So sick

I have been known to make fate-tempting declarations, including "I've never had a cavity!" and "I'm one of the healthiest people I know!" The former is still true (so far). The latter, sadly, is no longer true.

I've been sicker this winter than I've ever been in my life. I'll take it even further: I think I've been sicker this winter than the average person. Sicker than average! Nobody wants to be average (right?), but even less desirable is worse than average.

But so it is, and E, our huggable, lovable little mucus factory, is almost entirely to blame. That little boy's nose hasn't stopped running since mid-November, with the exception of a 3-day stretch in which he battled the norovirus and nearly had to go to the ER for dehydration.

The norovirus was the tipping point for me, when my winter went from unpleasant (two cases of mastitis, a cold, and a couple of sequences of bad sleep for E) to downright horrible. E caught the bug first, naturally. B and I spent the weekend holding him and spoon feeding him Pedialyte, praying for wet diapers and no more vomit.

B caught the bug next and had a milder case. A few days passed, and I thought I had escaped without succumbing, but in the end, the stomach bug bell tolled for me, too, just days after I caught another cold.

The stomach bug went away. I started feeling better. And then a week and a half ago, I got a sinus infection. I suffered through a weekend of headaches, sinus aches, and toothaches, and then I went to the doctor on a Monday. She recommended waiting to take antibiotics in case the infection cleared on its own and prescribed Afrin and Motrin in the meanwhile.

This occasion was the third in my life in which I waited to take antiobiotics. The first time, when a doctor diagnosed bronchitis, I made the right decision, and the illness went away on its own. The second time, when I had mastitis, waiting was the wrong decision and just made the illness worse. And in this case, I suspect that waiting was again the wrong decision, though there's no way of knowing whether time or the drugs helped with my symptoms.

When the Motrin was no longer doing anything for my pain, I filled the amox prescription and then had to wait another 2 days before I felt any improvement. Now on day 5 of the antiobiotics, I can almost start chewing on the left side of my mouth again.

My inability to chew on the left side of my mouth for over a week combined with a stomach virus and the generally poor appetite that accompanies illnesses has left me at my pre-college weight. Is this Mother Nature's way of helping me drop any remaining baby pounds because if so, she has achieved her goal and then some.

So, here is my warning to all soon-to-be and future parents: If your child goes to daycare, your first winter is going to be hell. There will never be a day when all of you are healthy. And you'll never know whether this coughing illness or that vomiting illness will leave your child unable to sleep through the night for days at a go.

According to our pediatrician, the first winter is the worst. Please let it be so.