I hadn’t realized that on week 3/52 Abbie and I would both be sick. On January 14th Abbie and I shared a meal, all the way down to sipping out of the same drink. She warned me at the time she wasn’t feeling well. I said I wasn’t worried.
The next day she woke with a fever and was in tears. She was going to not only miss school but a very important date with friends she had been looking forward to for weeks. My heart ached for her but I thought it may be just a 24 hour bug, we don’t get sick too often around here and when we do it’s short lived.
Except for the horrible bug that captured almost all of us 5 years ago. All but the littlest and only girl and I only had it for a short amount of time. The boys including motorcycle man all had pneumonia that year. Austin lost nearly 18 pounds and the boys were sick at least a good month long with numerous doctors visits. Other than that, we just don’t seem to get very sick.
Here it is Thursday and Abbie made it to school. I’m feeling better than I have all week. I even vacuumed up the floors. However I did make us an appointment to see the doctor this afternoon just to be responsible about it. I used to tell Abbie that girls don’t get sick. It worked for many years until she got the stomach flu while camping and couldn’t hold back. Sometimes I do believe though we give ourselves permission to get sick. Like we are just so tired and exhausted we give in. I know that may sound crazy but I feel like I gave in. We gave in. But now I’m ready to be better. in some ways I feel like it’s pushing a re-start button. Of course we shed a few pounds (yippee) isn’t that always a side benefit! We don’t have huge appetites, food doesn’t taste good. I hope this can be the re-start we need to feed our bodies better, get some air and movement when we are fully better.
But the best news is….I still had Rich take a picture of us while we were sick for our third image of 52 weeks. I’m determined with this project. I mentioned even if it was an iPhone shot, we would photograph once a week together. I’ll share two images here. Rich asked if we may want to close our eyes in one, it feels a little posed for being sick but it was sweet to be cuddled next to my girl. What a blessing to be getting better, to have the medicine and health care we need to achieve wellness. It was only a very small dose of what it’s like to not live our normal daily lives. I missed it greatly and it gave me great empathy for those sick in the hospital for so many days they become months, kids waiting for new hearts, a friend of mine who just received a new liver and was in the hospital for all the holidays. I can’t even begin to imagine the frustration and with my friend in particular I saw a great courage and positiveness, I think that helped her greatly not to mention her tremendous faith. It’s people like Patricia who encourage me, who make me smile and show me what real courage is.