I am sick

Ash Wednesday 17 February

I was up too late last night, mainly because I had had a nap earlier in the evening. I hate when that happens. I finally turned in at about 3.00 am and had to get up early to receive ashes before school. I was not in proper shape for it and by noon I felt awful with a terrible sore throat that felt like the roof of my mouth was bleeding every time I swallowed. So I called Roger, signed myself out and went home.

Mother was surprised to see me but when she realised I really am sick she sent me up here to my room with a cup of hot tea with a little syrup in it. I got out of my school things and into a warm flannel shift with a sweatshirt on over it and some high cotton stockings and am nestled in my bed amidst all my blankets and with the curtains drawn on the bed to keep out draughts. And I will be fine... I hope. I have a singing date on Saturday for one of Daddy's acts and I don't want this to go till then. So I hope the understanding will forgive me for babying myself a little for just a sore throat.

In any case I am lonely and can't wait for Jessy to get home.

...

I am sick

Wednesday evening 22 October 2008

I have not been on lately since I have been sick. Monday afternoon I came home from school with a splitting migraine. I get headaches from eye strain or from sleeping too long, but never like this. Well-- not quite never. Once I had one so bad it made me nauseous and that led to... the inevitable there. My cramps have been no worse than usual-- which is to say they are hardly bad at all. Today it got so bad I could not keep on my glasses and in the car I felt like I would be sick all over my sister. As soon as I got home I went right up to bed but my rest did not last long and then I was throwing up into my potty with my hands on the bowl and my toes in the corner and the rest of me arced up in the middle. It was that awful.

I went to bed and stayed there till Jessy came in to wake me for school-- yes, meaning I slept for about fourteen hours. I woke up feeling horrible but weak and dehydrated. Jessy brought me two glasses of orange juice-- one for now and one for later-- kissed my good-bye and left. Daddy came up to check on me at around 8.00. 'What's up with you?'

I shook my head. 'I don't know. I just had to sleep.'

He sat on the edge of the bed and laid the back of his hand to my forehead and neck and chest like he used to when I was about seven. 'You're not warm... but you feel clammy.'

'I need a shower,' I said. 'I was going to have a bath.'

He nodded at me. 'Have one then,' he said. 'Have a nice hot one and burn this out of you. Do I need to call the school or anything?'

I shook my head. 'They don't do that here,' I said. They did at our old school.

So he went out and I ran a warm bath for myself and soaked in there for about an hour, and I felt well enough when I got out to play with J.J. Mother got me to watch him while she went out to the food market and J.J. and I sat and watched a DVD of 'Blue's Clues' and then made things out of Legos. By the time Jessy got home I was doing much better.

Then this morning I awoke with really bad cramps, and part of a headache, not quite as bad, so I went in to the bathroom and threw up again. This time it was worse because I had so little in me. Jessy came in at like 7.10 when we had to leave and said she thought I had been having a shower, but the sound of the water running was only me flushing like three times. In the course of all the disorientation Daddy came up, heard about how sick I felt, and made me get back into bed and stay home again. After Jessy left he interrogated me about the intensity of my cramps and then scolded me for letting something like this keep me from facing up to something important, like school.

'You have to be the princess,' he said. 'Stiff upper lip and all that. Never let them see you bleed.'

I nodded, squeezing back tears because the Advil had not kicked in yet. 'I'm sorry, Daddy,' I said.

He only nodded but then stopped at the door and came back to lay his hand on my cheek like yesterday. 'Are you sure it's only the cramps?'

I shook my head. 'It's my tummy,' I said.

'Right,' he said. 'Well, if it's like this tomorrow you go to the doctor's.'

I nodded. 'Okay, Daddy.'

He went round the bed tucking in the covers and then bent over and kissed my head. 'I'll bring you up some juice when you feel a little better.'

'Thank you, Daddy.'

He made a kissy-face at me as he went out and shut the door.

It's midnight now and I feel a lot better. Only now I can't seem to fall asleep!

...

Recuperation

Sunday 21 September 2008

Gently she pushed the hair of my forehead and I opened my eyes. 'Hey,' she whispered, smiling down at me.

'Mm,' I sighed, and rolled over onto my back, neglecting the covers. It was a little past 7.30 but not chilly.

Jessy was sitting naked on the side of my bed, reaching over to rearrange my hair. 'How is it?' she wondered.

I got to one elbow and we both craned our necks to look at the thick bandage on the side of my breast. 'It's still there,' I said, of the bandage.

'Does it still hurt?'

I thought for a moment. 'Not really.'

She made a cute pouting face at me. 'I wish I could help more.'

I looked up at her and then laid a hand on top of hers, on the bed. 'But you already have helped, so much.'

She nodded. 'Do you want to have a shower before church?'

I shook my head. 'I just want to find something I can wear, you know.'

We stood together in front of my wardrobe for a few minutes and finally decided I could wear a kind of snug tanktop instead of a bra and then something over it. Jessy helped me pull on the tanktop and shirt over my head. I did not look conspicuous and not having to have a bra strap cross right over the bandage was a relief.

After church Daddy wanted to drive over to the airport, just for a ride, and I offered to go with him. Jessy went along because I did. We wandered round the airplanes, Daddy pointing out this and that on each one and Jessy and I wondering if now he wants to get an airplane for himself. Finally Daddy turned to me and said, 'How are you holding up?'

I stopped and looked at him. "I'm fine; why?'

He shook his head, absent-minded, and then turned to wander on a little. We followed. 'I'm sorry about it,' he said. 'I shouldn't have--'

'Wait, Daddy,' I interrupted. 'It's not your fault. If it's anyone's it's mine, because I couldn't carry the thing right.'

'I shouldn't have made you carry it at all.'

'Now Daddy, who else was going to help you?'

'I could have got your mother to do it.'

He always refers our stepmother as 'your mother', even though Mommy was always 'Mommy' to us with him. 'Daddy, no offence, but I am probably stronger than Mother is.'

Jessy nodded at that. 'She is,' she said.

Daddy thought for a moment and then smiled. 'I guess you might be right.' He walked on a little more and then said, 'The stupid contractors should have put the thing away like I asked them to.'

We both nodded at that. He's not usually into blaming other people at all, but as long as he can find a cause for something bad that's happened he can accept it and move past it.

At home I sent e-mails to my friends from HOH and also Audrey and some other cousins, had a nap, helped Mother bake yellow corn muffins and a cake for dessert, and finished my homework for Geometry and German. I ran a bath and Jessy came in to help wash my hair while I held up the plastic under my arm with tape like before. Little Lisa came in, sat on the potty lid with her feet dangling off the floor, and prattled on and on about this and that, not really paying much attention to why the three of us had to be all together and why I even had to be having a bath to begin with. I expect to be able to wear at least something presentable tomorrow for school. I just worry now if I will have a scar, but that is a worry I will NOT share with Daddy.

...

Owww

Saturday 20 September 2008

This place is not really finished, especially the lawn and yard which still need manicurement and cleaning-up. Whilst we were in England the workmen were working mainly under Daddy's directions over the phone and e-mail, and a lot of stuff was left lying round for them to move later, or in some cases they were just sloppy and never picked it up. Mother (our stepmother) decided that today would be clean-up-the-yard day and so we were all pressed into service from about 9.00 onwards.

A lot of it was raking, trimming, or moving potential firewood (Daddy will burn nearly anything in a fireplace). Jessy and I moved logs and scrap lumber for probably two hours straight. Mother served us iced tea and then we all went right back to it. Then Daddy asked me to help him with something. There is a rack that the workmen used for painting the storm shutters with epoxy paint. It is about ten feet long and two feet wide and made out of two-by-fours and some skinny metal pipe. We picked it up and manoeuvred it onto the yard trailer which Daddy towed over to the other side of the garage. Back there is some other junk leftover from the construction including a not-so-tidy stack of scaffold planks, some with ugly rusty nails in them. This is not a place Lisa or little J.J. ever go, so it is not especially a safety hazard. But in lifting the painting rack off the trailer and manoeuvring it in beside the back of the garage we had to pass pretty closely to some pretty nasty-looking spiky stuff.

I had one end of this rack and had to press it up to like shoulder-height to get through the gate and past some other stuff. Daddy was carrying the other end walking backwards. 'Don't push at me,' he said several times, and though I was losing the strength for this I was trying very hard not to let him trip over his heels. At one point we were very close to the scaffold-plank pile. I felt like I would lose my hold on this rack at any second. 'Just another moment, almost there,' he said.

'Okay,' I struggled. I wobbled a little and the thing was so unwieldy and heavy that it tended to sway on its own. I bumped sideways right into the side of the scaffold-plank pile, felt something jab me and heard my t-shirt rip, but soldiered on in some pain till we could put the thing down.

The second my arms went below my shoulders I felt the pain and couldn't hold it. Fortunately Daddy was able to guide the rack over to one side as it went down with a clatter. 'Owww,' I said then.

Jessy had been behind me and came over. 'Your shirt is ripped,' she observed.

'That's not all,' I said, and peeled it up under my right arm. There across the skin of the side of my breast, near the bottom, was a very nasty gash about two inches long, stinging from the dirty nail and wood that scraped me. Blood oozed down my ribs from it.

'What happened?' Daddy asked, coming towards me from the other end of the rack. 'Did it bite you?'

I only looked up, still holding the t-shirt up under my arm, and he leaned over and looked at it. A bra might have taken some of the direct hit but I hadn't worn one for this sweaty work and the cut was much deeper for my oversight.

Daddy actually laid his fingers to the flesh nearby to pull up my breast and examine it. It stung and bled more. 'Owww,' I said quietly.

He winced. 'Right. Get in the car.'

'Are you taking her to the hospital?' Jessy asked innocently as he stomped past her to the garage. That didn't need an answer.

'I just want to wash it first,' I said quietly, and turned, carefully laying the t-shirt down over it. 'Can you come with me?'

She nodded. 'I haven't had a shower.'

I made a face. 'I don't think I can have one right now,' I said.

At the clinic in Accomac we sat for another hour waiting for a variety of other scruffy-looking people. Jessy had dressed my wound with antiseptic ointment and a thick gauze bandage with tape, all of which the nurse told me to take off, which hurt a lot. By now the bleeding was mostly stopped although it still stung awfully. The nurse looked at it for a few moments and then the doctor came in. It was a male doctor. I immediately blushed. But they didn't have a female doctor on this shift.

Daddy was ready to back out of the examining cubicle-- he doesn't like stitches, and also he won't ever compromise the dignity of a lady, even one of his own daughters. I knew that looking at it behind the garage was as much as he would do. But Jessy would not leave my side even after the doctor told her she was in the way. She sat on my left and held my hand securely while I lay on the table with my other arm over my head and the t-shirt pulled up, almost TOO far, and got treated.

He asked how it had happened, on what I had gouged myself, and I told him it was a nail, and he gave me a shot for that. He said it would not need stitches but he did use some really strong tape to draw it closed and told me not to take off the tape for several days. I winced. 'How will I have a shower?' I wondered, since I was already a foul mess from working all morning.

'Take baths,' he said, and smiled a little. 'After about Tuesday you can take it off.' And he gave me a prescription for stuff to put on it after that, as well as the one for antibiotic, and told me to take Tylenol Extra Strength for the 'discomfort'', which really meant 'PAIN'.

Jessy had brought me a clean t-shirt and stood guard while I changed it after the doctor left the cubicle. I didn't know what I would do with the other one and carried it out. Daddy met us in the corridor, got the report from the doctor, and then leaned in and gave me a hug. 'I'm sorry, sweetheart,' he said.

I hugged him back, hard. 'It wasn't your fault.'

He made a face, not convinced of that. 'You're a good trouper,' he told me, which is what he always says to us at times like this.

'She didn't even cry,' Jessy said.

'I cried,' I said.

'Not out loud,' she said. 'I would have bawled my eyes out.'

I gave her a hug too.

As soon as we got back home I went up stairs for a bath. Jessy came in and helped me, mainly by washing my hair while I held a plastic bag taped under my arm to keep the bandage out of the water. I did not put on a bra yet and wonder how one will fit around, not over, the bandage. I will have to go to school in the morning without a morning shower.

The only good part of this is that the doctor provided me with a note to keep from participating in PE this week. So I can actually wear makeup and something reasonable.

...

I am sick

Thursday 28 August 2008

This morning we drove way down over the bridge to Norfolk to shop for school supplies, mainly stuff for our art classes-- Jessy and I are both in the same class, plus choir-- and leotards for Lisa's dance class. Little J.J. was very good for the ride and insisted on walking most of the day. We no longer take a stroller anywhere for him-- he will walk at least half the time we are out and when someone has to carry him he is tired enough that he is no bother. He is actually a very affectionate little guy and is very good to us all.

On the way back up the Shore in the van I started feeling ill. This is unlike me-- I am hardly ever sick in any way. We'd stopped for cold drinks on the way down and I'd had to get a Pepsi, which I hate, and other than that all I had was Burger King when we stopped for lunch. Normally I can handle that, and we have not gone for fast food in at least a week. But I felt full and sluggish and heavy in the head. When we got home I went up to lie down but it wasn't getting any better and finally I had to go into my bathroom and get rid of it, which was very messy involving both ends. There is nothing worse than having to clean up the sink after yourself, you know. When I could stand upright I took a very warm shower, dried off only a little, and collapsed on my bed without putting on anything.

There are three ways into my room. Over in the corner is a door leading to my parents' dressing room, actually one of their walk-in closets, but it's bolted and we never use that. My parents' room is above the dining room and their door is in the front stair hall. Round the mezzanine above the front hall, my room is above the parlour with a door opening off a little lobby. This is the door to be used in case this room ever becomes a guest room. The front gallery connects from the lobby and leads into what gets called 'the children's wing', where Lisa's and Jessy's rooms are. The third door from my room goes directly from the hallway outside Lisa's room into my little dressing area where my closets and bathroom are.

I lay still on top of the mussed sheets of my bed, in what Daddy calls the 'dead dog' position, on my left side with my head on the pillows and my arms and legs extended partway out towards the edge. It was the only way I had got comfortable. I was staring straight through the dressing area at the half-open door when it swung into the room and Daddy appeared. 'Hey,' he said softly.

'Hey,' I said hoarsely, as my throat still hurt from its ordeal twenty minutes before.

He came in and leaned over me, pushing a strand of sweaty hair off the side of my face. Of course my daddy has seen me undressed plenty of times, but he's always looked right at me-- meaning my eyes-- and it's stopped being awkward. The other day I showed him a bug bite on my bottom. He looked at it, because I couldn't, and said to put Anbesol on it. That was about as awkward as it got. 'What happened to you?' he asked.

I gave a little shrug. Lying like that it probably only looked like I was wiggling one shoulder. 'I guess something I ate.'

He nodded, glancing over once to see that I'd opened one of the windows, and then bent down again to lay the back of his hand against mt forehead, and neck. I was not very warm now, after the shower. 'Do you need something to drink?'

I made the shrug again. 'Jessy will get me something.'

He smiled then. 'You're lucky to have each other,' he said-- he says that to us often. 'Well-- no one's expecting you for supper. I think we were just going to have leftovers. We have some of that macaroni left.... Just let your mother know if you want anything.'

I smiled. I know it was for our sake that he began referring to our stepmother as our mother, and not by her name any more, after the wedding. But we had been calling her 'Mother', because that's what Liesl calls Maria in 'The Sound of Music', almost since the engagement. Maybe she is not my mother, really, except if you count motherhood as being the person who guides you, supports you, cares for you without question or condition, because she loves you more than herself... then of course she is very much my mother.

'Okay,' I said softly.

'Don't dehydrate. I'll send Jessy down for something cool for you.'

'Okay.'

Then he leaned down and kissed me on the side of the head, turned, and went out, leaving the door as he'd found it. Out in the hall I heard him asking those other two to be quiet around me. Neither of them had been making much sound at all. I smiled a little. But he is always very gentle with us, even to the point of overcompensating a little. I suppose having a slightly overindulgent daddy is not the worst thing!

It's 12.05 Friday morning as I type this, so apparently I've got better.

...