Everybody is Sick . . . Again

Late last week I began to feel the old familiar soreness in the back of my throat that can only mean one thing--I'm getting a sinus infection. I have had sinus infections for years. I started getting them as a teenager and had them so often that our family doctor was on standby to call in a prescription for me whenever the first symptoms started to appear. Those of you who have never experienced the special kind of joy one of these infections bring, you are really missing out.

They start with a kind of icky taste in the back of your mouth, and then your throat becomes sore. It won't be a raging kind of sore, mind you, just a little rawness from the drainage in the back of your throat. Say you go to bed with this kind of sore throat one night, the next morning you will wake up unable to breathe through your nose because it has been packed with what feels like wet cement. Your throat will not be sore anymore. But because you have not been able to breathe half the night, your lips will be two dried out, peeling, swollen sausages. The inside of your mouth and your teeth will be covered in a weird dry but somehow wet at the same time slime. Perhaps the worst part of all of this is, after you have brushed your teeth, you won't really feel all that bad.

It's not like the flu. It doesn't actually take you out of commission. You won't run any fever. You won't have any body aches. Your appetite will be fine, except that you can't taste anything. You really won't even want to lie down and sleep very much because of the way your mouth gets dried out. This kind of infection is just enough to make you miserable as you go about your daily business.

About the third morning of all this, you will start to be able to breathe through your nose again. Now you have a new problem in that you will not be able to speak above a whisper. This will last for about a day and a half. During which time, one of your little girls will decide it is the perfect time to really test her limits. The other one will begin running a scortching fever and not be able to sleep for longer than about thirty minutes at a time. Your husband will then start to complain that his throat is hurting and (horrors!) that he IS aching all over.

It is at this point that you begin praying some of the sincerest prayers of your life. "Lord, please don't let him have the flu." "Lord, please let Laney's fever come down." "Lord, please keep me from killing Marley for coloring on the wall."

On the morning of the fifth day, you will wake up mildly congested. Your voice will be back. You will get up, get ready for work and let your husband worry about taking the baby to the doctor.

You will be thankful that you did not end up taking Laney to the emergency room during the night. You will be thankful that Marley's ear infection from last week seems to be diminishing. You will be thankful that your husband has a day off during the week, so you don't miss work to take a child to the doctor again. You will be thankful that all of this happened over the course of a weekend and not during the week. You will be thankful for Tylenol, Alka-Seltzer, and Amoxicillin. And you will be hopeful that next weekend, everybody will be well again.