Although it will probably take me forever, I’m going to try to catch up on the last few days after the both of us suffered through one of the worst illnesses we’ve ever had since meeting each other nearly 20 years ago. Damn, was that one seriously aggressive flu! I haven’t been that sick in over a decade. I’m not used to being sick, period. Since I quit smoking all I’ve had, for the most part, was ear and teeth pain and allergies.

Before I get into it let me go back and print a little retraction. I wasn’t quite right in saying that Andy treated a homeless woman to dinner, so he told me. She actually had an apartment. She just didn’t have a man to support her and her kids. Well, unless she’s disabled, she better hope to find a good-paying job because most women still get better support from a 5-year-old bra than a man.

Another thing is that I had to stop the Alli because that “bug bite” turned out to be an outbreak of hives. I have 3 big nasty raised red bumps on my inner right forearm that are sort of similar in size and shape to Cheerios, plus a smaller one on my stomach and one on my jaw. They itch like crazy and one is oozing. I don’t think they’re infected, though. The first one I got that I thought was a bug bite seems to be healing. It mentioned on the bottle to stop taking the pills if you experience itching but never said anything about bullous bumps, rashes or acne. Sure enough, though, when I checked online, I found others complained of the same side effect, but mostly on the face.

So once again Jodi gets punished for trying to find something to help her help herself lose weight. Being sick has taken over where the Alli left off and now I’m 143 pounds. I wanted to get to 110 but would have settled for 120. Instead, I’m going to end up at 300 if my metabolism gets any slower. Oh well. How often do I get what I want in life?

Because I’ve been too sick to write I may not remember all the details, but if I ever wished Tom and I had a nurse or someone helping us out it was when we were sick. Fortunately, though, he was a day ahead of me, so I was able to help him before the worst of it hit me, and he was able to help me, too. Surviving the storm together makes me so grateful to know we have each other for things like this. It would’ve been a million times worse to have to go through it alone. He is the most wonderful, most amazing person on earth!

He woke up sick Friday morning. Saturday night, I think it was, as I was falling asleep I noticed I had a tickle in my throat and began to cough, too. But I was too tired to drag my ass up out of bed to scald my throat with hot tea or something. Sure enough, I woke up the next day with a sore throat, and a bad cough and was achy as hell. After I showered and scorched my throat with hot coffee I thought I would be okay. Wrong! As I’ve learned, I can will away colds, but not flues. Just like Tom, I became so weak and all I wanted to do was sleep or just lay in bed. I could barely eat and my lungs were so congested. I had a bit of wheezing but the worst part was definitely the cough. Oh, how it hurt like hell to cough! Every time I coughed it would feel like a cat reached down my throat and clawed at it and tasted just awful. It was horrible. I couldn’t sleep for more than a few hours at a time and whenever I’d manage to pull myself up out of bed to try to do things, I’d be exhausted within 20 minutes and would have to lie back down again. Both of us had fevers of up to 101°, but I didn’t have the runs like Tom did. He called out of work on Monday. Fortunately, he has tons of time off. Tomorrow he’ll be taking off so we can both go to the eye doctor.

Just when I was beginning to wonder if I’d ever feel human again, my throat and cough began to improve yesterday, and today’s the first time I’m able to be up and about for a little longer, even if it means getting my period a week early (yeah, I’ve had one screwy cycle lately). I even did a load of laundry and am airing the place out a bit. My head is still stuffed up so badly that it’s dulled my sense of taste, smell and sound. Yesterday I had allergy-like symptoms with a stuffy nose and sneezing, but most of this flu was in the throat and lungs. It was one long, hard road! Even the rats were worried about me. I was afraid they’d catch what we had and die, but they’ve proven once again just how tough rats really are, something I love about them that most people hate, and that’s the fact that rats are one seriously tough animal to beat down! Sugar was wheezing a bit, though. When I finally felt well enough to go near them, they were all happy and ran up to me as if to say, “Yay! Mom’s back!” I hated to neglect them for those few days, but it was better to be safe than sorry. I let them run around loose a bit this morning. When I get more of my strength back, they’ll be out and about as usual.

We usually do our weekly grocery shopping on the weekends, but since we were sick, it got delayed. Tom decided to try this service Raley’s has where you load up your cart online and they gather up what you want in the store. Then you go and pick it up and pay. He loved it. They were super-fast, too. I figured the person gathering the items would be some 18-year-old kid that’d fuck up half the order, but nope. They substituted a couple of similar items that they were out of, but they did a great job. It’s free for orders of over $100, so maybe we’ll do this more often.

This is the longest I’ve gone without working out and when I finally do get the strength to return to it I’m going to feel so out of shape. :(

Jesse came down to get some chain from his shit pile. I opened the door to see what he was up to and when he spotted me he said hello and asked if everything was okay. I told him we’d been really sick with the flu and he said he heard it was nasty. He heard right!

Despite the dreams and vibes that said big changes were coming in April I don’t see how we can possibly be moving that soon. Too many setbacks. There’s just one thing after another after another. Tom still thinks we will, but I really wonder if something is either trying to stop us from making a mistake that’d make us miserable or if it’s trying to prevent us from something good. Nothing up there usually cares to look out for us, so I guess it’s trying to hold us here to block us from something good. That’s what it feels like right now anyway.