back from the BRINK of death

HEY! HOW ARE YOU DOING?!

Oh my gosh ... I AM GREAT.

I AM SO GREAT!!!!!

What I haven't mentioned, is that I've been having some significant sinus issues for the past couple of months. In the morning when I wake up, I've got the most severe bags under my eyes and my nose has been stuffed almost constantly since November. Now that I look back, these sinus issues were probably contributing to my overall incessant fatigue. I didn't go see a doctor because my stuffy nose and baggy eyes were bothersome, but manageable.

Until this past week when I felt like I'd been hit, repeatedly, by a truck.

So this morning, when I woke up for the ... um, let's see ... Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday ... FOURTH DAY in a row, feeling like I was going to die, Charlie made an appointment for me to go see a doctor. I suspect that he did this for one of two reasons:

1) He was fed up with me laying in bed all day and reminding him where my Will was ... and/or

2) The house was to the point where he absolutely needed my woman strength to get it clean. This would require me to get out of bed and actually contribute something other than just whining noise to our family.

When I protested about the doctor appointment because surely this is viral and it needs to run it's course and maybe if I just slept for a little longer and ate another bowl of Jell-O I'd finally feel better, he ignored me - picked up the phone - made an appointment, and then dragged me off to see the doctor, anyway.

HALLELUJAH. PRAISE CHARLIE.

The doctor, who was actually a Physician's Assistant and WOW lemme just say I love Physician's Assistants because they are so kind and so compassionate and they just seem to have an all-around better bedside manner than any doctor I've ever met in my entire life, told me that it looked like I had some seriously inflamed (and infected) sinuses which was probably contributing to the dizziness and fatigue and I forget what else she said, but then she wrote me a prescription for Zithromax and she told me to hustle right over to the pharmacy and buy some Sudafed. And I said, "But I've been taking Sudafed and it hasn't helped!" and she said, "Oh yeah? What kind of Sudafed?" and I said, "Sudafed PE" and she said, "That isn't going to touch this. What you need is the kind that you have to show your driver's license for ... you need the kind with pseudoephedrine."

And I said, "Oh, you mean the little red pills?" and she said, "YES, those are the ones that people use to make methamphetamine and you have to show your driver's license to buy them, but I really think that they're going to help clear you right up."

Then she gave me some nasal spray and found a lymph node on my neck that made her gasp and she really doesn't like the feel of it, but I'll be going back in a month to have her check it out again and ensure it's nothing problematic and if it is, she's already told me she is going to have me referred to an ENT for an exam and ultrasound and they may have to do a biopsy and a cloud of worry kind of came over for me for a minute but then I remembered I've been through something like that before and I hope that maybe it's the same kind of situation that will resolve itself, and then I left.

I was so tired and feeling so miserable, I almost feel asleep in the lobby waiting for Charlie to come back and pick me up. But while I was waiting, I picked up a magazine and there was an article about depression and I read it and I started to cry because I was absolutely convinced that I AM DEPRESSED because HOLY SMOKES look at all the things that I've been through in the past 10 months and WHY, I'LL BET that the reason I haven't wanted to get out of bed for the past few months and my mind is overwhelmed with what songs they'll play at my funeral and the vision of my children growing up without a mother, has nothing to do with a VIRUS and has everything to do with DEPRESSION. Surely, these "aches and pains" that I've been having are a manifestation of what is going on in my brain and my emotional health is destroying my physical health.

Charlie arrived and we went to the pharmacy and we bought some of the little red pills and we had my prescription filled and I wept because I felt so bad and I must be DEPRESSED and I just wanted to go home and climb back in bed and sleep for the rest of my life. Alas, I took two of the little red pills - in the car on the drive home - and within TWENTY MINUTES, I could feel the cloud of despair lift off of me. And within an HOUR I was feeling so much better, I started to DANCE AND SING.

I LOVE MY HUSBAND FOR TAKING ME TO THE DOCTOR.

But oh good Lord, the man lacks cleaning skills. He is an animal when it comes to laundry and cooking and even changing the linens. But the rest of the cleaning? He needs me around so badly it's unreal.

Earlier this week, the children were laying in bed with me watching a movie and one of the boys wandered in to the master bath. I could see them from my position on the bed, and they were so distracted with the television and trying to see it, via a reflection in the mirror, that they dropped their drawers and started to go potty with the LID down.

BOYS!!!!!

They didn't even LOOK to see where they were going and it wasn't until a solid FIVE SECONDS had passed, with me yelling, "LIFT THE LID! LIFT THE LID! LIFT THE LID!!!!" and finally JUMPING out of bed, that I conquered their attention and directed their eyes to the little stream that was ricocheting off the lid and all over the floor and walls.

You know you're sick when you can't lift a pinky finger to clean up after your children. As awful as it sounds, I couldn't summon the strength to do anything about the toilet lid incident. The whole act of me screaming and jumping out of bed like a loon zapped me of my strength and made me so dizzy I almost passed out. So I climbed back in to bed and slept for two hours. I said something to Charlie when I woke up, but by the time he investigated, the evidence has evaporated. I think he thought I was hallucinating.

Also? I noticed at some point, earlier in the week, someone had spilled milk on the table that had dried in the form of a martian. Instead of clearing it up, like a normal, fully functional mother might do, whenever I would sit at the table, I'd stare at the little dried martian head and arms and comment that it was CUTE.

Who knows what kind of bacteria were growing all over our table.

Thank GOODNESS I'm on the mend. With every passing hour, I feel better and better and I actually have a will to live again. Tonight, after I bathed all four kids by myself and got them ready for bed, I organized paperwork and cleared off my desk. I surveyed various summer camps for the children and specked out health clubs for Charlie and I to join. And while I normally wouldn't feel like ripping the entire house apart and cleaning it at 10 PM at night, I have so much energy, I don't know what else to do with myself.

First, I'm going to tackle the dried milk martian on the table.

Then, I'll tackle the toilet seat lid, floor and walls.

Then, I'll vacuum the rugs that haven't been touched in at least two weeks.

Then, maybe, I'll take down the Christmas lights that are still on our house in February.

And then, maybe when I'm painting the ceiling in the garage, I'll ponder if the reason that I have so much energy is because I've slumbered for the better part of a week ... or if it's because the little red pills that I took a few hours ago contain a drug that purportedly causes "excitability."

Whatever the case, this is truly the best I've felt in months.