All I want is this to be over. I can’t take it. I spent 10 hours yesterday lying on the bathroom floor with my head under the toilet. I could keep nothing down, so I ate nothing. When I wasn’t feeling nauseous, I was gloriously able to appreciate a full range of fever related pains, including what I’ve come to refer to as “sandpaper” tongue. My lips became chapped and scaly. Nothing relieved me. How is it that I am still feverish? HOW? It’s been nearly 4 weeks. The worst is the throat; I cannot swallow. But I have to, unless I want to end up back in the hospital with an IV in my arm for dehydration. Twice today I’ve been brought to tears, the first while on the phone with my father, and the second lying in bed as the sun went down on yet another day. I’m so worried that my throat is going to close up and I won’t be able to breathe at all. I don’t know whether I should sit up or not because whenever I lay down, mucus collects in the back of my throat and I’m forced to suffer to push the gunk back down. Blow my nose? No success there either, nothing comes out. And I haven’t been putting my contacts in, so everything is blurry and confusing. I feel like dying.
My grandfather has been staying with us for the past few weeks and it’s such a shame because I’ve barely seen him. He’s starting to get worried about me too, which says something because he’s the hard-nosed type who rarely admits to there being a problem. And then there’s college, which is looming like a thunderhead over everything. I’m supposed to be arriving in a week, and I honestly cannot see that happening. But what am I supposed to do? Toughing this sort of an illness out while starting a whole new year — I can’t imagine it. What if my fevers continue to spike? I’m waking up 8+ times a night to fill up my drink, pee, shower, or just get out of the sweat-soaked bed sheets. Bet my roommate would love that. And now I have a deep-set pain in my neck, at the base of my skull.
One upside of all this: my parents are actually talking. Both of them are calling each other, instead of one complaining that they never communicate. The other change is in my dad specifically. Normally, he tries to insert an “I love you” at the end of all his phone calls with me. But recently, he says it 3 maybe 4 times, almost fervently, as if he desperately needs to get it out. It’s made me cry every time he’s done it. It’s really great that an illness like this is what it takes to bring my family together.
