Not at all what we had in mind. . .

Friday, March 31 – I woke up this morning just a little after 9, after going to bed at 11:30, thinking, “I’m better.” And it’s about time. Nearly two weeks.

Ed, who hadn’t been downstairs once yesterday, was ready for breakfast. He started throwing up two days ago and hasn’t been able to keep a thing down. Finally last night he kept a little pedeolite down and had a good night’s rest. Basically, he slept all day yesterday, which is good but worrisome.

So we had breakfast, a poached egg and juice. Ed watched something on TV with his dad and I did a Jacuzzi. It totally wore me out. I took a nap before lunch. I guess it will take awhile. I’m still coughing, but not as much. It’s my first day without Depends and how liberating.

We got home from the cruise feeling fine but later that same Sunday, it hit. I told Emily it was when she called to tell us that her mother had died last night. I loved her mother. She was my friend and mentor. I can’t imagine church or DUP without her.

I’ve more or less been in a fog the 13 days since. I went to the doctor on Monday, hoping to be better to do my presentation for Fine Arts Club that I had been working on off and on for six months. By Tuesday, I couldn’t raise my head off the pillow nor could I talk. I didn’t have pneumonia or the flu. Just bronchitis but I didn’t get better. My cough got worse.

By Wednesday, I thought I might be allergic to the $42 (our co-pay) antibiotics the doctor prescribed. DeRay got Dr. Beus to prescribe the same kind he and Ed were taking. I would sit up most of the night because when I lie down I cough.

Emily sent food over from the funeral; Elizabeth brought chicken soup with homemade German pasta called spaetzle, rolls, and tarts. Amy made her delicious Vietnamese Chicken Pho a couple of times. When Verla came down for her birthday, gratefully she brought two kinds of soup so we survived somehow. Brooke and Elizabeth also brought enchiladas and tarts another day.  I made rice pudding one of the early days and cooked a fish dinner and then I was through. I vacuumed once and mopped the floor twice. After the washing machine came on Friday – oh, yes, the washer was broken when we got home, so by the time we got a washing machine, we had over two weeks worth of dirty clothes, plus all the icky bedding - I washed twice. We barely kept our heads above water. I don't know how DeRay bought a washing machine.

I wrote an email to Brent and Brooke and told them their dad was dying. “Why’d you do that?” “Because that’s what you told me when you came home from the doctor.” His lungs were filling with fluid, his oxygen was low, terrible sores on his shin and now bronchitis. Brent was good to call and Brooke and Elizabeth were angels of mercy.

We felt very lucky to get off the cruise ship and drive all the way home before we got sick. How awful it would have been otherwise. And the basement wasn’t flooded. With the rain this week, it’s seeping into the basement so Amy keeps a watchful eye.

I went with Verla to the Garden Restaurant to celebrate her 71st birthday, also with Carol and Verda, but I was in a daze, determined not to ruin her birthday but I probably did. DeRay and Eddy picked me up at Carol's where Melissa got up from her migraine-sick bed to keep me company. Carol and Verla went to the play at PMT, then the next morning they went on down to Cedar City to spent some time with Shirley to celebrate her 88th birthday.

The hour I spent sitting in the sun on the deck on Wednesday was my best hour. That and the medications and teas Amy showered on me. Turmeric, cinnamon stick, whole cloves, nutmeg, fresh ginger, black pepper steeped for 20 minutes, served with coconut milk and honey was my favorite. “How come Amy is so good to you?” Ed asks. I’ll tell you, it was much appreciated. “Mothers don’t ask sons how they are feeling,” Ed tells me when I ask how he is. I didn’t know that DeRay had awful sores on his legs before we left for the cruise. His whole shin is oozing gaping red sores. Dr. Bues checked them again when we got home and he thought they were healing. When I saw them, I didn’t agree. We put salve and gauze on them. We haven’t looked but he says they are still painful.

So we were planning three cremations since we don’t have burial plots. Actually, I told DeRay, I could be cremated but I couldn’t do that to Eddy. I don’t think Eddy had the flu. He doesn’t blow his nose and he doesn’t spit up phlegm like most of us and I think when his system gets saturated, he throws up until it is cleansed.

I wonder when we will ever feel like exercise again. I’ve never gone this long without doing stretches, let alone swimming and machines at the gym, and riding our beloved trikes. I can’t fathom doing any of them ever again.  My ribs hurt with every cough. They are sore to touch. It’s been a surreal experience. To emerge from the fog. I think about what Shirley said when we stopped by to see her on our way to the cruise ship. “It’s as hard to come back as it was to go,” she laments. For her, it was more than two weeks, it’s closer to two years.