close calls and hot fudge

and it all almost went up in flames.

i was sick again. i spent the week as a ninety year old incontinent woman, sleeping with a humidifier next to the bed and occasionally coughing so hard i ended up with lunch in my hands. so that happened.
my doctor told me i was at war. against germs. and i needed to act as such. disinfect everything i touched at the end of the day. i felt like i was cleaning a perpetual crime scene, trying so hard to erase the remnants of my ever being there. only to be reminded at six am with another fever and racking cough and inability to keep food down. i woke up the first day of warm weather feeling like sleeping beauty, well rested and unfolded.

the exact day i feel like a functioning human being again, bryan wakes up with a fever and a throat the size of a pinhole. he takes finn to school and spends the day sleeping. comes to get me from work, gone from the house for 15 minutes tops. as we walk back in the door, smoke and smell. the vintage coil heater in the bathroom wall turned on and wouldn't turn off and burned fabric and the wall and had we decided to get dinner, go to the park, stop at the store....the house would have been in flames. no doubt about it.
that same night, bryan's fever reaches almost 103 so he heads to the emergency room.

fire scares and waiting rooms and the lasting smell of smoke seeping through the walls. everything was fine. we came home in time. we are almost rid of the viruses. we even celebrated the end of these rough few weeks with a family date night including hot fudge sundaes and a stroll through the bookstore. sans the meltdown from the three year old over cookie in her ice cream and my dry heaving in the parking lot, the night would have been a raging success. but it's hard to forget:

it all almost went up in flames.