Posts Tagged ‘illness’
Nurse John
Personally, I don’t find that my nursing abilities offer all that soothing a touch, and now our head cook has called in sick, so I am faced with pretending I’m a chef in addition to her nurse. No pressure. Only, I’m going up against the comparisons to a person who has nursed and fed me better than one could ever imagine whenever I’ve fallen ill.
It just seems like such an unfair circumstance for Cyndie when she gets sick. Laid low by a fever, she is currently confined to quarters and stuck with me as her primary caregiver. Luckily, she is a very patient patient, and repeatedly tells me I’m providing everything she needs. It never feels like enough to me.
Plus, there’s always the battle against her trying to do things for herself so as not to trouble me as I struggle to anticipate her next move and cut her off in the nick of time by getting her the ice pack or warming her heating pad in the microwave.
Nurse John is not that much fun when he gets grumpy as he is trying to soothe what ails the patient and serve Malt-O-Meal and toast before it gets cold.
I am thrilled with how sensitive Asher is to Cyndie’s not feeling well. Instead of being a pest and demanding more roughhouse play, he has chosen to mirror her as a way of showing his support.
Right up until he hears something outside that requires a rant of “big boy” barks followed by some half-hearted “woofs.” I’m sure that does wonders for her headache. At least he gets back to the mirroring part in short order.
That allows me to practice a little of that mirroring support of my own, although I suspect that technique is not included in the practices one would find in the nursing handbooks, not to mention that it leaves the kitchen looking a frightful mess.
.
.
Plans Obliterated
As soon as my health took a turn for the better, I began to care about all the events my illness has forced us to cancel. While I was feeling miserable, I didn’t care about anything but enduring the misery. I completely missed out on watching the NBA Minnesota Timberwolves blow out the Denver Nuggets by 45 points on Thursday night.
Good thing I was feeling better last night so I could watch them score their lowest first-half points for the entire season. I suffer that terrible fan affliction in spectator sports. The games I’m able to see my teams play are too often lousy and the ones I miss are the ones that turn out great.
Turned out last night’s game was one of the rare exceptions of that theme. Biggest game 7 comeback in NBA history. Whaaat?!! Go Wolves!
Cyndie and I lost the opportunity for a dinner out with family on Friday night and then a 100th-anniversary event at one of our old hometown schools on Saturday. Brunch with friends on Sunday was a bust.
Most frustrating, my plan to mow some portion of our property every day during the season of fastest growth suddenly came to an abrupt halt. That meant more than four days of unchecked grass blade growth.
I got out of bed yesterday morning, took a shower to wash a couple of days of fever off of me, and put on my work clothes. It was time to mow.
After a few days of feeling too sick to care, I carried some of that absence of concern forward with the difficulty of mowing tall grass. Tossing away my usual perfectionistic tendencies, I did my best with a single pass and didn’t let it bug me when the result was downright ugly.
The goal was to get as many of the areas knocked down with what I’ll call a “rough cut” so that I could return in a day or two (pending the rain in our forecast) to mow another time to my usual high standards.
That area in the outflow of the culvert has been so wet this spring that I couldn’t cut it until now. Too bad now it is too tall for my lawnmowers. However, we do have other tools to choose from. This area will get the power trimmer treatment. The good thing about the string trimmer is that it cuts just fine even when the grass is a little wet.
For the rest of the week, I’m making no plans to have anything go as planned.
Survival Naps
Yesterday, Cyndie sent me a text from the doctor’s office. She asked me to pick up some prescriptions for her, and wrote that she had declined their option to go to the hospital.
Hello!
That got my attention.
They gave her lots of tender loving care while she was awaiting test results, and I headed home early from work. She was a mess when they saw her, with a fever that climbed a couple of degrees while she was there. After a nebulizer treatment to open her lungs, Cyndie headed home for the best medicine of all: a nap on her own bed under the watchful eye of Pequenita.
Too bad we left all that warm, moist air in the Dominican Republic. Someone is currently not allowed to be outside breathing our very frozen oxygen molecules.
That means I am on full-time animal care for a while. On Wednesday and Thursday, I tended to the horses and Delilah in the morning before starting my commute. Under the crunch of time and darkness, the chickens were pretty much neglected, left to fend for themselves in the coop.
When I checked on them yesterday afternoon, our winter-hardy birds were doing just fine. The electric waterer was working slick, only freezing around the edge. I served them a portion of cracked corn and meal worms, cleaned the poop board, and they looked perfectly happy with the situation.
The young chestnuts were doing their own version of surviving the cold air. They positioned themselves strategically out of the breeze and broadside to the sun for an afternoon nap.
Luckily, this cold snap is due to give way to more reasonable temperatures this weekend, so the animals and I will get a little break from the extreme elements.
I may even crank up the Grizzly to clean up the inch of snow that has gradually accumulated since I last plowed. It hardly seems worth it, but doing so makes it a little easier to walk around, and who doesn’t need a little more easy when you are trudging through the dead of winter?
.
.
Noticing Moments
Illness has slowly been making its way through some of the staff at work, and I’ve heard tell of it visiting some of my family. Somewhere between the two, after the weekend of visitors, I brushed too close to a source. My body responded with all the classic symptoms.
It’s an almost indistinguishable cross between a cold and allergies. After an impressive run of relatively good health, experiencing an affliction such as this helps me to realize how many things there are about living every day that I take for granted.
Certainly, I now have a new level of respect for how pleasant it is to have a clear and healthy sinus cavity on a daily basis.
As I stepped toward our spiral staircase from up in the loft, I noticed how impressive it is to be able to stride unhesitatingly over the edge of the floor and float down the massive pine steps. It doesn’t seem like that big a deal usually, but yesterday I found myself hyper-aware of what a marvel it is to have that ability.
With tired, stinging eyes, my drive home from work yesterday was an extra challenge of not driving distracted. Well, not only distracted, but actually asleep. When I arrived safely home, my mind was drawn to one specific goal. I wanted to lay down on our bed, pull the cover over my body, and close my eyes for a nap.
My nose has suffered a days’ worth of abuse from tissues wiping the constant flow and my eyes stung. I didn’t want to be touched. I just wanted to completely give in to the urge to sleep. Pequenita couldn’t resist. I think she spends her whole day dreaming of the moment when I will come home and lie down on that bed with her.
She purred and kneaded her way up my body, arriving at my head. My arms were snuggled deep below the covers and my irritated eyes were frozen shut in resistance to the sting. So she head butted me right in the nose. It was the absolute worst intrusion to the comfort I was so desperately seeking.
I didn’t react. I just wanted to forget the insult and enter dreamland. So she did it again, harder.
I noticed how cute it can seem sometimes when she does that head-butting action. How dear it is that she seeks my attention with such fervor. And I noticed how different it comes across when I feel miserable and my nose is particularly sensitive.
Why is it that this kind of illness triggers an obscure mental focus? I noticed my slippers of many years. I don’t know why I find it so hard to part with my house slippers. Even though these long ago developed a crack in the sole that lets wetness in –noticeable when making brief excursions through puddles in the garage or on the deck or driveway (obviously, venturing out of the house)– they still function perfectly well in every other regard.
I haven’t given a thought to replacing them. How could I? These are the ones. There are no others to be had.
Until I finally do. Then the new pair become “the ones,” for the next decade and a half.
Just some things I noticed.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Any Minute
Any minute now I just know I am going to feel 100% better. What a nuisance it can be to get smacked by a cold that is nothing more than a few days of typical symptoms, but which knocks you completely out of your routine. For the moment, I take solace in knowing I have turned the corner and am on the mend. Whatever crazy cellular battles have been underway seem to have shifted into a mode of damage repair and refuse disposal.
It has cost me a couple days in bed, which isn’t all bad. There are plenty of times when I long to have that option. It’s just never what one hopes for when it gets forced on you by illness. I slept and convalesced under the ever-so-capable care that Cyndie provides. She kept me stocked with medicines, tissues, fluids, and home-made chicken soup, while tending to all the chores of caring for our animals.
Pequenita was a special comfort while I rested, staying on the bed with me when Cyndie and Delilah were engaged in outdoor activities.
No one wants to suffer the travails of illness, but if I’m saddled with the dismal annoyances of the common cold, I don’t think there could be a place more comforting than this in which to endure it.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Relative Something 