“How’s it going, Flo?” my husband asked, glancing toward the couch where I sat perched before my feverish four year old with a little plastic cup of Ibuprofen.
“She’s decided that this isn’t any better than the grape flavor,” I replied, sighing. Time to pull out the big guns. “How about some chocolate ice cream?”
My daughter’s teary eyes brightened. She nodded in the affirmative.
“I think we’re rolling now,” I reported to my husband, who was cleaning up the kitchen after dinner and monitoring my oldest as she completed make-up homework. She suffered a nine day bout with…something awful, which she then passed on to her sister.
I am now two weeks into round-the-clock intensive care of sick children. A few days ago, my husband sent me this encouraging text: “Hang in there, Florence Nightingale.” Lately he just calls me “Flo.”
I wade through periods of intense worry, and feelings of utter defeat. Like the time I tried to force-feed my skin and bones oldest, and she vomited everything back up, including the antibiotic she is on for her double ear infection. That was a low point.
Yet sanity does break through, and I realize that there are things I both can and must do or Flo will flounder, and most likely end up flat on her back with the awful something.
First, I resumed my 30 minutes of brisk walking each day. I had started doing this last May, but when the cold weather hit, I quit, always meaning to start up again at some point. This past weekend, we had a warm and sunny respite from winter. I used the improved weather to restart my exercise routine. It’s not easy to fit in, but what I’ve been doing is circling the property while my two year old and now-sick four year old both nap. I duck my head in the door each lap around to make sure that all is quiet on the western front. It has been working well, and it’s amazing what a difference it makes for my physical and mental health.
Second, I just laugh. I must confess that I’ve done plenty of whining and crying these past weeks. Yet even so, I’m a mom of little ones, and therefore funny things happen all around me every day. For instance, my two year old and I had this conversation when she came downstairs and saw her four year old sister ensconsed on the couch:
“Oh, Anna-we-see is sick! She has a flute.”
“Sweetheart, it’s not ‘flute’–”
“Oh, I know that!” she interrupted me, and laughed. Even at two she never wants to be wrong. “I mean, she has a fermometer!”
She then went over to her sister with her precious Blues Clues pillow pet and handed it to her. “Here you go! Blues Clues will feel you better.”
I stepped between them so my sweet youngest woudn’t see me quickly swat away the pillow pet. Not yet another piece of bedding to launder! “Sweetheart, that was so, so thoughtful of you.” My youngest beamed.
Speaking of laundry, I used to have a rotation that ensured bedding and towels would get washed at decent intervals, not as often as my mom would wash them, but often enough to reassure me that we were still members of civilized society.
Now, I operate on a simple four-tier system, in order of laundering priority:
- Highest priority: Bodily fluids/solids on the bedding, towels or clothing
- Second priority: Underwear and socks, of course
- Third priority: Bedding/clothing stained with grape juice, cherry popsicles, chocolate ice cream and other snacks of convalescence that I probably won’t be able to get out anyway
- Last priority: All other items, whenever I get to them, and no guilt about the timeframe.
The old saying is true: You have to laugh, or you would just cry.
The third way I’m supporting my health is by calling up mom friends. Again, there isn’t much time for this, but I am making time. It’s been wonderful to commiserate and laugh together. I am finding that nearly all parents are having a terrible time with sickness this winter. It’s good to know I’m not alone. Speaking of alone, you get to feel that way when every activity that involves leaving your house has to be canceled. Talking with friends on the phone reminds me that I do have relationships outside the walls of my home.
And, finally, I have a relationship with the Great Physician, who doesn’t promise me that He will heal my little ones instantly, but does provide good medical care, a warm house, and healthy food (popsickles and ice cream aside), so that they will get better in time. Until they do, He knows it is tough. He gives me good friends, a supportive husband, a sense of humor, and, most of all, His own strength to carry on. The fourth way I keep Flo on her feet through the long days and even longer nights is simply reminding myself of that truth.
Today our warm weather is gone and I’m looking out on a fresh six inches of snow. However, my oldest spotted something exciting—two wind-blown robins clinging to our tree!
Unlike the real Florence, whose nursing career spanned 60+ years, the robins give me hope that retirement is on the horizon for Nurse Flo, or, at the least, a long hiatus until the snow flies again.
