids up to the hospital to see him. The old guy was just sleeping due to pain medication and liver toxicity. Fatty liver disease runs in Beloved's side of the family and it's caught up with my father-in-law.
It's made things challenging. The man has stopped resisting efforts to help him. I know that is a big blow to his pride. He came home to die in his home instead of at the hospital or hospice care. This lead to big thoughts about what is a good death. The man is in a lot of pain from the fall that sent him to the hospital on Amity day. That was when they checked his liver enzymes and saw they were high. He was frustrated with the side effects of the medicines that he had been on to flush the toxins out and finally decided he had enough. So, aside from pain medicine, he is off of all of his medications.
Fortunately, during the week a hospice nurse is coming in to help take care of him. This is a big improvement in quality of life than what he had before going into the hospital. Before it was just Beloved and his siblings doing their best to manage the situation. Now that some of the stress of caring for their parents is off of them, they have more of an opportunity to come to grips with what is happening.
I am concerned for Beloved. He's been putting on a brave front but dealing with very complicated feelings. Things are not good between him and his father. Since the old man is sleeping all the time, they're not bickering. I think that makes things easier for Beloved. At the same time, it's disheartening to see your parent dying before your eyes and being utterly helpless to do anything about it. We're all doing our best to respect the old man's agency and see that his wishes for his final days are met, but there's some complicated stuff that needs to get covered that I suspect isn't going to happen before he dies.
It's all a big heap of a mess, and that was before we all got sick yesterday. I wish I could do more than provide moral support. But there's literally nothing more I can do. The doctors say he has a few days to a few weeks. This is not easy for the kids to handle. They've a close relationship with their grandfather and have been doing their best to cope with what's going on by distracting themselves with their computers. It's a healthy approach, although I could do with out the barrage of angry cat noises as they laugh at cats doing stuff like falling into water and knocking over toddlers.
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