Sick

I’m sick.  AGAIN.  I am not a person who gets sick very often.  When I do get sick, it’s not usually all that bad and I deal with it without much complaining.  This is the THIRD time in less than five months that I have had a fever that wiped me out!  What is the deal??

In the last five years or so I have gotten a handful of sinus infections.  I did not get diagnosed by a doctor, nor did I take antibiotics.  These were smaller infections that caused me to be wiped out and weak with massive headaches, but no fever.  I don’t like antibiotics. Hate them, actually.  Because of my gut.  Let’s not get into that.  Anyway, I knew they were sinus infections because I know what they feel like and I know what infected mucus looks like.  Gross, I know.  But a good indicator of bacterial infection.

I get allergies, sometimes mild, sometimes miserable.  Ryan and I have both had a bit of allergies already this Spring.  Mine were worse a month or so ago.  They haven’t been bad recently.  So Wednesday night I went to book club and felt fine.  It wasn’t until I was getting ready for bed that I felt a scratch in my throat and some pressure in my nose.  Do you know the feeling?  More than just a drippy nose, like stuffed and swollen.  I mentioned to Ryan that I hoped it turned out to be nothing and that I wasn’t getting sick.  This is what I said back in December too.  But the thing is, MOST of the time the tickle in my throat IS nothing.  No big deal.  I’m not sick, I’m awesome.

Now before you go labeling my immune system as a weakling after all I’ve went through the last few months.  Keep in mind that I did NOT get the stomach bug that all other members of my family went through (minus Kaden, because he gets some of my awesomeness).  For that, I am very grateful.  I hate stomach stuff.  And I hate vomiting.  So that was a relief.

Back to Wednesday night, I woke at 4:30 am miserable and couldn’t breathe.  Well, couldn’t breathe through my nose at least.  My mouth and throat were very dry from having my mouth open all night.  I hurt quite a bit.  But mostly I just couldn’t sleep because of the nose stuff.  So I got up and took some ibuprofen hoping it would help with some swelling in my nose and throat.  It still took awhile but I did fall asleep for a few more minutes before Kaden woke at 6:45 and I hopped up to feed him quickly so I could then make pancakes for the kids.  I was actually really surprised that I felt halfway decent and knew it was because of the ibuprofen that allowed me to function. 

As the day progressed, the medicine started to wear, I felt worse and worse.  I ended up with a fever over 102.  BUT I didn’t want antibiotics.  So I decided to put to use all my knowledge of natural treatments.  I had chicken soup in the freezer made from bone broth that my sweet friend Ashley had brought me last time I was sick.  I pulled that out and started thawing it.  I drank hot lemon water with honey for breakfast.  I decided to avoid sugar (feeds bacteria) and dairy (increases mucus).  I thought I could let my fever burn awhile, it’s supposed to help beat the infection.  I took a magnesium bath.  Then I looked online for sinus infections and found a list, which included a sinus-clearing drink.  The drink was raw apple cider vinegar, water, honey, lemon juice and CAYENNE PEPPER!  I figured I would give it a shot.  Let me tell you, cayenne pepper on an already sore throat is not fun.  But surprisingly, it was not as bad as I had thought it would be.  It hurt incredibly bad when a drop of it went down the wrong tube and I coughed and coughed.  But it really tasted a lot like Mexican candy I used to eat.  Chili covered watermelon suckers.  A little sour, a little sweet, a lot spicy.  Near the end of the cup, I couldn’t get it down anymore and I gave up.  But it did seem to help a little.  My nose was clearing a little.  But my stomach wasn’t very happy.  I found some crackers to eat to try and neutralize the spice.  But after a few minutes the blood drained out of my head and my ears started ringing and I thought I was going to be sick.  I sat in the bathroom with my head between my legs and it would subside, but as soon as I got I would get really nauseated again.  I was sure I was going to lose it.  I pulled a blanket in to the bathroom and laid on the floor for awhile until it went away.  Ugh.  Miserable.  My stomach was still upset, but I wasn’t quite as dizzy so I sat on the couch with the baby.  He was ready for a nap so I tried nursing him.  Strangely, he didn’t want to nurse.  He would try for a minute and then just cry.  I tried the other side, same thing.  Up until then I had not considered the consequences of drinking a teaspoon of cayenne pepper.  Now I was starting to stress out!  I pulled one of the two bags of milk out of the freezer.  I have not been pumping and I don’t have much stored.  While I was thawing it, I googled cayenne pepper and breastfeeding.  I was worried that it might reduce production, or at the very least make my milk spicy.  I couldn’t find anything saying it would reduce production (though it does decrease appetite, of course it does, your insides are on fire!) but I did read something about it changing the taste of your milk.  I decided to pump and hope that would get most of it out.  It seemed to be moving through my system rather quickly.  Like I said, I could feel the spice moving around in my GI tract…

Anyway, as stressed as I was, it turned out ok.  I gave him the bottle and put him to sleep. I pumped while he slept.  After he woke up I tried nursing him again and he didn’t seem thrilled about the milk, but he did it anyway.  Crisis averted.  No more cayenne pepper for me anytime soon.  Natural Treatment FAIL.

Back to the plan.  I contacted my sweet friend April who seems to be an expert in doTerra oils and asked her what I needed to heal myself.  She told me what to use, but I didn’t have all of it.  So she put a little mix together for me and also picked up some jojoba oil since I didn’t have a carrier oil.  And she brought it all over to me that night.  I sent Ryan to his parent’s house to pick up a neti pot for me to try, though my nose was so swollen/full of thick mucus that the saline water couldn’t pass through it.  After I got Kaden to bed, I started getting myself ready.  I did the Wet Sock Treatment, covered my face in oils, filled the humidifier, put on a Breathe Right strip and got in bed.  Of course I couldn’t fall asleep with how miserable I was so I sat up listening to a book on CD until I accidentally drifted off.

When I woke up in pain, I realized I had been asleep for awhile and thought maybe my treatment was working!  Then I looked at the clock and it was only 1 am.  I still had a lot of night left to get through.  I kicked off the now-dry socks, checked my temperature (over 102 again), got a drink and climbed back in bed.  Where I was aching at every joint and nowhere near sleeping.  So I got up and took some Tylenol.  A half hour later I was sleeping :)

Friday morning didn’t go as well.  My throat hurt SO bad.  I had the hardest time swallowing.  I was so thirsty, but it just hurt too bad to drink.  There was one cool thing about Friday morning.  I had brought Kaden into my bed at some point to nurse him (I think, I can’t remember) and I handed him off to Ryan to cuddle with and sleep.  I turned my alarm off and laid in bed still because I was miserable.  After about 15 minutes I decided I would get up to give the kids some instructions, even though I couldn’t do much for them.  When I came out, Kylee was the only one up, which is very odd.  Usually Dylan beats her or he hears her come out of her room and is right behind her.  And Sadie will wake up at very random times as well, usually early.  But Dylan and Sadie were still sleeping.  The surprising thing was that Kylee was working.  She had taken their lunches out of the fridge and packed them in their bags.  She filled their water bottles with ice water.  She gathered coats and backpacks and shoes.  When I told her to have cereal for breakfast, she pulled down enough bowls for all the kids and poured them all cereal.  I just sat on the couch and thought how nice it was that she was helping.  She said, “I was going to just play on my ipod but then I remembered that you were sick.”  She was so thoughtful.  My kids generally don’t think things through too much.  If I’m not out there in the morning, they don’t think about time and how they should probably go brush their teeth and get their shoes on.  I’m often frustrated with how much hand-holding I have to do.  So it was so sweet to have Kylee thinking of me and how sick I was and trying to be helpful.  I was impressed.

I managed to get the kids off, get Sadie ready and taken to school, and even get in the shower.  The thing about being fever-sick, you sweat a lot at night.  I know it’s gross, but it happens anytime I am sick.  I know it’s the fever breaking, but even these last two nights when I haven’t been running much of a fever, I still end up soaking wet in the middle of the night.  So luckily the medicine held until I got all that done.

I survived Friday using a few meds here and there, and Ryan stayed home from work.  I took Kaden and Sadie to the Dr for their shots (since I had already cancelled once I figured I would just tough it out).  Of course that meant those two were extra cranky while I wasn’t feeling well so the timing could have been better.  Luckily Kaden slept quite a bit that day and that night.  He has not slept much since then, though.  Unless he’s being cuddled.  It’s kind of ridiculous.  The Pediatrician said they could test me for strep there at the office, but they couldn’t treat me.  I still planned on riding it out so I didn’t see the point in getting tested.

By 5:30 that night, I was so, so, so miserable.  My ear had started hurting and I could hear my heartbeat swishing in my ear.  I was wondering if the neti pot had helped push the pressure and mucus into my ear.  I don’t know.  But everything hurt. My muscles were sore, my joints ached, my teeth were throbbing, my throat felt like swallowing needles, even my hair hurt to brush.  I threw in the towel.  I probably could’ve tried to stick it out a little longer, but it’s not like I was seeing any improvement.  And I was headed into the weekend.  I decided it would be best to start an antibiotic sooner than later.  So I wrapped up in a blanket and headed to the Urgent Care Center.

I felt bad when I got there, but I got worse while I waited for like 45 minutes or longer.  I know I had a fever because I had chills and my skin hurt.  All over.  The nurse took my temperature but didn’t tell me what it was.  The PA told me that with a fever that high he would treat the sinus infection and anyway so he didn’t see any point in testing me for strep because the antibiotic he was writing for me would cover strep too.  So I don’t know if it was strep or not, which I guess would be nice to know because then I would know if my kids start to come down with it if I need to take them in.  Fingers crossed they don’t get it.

Usually my sinus problems come after I’ve been suffering from allergies for awhile.  This was so strange because it came out of nowhere and it hit SO hard.  I think if I lived a 100 years ago, before antibiotics in the time when they just had to suffer through it, I probably wouldn’t have died.  Probably.  And as sad as I am that I have to subject my gut to more antibiotics, I am so thankful that there is medicine for when we need it.

I've improved a lot.  I'm not dying anymore and I don't have a fever.  But my head is still throbbing.  And on Saturday there was twice when I tried to blow my nose and I nearly burst my eardrum with the pressure.  Hurt. So. Bad.  My head still hurts.  My teeth hurt.  My throat hurts a bit.  I'm still weak.  This whole experience has given me flashbacks to the months of being useless during pregnancy and I think I have PTSD.  I get anxiety.  I hate being sick.  I hate being useless.  But thankfully I am improving and I should be back to myself in no time!