How I handle sick.

I hate being sick, but I'll admit that I have a pretty odd way to deal with it.  Probably counter-productive to the whole healing process.  Teacher Man, who now understands... okay, expects my neurosis, still takes a deep sigh and smiles because every time I'm sick I do a major organizing project.  It's like telling the universe, "HA!  I know I can't control being sick, but I can control the cleanliness of our hall closet.  Take that!"

Yep.  I totally showed the universe.  The universe is now cowering in a corner.  Actually, it's not.

I also love to deep-clean when anyone gets sick. Bathrooms get scoured, carpets vacuumed, kitchen scrubbed, dust removed, laundry done.  Then I make a giant pot of homemade soup.  Like I said before, my approach to illness is a disease in itself. In December, I used my lovely cold to reorganize our garage... during the day... while my kids napped.  Oh my. I think at that point the universe decided to show me who was boss.  Enter our recent flu bug.

If you read my post on Sunday, you know that Ben got sick on Saturday.  He's been doing pretty well, but there's definitely some residual fussiness that I could totally deal with if... .da dada daaaaa!  I hadn't gotten sick on Monday night.  I was waiting for Teacher Man to get home from a meeting, totally glad that he would be around to take care of me.  That's when he called to say that someone else was driving him home from the meeting because he was.... drumroll, please.... sick.

We've never both been sick at the same time, and let me tell you... I hope it never happens again.  It was awful.  Lowest point ever: being so sick I could not even get down to hold my baby because it hurt so much.  The universe chuckled at me and said, "How d'ya like THEM apples?"  And I had to say, "You win, universe.  You win." because I didn't even have the ability to think about organizing.  I just lay on the couch thinking, "I hurt so much.  I wish I could drink water."  Pathetically low.

How did we survive?  Pure grace from the Body of Christ.  One friend took my babies and kept them for the day, sacrificing her own family's health. That's love, people.  Another friend showed up with homemade soup. Amazing. Many prayed (thank you). And I'm happy to report we were able to be parents by the end of Tuesday. Wednesday was a lovely recovery day until.... you guessed it.  Wednesday night, my children decided to show solidarity by getting the stomach flu.  Teacher Man and I have now been up for hours, washing sheets and jammies, getting drinks, cleaning (ahem) messes, and putting in endless movies (a HUGE privilege in our family).

So I'm thinking now, I should have a less competitive approach to sick.  Maybe then the universe wouldn't pick on us so much.  Maybe.