One Very Long Month

Wow, can I say that March (and the first bit of April) has been one long crazy month of sickness.  I started working a part time job back in October at the local schools.  It's nothing fancy, just a food service position--but, its fun and non-stressful as I get to help with food prep and serve breakfast to the kindergarten through third grade age group.  Plus, it gives me extra money for fabric and quilting bee postage--can't fault that, now can you?!  Well, since I started, I've been sick with one thing or another.  Apparently, this is fairly normal for your first year in a grade school.  The other staff and teachers can all tell you about their first year run of sickness.  So, I've suffered through my run of sinus infections, colds, bronchitis, mild eye infection and such despite constant hand sanitizing and such.  But really, it wasn't so bad--until March.

What started out as a few days of flu then became a cough with breathing problems (found out later that would be the pneumonia phase).  This then rotated into a very severe case of bronchitis and sinus infection--we're talking major amounts of green...yuck, and then came the severe sore throat with the cough that kept me up all night.  Just when I thought I had that mess licked, round two decided to kick in.  Oh joy.

After sitting for a few hours in urgency care (which was still faster than waiting two weeks for a regular doctor's appointment), I was given cough syrup, an inhaler, and some antibiotics and told I had walking pneumonia.  Well, the antibiotics made me throw up within 10 minutes, so the LNP gave me a different prescription, which btw conflicted heavily with the cough syrup--way to check, doc.  That one made me throw up within an hour.  Between the two, my poor stomach had, had enough.  Two and a half days of vomiting everything including water left me exhausted.  I didn't opt for a third round of antibiotics.  Good news is I am recovering and went back to work today.  Sure, I needed a nap afterwards, but I was well enough to go and the coughing is almost gone.

Why am I telling my woes of disease--because being this sick shows you things about your life and those around you.  Individuals from my various quilting groups stepped up to cover me in the bees I run.  In all my bees, members have been super understanding about me being behind.  And, when I was just too wiped out to finish my DQS quilt, another person made an angel quilt so that my partner would still get a beautiful quilt.  I was really disappointed when I realized that I wasn't going to be able to finish my quilt--and I hate failing a commitment like that--so it was a huge thing for me to say I just can't get it done.  Knowing that someone else stepped up for me was important.  These lovely ladies all helped without hesitation so that I could focus on getting better--and they are people I've never met in real life.  Some even sent get well cards!  People from work checked in to see how I was doing too.  And, of course, my family really took great care of me (even did my dishes for me when I was too sick for my turn) the whole time.  Funny thing is, there were a lot of people who've known me my whole life, or for many, many years, who didn't seem to notice when I stopped showing up or communicating for an entire month.  Being sick really shows you where your friends are at--and its good to know I have so very many wonderful friends.