And the bug marches on

I finally woke from my two day quesi-coma to the one and only thing that could get me up and functioning as quickly as I was laid out: Xander throwing up on me.

It was 2 am Weds. night, I had started my battle with the vicious virus on Monday night at 1 am and hadn't spent more than 45 minutes fully aware since that time, X's body was telling me clearly, it was time to get up.

My maternal instincts are stronger than any illness I have ever experienced.

When my bronchiolitis flared up and I developed a severely painful pneumothorax while watching "Fame" in the movie theatre, I managed to hide the shortness of breath and desire to scream for my life until I was out of view of the kids.

Even during my first transplant, when drugged cross eyed, I'd be my clearest in the presence of my son.

Even after two days of eating nothing (but lots of IV fluids), I was able to whip myself out of bed and get x into the bath his little sick voice asked for.

Of course, I whipped out of bed. I don't think there is anything that moves a parent faster than the sound of heaving and the sudden feel of gushy wetness.

There should be an alarm clock with a child vomiting setting as an option. If this option doesn't work there could also be screaming teething baby option.

For college students some genius created an alarm clock that after hitting the first snooze button would turn into a ball and roll around the room alarming so not only do you need to crawl out of bed to shut off the alarm, you have to find it first.

Now that's just evil genius.

Poor X had the same virus I had, but minus the diarrhea. Thankfully.

I only had to deal with managing one end of catastrophe.

J and I quickly changed the bed and J took care of the laundering the sheets.

I set about my usual mom routine of bathing Xander and then setting up a "floor bed" in front of the tv in the living room with his nintendo food tray beside him stocked with gingerale and crackers.

He spent the next hours watching cartoons between throwing up and taking sips of gingerale.

By the time he asked for a second bath at 5:30 am, I was half passed out and ready to pass responsibility off to J until he went to work.

Fortunately, J made the decision to stay home from work to care for his sick family.

I'd say we spent the time bonding in our illness, but I'd be lying.

I have no idea what he did with Xander. All I know is that X recovered a whole lot faster than I did in much the style I do

While X was at his worst, h kept whispering "thank yous" for every little thing we did for him. Every time we'd cover him with a blanket and hold his shoulders, everytime we'd change the channel to his show, and everytime I'd refill his drink he'd remember to thank us.

I was doing this just a couple days befor ein the hospital.

When I'm at my weakest, I have the bodily functioning of a two year old. Everything must be done for me. I simply can't do it for myself, and I'm so thankful and appreciative whenever my needs are met since I know I'd never be able to meet them myself.

My misery is usually combined with a huge feeling of gratitude towards whoever is working to fix me.

Hopefully this rubbed off on X, but he didn't need to feel this way for long, By the time I left for photopheresis (which I still received) X was claiming he felt "fabulous" just to get some food and drink out of J.

When I returned home, he was outside doing yard work with J and asking how he could earn money.

He was right back to where he is when healthy.

I kept sleeping for the rest of the day, and finally awoke feeling better about 3 am.

That's what happens with my sicknesses, I sleep and sleep and sleep until I can sleep no more, no matter what time that is.

I am psyched I feel relatively human. It may take less than a week for me to recover from this! That's almost like a normal person. J and I talked, and yes, he did think, hope or wish, that what I was experiencing really was a virus that I could just fight off myself. We had a little conversation about it.

I certainly don't enjoy going to the hospital but I do know I need to go there if the pain is so severe I feel I'm in danger of overdosing myself controlling it or the problem is so severe I'm worried it will cause some bodily imbalance that itself will kill me.

I think those are pretty black and white guidelines to get me to the hospital quickly.

I think X is going to take another day of recovery off.

I'm going back for more pheresis.

That's the plan, man.