Juliabarrett’s Blog

You’ll have to forgive me if my spelling and punctuation and syntax are all messed up but I’m just now recovering from a very sudden and unexpected case of the Swine Flu – i.e. Influenza A.  Crappola.  I’ve never had influenza, believe it or not, despite the fact that I’ve never had a flu shot because I’m allergic to whatever they put in the vaccine.  This was one of the nastiest things I’ve ever experienced.  Yesterday I was so sick, I figured I was gonna die and quite frankly, I didn’t care.

So hubby had been sick the week before, and I nursed him – being a nurse and all, you know – but we had no idea he was suffering from Influenza A.  He’s had influenza before and he got a flu shot this year, so he stayed home from work for several days and then managed to recover pretty quickly.

Last Wednesday, I worked and I felt a bit off.  No big deal.  Nothing I couldn’t cope with.  Thursday, I still felt off, maybe a twinge in my throat, maybe food didn’t look so good to me, but still, no biggie.  Friday I worked again and I was feeling kinda bad.  I couldn’t call in sick though because we were short-staffed and they needed me to see three patients and do an admission.  Major stuff, plus I was scheduled for Saturday – filling in for a nurse whose kid was sick.

I woke up early Saturday morning – 4:30 a.m. to be precise – and I felt like shit.  I had a fever, I was coughing, my chest burned – but I had to go into work  because I’d received a call about a patient in a major pain crisis and I’m the go-to girl for pain.  Hubby didn’t want me to go in but I really didn’t feel like I had a choice because the other nurse on the weekend is new and she can’t handle anything complicated.  I gave her three easy nursing home patients and then called the tough cases – everyone was understanding about my situation.  I didn’t want to expose them to anything so we handled it all over the phone.  Four hours of calling to doctors and pharmacies to get this guy comfortable – what a nightmare – this poor, poor man!  Fortunately, his wife is very competent and between the two of us, we got the job done.

I left the patient’s wife my personal cell phone number and told her I was going home to crash but she could call me if there was an emergency, then I informed my supervisor that I was really sick and she’d have to call the other nurse if anything came up.

OMG…I barely made it home.  Just hobbling up the stairs and stripping off my clothes took such effort.  Every bone, every joint, every muscle in my body hurt.  My hair hurt.  My toenails hurt.  My skin felt like I’d been sunburned.  My temp was 103.7.  If one part of my body touched another part, I felt like screaming.

My husband was working in Urgent Care until 6 p.m. so I prayed I could remain conscious until he got home.  The dog came upstairs and lay down with me as did two of my three cats, while the two birds we keep in our room were amazingly quiet.  It was like they all knew – mom’s really sick!  I wanted desperately to shut the shades because the light burned my eyes, but I didn’t have the strength.

When my hero got home, he brought me water, he brought me juice, he brought me tea.  He tried to feed me but I was too sick to eat.  He removed the pajamas I’d thrown on because they were hurting me and he cooled me off.  God love him – he shut the shades!

He said – You think you’re gonna die, right?

Um-hm, I answered.

Well, he said, you won’t but you wish you would.  You remember, he said,  it was influenza that brought us back together.

Huh?  my sluggish brain murmured.

Remember?  I got influenza, he said, so I had to miss my kayaking trip on Lake Superior and if I hadn’t gotten influenza and been forced to stay in bed for five days, I would never have heard that Jerry Rafferty album that I recorded that reminded me of you.  I think it was getting influenza that made me realize I didn’t want to be without you anymore.

So when you hear sweet stuff like that, what do you do?  You rouse your dying body and make love with your man which somehow magically breaks your fever and you sleep for the next six hours.

So yeah, our second shot at love and a life together began with influenza.  All I can say is -  Love can work miracles!  And I don’t have to worry about catching the Swine Flu this fall!