Gosh it feels like such a long time between writing the last post and this. The reason being that Week 12 mostly involved trying to keep breathing and my concentration was shot. I think the latter probably frustrated me the most. My head felt like it had been stuffed full of soft toy stuffing and was operating a 15% or basic functions only.
I ended up on a ten day course of oral steroids and increased steroid inhalers. Which might be why I currently feel on the heavier side of happy and a bit more blubber around the middle. Week 12 was not very exciting in any way, just breathing, resting, and juggling the family - the school work and essential needs such as putting food on the table. My first walk around the block was probably slower than a snail. My Littlest could have lapped me several times. Gradually I managed to build up the pace until I cauld join the family on their daily walks and even talk and walk! Some days though I would have return to my vow of silence 🙊; that happened on the Saturday so my Other Half took the Childers to a local reservoir for a misty morning walk. I finally got to watch some Agatha Raisin mysteries 😃.
It was hard during that week to figure out what was asthma pain and what was pain from the sheer effort that had been required to keep me oxygenated. The asthma did settle with the medication, but the pain in my lungs and chest took longer and would interrupt my nights during the week. There had been a point before the asthma peaked when my husbands made me laugh so hard (talking about poo and his near childbirth experience none the less 🙄) that I actually couldn’t breathe and went completely beetroot.
I did at one stage meet the criteria for an ambulance but declined it on the 111 call. Having seen Papa go into hospital to then contract Corona and still not be home, I decided hospital is not a place I wanted to be, unless I totally couldn’t breathe at all. Truth be told, I hate hospitals and I feel totally confined and that is a trigger for my mental health. Shielding and loss of freedom has been bad enough and the thought of hospital wasn’t something I felt able to do. There is also the knowledge that even if I can’t do much at home, I still run it with the logistics and doing what little I could - ordering the food delivery, sorting the meals and just being there with the Childers - was something I needed to help me get well. Of course a complete rest and recuperate break would have been great, but much less doable. The 111 nurse did try to convince me, hospital would be restful! I honestly find the so noises, more so the night shifts when the wide awake nurses and staff chat away and buzzers ping randomly in peels like church bells. There was also the problem that I couldn’t be 100% sure if last time was covid or just a similar virus, due to the test result stuff. So I followed there advice and did a drive in test. As suspected it was negative. Apparently relapses generally aren’t a reoccurrence of being infectious.
I looked into going South to stay with a friend but was not at all well enough to drive. As I said to my friend why is it you need to be dead to “rest in peace”? It is nigh impossible for a Mama to rest in peace! Once my husband grasped the gravity of the situation, in that I needed rest, he helped out as much as he could and I had to learn to let things slide and remember I could pick them up later. Though the daily toy debris needs sorting at the end of every day. It was still a weird kind of scheduled rest, as it had to be in his meeting breaks and when the Littlest settled down to watch some television.
I totally felt empathy with the Mama Elephant in the children’s (though really more resonates with the parentals) Five Minutes Peace (Jill Murphy). I managed one night in the nursery the second night the Littlest objected to me not being in the bed and screamed “Mummmmmmy” at some early hour in the night. Knowing she is persistent at the best of times, that was the end of that idea. I think if I had had enough cognitive function I might have started interior designing a She Shed as a restful retreat. Knowing my Childers they would just move their beds and stuff right in! On the positive the maternal bonding has clearly gone well.
So week 12, was a bit of a wipe out.
Comments