Things suck right now. Well, not as bad as they sucked yesterday but they still pretty much suck today, too. I've been incubating a head cold since Friday and it keeps getting worse--my nose is all nasty and scabby inside so breathing isn't a fun endeavor but worse than that, I've got a nasty sore throat with what looks like canker sores on the back of my throat. It's not strep--I happen to be on antibiotics at the moment for an unrelated staph infection--but it is very painful to swallow. So, I'm feeling pretty sucky Sunday and stay home from church, sleep a lot and plan to sleep in on Monday because there was no school and Joey was at a sleepover.

But yesterday, I woke up at 9am feeling kind of queasy and thinking how odd that was but I go back to sleep. I doze and wake for the next 2 hours and every time I wake up, I feel queasier and queasier. Finally at 11am, I get up and go to the bathroom and then realize that I've got to throw up. I threw up about 20 times. Half were dry heaves--icky--and half were nasty, sour, bitter bile that burned my already raw throat. It was so awful! I broke out in a cold sweat and got all shaky and thought I was going to pass out. I rinsed out my mouth and went to lay down again when the urge to go to the bathroom overcame me. Diarrhea. Finally, my entire intestinal system was empty and I went to lay down when the phone rang. It was Joey saying "Mom, I puked." Oh great.

I talked to the mom and she told me what happened and I asked her if there was any way she could bring Joey home. Thankfully, that was no problem. So Joey and I spent the day together lying around the family room sipping tepid water and sleeping off and on, feeling slightly nauseated but not throwing up again. We both spiked fevers for the day that hovered around 101.6. I let the fever do its work until I couldn't stand it anymore and took some drugs around 9pm. I hate that prickly skin feeling I get on my back and trunk when I have a fever.

My sweet husband came home from work early at 3pm to take care of us. I sent him to the store for ginger ale, jello, popsicles and 7*up. That jello was the most delicious thing I think I'd ever eaten, I was so hungry and parched when I got it.

So here we are. The nausea seems to be gone for the most part but we both still have a low-grade fever. Oddly, my gums are swollen and bleeding, too. I'm not sure what the connection is but since my gums are normally perfect, I have to think that it is somehow related. The muscles in my back are killing me whenever I cough or laugh or clear my throat because of the vomiting yesterday.

Oh, we got the rotavirus from my nephew. He was very very sick with it and it lasted more than a week. He pass it along to another aunt and cousins before passing it along to us. He came to see us on Saturday and had a nasty diarrhea blowout that went all the way up his back to his shoulder and I was the lucky one who got to take care of it.

There is some good news, though. We're in the midst of a big snowstorm so all the schools are closed. I'm really glad because Joey missed 4 days in December and I was loath to keep her out of school again (though I certainly would have today anyway). It's really cold, too. For Portland, I mean. It's about 17 or 18 degrees and the windchill factor takes it down to about 4 degrees. This is very unusual for around here. We've had so much snow in the past week--it's been very weird. We woke up on Jan 1 to about 6 inches of snow and had a great play day. I'd say that we've got about 4 inches in the backyard right now and it's coming down hard. When you consider that in the past 7 years, we've probably only had about 6 inches of snow total, this past week has been pretty amazing. Joey's bummed that she can't go out and play in it but she wouldn't be out there even if she weren't sick because it's so cold and the snow is too powdery to do anything with. There were even two water main breaks in the city last night--nasty. We seem to be ok so far. Even though Ed's company is open today, he's working from home. Thankfully that's an option for him when he has his computer at home with him. He just calls in to his meetings and works in our home office. Yay!

I guess things could be suckier--I could still be nauseated. I'm trying to look on the bright side. I'm not sure if I'll be able to teach my Kmusik class tomorrow, though, because I can't sing. We'll see. I hate to cancel but if the weather is nasty, the class will be cancelled anyway since it's up on a mountain that gets icy and snowy well before we in the valley get it.

I'm going to eat another popsicle. It's the only thing that feels good on my poor throat. Oh, hey--I lost 5 lbs. yesterday. Joey lost 3. I can certainly afford it, she can't. I'll be sure to feed her today as much as she feels like she can eat.

Later,

--L