Flu Update

So far, the nasty flu that Camo Queen came down with over the weekend has kept itself to her and her alone even though our high schooler, Big Country, is currently fighting a nasty cold. Yesterday, after over three days running a temperature that varied from 99 to the upper 101's, she woke up fever free. Her first comment when I had woke her in the morning was that now she felt like she could sleep comfortably even though she has been sleeping most of the weekend. When that fever breaks, you just feel relaxed.

She's still battling a cough though it's hard for her to tell whether it is coming from her chest or whether it is caused by dripping nasal passages. No matter what illness befalls her, an attack on her sinuses usually follows. I always blame that on me for having to return to work and not knowing enough to continue nursing her in the evenings. Her immune system never has been what the other three kids are fortunate to have who had the advantage of being nursed for a great length of time.

Afraid to miss any more of her veterinary technician classes at her college a good hour's drive away from home, she armed herself with cough drops and set off to school this morning...not quite prepared for the two tests that she was too ill to study for over the weekend. A phone call back home 45 minutes into her drive to let me know that she was stuck in a massive traffic jam gave me the impression that she's still pretty exhausted. There's a pretty good chance she will be entirely late to her first class in which her test was scheduled first off. It's hard to tell a perfectionist student to stay home and rest when they really do feel much better than they did.

Unfortunately, it usually takes her several weeks to completely combat whatever illness she encounters. And in today's environment we unfortunately do not seem to take the luxury of time that is required to completely heal ourselves before we launch back into life. Perhaps that is why it seems so foreign to us to read historical novels in which patients were confined to bed for weeks convalescing before they were allowed to do much of anything. There's something to be said for getting up and moving, but where to draw the line between staying at home and returning to your normal schedule is difficult at times. One of life's never ending questions I guess.