This Too Shall Pass

Well we’ve been fully struck down by the flu. I rarely get sick so I was clobbered not only by the physical ailments but by the emotional trauma of something in our natural environment wanting to hurt me that bad! There really is a certain amount of hurt feelings that go along with getting sick. Why me? What is going on inside my body that could possibly cause this much discomfort?

Over the last few days I’ve pictured a World War II type battle raging on in my body. With every chill and body-racking cough I would think, Uh-Oh we just took a hit! Each time I took 1,000 IU of Vitamin D or would chug an Emergen-C I would think HA—Take that, you Nazi germs!

But slowly, oh so very slowly, we seem to be winning the battle against this horrible flu. I got the go-ahead from my midwife last night to take a dose of Tylenol to reduce my fever. Actually what she said was, “Tylenol is safe for your baby, a fever is NOT safe for your baby!” It felt odd to take a pill being pregnant. I’ve never in my three pregnancies ever taken a medication, and then again, I’ve never been sick when I was pregnant either.

It was a turning point for me. I took the Tylenol and went to bed. I didn’t sleep—really that would be asking too much. But at least I was comfortable. My nose was so jammed plugged that I couldn’t possible breathe through it and I could only breathe through my mouth for so long before I would dry out and have a total coughing fit next to my sleeping daughter who is so past the “fever-and-coughing-stage” now and has moved on to the much more pleasant looking, “catching-up-on-sleep-stage.”

But we’re on the mend. I panicked when on Tuesday I developed the fever I thought I was avoiding. What with the mass media coverage of H1N1 these days, if you’re pregnant and start displaying flu-like symptoms, you feel like a idiot, or worse, a crunchy granola hippy for not heading straight out to get on IV fluids and Tamaflu. But my level headed midwife reminded me that it is “STILL JUST A FLU” miserable and gross and long, yes, but it is not, as I think some fear mongers would have us believe, the virus from Outbreak that will cause bleeding from your eyes and certain death within 24 hours. She said, “Unless you are dehydrated or struggling to breathe, rest, drink fluids, and this too shall pass.”