Flu Routine

I am trying to remember not to talk about the head cold or flu, because it is listening! Let’s see if it can read my fingers – not lips or sign language – but typing. I think it began two weeks ago with a small cough. At some point I quit walking outside, as well as setting an alarm clock to wake up. The object was to survive!!

I’ve had more hot tea every day than I ever remember drinking in any single day. Coffee has come back on the menu now in the daytime. For days I’ve gone to bed at my regular time, only to wake up drowning after 2:00 am. Oddly, the time seems to get a little later each day. I’m up to 4:00 am for that first waking. Maybe my fluids are linked to the ocean tide!! I’m a long way from the ocean, but there is a suspicious ebb and flow to my days. I’m thankful there has not been a repeat of not being able to draw in a breath. It can happen once a year, and I always hope that is the last for my lifetime. One of these years, it will be! Yes, you get sick enough and know your days are definitely limited.

Now I have family to look forward to. Kate is making that 15-hour drive from New Jersey, and I’m talking her down. We used to have several hour-long conversations. This time I do a few household chores, look at the map on my phone to see if she is driving at highway speed, and call her for 15 to 30 minutes. She took a break at this point, and I began to write.

Taking pills was always easy for me. Up until now, I could take two large pills and a small one with one big gulp of water. It was a bug-eyed wake-up call when pills got stuck in my now-constricted throat. It takes solid food now — one cracker to get those pills down. Getting old is hard to swallow!

David is taking off this coming week to be with his mother. In a few days Lise and Toke will be here, and the girls will share their back-to-back birthdays for the first time in decades. After Kate drives home in a week, Toke will be here for about 10 days and Lise about a month. It’s marvelous to look forward to being with all these dear people. I’m glad I survived the latest wellness blip, whatever it was.