This week, I’m spending all my time sucking on cough drops, using tissues for my nose, and resting on my pillows. When we arrived home from the trip, I was already starting to have chills and fever. My fever broke a few days later and then the hacking cough set in.
This seemed liked the same things I experienced with Covid, so I took a Covid test. I still have a few of the free ones left. Thankfully, I am free of Covid. Enduring a cold or flu is really tough with me and I often have a severe case.
Leaving the protection of my house makes me vulnerable to every little virus or bacteria. My medical chart has stated immunocompromised, and now I can believe it. Hubby and I discussed how totally spent we were after getting home.
There will need to be some way to fly, which means we’ll have to limit our trips. Our kids are encouraged to come here and stay with us, but they have young, busy families. Unless we suddenly get rich, we’ll just have to expect missing the grandkids more and more.
The most overwhelming bad surprise is how I went from a slender woman who kept my house clean, cooked meals, and took long walks around the neighborhood, to an overweight woman, covered in some type of skin lesions. My love of gardening has been replaced with the $4.97 spray of flowers from Walmart.
While I get older and collect more diagnoses (ridiculous), I continue to work with my medical specialists. Although I am aging and am very sick, this daily life is still hopeful, beautiful, and joyful.
And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; And patience, experience; and experience, hope.
@2024, copyright Lisa Ehrman