A week in the life of a sick student

I'm sorry I've been so absent - a few weeks ago I got sick with a stomach flu, but it seemed to go away. Last week, it reared it's ugly head again, and I've been really sick since last Thursday.

Last week marked the first official week of school holidays, which always means lots of catching up with all the kids in my life. On Tuesday, I went to the movies to see Toy Story 3 with the Foster girls (including new baby girl Eliza, who was only 8 weeks old but slept through the whole thing like a champ!). It turned out that a lot of the other PAC families had planned to bring their kids along too, so I think a few of the kids were wondering why "Miss Parata" was at the movies with Emi & Jordan! The first week of school holidays, usually the public schools are still in session, so it is what we Penrith locals call "Private School Week" at the local shopping centre- PAC kids everywhere! You can't even move without recognising someone from school.

Anyway, since there were so many other PAC kids there, I didn't get to spend a lot of time with either Emi, Jordan or Eliza. I spent Wednesday with them as well, just hanging around their house, doing craft and making cupcakes with the older girls, and snuggling with baby Eliza when they were suitably distracted!

That afternoon, we all went over to their grandmother's house, and I was so sleepy that everyone kept commenting on how different my voice sounded when I was tired, but I put it down to being all snuggly and warm from holding a sleeping Eliza against my chest for over and hour while I was lying on the couch.

Eventually, the girls wanted to play Monopoly, and my voice still wasn't sounding normal, and my throat was beginning to hurt. After dinner, I went home and went to bed early.

The next 3 days (Thursday, Friday & Saturday) are a blur of vomiting, not eating anything, not sleeping, etc. It started with a really sore throat on Wednesday night, but a few hours later I was throwing up, having really high fevers, bad headaches, the works. I pretty much didn't sleep at all that night, except for maybe an hour or two. At one point during the night/ early morning I had such a high fever that I woke up hallucinating, convinced my room was round, not square and that people were trying to get me! It took Mum like an hour to calm me down because I was so freaked out.

Unfortunately, I had to go to work the next day. I was meant to work 9.00am-4.00pm, and I thought if I feel really bad, I'll just go home at 12.00pm when the other girl I work with starts. In the morning, I was feeling okay, and so I went off to work, but by 9.30 I was desperate to be at home. The crazy fevers were back, and at one point I was so cold in the store I was shivering and had to take one of the men's hoodies off the rack and wear it for a few hours to stop shaking!
I tried calling heaps of people- but no one could come in and cover for me so I could go home. At this point I called my mum crying, but there was nothing I could really do except wait it out til 12.

Let me tell you, when she got there to start her shift, I was outta there like a rocket. I went straight home and spent the next few days either in bed, or on the couch. My routine went something like this: sleep, read, try to drink, throw up, sleep.

On Thursday night, the vomiting got a lot more frequent, although at this point, it had become so routine that it didn't really bother me. Which is saying a lot, because normally I hate throwing up and will do anything to avoid it.

On Friday morning, I finally got an appointment to see a doctor. Because it was such late notice, I couldn't see my usual GP, but the doctor I did see was really nice. She told me later that as soon as I walked in the door, she thought I looked so unwell that she immediately thought I either had a bacterial infection or glandular fever.

After lots of tests (including a really unpleasant one where she had to swab my throat, and therefore actually touch my tonsils. Yuck), she concluded that I had a particularly nasty case of bacterial tonsillitis. With all the vomiting thrown in because I was so sick. Just for good measure. Yay.

With a whole page list of prescriptions, suggestions, remedies and the like, I went to the pharmacy and stocked up on anything I could find to make my throat feel better. It was so swollen that I hadn't been able to eat anything except 1 piece of toast with peanut butter and 1 pikelet with raspberry jam for 3 days. Don't even talk to me about trying to eat anything. I had to force myself to eat those things alone, because I knew my body needed energy of some kind, but man it hurt to swallow! It felt like being stabbed with razor blades after every mouthful.

The funny thing is, I didn't even really feel hungry at all in those 3 days. I was glad to not eat, because it meant less to throw up later!

But by Saturday night, I was finally feeling better (yay for antibiotics!). The previous night I had gone to the movies to see Eclipse with my girl friends, even though I wasn't feeling well, because I was so sick of being housebound! I didn't eat anything at all on Friday, but on Saturday with my throat feeling the tiniest bit better, I decided I could try to eat something. The problem was what to eat. Everything, even bread, seemed too hard to swallow. I finally settled on some devon and some cheese (my own little meat and cheese platter haha!) I had to chew it like crazy, but I swallowed, and I ate it, and it didn't come back up in the following hours!

Yesterday was even better- I had one piece of toast for breakfast, and then a little bit of cheese in the afternoon. But at dinner, I bought Thai food after church, and had almost a normal sized amount of food on my plate! I'm trying to take it slow, which is hard when you are so hungry after not eating for so long! I'm still taking a lot of aspirin, and paracetamol, on top of antibiotics, but I am feeling at least 50% better. Still not ready to go back to work or enter the real world again yet, but a lot better than I was feeling last week. Thank God for good drugs! [I mean antibiotics :) ]