|
Edited on Fri Dec-17-10 10:04 PM by rbnyc
I just gotta get it out.
Sunday night: My son, husband and I all go to bed early, all in our king sized bed because it’s chilly. My husband has to get up at 6 am for hernia surgery. MIL is taking him, because I have to get the boy ready for school in the morning. We fall asleep happily bundled under big blankets.
Monday morning, 2 am: I wake up to what sounds like buckets of water being poured onto the bed and my husband cursing. My son is puking volumes all over him and the bed. Hubby, incidentally, has a badly sprained ankle and can’t move well or quickly.
2:05 am to 3:00 am, hubby and boy take a bath, I clean up lake chunks, start doing laundry, remake the bed and take a bath.
Darling husband goes off to surgery, I keep the boy home from school, although he seems fine now, and we proceed to clean the house and make everything nice for Daddy so we can take good care of him when he gets home. Except, I am starting to feel really funny, tired, dizzy, weak. Then I get the most incredible chills and start having pain in my right side. I take some Tylenol. My husband gets home. I spend the rest of the day taking care of him and my son.
Except, the chills come back. I start shaking. I’m shaking so much, I can’t even fill up a tea pot because I can’t keep it under the faucet.
We all go to bed early.
Tuesday morning, I get up and get my son ready for school, but I still have the chills, I can’t stop shaking and I have a horrible pain in my right side. I get back from the bus stop and take my temperature. It’s 102. I am really anxious to get to work because I’ve already taken a bunch of sick and personal days. I just had a personal day because of my husband’s surgery, and I’m in the middle of a huge fundraising campaign. But I’m pretty sure at this point that I have appendicitis. So I make a doctor’s appointment, call my boss, call my assistant, email my assistant a huge list of things I was supposed to take care of. I feel so guilty, I start to have a panic attack and at this point I can’t tell how sick I am because I’ve lost my mind and don’t trust my own perceptions. But, I still can’t stop shaking and I truly understand the phrase chilled to the bone.
Noon: I tell the doctor all my symptoms, including a few I left out above. I take a pee test. He pokes my right side about 100 times. I have an infection, but he is worried about my appendix so he sends me down the hall for a CT scan.
5pm: My appendix is fine. I have an ovarian cyst which is, as you know, the size of a golf ball. I pick up my son from after-school and go home.
I make dinner, clean up, do laundry and go to bed early. I can’t sleep. I have so much anxiety about missing work. I pray for the compassion and forgiveness of my boss. I have strange dreams. In the morning I get my son off to school and head off for work.
Wednesday, 8:05 am, on the way to work, I remember the one extremely time sensitive thing I forgot to tell my assistant which involves a very picky board member. I can see my voice mail blinking at my desk from 3.7 miles away.
I arrive at my desk. No voice mail. I just start going through my 35 new email messages, but I am so tired, my side hurts so much, and I keep playing out different boss confrontation scenarios in my head. It’s my first year with the organization and I’ve had an absurd number of sick days. I don’t know how I can defend myself.
I get to the everything-that-happened-Tuesday email from my assistant. He’s done everything I asked, and somehow discovered the thing I hadn’t asked him to do and he did that too. He wanted to know if that was alright. He totally saved my ass. I tell him so.
My boss arrives. She puts her hand on mine. She wonders if I should be in the office. She’s worried about me and just wants to know that I’m alright.
Noon: There’s a volunteer luncheon. A volunteer from before I joined the organization is there. My boss brings him to meet me. She tells me how important he is to her, and then tells him that I am the “new” Director of Development. She’s says I’ve been with the organization for a year and she hopes I will stay for many years. I thank her and say my wish for 2011 is fewer sick days. She says, “Oh yes, Rene has had some bad luck. But what she’s brought to the organization is so meaningful.” And she looks at me and says, “We just want you to be healthy and happy.”
That day I secure 3 new sponsors. I check to see how many annual gifts came in over the weekend and the 2 days I was out. Our campaign is 20% ahead year-to-date.
At home, my husband is sweet to me. He feels better. He makes dinner. We go to bed early.
Thursday and Friday are productive. The last I did before I left was set up a meeting with a donor who wants to make a larger-than-usual year-end gift and then set up a schedule to give quarterly in 2011.
I’ve been the beneficiary of tremendous good will. I prayed for it. I needed it. I got it. And I surely do appreciate it.
EDIT: typo - in case anyone has the patience to read all this, I fixed it.
|
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
