Thursday, November 24, 2005

Cancel Thanksgiving?

I was sleeping when I suddenly realized I felt cold stale air on my face. Did Dave turn the fan on? Shoot, I have to open my eyes and get up and turn it off, even worse I feel the need to pee. I opened my heavy eye lids slowly and found myself not five inches from my husband’s face. He was zonked out, but now I knew where the breeze was coming from, his mouth. His poor little nose was completely stuffed, and so began the start of a three-week game of "passing the cold." We actually both had a cold for three weeks it was just on/off, on/off. Having ALS and a cold presents certain challenges, muscles like the bladder and lungs refuse to operate normally. Everything is a darn muscle so when you get sick your body is weaker than normal and my normal is not so normal.

Why is it when people have colds you find used tissues in the oddest places, in your bed, inside your jammies and stuck to the dog? You wake up with your tongue stuck to the roof of your mouth and you are knotted up in the covers because you spent the night being hot then cold, cold then hot. When we eat, we look like wine tasters, but we are just trying to get some taste.
We waited until Thanksgiving morning before we called the family and said we had to stay home and keep our snot rags and germs to ourselves. I’m sure the babies and Dave’s 82 year old mom appreciated the gesture. We really thought we would feel better by now, so no turkey and fixings today. Dave did go to the store and bought some goodies for us so we can have a little celebration. We have so much to be thankful for that we will make it special. I tried to kiss Dave in appreciation but being that we needed our mouths to breathe it was a quickie. LOL

Our Christmas season starts Friday night with a small town parade. No early Friday morning shopping in this house, not even on our best day. We go to the parade early to get the perfect spot and buy a special ornament at a year round Christmas shop on the parade route. We then get a mocha, a hot dog and sit on the tailgate of our explorer to wait for the parade. This year we are bringing my little dog Nikki sporting her new winter sweater with a hood. I hope we are up to it, this always gets us in the Christmas mood. The ALS can reek havoc on my body if I get cold. My body stiffens from head to foot, I can’t talk and there is pain. If you pick me up, I don’t bend, Tammy the two-by-four. So I hope it does not rain on my five layers of clothes at the parade, because Dave will need a fork lift to get me in the car. LOL The rest of the weekend is spent putting up lights, eating leftovers :( and going to the movies...Yahoo!

I will take pictures and will tell a funny story about my getting stiff on Saturday in my journal. It’s a hoot!

2 comments:

Oberon said...

.....i have some funny stories for you too.

emmapeelDallas said...

This is a great story! I'm looking forward to reading more. I hope the parade goes well, and I want to see pics!

:)

Judi

p.s. - your girls are beautiful, just like their mom.