The boring days

For some reason I think of the next few days of September, actually 8/31-9/4) as the boring days. Strange because I almost never even think the word "boring" because my maternal grandmother forbade us to say we were bored when we were in her presence and that somehow stuck for all other times too. Strange also because the days after Stinson weren't boring exactly. . .though maybe they were for my kids. They were more just. . .blah.

When a colitis flare starts I expect the next few days to be full of trips to the bathroom, no coffee, very little hunger, drinking broth for breakfast and maybe all other meals. Resting when I can. There won't be trips to the playground or meeting up with friends--we are laying low.

When I woke up on Monday I felt pretty bad. Very low-energy after having been up many times in the night with diarrhea. My husband got the kids up and I started shoving things around in the dirty kitchen to make room for whatever breakfast I planned to be serving. I was shuffling.

The kids were the kids--loud, demanding, dropping food on the floor, spilling water, sometimes screeching. I looked at my husband and asked "Is there any way you could stay home?"

But not in a loud voice. I didn't say I need you to stay home. I didn't say please stay home. I said it probably with a little (tiny) laugh I sometimes have when I'm asking someone for something that really means a lot to me but that I'm afraid they'll say no to. I didn't expect him to say yes. Not only does he not like missing work but he rarely stays home when he is sick. And I have had colitis flares many, many times since we've known each other. Don't think I've ever seriously asked him to stay home. I think I knew, more than other times, that I did not feels strong enough to take care of the kids by myself all day but I think I also thought I just would do it.

Off he went to work and here I stayed to try to spend as much time as I could laying on the couch or laying on the floor. It's a little hard to remember the details of those days because a month has passed and because they were mostly made up of a mix of the elements that all of our days are made up of. We watched some Elmo, only much, much more than usual. They played outside in the sandbox. I put them down for two naps instead of one and listened to them talk for much of the time they were in their cribs before finally falling asleep each time. I laid on the couch and watched recorded episodes of Friday Night Lights, happy to have discovered a channel showing four episodes a day, perfect for a sick day binge. Or an any day binge. Tim Riggins.

I think they knew I only had a little bit to give them. My kids are great like that. We played Legos on the floor. They played around outside and I sat in a chair. My son asked to go "gumping" which is jumping on the trampoline and I'm not sure what my response because I know I definitely didn't have the energy for that. I probably took them out and then sat on the trampoline to watch them. I changed diapers and fed them and answered questions and laid back down as soon as I could, wondering why in the hell I was doing this by myself when I feel this shitty? I'll be honest, I felt a little pissed at my husband for not staying home. And pissed at myself for not being clearer about what I needed. I think we were both so used to these periodic colitis flares that we didn't change much of our lives when they occurred. We waited for them to pass. And the timing was bad. Usually I have Stephanie the wonder nanny on Mondays but she'd changed her schedule that week. And usually I have my dear friend Phyllis come on Tuesdays, and she might have come that Tuesday but for some reason I think she was out of town. I think my cousin Pickle came (not her real name but the only name I call her) but that could have been the next week. Mostly what I remember is;

-I felt really bad
-I realized that my kids were fine, even if they were watching a lot of TV and not getting out much. I stored this away in my brain as a reminder that we can all lower our expectations a lot and still raise good, happy kids.
-I was seriously down about my life emotionally. I was in a funk. This also almost always happens to me when I get sick, especially with colitis when all the good hormones (your Dopamine, your Serotonin, your happiness) are flowing out of your goddamn leaky bowel.
-People around me were also starting to get diarrhea, some of the kids, others. It started occurring to me that maybe I had mostly a stomach virus that was making my colitis worse.

This went on for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. My babiest girl Daphne, my youngest daughter, though not my smallest, threw up all over herself and on me sometime in the middle of the week and I gave her a hug, took the high chair outside to rinse it off, wiped the vomit up off the slate floor of the kitchen, and burst into tears. I texted Haku, our other babysitter and Stephanie's roommate, asking if she could come pick up the kids and take them to her house. "Yes!"she replied, because she is an angel. Hallelujah.

Back on the couch for me with more Friday Night Lights. Stephanie's changed schedule meant she was coming Thursday and Friday. I spent those days in bed, hardly seeing my kids. I read Anne Lamott like the medicine it is, trying to calm my mind which was steeped in anxiety and self-doubt and a feeling of giving up. A familiar braid of mental responses when my body is in bad shape. My mind has been running the show around here for as long as I can remember. Together we hunker down and wait out the gross, painful, inconvenient, daily life-altering physical symptoms that pop up on occasion. It's a familiar dance and I wasn't paying too much attention to it. I was just waiting for it to pass.

Saturday morning, almost a week after our Stinson Beach trip, I woke up and got out of bed. The kids had come running back to get me, shouting "Mommy wake up!" as they often do when their dad gets them out of their cribs. I shuffled out to the living room, curled into the recliner to be a physical presence in the room where my family was, watched a few minutes of Elmo and then took myself back to bed. They were immersed, they didn't need me.

I fell back into bed. I felt awful. Weak. The idea of a full weekend with four kids made me want to cry. I don't know if I fell back to sleep but I laid there for at least an hour. This is the day I ended up going to the hospital for the first time. There's a funny and illustrative little story that comes first though so stay tuned. That's next.