Vicious cycle
November 13, 2008
Babies + daycare + family = everyone sick.
Vicious cycle
No work so far this week. Just sleep. I was laid low by the stomach flu on Monday, continuing through today. It was the first time I’ve caught it that I can remember. My partner Jessica also got the stomach flu on Monday, trailing me by only a few hours, and she continues to be sick also. Our daughter had it on Friday and Saturday, and now only has a cough that keeps her from sleeping easily. I got to experience delirium from fever for the first time Monday night, which was quite memorable, and which I hope I never have again.
There’s a vicious cycle when it comes to parents and children and sickness. When your child gets sick, they don’t sleep well, so you don’t sleep well. But not not sleeping well wears you and your immune system down, and so it’s almost inevitable that you get whatever they get. And then once you’re sick, your child is probably still sick and needs care, and still doesn’t sleep well. Which means that you still don’t sleep well, which makes your sickness worse, or last longer. Every time Edie gets sick, this happens to me.
Everyone told me that this would happen, and I believed them. But I believed them at the “you’ll get the sniffles” level, not the cataclysmic high fever vomitus level. I don’t think I’ve ever been as sick before as I was on Monday. And I had no idea how hard it could be to have both parents sick with a sick child. I am thankful that we have a great daycare to send her to during the day so that Mom and Dad could sleep and try to recover. We’re all slowly getting better, but we’re not there yet.
One of the worst parts of this is that my stomach has not been able to tolerate coffee since Monday (the mere thought of it makes my stomach churn), and as I am largely fueled by coffee, so have I become even more lethargic and wanting to go to bed early.
