Open Letter To My Body.

Dear Body,

It's time for us to have a serious discussion about getting it together, already. To recap?

March 2007: Digestive badness ends in trip to ER
May 2007: Herniated disc in back
June 2007: Miscarriage
December 2007: Appendicitis leads to emergency appendectomy
January 2008: Chest Cold From Hell

I am crawling, inch by painful inch, out of the black hole of the past few days.

Tuesday night, I found my stomach feeling a little on the queasy side. "Ah-HAH!" we thought. Morning sickness! Perhaps an indication that we are brewing a girl this time?

Oh, no. Not so.

February 2008: Stomach Bug brings wish for death

It seems that the stomach bug that gave T a few hours of tummy upset last week, then apparently migrated to Toby for a few bouts of diarrhea and a single puking episode, had made its way to me. And on the way? For fun? It had mutated.

I spent most of Tuesday night in reverent prayer to the porcelain gods. Mostly? Mostly I prayed for swift and merciful death. Anything to deliver me from the waves of nausea and sudden eruptions of vomit. Sesame chicken plus throwing up equals I can haz deaths now, plz?

By Wednesday morning the nausea had passed, and I had moved on to phase II, wherein my bowels made a mockery of every past digestive issue I ever thought was painful and disgusting. I have never lost so many fluids in such a short span in my life. I'll let you fill in the details, as I do maintain some small sense of decency and, really, I am scarred enough from the experience that I will refrain from sharing my agony further. Suffice it to say I was rapidly approaching dehydrated surrender.

Thankfully, a passing ice storm kept T home on Wednesday to take care of me and the boys. I spent most of Wednesday in bed. That is, when I wasn't making an Olympic-qualifying dash for the bathroom.

Yesterday was a bit better. I felt weak as a day-old kitten, and Toby spent a good part of the day screaming bloody murder for no apparent reason. Which of course reminded me why I am SO excited to have another one of these small hegemons currently couched in my womb. *sigh*

Today I almost feel human again. Food is going in and coming out at a semi-normal rate, and everyone seems to have settled back into something resembling our normal routine. I'm even making heart-shaped sandwiches for Jack's preschool Valentine party this afternoon. Because recovering from spirit-breaking sickness is no reason to lose my status as Awesomest Room Parent Ever. (Even if that status has been awarded only in my head.)

My lofty goals for the weekend include getting Jack (finally) registered for T-ball and hopefully touching base with my violin teacher, who likely supposes I have dropped off the face of the planet or been struck by a bus.

So, look, Body... It's been a year now. Can we call truce? Please? I feed you organic veggies and plenty of protein. I give you the occasional treat. I even park in the far-away spot at the grocery store to get the extra few paces of exercise! Sure I spend too much time in those comfy leather La-Z-Boy recliners that T's mom gave us, and I might carry around Toby more than carrying around a nearly-two-and-a-half-year-old can reasonably be justified... but... can you cut a girl some slack? Just a little? We both know the cancer is going to get us eventually, so in the mean time, can't we just enjoy the fact that we are not yet thirty? You know, like NORMAL people? C'mon, I'll even get us a spa day this spring. A nice pedicure - wouldn't you like that? Maybe a prenatal massage? I'll feed you more greens and fewer carbs! I'll even get serious about doing that prenatal yoga DVD at least 3 times a week.

So do we have a deal? I'll treat you a little more gently, and you'll ... well, you'll stop acting like you belong to a ninety-year-old woman who should be offering her grandkids a quarter to massage her aching feet. And one of these days, when we are finished with this babymaking business, I'll get us back into running and maybe we'll do a 5k to celebrate our rediscovered sense of cooperation.

For now, though? I'd settle for waking up in the morning without having to cough up half a lung or chomp a handfull of tums before I can begin to act like a normal human being. You know, the absence of acute illness. Baby steps.

Sincerely,
Mel

P.S. If you could also stop with the cravings for ice cream, we'll be a lot better off once this baby arrives. If we hit the 220 mark again with this baby, we're both going to have to deal with that reflection when we step naked from the shower, and I can't afford therapy for both of us. Kthxbye.