Life IS Good

I have kept diaries, journals and now blogs for most of my life and I think I have noticed a trend. I write/post a lot more often when I am unhappy with life. On the one hand, this means that if you don't see a new post, it's a good thing. But it also means I have developed a habit I don't want to continue. So, in an attempt to reverse my lifelong trend . . .

I am posting today to say I am REALLY happy.
The other day I woke up and felt very strange. I tried to pinpoint it. Was I worried? No. Did I feel sick? No. Was I in pain? No. In fact, what I was feeling was HAPPINESS. It had been a while and so I frankly didn't recognize it at first.

Now, I wake up happy every morning. We are all DONE with the Plague. My hubby and I worked lots of things out and are closer than we ever were. My kids are doing really well (Nicole is happy with Jon, Caspian is eager to fly to the east coast and Coryn is just usually a pretty mellow fellow). I don't know much about how my oldest is doing, but I keep an eye on her blog to check in and like the rest of us, she is eager for the return of spring and summer. My work is still not back to where it was but several new jobs have come through that have worked out well and are helpful. So, yes, I am happy.

I think this should last but . . . our appointment with the tax people is this week, so no promises. I plan to just lie on the floor and weep. I don't have any money for the lovely IRS and Oregon State. They don't take children. They don't barter. They don't take books in trade. They don't have a lot of patience either. Good thing they take payments or else they would have to put me in jail and I was not designed to be somebody's bitch (other than Joseph's). :)

On that note . . . . I'm happy. Hopefully I will post again soon anyway.

Where is Seratonin when you Need it?

This is what I have too much of:

Worry--about income for the next few months thanks to our economy.
Depression--after four weeks of being very sick, followed by a period and a husband whom I adore but is making my life too challenging.
Fatigue--I haven't slept an entire night through in more than a month. Someone keeps coughing or getting up or needing to talk to me or something.
Sadness--a close friend of mine just told me his daughter died sometime ago (complicated story) and I am still in shock. Plus, I miss my mom more than ever.
Depression--have I already mentioned that one?

This is what I need:

FUN! I need fun. I need to just laugh and go hang out somewhere and not worry that I am spending too much money or we are coughing too much or if I get hungry but J isn't eating and what the hell fun is it to hang out at a coffee shop with a person drinking hot water with lemon?! Tell me how to enjoy half an apple fritter like that. Tell me how, after working SO HARD to lose these 20 lbs. my husband lost that and more in three weeks juice fasting and I feel blindingly jealous and stupidly immature about it? It is literally melting off of him and here I am, at the end of the day, totalling up what I ate and questioning if it was too much. ARGH.

Yes, Tami is in a crappy mood. Too much on my shoulders.
And I know where a lot of it is coming from. See. I have a very affectionate, loving relationship with my husband. And for four weeks, because he has been sick and fasting and such, I basically don't get touched. We snuggle sometimes in bed but it's brief before he is either coughing or moving away. Skin hunger apparently makes me bitchy. Not getting kissed makes me grumpy. Of course, PMS doesn't HELP anything. When does it?

Contrast this with my daughter having the most romantic relationship of her life and I am . . . what? Jealous? No, not of HIM. I think he is a doll (hi Jon) and great for her. I love watching the two of them. But right now . . . . it's tough. I love my hubby but there is this huge chasm between us right now and it's really lonely over on my side.

Okay.
Enough of that crap.
Send happy thoughts, peeps.

LIght at the End of the Tunnel?

Well, I won't go so far as to say we are better, but I do see signs of improvement. This is, of course, for one reason and one reason only--we went to the doctor. Sometimes I am completely convinced that all you have to do is pay out money to a doctor and immediately, people will get better. No, not because of anything the doctor did but because you were proactive and spent money.

Sigh. $117 for the visit and that was just to see Caspian. He was the worst of all, so we choose him. He has two ear infections, a shredded throat and severe bronchitis.

I imagine that goes for the rest of us too.
Perscriptions totalled almost $200. That was sobering. I extended our Walgreens' Rx card to the whole family, increasing its cost by $15 but reducing the cost of the meds about $80, so an improvement in the long run.

Is it working? Well, they are taking the meds. They are still coughing. They slept the best they have so far last night though, so that is a definite perk.

I, on the other hand, had my worst night of all last night. I coughed so hard and deeply that I actually scared myself but I got through it.

Then, today, I was supposed to go to a concert that I have been looking forward to for two months and because something hasn't been fixed on the van that was supposed to, I can't go. I am giving the tickets to my daughter and her boyfriend instead. At least that way they will be used. Am I bummed though? I cannot even begin to tell you. I'm about as low as I can get right now but, as I said, I know there's a light at the end of the tunnel. I just have to keep focusing on it until it gets a little bigger.

SIGNS?

So . . . how does a person recognize when what you thought was the flu has turned into something more . . . . lethal?

Is coughing hard enough to throw up for a week straight enough?
Is not getting more than four hours of sporadic sleep each night enough?
Is it hearing a strange sound that you track down to being your lungs squeaking enough?
Is starting on week 3 and no one has truly recovered from this stuff yet enough?

I have wondered if we have whooping cough, but no one "whoops".
I have wondered if we all have pneumonia. Verdict is still out on that one.
I have wondered if we will ever be back to normal, or as close as we get at least.

We have used heat packs.
We have used cough syrup.
We have used hot tea.
We have used lots and lots of water.
We have used Advil and Tylenol.
We have used extra naps.
We have used hot showers.

I am out of ideas. Any medical experts out there who would like to put on a biohazard suit and stop by to check us out?

And a thank you to my friend Susie who came by to leave chocolate and a lovely aloe vera plant on my front step. Bright woman that she is, she didn't even come in the house.

Chocolate doesn't help either.
But damn, it sure doesn't hurt.

Somewhere in my Youth or Childhood . .. .

Remember that romantic part in "The Sound of Music" where Maria and . . . the Captain . . however you spell his name (Christopher Plummer in real life) are dancing in the gazebo . . . and they are singing the lines, "So somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must have done something good"? (And if you haven't seen the movie, shame on you. Go rent it, watch it and then come back here. We'll wait.)

Ok, now everyone is up to speed. I keep thinking about that scene because I have come to the conclusion that somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must have done something really rotten and it has taken all these years to catch up to me.

In other words?
WE ARE STILL SICK.
Worse than that . . . when you think you are getting over it (cue "Jaws" music . . . .and if you haven't seen that one either, we can wait for you to run to the video store.) . . IT COMES BACK. Coryn has relapsed once and yesterday, I began feeling much worse and tonight, I have spent most of the night keenly aware that I have lost the ability to kagel. (If you don't know what that word means, go look it up but be careful. It can lead you some pretty bizarre places.) All I do is cough, cough, cough. My throat is swollen, my chest hurts (a BIG problem for me if you know me at all), it hurts to swallow and I keep having to change underwear.

Mama ain't a happy camper.
Amidst this, I wrote a 10,000 word book. I sent it in at 11:30 last night and then collapsed on the couch. I slept about 3 hours before coughing woke me up. And here I am, pre-dawn unable to sleep.

So I don't know what I did that was so rotten in my youth or childhood. I have actually been blaming Nicole for this because JUST before this happened, she had smugly stated how great it was to be part of a family that virtually never got sick. Apparently, this was a red flag to Karma.

We beg forgiveness, O Universe. We are humbled before you. We will never brag about our health again if you will only restore it before we decide life isn't worth it anymore.

Give the Orrs a chance to "do something good" again. We beg you.

Just Updating

This will be a short post.
The Plague is still running rampant in the family. Everyone is coughing until they sound like they are Death's Door.
Coryn, who got it first and seemed completely recovered, woke up feeling terrible again today.
Joseph is juicing in an attempt to get better faster. We will see.
Nicole is still coughing and sniffling away but now and then I see a glimmer of a smile back on her face.
Caspian coughs terribly, sounding a lot like an angry dog barking. We'd be really annoyed with him if it wasn't so obvious that he is miserable.
I am coughing more than when I started and trying to find a comfortable place on the couch. I have discovered there aren't any.
But . . . life goes on and we will too and yes Dad, this too shall pass and we will all be mighty grateful to have our health back . . assuming it ever returns.