In Sickness and In Health

There is nothing like being sick to really make you appreciate your blessings. I woke up Saturday with a fever of 102.4. I ached all over and had a really bad cough. I was tired and my stomach felt queasy. However, Saturday was the Special Olympics Regional Basketball Tournament and I knew that I had 9 kids that would be depending on me to make it. Popping a couple of extra strength Tylenol and a couple of my wife’s peach muffins, I was able to make it through the day. I’ll write more about that later. Sunday at about 4 AM, I started vomiting. I spent most of the day in our basement watching movies with my daughter (who was also running a triple digit temperature). My wife checked on us more times than I could count in between running errands and going to Mass. She nursed us back to health. When I continued running a 102 degree fever into Monday, she convinced me to go to the doctor, who confirmed what I had feared. I had Influenza Type A and it was going to be about a week before I would be back to normal. Through Monday and then Tuesday, my wife continued to care for us and help us out when we needed it. My eldest finally broke her fever on Tuesday morning, but unfortunately, as it left her, it found her sister. Our little one has been running a strong fever for two days now, but it is improving with Motrin. I worked half a day today, so I’m nearly back to normal.

What does this have to do with blessings? Well, all through the weekend, whenever I would fall short on something, or have trouble, there was always someone there to pick up the slack. Someone was always doing the dirty work that I didn’t have the strength to do. And it is that someone with whom I share a bed at night that God gave to me in sickness and in health. I just pray that the sickness is behind us for this year and that she can avoid this junk. It is extremely unpleasant and I hate to see her suffer. She is such a tremendous blessing to me; I thank God for her every day. We are all praying that she doesn’t get sick for two reasons: because we don’t want to see her suffer and because we don’t know what we would do without her if she was out of commission.

And now, I'm back to my mission.