"...in sickness and in health..."

I woke up feeling pretty good Tuesday morning.  My Mom came over to watch the kids around 9:00 and I was about to leave for work when I felt a little weird.  A slight headache quickly turned to nausea; minutes later I was violently ill with one of the worst 24-hour bugs that I've ever had!  It hit me like a freight train; I was fine one minute than the next had a fever, cold sweats, and was dehydrated.

Thank God my Mom was there to manage the kids.  Josiah was in day care, so it was just Asher and Annie, but I was useless.  I began to feel better that evening, so I told her that I didn't need her to come over the following day.  But when Wednesday morning rolled around, I was hit with a second wave of nastiness; only this time all three kids were home and I didn't have any help!

There hasn't been a time in my life when I felt as helpless as I did Wednesday morning.  I was trying to manage the kids in between throwing up and the physical and emotional strain was overwhelming.  I ended up calling Amy's Mom and she came over around 1:30 when the kids were in bed, giving me the precious gift of rest.  I could have called her sooner, but there was a part of me that felt like I had to do it.  It was my responsibility to take care of the kids on my own, no matter the cost or how I was feeling.  I wondered how my Mom did it when she was sick so many years ago.  I wondered how single Moms do it all the time.

Well, the unfortunate epilogue to this story is that the virus spread from me to Annie to Amy to my Mom to Amy's Mom.  All have reported the exact same symptoms; in fact Amy's Mom said she hasn't been that sick since she was pregnant with Amy!  While you can never really predict or prevent the spread of a virus, I feel particularly bad that my Mom and Amy's Mom got sick.  They were only exposed to the virus because they were helping me with the kids, so it's kind of a sick irony (no pun intended).

So we're just getting back to "normal" after a very trying week.  We're all feeling better and giving the house a good cleaning so that the boys don't catch it.