Winter

I feel like Christmas simply came and went. Life was busy in December with holiday parties and working on primary stuff for the new year. Chelsea's family got the stomach bug a couple of days before Christmas, it was a horrible bug too! Chase somehow caught it on Christmas Eve. We kind of slept in a bit on Christmas morning, especially because Chase didn't feel well. Then we spent a while disinfecting the house. We had breakfast and took the day easy. Early afternoon we went over to Chelsea's house to see the boys and open some more presents with them. Chase stayed home in bed while we ere there for a couple of hours. The boys were spoiled and very thrilled with their gifts. We went home and watched new movies that we got, like "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell no Tales", which I got. 

It was hard to get up and go to work the next day, we just weren't ready to end our relaxing. The Friday after Christmas I woke up at 4 AM and officially come down with the stomach bug I had been trying to avoid. I get panicked when I am exposed to this because it can shut down my system for weeks due to my IBS. I wanted to die and I just kept praying that I would only get the 12 hour version like Chelsea had. Thankfully I did! I don't know if I could have survived much longer than that. Dad came down with it to, about 12 hours behind me. 

We thought that we had seen the last of terrible sickness for a while, not so much. Cody and Carson ended up with Influenza A. Shortly after they did, mom came down with it. Although we did a lot of disinfecting and basically quarantined her to her room, we weren't able to stop its' spread. She was down in bed about 5 days terribly sick, then the day she finally was able to get out of bed and kind of function, I came down with it. I have never in my life wished to die (for real) until this. I had a high fever for 4 days and chills with the terrible aches. I was seriously considering bribing someone to put me in a medically induced coma until it was all over. After spending 6 days in bed, I went back to work. I had been fever free for 2 days when I went back, so medically, I was okay to be there. Exhaustion now rules my life, along with a stupid cough. Dang flu, don't come back...ever!

There is something that I am very grateful for this winter: that it has been a mild one....