Being sick - a post about the chaos and exhaustion of a whole-family illness

So that's my first post here in the last 20 days. The reason for this is the whole family was sick. In turns. For more than 3 weeks. It sucks. It's going to be just a rant, but I have to get it out of my system so I can continue on a more positive note in the future!

Some time by the end of January the kids brought home a slight cough from the half-day "day care" that we take them to. In a few days that developed into a high-temperature fever and swollen throat, first in our little girl, then in her big brother.

We don't give the kids pharmaceuticals unless absolutely needed (so far there haven't been such a case). So we make sure they always have ample hot tea and warm water to drink, honey and bee pollen to eat, yogurt and home made oatflakes biscuits to eat. Along with the elderberry syrup, of course.

The kids are sensible enough to just sleep during their fever, usually hugging a toy under a couple of warm blankets. After they perspire enough to make their pajamas wet, we give them a hot bath with sea salt or chamomile tea in it. And it's back in the bed. In a day or two their temperature drops, major aches are gone and all that remains is the cough that usually takes a week to 10 days and a brisk walk in the forest to clear up completely.

At about the time the kids were getting well, I got some of the symptoms, like scratchy throat, headaches, chills, but I was in the final phase of a project at work so staying at home was not an option. I had to take it in stride, which caused me a great deal of discomfort and general tiredness.

That week the wife got struck by the same thing. At first it looked like a mild form with runny nose, a bit of a sore throat, achy joints... She drunk her tea and carried on. However, her case rapidly escalated and in a week's time, she had 39,5C (103F) sustained high temperature. Also her throat swelled so much, she had trouble breathing. As much as we dislike going to the doctor, we had to.

Of course, antibiotics were prescribed - that's the first antibiotic any of us has taken in the last 15 years, excluding the one administered to Gerry during the birth of our second child. 5 days later the fever was gone and her throat was much better and we thought everything's over.

The next morning, however, she woke up with her face partly swollen, cheeks numb, teeth pain, completely blocked nasal canal, eye pain... Suspecting trouble with her sinuses, we went to have an X-ray done and of course both her maxillary sinuses were completely full. It's never a good thing to have your sinuses full, especially with some infection.

The doctor suggested immediate puncture of the sinuses. For those that are not familiar with the procedure, it's a giant needle that gets pushed through your cheek into your maxillary sinus and then fill it up with physiological saline to drive the accumulated pus out.

We did not agree on the procedure, however and went back home to start a series of procedures to clean up the sinuses without the intervention. Those included honey water washes (nasal irrigation), saline washes, diluted propolis tincture washes, horseradish and yogurt poultice, chamomile inhalations, essential oil inhalations, warm baths, warm pouches of sea salt and others. We also administered an antibiotic topical cream in the nose, as prescribed.

In the end, after almost a dozen sleepless nights and what seemed like liters of discharge, the sinuses began to clear.

I'd like to backtrack a bit and add a few gory details to the story. We managed to infect with the flu the grandma and grandpa that help us occasionally with the kids, so we lost our main line of support for about 2 weeks. In the same time, Gerry was bed ridden and in pain and could not take care of the kids.

So I had to take care of the house, full chore list, as well as the kids. That left practically no time for me to do my day job, nor my part-time second job. Also, this whole episode coincided with an unusual for this time of the year influx of orders for our handmade paper hobby. Of course we had to cancel a few of the urgent ones, sadly, as every penny is precious - this spring we're planning to make big progress with out community garden!

I resorted to working remotely on some projects during the night, as sleep was in many occasions impossible - I had to get up to help Gerry with her procedures or the kids, who were a bit worried about their mother. After all, they've never seen her or me or another close relative this sick.

Usually I need at least 8 hours of sleep a day to feel well rested and after a busy day, I'd rather take 9-10 hours of sleep. After almost a month of 4-5 hours of sleep, I was a wreck. I found myself dozing while waiting my retouching or design projects to load up. I made mistakes. I missed two deadlines and even disappointed @goldendawne by not delivering the "HOLLER OUT Tuesday" badges in time. (gasp!)

I still have not recovered from that state, but I'm getting there.

The story does not end here, however.

After the sinuses started to clear and Gerry's general condition began to improve, we though we were past the hardest part. However, she started having those sudden headaches and head-spins, losing balance and even struggling to stay up. We figured it must be a problem with her inner ear and sure enough, a visit to the doctor confirmed that there was some liquid in her inner ear as a result of the sinus infection.

One of the best ways to regulate the internal pressure of the whole system of tubes and canals in the head is... to chew a gum! So we got a large pack of Hubba Bubba :D As well as some ear drops, based on essential oils. And we're continuing the warm pad application. Gerry's back on her feet at least, the kids are back on the day care and this Monday I'm back at work, staring at a massive backlog of jobs and writing this Steemit post, of course!

We're not completely out of the woods, of course, as it's 5pm and I already almost fallen asleep multiple times while writing this post :D And we still have to beat the sinusitis, which is not completely gone, as well as a rhinitis and possibly an otitis of the inner ear.

But hey, spring's around the corner and we'll start gardening very soon - that should help!

Having said that, we just got 30 cm of snow today.

Perfect timing.