Tuesday, February 15, 2011

The Deep Freeze and Big Thaw

The freeze....

The family have passed some kind of nasty bug around to each other.  Zack got it first.  He woke up on Saturday, a bowling day, with a sore throat and he was weirdly cold.  Zack is never cold.  He's Always hot.  When it's 20 degrees outside, he wants to ride with the car windows wide open.  He's a teenaged boy.  He's naturally hot.  He also lives to bowl!  So, when he should be getting dressed to go bowling but is instead laying on the couch wearing a sweat jacket with a heavy quilt pulled up over him, I know he's sick.    He never looked feverish - his face always flushes and his eyes get very glassy with the slightest fever - so we never bothered taking it.  By the next morning, he was feeling much better although he had some serious head congestion going on.

That night, Sarah announces that her throat and one ear hurts.  An hour or so later, she's under several quilts and shivering.  We did take her temperature but it was within a few tenths of normal.  The next morning, the thermometer was registering 95 point something.  Well, she must have just drunk something or something.  It can't be 95.  Maybe the thermometer's battery is dying.  She went back to bed & six hours later, her temperature was registering 96 point something.  Well, she's been asleep.... your temp is always lower when you first wake up.  She ate a little jello, the only thing she felt like she could swallow, took some sinus congestion medicine and went back to bed.  Poor kid, I thought - she'll never sleep tonight.  But she did.  And the next day and the next night and the day after that.  She basically slept and shivered for 3 or 4 full days.  Her ear had stopped hurting though and her throat was getting better & her temperature was slowly coming back to normal so I figured she was sleeping off the sickness.

Friday rolled around and I blew off my afternoon run.  Just didn't have the motivation to put on the running shoes.  I should have known then that I was getting sick.  I'm never not motivated to run!  But it didn't occur to me at the time.  Later that night, my head suddenly filled with snot.  Suddenly as in one minute, I'm fine.  Two minutes later, I think my head is going to explode!  I took an Advil Congestion pill and immediately felt relief, but I was also starting to feel cold.  Really, really, painfully cold.  I already had on a sweater & sweat pants.  Yeah, I know.  Such a nice look!  I added a sweat jacket and pulled a quilt up over me.  A while later, I put on a second pair of socks and got 2 more quilts.  Boy, I am so cold!  And so tired!  By 8 p.m., I was asleep and stayed that way until the next morning.  

Saturday, I woke up feeling pretty good except I was still weirdly cold.  Got dressed, took Zack to the bowling alley and started feeling like I might fall asleep at the table.  Ok, if I can even consider sleeping in a noisy bowling alley after sleeping 10+ hours the night before, I must be getting sick.  And boy, was I cold!  I was wearing a long sleeved shirt and a sweat jacket and ended up going out to the car and putting on my ski coat that happened to be in the car.  Sat in the bowling alley wearing the 2 coats, both of them zipped up to my chin.   Wished I had gloves.  And a pillow.

Zack ended up driving home because I didn't think I could stay awake.  He either did great, or I was too drowsy to notice his errors.   We got home & I took my temperature.  95 point 3.  Good grief!  I took the 2 coats off, put on a sweat shirt over top of my normal shirt, put the sweat jacket back on, crawled under 3 quilts and went back to sleep.  About 4 or 5 hours later, I woke up for about 30 minutes then went back to sleep.  Hubby came home and the dogs barking at him woke me up.  I lay there for a few hours wishing I could go back to sleep then finally drifted off.  

Slept straight through the night and woke up Sunday morning feeling fine.  Felt so good I was considering running that afternoon.  Our weather was having a warm up and it was supposed to be in the upper 50's.  It would be so nice to run without gloves!  But, a run was not to be.  Just doing the dishes left me exhausted and gasping for breath.  I figured if the dishes wore me out that much, I probably shouldn't try to run.  

Monday rolled around and OMG!  It was 64 degrees at noon!  Spring!  It hasn't been above the mid 30's in forever.  I am not missing such a glorious day!  I'm going running!  Too bad the warm, balmy breeze  turned into a hurricane force gale.  I was running along and tree limbs and occasionally whole trees were falling.  Believe me, those falling trees helped me pick up the pace!  I was trying to run slowly.  I was still a little congested and after being sick....  but those falling trees had me running at race pace!

Today, the forecast is not quite as warm as yesterday, but by the end of the week, we are supposed to be up into the upper 70's!  Woo-hoo!!  Spring!

2 comments:

  1. Glad to hear you are feeling better. Spring is just around the corner for you.

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  2. HOLY COW what a weird flu bug! I can't imagine being that cold for that long - it's a wonder you didn't end up with frostbit or hypothermia! Glad Zach can drive now...that would have been scary. I am jealous that you got in a run in the sun...that will be me in about 5 months!

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