Keep your cooties to yourself!

Mommies don’t get sick.  Ever!  Right?!

Wrong.  There comes a time when even we catch the cooties are children so willingly share with us.

Case in point.  My son had a virus recently which the doctor called 5th disease.  I bought the crazy the elderly doctor was selling for a few days but then I started to think he was wrong.  Say it isn’t so!

If you know anything about 5th disease, it’s trademark is a lacey rash, of which my son never got.  I think he just had some virus and it just sucked for 10 days.

We were laying low the entire time.  When I figured he was in the clear, I took the kids out for some fresh air and some socializing.  Everything was going great.  As we got into the car to leave, I felt it.

Sniffle.

OH NO!

Fortunately, I had my tissue box ready and I had the inside scoop as to what to expect.  What I didn’t like was having to confine ourselves back to the house.  I kept saying I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy so I’m sorry to the people I came into contact with.  I didn’t know I had picked up my son’s adorable cooties.

We waited it out for 4 days, mostly with movies and naps.  (Quiet time, if you’re my daughter.)

Then one day, the pain in my face was excruciating.  That night, it was my ear.  Pain like I’ve never experienced.  (Keep in mind, I gave birth to my kids naturally without pain killers or thick needles in my spine.  So for me to say I’ve never experienced such pain is saying something.)

I started researching medicines in my cabinet to see what I could take together to knock the pain out of my head.  Robitussin with codeine.  Check.  Motrin.  Check.  Heated rice sock.  Check.  After about 3 hours of trying to get to sleep, I finally did with the sock over my ear.  For 10 minutes.

And then the pain was gone, to be replaced with a crinkling plastic noise, water rushing, popping, snapping, fizzing, foaming and the ocean.  All this with a cotton ball in my ear.

It was 2 am, I was freaked out!  There I was in bed, hunched over my iPad, punching out emails to my husband giving him a play by play.

We concluded that I had ruptured my ear drum.

And then the whimpering march of my children started and I didn’t have the energy to fight them.  I just surrendered my queen size bed to their will and I grabbed my medicine station (tissue box, cotton balls, garbage can, ear thermometer, water bottle and telephone) and lap top and headed to my son’s bedroom.

After a few uneasy phone calls, some restless tossing and turning, I had a babysitter and an on call doctor’s referral to the local non-emergency office.

Babysitter came over before the kids were up and I was out the door.

As I conclude this post, I don’t know what you know about ruptured ear drums, but they hurt like a knife being stabbed in your head consistently.  Once it ruptures, the stabbing subsides to be replaced by nausea.

I’ve spent the last 4 days popping antibiotics, painkillers and anti-nausea medication.  I’ve also been laying on the couch so feeding my kids has been a challenge to say the least.  And you can forget about cleaning the house.  I’m lucky to get the dishwasher run and unloaded.  Today was the first day I haven’t been plagued with nausea and I have been able to get the kids out of the house for some necessary play time at the park.  Driving is scary because all I hear is ringing in my one ear.  I’ll try to stay away from heavy traffic hours.

But in case you were wondering, mommies do get sick and it sucks when we do because everyone in the house suffers.