And we're feeling HOTHOTHOT

I guess I should be careful throwing around phrases like "worst week ever" because its like begging fate to just finish me off. But, as far as weeks go, this was a doozy. 

It started last Saturday when I went to my brother's house for dinner with Kieran (Eric was playing that night with his band). Another friend of mine, who is nine months pregnant, and her two little boys were there too. Sometime during dinner I noticed Kieran sort of dragging himself dejectedly around the house and his eyes were really watery and when I picked up him he had a raging fever. So, feeling guilty that I had a sick child around this woman who was literally about to give birth, we hightailed it out of there in minutes and I came home and put him bed. 

Fast forward to Monday and it's clear that Kieran,in addition to the fever and runny nose, has pink eye, so I stayed home with him. During that day, I started to feel weird and by that night I knew I was coming down with something, but I got up and dutifully went to work the next day. And I convinced myself that I was just coming down with a cold. But it was downhill from there...actually, it was the Olympic Men's downhill of downhills. Fast and out of control. Yes, without a shadow of a doubt, I had the flu. 29 weeks pregnant and the flu. It was horrible. My fever never went above the 102 benchmark that means you need to drag yourself to your nearest Emergency, although I hovered on the edge for almost two days of sheer hell. Eric stayed home two days with me because HE had pink eye and also, because we were actually thinking for awhile that I was going to wind up in the hospital. We had a nice system though...he set up our home phone so all I had to do was hit "redial" to get him to bring me juice, tea or just general sympathy.

I could barely get out of bed, could barely talk and my own child was briefly, quite afraid of me and I don't blame him. And all I could take was Tylenol for fever which was more or less like throwing pebbles at an advancing army. Still, five days after the onset, my throat is still is constant agony and I have a head cold from hell. And oh yeah, I woke up today with pink eye. Of course. 

But there is nothing really a scary as being feverish and pregnant. I was sooooo hot that I had visions of my poor defenseless baby trapped like a lobster inside a sac of amniotic fluid that is just about to hit a rolling boil.  In the moments when my fever wasn't as high, I had happier images of my baby in a Hawaiian shirt, holding shades and a Mai Tai saying "This MUST be Fiji, which way to the beach?" But still, it reminds me how much I don't like the uncertainty of being pregnant. Instead, all i could do in my perma-feverish state was hope the kicks I was feeling was s/he joining the hotel conga line and NOT trying to scramble out of the pot. 

Get your flu shot, people!