SICK!

Yuk. The stomach flu just slammed me like a ton of bricks.
I've been a little queezy since Dahlia got it last week, but kind of ignoring it because it wasn't really doing anything besides making me queezy.
But today I'm officially NAUSEOUS! And puky, and chilled, and flu-ish.
(You don't look flu-ish... ever seen Yellow Submarine?)

I hate being sick.
And even more than that, I hate the stomach flu.
I absolutely despise the experience of nausea, probably more than any other feeling.
I've felt more nausea than I can to recall in my day... yuk.
I have several friends who have been bulimic, and honestly while I get it from an intellectual level, I can't physically imagine subjecting myself to vomiting unless I absolutely have to.

I went and got the computer to put on my lap as I lay up in bed, because just lying here undistracted feels terrible.
So now I have the laptop on my lap and the hot water bottle on my tummy.
And I can moan and groan to my blog and its handful of readers.

There's nothing you can do about the stomach flu except let it run its course through your body.
Feels burny in my stomach, reminds me of when I had parasites years ago.
Bad body memory - thank God it's just the flu.

My friend Michelle, who's a doctor, says that some years the strains of cold and flu during winter are worse than others, and this is one of those years.
I'm of the mind that we've created some really potent and resilient and kick-your-ass bugs as a result of overusing antibiotics and chemicals in an attempt to kill every single bacteria on the planet.
I think the bugs are just going to continue getting worse and more powerful (probably until they take over and live for millions of years after all of us die off).
But then again, what do I know...
Maybe if I joined the masses and used antibacterial soap and lotion and got a flu shot, I wouldn't be sick right now after being sick a month ago.
Maybe it's just because my daughter is now exposed to every germ on the planet every minute of the day she spends at preschool.

Maybe it's just a sign that we need to move to Hawaii where we can be warm and healthy all year round.

It's 29 degrees during the day and 6 degrees at night in Cincinnati, but at least there they have sufficiently insulated and heated homes with double-paned windows.
We don't have those here, so it's always just cold indoors in winter.

I remember the year our heater broke in my dad's Eichler during one of the coldest winters in decades, and the radiant heat that usually took such good care of us was down.
Dad and Sharon and I brought the space heater into my room because it was the only room with only one wall to the outside, and we stayed in there together until the wee hours of the night talking and recalling funny experiences we'd shared.
It was incredibly sweet.

I talked to my dad and sister tonight, and we agreed it's a bad idea for me to go to Stanford tomorrow to see him after his surgery.
The last thing I want is to get my father sick after brain surgery - that's too great a risk.
It made me cry, though, the idea of not being there.
The thought of how there my sister is, how strong she is, how I could not survive this without her, and neither could my dad.
It made me cry and I let myself cry, realizing that it was the first time I'd cried at all about my dad's surgery and about my dad in general in a very long time.
I guess feeling sick helped me let myself feel crummy, sad, worried, scared, and so deeply connected to my father.
Just let me feel that connection I'm sometimes scared to feel because it hasn't been easy to be connected to my father in recent years.

I know the surgery will go well, and I hope and pray that it gives him the results he needs.
He's in good hands.
He's in God's hands.
And I supposed I am too.

Amen.