Sick Time

At a full-time (or part-time) job when you call in sick you make one phone call to the office explain that you are near death and crawl back under the covers never to be disturbed by work again until your white blood cells, C-vitamins, anti-oxidants, anti-biotics etc. have done their job and healed you. There might be a rare occasion for a phone call asking for a file or information on a project but once you have declared yourself too sick for work, work pretty much leaves you alone.

Not so with motherhood.

When you are sick as a mother your work sits on your bed with you reading stories, still needs help wiping when she goes number 2, asks to be fed (the nerve), adds to your in-box by creating messes around you (I know in-boxes fill when you take sick days at other jobs too.), tells you about their day, and wants demands to go to the park. Oh you can ignore the work for awhile but that takes active effort and eventually you just drag your aching body off your bed and comply. Submit.


The only way to stop this madness is by getting really, really, really, sick. Then you can -- in some cases -- call in the big guns by asking your spouse to leave their work (and let their in-box to fill up) and manage things for awhile. I thankfully married someone willing, able, and a saint for doing this. One way to do this is by getting a fever of 103 and having a throat so sore that you have to take ibuprofen just to swallow -- no joke. (Through this experience I learned that high fevers are actually much more serious in adults than children. Great.) Now a normal person would know immediately that she had strep throat, go to the doctor and get on anti-biotics and would cease to cause disruption to her entire family. But if the sore throat doesn't start so bad, and your kids just had bouts of a 12 hour fever you just might assume you caught it from them and it will be over tomorrow. You might.

Only tomorrow you drug yourself on 800 mgs of ibuprofen convince yourself you are better, send hubby off to work, and power through the day. It isn't until you are halfway through a temple session, (Hey, your sister is going through for the first time and you are not going to miss it. Under no other circumstances is this okay.) and you are dousing yourself in hand sanitizer every 10 minutes and start to get the chills so badly your teeth chatter (I wish I was exaggerating here.) that you realize you are really, really sick.

Thankfully the next day is Saturday and your husband doesn't have to take time off. (Unless he has an emergency work meeting in which case thank heavens for mom and dad!)  You drag yourself to the doctor and get the necessary drugs, which because of your complete stupidity take longer to work because you put it off. In which case you can sit it bed all.day.long watching inane movies and calling friends just to distract you from your misery. This day ends up being the worst not only because you are the sickest you've been in recent memory, but also because your husband points out to you half way through the day that it is your anniversary, and you completely forgot. Also bad because while you were the louse who forgot your anniversary your husband is managing everything without complaint. Ugh.

But by Sunday afternoon you actually think the end is near enough to blog about it.

(Yes, this blog is a cry out for sympathy but I have been in my bedroom far too much over the last four days and in addition to the real fever, cabin fever has definitely set in.)