SOC Sunday: Feverish

I am struggling a bit right now. I wrote a really tough post about depression yesterday, the absolutely most beautiful day of the year when I stayed inside in my PJs. But it is just too raw, and I am not ready to publish it yet. So for now, this from today: 

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I lift Ethan's sweat-soaked body from my bed to carry him back to his.  Although his shirt is drenched through, his back feels cooler now. The fever's broken. Finally.

I silently wish him sweet dreams and an easy rest of the night's sleep. I start to make plans to scotch all my plans for tomorrow. I'll have a sick kid home with me to attend to, and he'll need lots of attention as well as chicken soup and saltines. I am deeply praying it's just a random 24-hour viral fever thing, and not the flu. Please. not. the. flu!

We have been, HE has been, lucky. So far in his nearly ten years on the planet he has had one flu, two strep throats, a few handfuls of colds, three maybe four stomach bugs. (Yes I *AM* knocking on wood and spitting over my left shoulder as I write this.)

We have had no stitches, no broken bones, no trips to the emergency room. And not for his brother Jacob either, and for a sensory seeking kid with autism that;s quite a miracle, I am well aware.  (Rest assured: more knocking and spitting.)

But the downside of tihs is feeling ill hits Ethan really hard, feels very abnormal to him, deeply frightening. He came to me in the bathroom this afternoon as I was FINALLY going to get to take my shower. He burst in crying "Mom, somethings wrong! My teeth are chattering and I feel hot one minute and cold the next and then both at the same time! What's wrong with me?!?"

He was genuinely perplexed and panicked, it had been that long since he'd had a spiky fever. When I went to feel him he was massively hot clear to halfway down his belly. That's between 101 and 102 in my mom guestimation book.

I calmed him down by reassuring him it was "just a fever" and started the alternating motrin & tylenol train rolling. Within an hour he was slurping ginger ale and playing a calm Wii game. But by bedtime he was pretty punk. And I was wiped out too.

And, on top of this?  Jacob was in massive meltdown mode all day because he lost TV for the WHOLE day due to some early bad behavior. Because I, like an idiot, had said - "If you do that ONE more time you will lose TV for the whole day!" - and then I had to follow through. And tihs was before Ethan got sick. We survived. But that's a whole other story for another day.

I never did get my shower.

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• Set a timer and write for 5 minutes only.
• Write an intro to the post if you want but don’t edit the post. No proofreading or spell-checking. This is writing in the raw.

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