Really Back - part 3

So I hate being sick.  It is not just the sickness itself, its that I feel I should avoid others -  I don't want to contaminate them.  I avoid the family, which totally sucks. I avoid friends and I don't  even  want to be in public.  I feel like I have super-powered cooties and anyone with in 30 feet could become as ill or worse than me.  So yeah, when I'm sick, my sense of reality becomes distorted.

The distortion usually turns depressing; I start to think my life sucks, I've accomplished nothing, built up everyone's hopes and now am under amazing pressure to do something.  I wonder why I ever married or had children, all these people I can disappoint.  I wonder why my friends aren't calling, but I'm also not picking up the phone when it rings.  I don't think any of this is rational, but when I'm really sick, I also miss out on how irrational I'm getting.  It really is an ugly side of depression mixed in with a few pharmaceutical hallucinations.  

This time around, the anxiety that came with the first antibiotic was unlike anything I had experienced before and had me in tears a lot.  I was so releeved when the nurse came and took my blood pressure a second time because she just didn't believe the jump it had in 48 hours.

But, I'm am up and about.  Saturday a cloud lifted out of my head.  Although I still had a dull headache and sinus pressure, I could feel the "sickness-induced" depression moving off.  By Sunday, I was up and about, having a normal day; took boys to fire station in the morning to drop off cookies, at which DS1 decided to throw up (can't make this stuff up), then home to friends joining us for brunch (DS1 totally fine the rest of the day), lots of play, a walk in the park next door (DS1 on his bike, DS2 in stroller napping) and a friend over for afternoon play date, then bath, video, sleep.  

Today, a "work" day.  I feel good.  Still about 5 more days of antibiotics, but I"M ALIVE!!

The boys constantly have runny noses, DS1 currently has a snot-induced cough at night.  But they seem to plow through these things and keep up their schedules.  I was wiped out.  It was unexpected, and most unwanted.  I didn't even get them to Santa, which DS1 has asked for.  I told him Santa is now recovering from his big night at the beach, so DS1 is now pleading that we return to the beach, oh it makes my heart cry on a cold day in NYC.  

In the last two weeks, the only thing accomplished was getting our insurance up and running for DS2's surgery tomorrow morning.  I did put together a Santa gift, but DH wrapped everything.  I even bought store made cookie dough for the Santa cookies on Christmas Eve.  I did manage to remember to buy carrots for the reindeer and talk one of the young wonderful doorman we have into stopping by to tell DS1 that he left the roof door open so that Santa could get to the elevator.  All of which went over very well.

The boys have amazed me, by just going with the flow; and playing more together and/or more respectfully of one another daily.  When it snowed, DS1 kept shouting for DS2 to jump in the sled.  They loved being pulled around the carpeted hallway, but as the photos show, being pulled in the snow itself was a bit scary for DS2.  They are mostly sharing their Santa toys, although they were given specific gifts.  They can now both play with cars, trucks or train sets together with minimal intervention needed for "mine" issues.  And when older kids are over to play with DS1, DS2 seems to get it.  He plays with them, but then he comes to me to do something different.  And this is still with limited vocabulary and hearing that is marginalized.

There is love between them.  It is amazingly pure.  It humbles me.  Sometimes I suck so much.  Like when I'm sick laying in bed, hating myself for ever having children in the first place.  But we will all get through it, we were brought together for some reason, and maybe someday we'll know why.