At the end of the day, you can only speak from your own experience. Covid was nothing. I had it. It was like a flu. The only weird thing was the lost of my smell and taste. It took weeks to come back, and I’m still not sure I’ll ever have it back 100%. I’m glad I had it. The anticipation of contracting it is over, and since it’s highly unlikely that one can get it again….I’m good!
But food poisoning? Well, I honestly thought I was going to die.
Monday night last week at about ten o’clock as I was finishing up some work project, I started to feel a little off. I figured I was tired. Ellyson had been waking up multiple times at night and even a nap that day didn’t seem to help a lot. So, I got ready for bed, read a little bit, and fell asleep.
About 2 o’clock, I woke up feeling sick to my stomach. I lay there and rubbed it, feeling a bit better. I heard Ed pull into the driveway…followed by a very loud bang. Had he forgot to open the garage door? Had I left a bike or something in his path? Had he gone too far and crashed into our stored washer and dryer? None of that seemed right because he’s usually careful backing into that tight space…and I was too sick to really care. Then Ellyson woke up.
I knew whatever had happened, Ed would be angry and wouldn’t want to deal with Ellyson so I got out of bed. He came in and told me he had hit the passenger side mirror, knocking it off except for the wire it hung by. Still not well enough to care, I wandered into the girls’ room, looked down at Ellyson in her crib, and felt the whole room start to spin. I thought I could make it to the couch, called for Ed, and promptly blacked out.
The next thing I knew, I woke up to Ed shouting my name and shaking me. I couldn’t figure out why he was waking me up from the best sleep I had had probably since conceiving Ellyson. As I came to, I realized I was lying on the floor in our tiny hall (basically a space for four doorways and a closet to converge), my whole body aching and shaking, and figured out I must have fainted. Ethan came out of his room and the only thing I knew was that the pajamas he was wearing were not the pajamas he had gone to bed in. The conversation went something like this:
“He’s wet his bed,” I told Ed.
“Melissa, are you okay? Are you hurt? What is wrong with you?” Ed still slightly shouting.
“I’m fine. I’m cold. I’m fine. You have to change his sheets. He wet his bed.”
“What?”
I finally convinced Ed I was fine on the floor and couldn’t move that moment anyhow, so he needed to go help Ethan change his sheets. I’m pretty sure Ed thought I was nuts, but since I was apparently alive, he did as he was told. When he came back, I was ready to be moved. But no further than the couch where I curled up and asked for two heavy fleece blankets. I was still sick to my stomach and chills wracked my body, but I wasn’t feverish. Trying to figure out what could be wrong, I finally settled on food poisoning. The soup only I had eaten for lunch must have been slightly off. And with my taste still not fully recovered from Covid, I simply hadn’t noticed. It was the only explanation I had.
Assured that I wasn’t going to die right that very moment, Ed went about his usual routine of getting ready for bed. I shivered away on the couch, rubbed my belly, and dozed a little. When he came out of the shower, he asked if I wanted another blanket. I told him I wanted to go to bed. He’s one of those people that radiates heat, and I needed to be warm. So after helping me to the bathroom, he helped me to bed.
I can’t say I slept well. Ellyson woke one more time and cried herself back to sleep. I tossed and turned, feeling sick and cold. I did doze off, though, and awoke again at 4:30. I knew I had to get to the bathroom, but I also knew there was no way I could do it alone. I lay there and went through all my options for nearly ten minutes before I finally just woke Ed up for help. Good thing, too. I made it two steps to the foot of the bed before I collapsed, the room spinning into darkness again. Then I promptly threw up everything I had in my stomach. And finally felt much better!
I tried to help, but poor Ed had to clean up the floor. I threw everything in the washer, took a shower, and we both went back to bed. I awoke the next morning feeling much better although weak, tired, and extremely sore. I hardly ate all day, and we did school on the couch. I don’t bruise easy, so all I had in the way of wounds is some scratches on my face. But I couldn’t touch the left side of my face, arm or leg. That whole side of my body felt bruised and battered, and did for days. I had headaches for the next week, mostly because my shoulders and collar bone hurt so much. Ed said the way he found me laying up against the bin the closet, twisted up in an odd way he was surprised I didn’t break my neck. The best he could determine, I must have hit the half-opened folding closet door in such a way, it must have hit the wall and allowed me to bounce into all the coats and slide down. I’m grateful for I could have hit any doorways or walls, not to mention simply landed on our fake-wood-laid-on-concrete-with-no-padding floors. Ed’s grateful I didn’t look like someone whose husband beats her up.
As for the car, we’re still waiting on the parts to fix that. I guess that could have been worse, too. All I know is, I feel like we’ve barely survived 2021. I would say here’s hoping 2022 is better, but as painful as grocery shopping is these days…yeah, not betting on that!
