The Interrupted Christmas

This Christmas was yet another reminder that God is God and I am not.  I spent this Christmas sick.  Very very sick.

I came down with it on Sunday evening.  I knew it was coming.  I had pushed too hard the week prior, not getting enough sleep one too many nights.  I kept it away by sheer force of will, which usually holds it at bay a couple days and gives me time to fortify my immune system for the attack.  I figured it wouldn’t be too bad, that I’d feel a little “blech,” and be over this thing no problem.  I was wrong.

Warning: complaints of maladies for this entire run-on sentence/paragraph: worst sinus pressure ever experienced, spurts of sleep lasting no longer than 70 minutes (but usually only 15-20 minutes) at a time, ear infection resulting from inability to sleep, vomiting, loss of appetite, inability to focus or concentrate, sensitivity to light, hallucinations, bumping into walls, coughing, sneezing, headaches, chills.

God has graciously given me short-term true memory of physical pain.  I remember surgeries and illnesses and merely knowing that I was in excruciating pain, but I don’t recall the depth of the pain sensations that I felt in those instances (I think it joins how I can have people describe disgusting things while I eat and not be phased by it).  But I do remember only once or twice having any significant sinus pressure with any head cold, and that those instances were minimal compared to this.  That was the base of all of this.  My body couldn’t handle the pain from it and wouldn’t let me sleep through it.  Then every time I’d wake up I couldn’t remember if I was in my bed or on one of my couches and almost crash into something trying to re-orient myself.

So I clearly did not go to my church’s Christmas Eve service.  I didn’t go to Daniel & Hanna’s place for dinner with their families afterward.  And I didn’t go to Matt & Barbara’s on Christmas Day for dinner and games at their house.  These were the plans after making Christmas Dinner at the children’s hospital with Haig & Valerie were canceled because of Valerie recently having wrist surgery.  I couldn’t watch T.V. or read.  It was miserable.  I have never seen time tick by so slowly.

The funniest part of this whole thing is that as I was spiraling downhill on Sunday night, I watched an episode of The West Wing, the one where the president is approving pardons.  The hallucinations mentioned above were related to this.  In my stupor of not sleeping enough for coherency, I imagined that I was the president in the show and was being prodded by my senior staff into granting pardons in my ill-minded state (“Just four more, Mr. President.  We’ll leave these right here next to you.  Just sign them.”).

On Monday afternoon, I was running low on all my sick supplies.  Living alone, it only makes sense to have an arsenal of feel-better food and meds on hand so I don’t need to go out on a store run when ill.  But I still managed to run short.  So I texted Greg, one of the few friends I could on Christmas Eve, and asked if he could help me out.  Greg however is without a driver’s license currently, but I figured he could at least do the driving part of the store run if I could wait in the car.  It was rough, but I made it.

Restocked on tuna, waffles, Gatorade, 7-Up and Afrin, I crashed and endured another miserable night.  But finally at 7a on Tuesday morning I fell asleep and stayed asleep for three blissful hours.  I woke up and my sinus pressure was finally reduced, and everything else had settled into a common cold.  This I could handle.

I stayed in and continued to rest, but was now able to focus and concentrate.  I slept about six hours last night, but still woke up congested this morning, so taking a sick day today, Wednesday.

Probably the roughest Christmas yet, but oh well.  Somehow missing the expected celebrations didn’t mean as much.  I poured a lot into the preparation and had some great time with friends leading up to it.