Sick Like This

August 10, 2022

COVID test negative.

I haven’t been sick like this in a long time. I almost forgot what it feels like to be in this much pain. Almost. Pain like that—like this—sticks with you. This isn’t the kind of cold that takes a person out. Unless that person has a chiari malformation. Like me.

I don’t know how many times we’ve cycled through the Hotel Transylvania movies. A couple dozen by now. He’s been a good sport. I think my son actually enjoys bugging out to cartoons morning, noon, and night, running around in his pull-up when I don’t demand that he get dressed. Hey, the pull-up is clean and the kid is fed, so even if he’s becoming more feral by the day, I still have a few small wins to cling to when I peel my head off the floor as he squeals with delight at the dollop of yogurt rolling down his bare belly.

Second COVID text negative.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. I was supposed to kick ass this week. Otherwise I never would’ve had the confidence to tell my husband to go to Canada fishing for the first time since our son was born. It's Wednesday. My cough is worse today than any day yet, and the pain from the back of my head, my mishappen brain, is radiating down my neck to my arms. The nerves in my upper right bicep throb, like they’re being squeezed because they probably are. I didn’t know I was so dizzy until I almost fell into my son’s bed when I went into his room to grab another pull-up after his second poop of the day. Then I made the horrific mistake of trying to throw the dirty pull-up away before the pain from my last coughing fit dulled, and I ended up hunched over the counter, over the open diaper pail that was emitting the hot, moist stench of fermenting toddler poop. Deep breath…gag. (Why is it warm in there? Are poopy diapers a fire hazard? Maybe I should google that later…).

Now I might throw up.

Last night was the worst. I thought Monday night was bad when the dog woke up at 1AM to go outside, then camped out in the living room to wait for my husband to come home (sorry pup, you’re four days too early) before clopping around the house in her too-long claws and finally coming back to bed around 2, which was only one hour before Graham woke up screaming for no obvious reason, then continued to “fake cry” in a way I found difficult to tolerate at 3AM after I just managed to fall back asleep. Last night though…last night was scary. I thought I might actually die.

As some folks with chiari malformations can attest, sometimes our bodies hum and move and swing on their own volition. If you’ve ever woken from a light sleep feeling like a small boat being tossed around in choppy water, or with your veins zinging like a tuning fork that’s just been struck, you might have a chiari malformation. That, or you might have accidentally taken too much cold medicine. Last night I was the boat. And the tuning fork. Then my back started twitching as if someone was playing a bass drum beneath my skin. In what might’ve been a fever dream—without the fever—I had a terrible fear that something would happen to me—my brain would explode or my heart would actually stop—leaving my son, who was sleeping beside me at the time, helpless and alone. I actually almost texted my husband in another country to ask him to call me in the morning, and if I didn’t answer, to send help. I didn’t only because I didn’t want him to worry. Today I woke up gun-shy about medicine (I may have taken too much the day before), but—on the plus side—I did wake up.

Third COVID test negative. I keep testing because my husband, son, and I are the last people on the planet who haven’t gotten the dreaded RONA.

If there is a silver lining to this whole mess, it’s that I’m realizing what is really important. Feeding my son is important. Cutting the grass…not so much. While I’m terrified that the endless stream of cartoons is, at a minimum, setting my son up with some extremely unsavory habits that I’m not looking forward to breaking, and at most doing permanent damage to his impressionable brain, it has encouraged him to be more expressive with his demands. Now, instead of just tapping his vein when he wants to watch Cocomelon, he barks like a dog when it’s time for Paw Patrol, and I discovered that what my husband and I mistook for “daddy” was actually my son’s version of “yeah.” Want to watch Hotel Transylvania again? “Daaaeeeeyyyy!” You got it dude.

As I write this, I’m sitting in the corner of the couch as-yet unaffected by Hurricane Graham, a tiny haven in the eye of his wild storm. There are pieces of chewed apple on my chest that my son didn’t want to eat and I haven’t thrown away because to do so I would have to stand, and standing hurts when it feels like my head is clamped in a vice. As I queue up a documentary about a woman my age who decomposed on her couch for years before anyone discovered she had died, I remind myself that the pain may rule this day, but it doesn’t rule every day anymore. It’s easy to forget how much has changed when I’m doubled over with a splitting skull that hurts only slightly less than birthing a baby (the chiari pain is no less severe, it just doesn’t last as long in one sitting), preparing to cook dinner and take on the gargantuan task of washing my son’s hair. I wouldn’t bother except I don’t want to send him to summer camp on Thursday with the same scraps of food crusted above his right ear that were there on Tuesday. I am tired. Pain of this magnitude saps the life from your body. I have two cats staring at me—have they gone feral too? Are they going to eat me?—the dog is scratching at the backdoor to come inside, and my son is barking. With eyes burning, ready to bleed from the pressure in my skull and lack of sleep, I smile at the boy who is smiling expectantly at me.

Another Paw Patrol sweetie?

“Daaaeeeeyyyy!”