Tag Archives: chicken pox

Discouraging illness

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I haven’t mentioned much about this but Michele is sick again with the same condition she had when we lived in Indiana about 1 1/2 years ago. Her symptoms have reappeared in force and most days she isn’t able to do a whole lot. She has to walk around most of the time with a cane in order to keep her balance. Sometimes the only thing she can do is lie down and wait for the shaking/twitching/jerking symptoms to subside.

This is discouraging for a number of reasons and we are uncertain about how we’re going to cope. The main thing about this that’s discouraging is that last time, Michele’s symptoms, which lasted for several months, gradually disappeared. We hoped they had disappeared for good. Obviously, that’s not the case. It’s also discouraging because as yet we have no more information about what is causing her symptoms than we had previously. Her symptoms closely match common symptoms for Multiple Sclerosis, but it doesn’t mean that’s what she has. She is basically in a period of re-taking all the same kinds of tests she had before (e.g., EEGs, MRIs, blood tests, urine tests, etc.). She has a further appointment with her neurologist this week and we hope to have something more definite to go on in terms of diagnosis after that. We feel good about her doctor and his approach to her condition.

And then there is the fact that yesterday we discovered red spots all over Brinley’s body. Yep, she has chicken pox. So far she hasn’t been acting all that sick, which is good. Yesterday we also learned that my father-in-law has chicken pox, too, at 60 years of age!

Sick of being sick

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The flu finally caught up with me and Michele yesterday. Thank goodness the worst part was over after a matter of about seven hours. We’re both still feeling weak and I am bothered by a continuous headache but otherwise, we feel much better. The children all seem to be doing well, also, although caring for them all while we were feeling that sick was a huge challenge. This period of my life reminds me of stories my mother tells of the short (18 months) time when we lived in Detroit and I was only about three or four years old. This was from 1970-71. She said that it just seemed like everything went wrong during that time and we kids were very sick a lot of the time. I don’t remember much of that except for the episode of chicken pox that went through all seven of us, down to me, the youngest. During that time, Detroit experienced race riots, my father nearly lost his eye in a welding accident, and my oldest brother, then only about 11 or 12 years old, was nearly strangled to death by a neighborhood kid while he was delivering newspapers. I can remember seeing the black plumes of smoke from the rioting from the front door of our house.

One incident I vividly recall is coming home from church one day on one of the major highways. Cars were stopped in a traffic jam due to everyone gawking at a bad accident. A car had somehow flipped onto its roof. When we got near enough to see what was going on, the car burst into flames. My dad jumped out of the car and ran over to the burning car to see if anyone was inside. The driver was still inside, unconscious or something, and my dad, with the help of another guy, managed to drag him out. He was badly burned but they saved his life. Meanwhile, I was terrified that my dad would die so as soon as he jumped out of the car, out I jumped, too, dodging cars and running up the embankment toward him. Fortunately one of my older brothers ran after me, grabbed me, and took me back to our car.

Another time, also while we lived in Detroit, I can distinctly remember my mother taking us somewhere when we got caught in a shootout between some crooks and a police squad. Bullets were flying everywhere and I remember my mother yelling, “Hit the floorboards!!!” I remember scrunching down as far as I could into the floor of our station wagon.

I think these kinds of days are like the days that Anne Shirley (of Anne of Green Gables fame) used to call “Jonah Days.” Our house is even more of a mess than usual and I feel even further behind in just about every aspect of my life. Sigh.