Down for the Count

Hound dog

Nana's are Beautiful
Travis came down with this very lovely respiratory virus. I'm guessing some sort of the flu he caught at the college. He was down for about 4 days, which most of those were snow days so he didn't miss school. He was miserable.

I've been watching easy child's boys while she attempts to find a 2nd shift sitter...no easy feat. Brandon has been having respiratory issues all winter, but now he's sick sick. Dunno if it's the same virus or what.

husband got it first, and yeah could easily tell there was no faking going on. That was some point last week. I dunno days are running together now due to lack of sleep.

Took me 2 days to actually "come down" with the bug. When it hit me I was instantly miserable. I've alternated between raging fever and drenched in sweat (guessing when raging fever breaks) Between the fever and cough I haven't slept more than a hour in about 4 days.....but like I said I've lost count. My head pounds. I'm either drowning or I am struggling to breathe......there is no midpoint. I'm using good cough suppressants and decongestants.....not working.

As if this wasn't bad enough? I'm swelling........hands, legs ect. Not all the time, but I can literally watch it happening. Fascinating when you're sleep deprived. Due to the renal failure, when I begin to swell I start having issues with breathing........because it causes my lungs to fill with fluid in the body's attempt to rid itself of it.

I was having that issue on top of the virus symptoms themselves last night. This was after taking the expectorant/cough suppressant. At one point I had 5 large pillows propped on my lap and me draped over because I didn't have the energy to sit upright. Lying down was not possible.

Through this nitemare.............husband is sleeping peacefully next to me. Mind you he has the same bug. No coughing. No raging fever/sweats. No issues breathing. Actually for all my misery........I didn't manage to disturb HIS rest at all. In fact? He's still asleep. ugh

At some point I prayed to God to either let me breathe with some amt of comfort or just let me die for pete's sake. And I meant it with everything I am. My hands were so swollen I couldn't close them, and drawing a breath was not getting me enough oxygen even on the rare occasion it didn't product 10 min coughing my lungs up sessions.

It was predawn when I could no longer product coherent thoughts. At that point I gave up. I took 4 of the pillows off my lap and stuck them under my head and forced myself to lie on my side. Yeah that made it all worse. Didn't care. I was too exhausted/sick to fight it anymore. So I just laid there.

Not sure at what point I realized my breathing had returned to normalish......not normal but I was getting oxygen without much effort. I have a vague memory of "someone" telling me a secret to how to accomplish this. Who, I dunno. I didn't dare move cuz I didn't want to break the spell of being able to breathe. As my fever when up and down I marveled over the secret, and that it was really important that I remember it. I dozed off a couple of times....but fever kept waking me up and the periodic cough.

I crawled out of bed an hour ago. I spent most of that hour coughing up icky stuff and fighting to breathe. At the moment I can breathe ok again and while a little puffy the swelling is down.

I have no clue what that supposed secret was or where it came from. I just know I got about 3 hrs of easy breathing, a blessing at that point.

Oddly enough, after all this I don't believe it's pneumonia again. This stuff is not pooling in my lungs. Lots of sinus issues/drainage. Not much lungs except from that drainage.......or unless I start swelling. The swelling is making it much worse I'm sure. Although there isn't a whole lot I can do about that as I'm already on medications for it. My kidneys are just having real issues coping with this virus.

husband just finally crawled out of bed. He sounds like he has a bad cold. He's acting like he's critically ill...........making me want to knock him out cold........except I don't have the strength for it. Trust me, you don't ever want to be sick with a hypochondriac.......it quickly becomes a competition to them to be "sicker" than you are no matter what.

I stole his flu medications instead. If it can keep mr. smoke 5 pks of cigs with this bug from coughing all night so he can sleep............then that's the medication for me. Phht on kidney's theyr'e not working right aways and if I don't sleep I'm never going to throw this stupid bug from hades off.

I think I'm going to start living in a bubble. Evidently the renal disease has my resistance so low that I catch everything that passes my way. Hard on a person who very rarely ever got sick.:sigh:
 

gcvmom

Here we go again!
Geez, I hope you kick this soon! Rattling beads it doesn't get worse and you're back on your feet soon!
 
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