What A Week

I'm very grateful for this new week. I had a very long week last week and am glad to be back to normal again (well as normal as I can be). My week started with a wonderful Monday, not very common that Monday comes and it turns out great, but it really was. I spent a lot of time playing with my girls and watching my brothers little boys and it was great. That was the end of the good days of last week. Tuesday morning I get a call from my sister who is crying in pain because she has a migraine and is so sick and in pain she can't keep anything down. I hurry over to her house as she wakes her sleeping husband who had just got over a horrible multi-day sickness, had just got home from his graveyard shift taken some cold medicine and had only been asleep for a couple of hours. He was in no shape to drive because of the tiredness and the cold medicine so we left him with the kids (I know, we don't trust him to drive a car but we trust him with five kids) and I run her over to the ER. After a long wait, a male nurse named Angie (at least that's what they told us), an IV full of good stuff, me laying on her to help warm her up as the IV fluid froze her from the inside, she finally started to feel better and got some rest. After she woke I took her home to her zombie-like husband and took all the kids so they could rest. I was so glad she was feeling better. Well, then comes Wednesday morning and I'm up early feeling good when I decide to take a multivitamin with my breakfast. This may sound like a good idea and may, for most people, not be a problem but there was. About an hour after taking the pill I started to get a pain in my upper stomach / chest area. I knew what it was the moment it came on. I've been through this time and time again - I was having an allergic reaction. I knew instantly that it was the pill, crap! - why did I forget to check to see if the pill was GF (gluten-free). Well, in most cases when this happens this horrible pain comes and goes for hours as I lie on my bed hunched over in pain until finally it goes away. This was different, this pill was concentrated gluten. From the moment I stood up first feeling the pain to walking into the girls room yelling 'put on your shoes' and back to the kitchen it was too much - I was going to die. Or at least that's what I was thinking because of all the pain I was in. (Don't fret, I didn't die. If I did die I wouldn't be here telling you the story now, would I) Before I knew what I was doing I was on the phone dialing 911 speaking to the man who was asking me what my address was as I tried to remember. I knew they would get lost and didn't want to die on my front room floor in front of my children (once again, I don't die, don't worry) so I open the front door and fall to the ground on the porch. I barely remember the rest of the conversation with the 911 man because I also was starting to panic and felt like I was going to pass out. I do remember telling him a few times that my girls were there with me when I saw the fire truck. At this moment the pain started to lessen (thank goodness) and the men had me come inside to look me over. They had me take some Pepto (I know, Pepto of all things) to help lessen the stomach pain. I guess that when this concentrated amount of gluten hit my stomach, my stomach immediately reacted as if it were poison (which gluten basically is to me) and basically starts rejecting everything in my stomach. Needless to say it was not fun. They looked me over as I slowly started to feel better. I called my sister and told her that if I needed to go to the ER she would take me. They left me feeling like a crazy person. I went from being in the most pain I've ever felt in my life, sure I was going to die, to just feeling really sick when they left. My sister sat with me for a while as I sat sickly on the couch and finally ended up taking my girls so that I could rest for a while. As I sat on the couch sickly, I started to shiver. Next thing I knew I had a fever and was nauseous. This is how I spent the rest of this day freezing and sick. My fever broke sometime in the night and the next day I was feeling better. I was watching my brothers kids again, as my sister in law went to get her wisdom teeth pulled, and felt ok most of the day until dinner. After that I started feeling the fever coming back. I was up all night with a fever, which brought us to Friday - Oh Friday. My stomach this day, decided to declare war. I was HORRIBLY sick for two days straight. I didn't join the living again until Sunday feeling weak and starving. I still don't know if it was a bug or the gluten pill that made me so sick but it was NOT fun. I was so glad to see Monday again - ahh what a great day Monday has been so far. I even did my hair and makeup for the first time since last Tuesday. I try to look on the bright side, I think I lost about five pounds, but not the way I would have wanted. I'm so glad to be feeling better. It takes a week like last one to show me how I shouldn't take the days, or my health, for granted.