The Plague

The kids and Keith had the rumblings of a cold for a couple days before Thursday night when I started getting sick.  It came on suddenly and all at once with fever and chills - out of nowhere like being smacked up the side of the head with illness.  I shivered most of Thursday night and come the morning on Friday it was apparent that going to work at a Children's Hospital with fever and chills and a headache that did not permit vertical motion was probably a bad idea.  Good thing it worked out that I could miss clinic that day.  Doctors are notorious for going to work when they are sick but I am trying to get out of that "no one else could possibly do my job"-type of career-narcissism because there are indeed people that can do my job and they covered for me so that I would not infect them with my disease (a fair trade I would say).  I did not leave the bed for over 24 hours and I can't actually remember the last time I've done that so I think that puts this illness in the "very bad" category. Keith (aka husband who doesn't take a pill) and I have been popping Panadol (Tylenol) and Nurofen (Advil) regularly over the last few days just to keep up with the children.  Why is it that our children are just as active, if not more active, when they are sick?  I hear about these children that become lethargic and quiet when they are ill and I dream of them in the type of fondness that some people reserve for 1950s nostalgia of white-picket fences and soda shops.  Our children ramp UP when they are sick and they spend most of their regular time at a clear 10/10 so maxing into overdrive is not ideal when parents are sick.  Thank God for Netflix - we would not have won any parenting awards this weekend...kids would you like to watch another movie?

On Saturday night after yet another day mostly in bed (I believe I sat up on the couch for 20-30 minutes) I decided I would sleep downstairs on a different mattress because I much prefer sleeping alone when I am sick.  I don't want to feel bad that I'm clammy or coughing and I like my own space.  Keith does not share these feelings but he is respectful of my need for sickness solitude.  So after I declared I was going downstairs I decided to take my laptop, my phone (I was on call), my blanket, my pillow and a MATTRESS down the winding stairs to the main floor.  Clearly the illness had affected my ability to reason.  Keith did offer to help me carry stuff which in retrospect was his way of saying "You are a crazy person that is clearly too much stuff but if I directly call you a crazy person you will try to carry all of it just to prove a point."  I said I was fine and obviously me and my perfectly capable ape arms and clear reasoning skills could navigate all my belongings down the 180 degree turn in the stairs at midnight.  I made it about 6 steps down before I slipped and fell the rest of the way.  As I was falling I thought 1) Don't scream you will wake up the children and then they will be up and you will have to deal with them again, 2) why is Keith always right it's so annoying and 3) Keith is always right I should have listened this was stupid - Ow!  I got rug burn on my left elbow and bruised my right hip so now my incessant need to lie down was hindered by the fact that I had pain when lying on my right or left side.  This was not my finest moment.  

Sunday was better - I disinfected the entire house and we washed everything.  The environmentalist fortitude I felt about not having a dryer here lost it's allure when we have tried to do multiple loads of laundry but ran out of drying space and I now long for our dryer at home (I am sure that Keith missed it from the first load since he does all the laundry).  Dryers are marvels of human invention.  

Monday has been better.  The kids have really only had the occasional cough since Keith and I got sick so they are a lot better.  I woke up this morning and was really stuffed up and Emily got in the shower with me then ran out and as I got out I hear "I pooped on the floor over there".  "Over there" turned out to be her bedroom.  So the fact that today started with shit on the floor and that was "better" can give you a sense of how things have been over here. Also side note: potty training and illness do not go well together.  Keith and I seem to be on the mend although at dinner he started coughing like an 80 year old man with emphysema and I decided that I would attempt my old nemesis the paska recipe.  This again demonstrates my terrible decision-making skills.  I love paska (Easter bread) and would love to be able to make it like my mother and grandmother however yeast-based recipes do not work for me.  This time however the yeast worked and I thought I would be victorious and my missing link must have been terrible illness and 2 gin and tonics (why had I not thought of that earlier!) But alas, the paska turned out flat- still tasty but not what I was hoping for.  It hasn't risen - it hasn't risen indeed. 

Keith had a Gin and Tonic tonight in hopes it's malaria-fighting properties would work against this dreadful cold.  Interestingly, I had also thought about malaria today.  Not because this was as bad but because it reminded me of the importance of having a true partner in a marriage.  This weekend we have had the amazing ability to come to the end of our rope just as the other person is rallying with their second or third wind and able to take over for a while.  We play to each other's strengths and we care about the other person's health more than we care about our own.  I realized that Keith had all those features when I had malaria.  I was so sick and didn't want to see the doctor (I think it's clear with all my examples that I make bad decisions when sick - agreed?) and Keith forced me to go to the doctor because I had told him that a fever in sub-Saharan Africa meant you had malaria.  He was right and I got treatment and pain killers and was significantly better because of him.  But the moment I really knew he had all the qualities I was looking for, indeed the moment I think I knew I would marry him was the next day.  We had traveled from Livingstone to Lusaka on a bus and were staying in a hostel overnight in bunk beds.  My friend Paul Neufeldt was on the top bunk and I was on the bottom bunk and Keith was next to me. I remember waking up in the night and being sick and mostly scared of how sick I had been and I got out of my bunk and took the few steps over to Keith and stood over his bed...despite my usual preference for sickness solitude.  He woke up, did not freak out or consider the implications of allowing a malaria-ridden girl into his bunk and without word or hesitation opened up his blanket.  With that simple act I was home and I knew he would be the kind of man that would make pancakes to let you sleep in, would take the kids to the park to let you disinfect the house and would run upstairs and grab the garbage when you have to clean shit off the floor.  These are not the stereotypical romantic parts in movies (and I have watched a lot of movies this weekend) but these are truly the romantic parts of life. 

P.S. When I told Keith I was writing about our illness he said "in case we don't make it?"  - don't worry we're not that bad.