It all began with a snowstorm. Forecasted as the biggest storm since the Great Halloween Blizzard of 1991, the flakes began falling on Wednesday and didn't stop until Saturday morning. For obvious reasons, the family members that lived out of town didn't come down so, rather than having a houseful of guests on Christmas Eve, we were alone. Henry and I met up with some friends and went sledding that afternoon at St. Anthony Golf Course. This was the highlight of the weekend. That night, I started to feel sick and woke up the next morning in a full-blown asthma attack. Hit my inhaler and made it through the day, but wound up in the ER Christmas night. Watched the Elf marathon on USA a couple of times before they sent me home with a strong nebulizer med, antibiotics and steroids.
We headed up to my parents on Saturday morning since we felt the roads were safe. Chaos ensued once my crew intermingled with my brother's brood. As we were opening gifts in the late afternoon, I suddenly spiked a fever. I crawled into bed and wondered if this was the beginning of pneumonia. Then, the smell of prime rib wafted under the door and rumors of watching The Hangover were circulating so I got up. (For those of you who have asthma - do not watch The Hangover with a tight chest. There were a couple of times I thought I was going to literally die laughing.) My fever broke about 3 hours later and never came back. The next day, we packed up and left for home, Henry staying behind to spend the week with his cousins.
Monday, I got home from work and crashed in bed. Woke up around 8:30 and decided to go to the urgent care. Typically, once I'm on steroids, the cough and tightness are gone within a couple of days. I was getting worse and my lungs were now filled with crap. The doc listened to my lungs, looked at the cocktail of medications I was put on previously and decided that, because I wasn't responding, there was a hospital bed with my name on it. I said no (see previous posts regarding how my work feels about me being sick). So he wrote me a note and, as he wrote, he said, "Ms. Ince needs to be hospitalized for her asthma so fuck off." I really liked this guy. I went home with a different antibiotic and more steroids.
I'm not sure how I made it through the week. I still feel like shit. I think I'm slowly getting better, but it is taking far longer than it should. I got winded just putting away the ornaments. Dave met my parents halfway yesterday and then all the boys headed straight up to the other Grandparent's house for the "make-up Christmas". I'm staying put. Me and my new iMac are hanging out and getting to know each other. I make out with my nebulizer every 4 hours. I keep looking outside at the ice sheet in the park and wonder if I'm ever going to get well enough to skate this year. Ok, so maybe that's a depressing stretch of pessimism, but that's my current state of mind.
Yes, there were good parts (like when Henry came into our room Christmas morning and asked if either of us had wished for a bicycle because there was one in the living room without a name on it), but, compared to a typical fun and family filled holiday, it was lonely and depressing. I've been mourning the loss of my (not backed up) MacBook hard drive and all the pictures of Johnny's first year along with it. No holiday card went out. I didn't even make the cookies. I honestly just want to wipe the memory of the whole past month out of my head.
Bah humbug.
