Pajama Pants and a Dead Battery (and that was only Monday...)

"Look babe, I put on real pants today!" -Me, very proud of myself, on Thursday, the very first day this week in which any sort of real pants made an appearance.

I had a plan for this week's blog post. I was gonna share some cutesy Christmas pics, celebrate that we FINALLY took down our Christmas tree, and generally just bid goodbye to Christmas for the season.

But I told my plans to God so He could laugh. And so our Christmas tree stills stands, ever resolute, tucked away inside our TARDIS (what, doesn't everyone have a TARDIS just chillin' in their house?? 👀). Suffice it to say that absolutely ZERO Christmas-putting-away happened this week. 

What DID actually happen this week was lots and lots of sickness with a few extra little stressors sprinkled on top. Do you remember in last week's blog post, I mentioned that I was cooking because Josh "wasn't feeling great"? Yeah, that little "wasn't feeling great" slowly devolved into a stubborn fever with endless coughing and all the other gross things that come with getting sick. And an added stressor to this story is that Josh and I are both scraping the barrel of sick leave at work right now since we just used all our sick leave to travel to a funeral the week before Christmas. So we were HUGELY relieved when the sky vomited white and Josh's school called out for two snow days last week! Josh was able to majorly recover over the (very miserable) four-day snowy weekend. 

Meanwhile, I was thinking I caught a lucky break and wasn't gonna get his sickness... that was a funny thought, completely rewritten by Sunday night when I found myself struggling to finish a complex computer task (I was trying to navigate the maze of switching Josh's phone carrier to have him join my phone plan) because I couldn't stop coughing my lungs out. I finally texted my boss asking for a sick day tomorrow.

Monday morning felt like everything went wrong that could possibly go wrong. We jolted awake at 6:30am to the terror of realizing we both slept through our alarms. (Normally, we both wake up at 5:45am and I walk the dogs and start working at my desk while Josh showers and packs his lunch.) Thankfully I had already called out of work and Josh doesn't actually need to be at school until 7:30am, so we took a breath and realized we were gonna be okay. I threw some clothes in Josh's direction and rushed to pack a lunch for him. Grabbed his computer bag and lunch box and headed out the door into an unappreciated winter wonderland. Hit the unlock button on my car key fob. Mashed the unlock button repeatedly because it didn't work the first time, and I know it's been slowly dying for a while now. 

Whelp, apparently today is the day it decided to actually die. I manually turned the key in my car door to unlock it since my key fob had apparently decided to accept life with the sole purpose of being just a pretty little useless brick. I hit the unlock button on the car door to let Josh into his passenger side. Nothing. 

Okay, something is really sus here... I quickly tried to turn the key in my cold, dead, brick of a car. No lights, no sound, no straining to start... absolute nothingness. No power of any kind.

"Call an Uber."

"Huh? What's wrong? Let me see.."

"Just trust me, call an Uber right now. It's the only way you're gonna get to school on time."

At this point we were FREEZING out in the snow, so we dragged all Josh's things back inside to wait. (Our crated dogs got very excited because they thought maybe now, the humans would remember they exist and morning potty plus breakfast is a thing. Sorry doggos, no cookie for you until the other crisis resolves first.)

As it turns out, Uber is crammed during rush hour. Apparently other people go to work too (how dare they!). So even though Josh booked the fastest Uber available, there was no way for him to get to school on time. 

When you're gonna be late to work, what do you do? Text your boss, naturally. 

Buuuuuuut let's rewind a little bit. Do you remember I said at the beginning of this story that I was messing with Josh's phone carrier on Sunday night? ...yeah... well... I had effectively turned Josh's phone into yet another pretty little useless brick.

Recap: My hubby is still exhausted from sickness recovery, has morning diabetes weakness, woke up in a panic, didn't have time to take a shower, just found out our car is dead (which might mean lots of money because we already just replaced the battery two months ago so now we might need a new alternator), is trying to ignore the incessant barking of desperate doggos, is waiting for an Uber ride from a total stranger, just realized he's actually gonna be late to work for the first time since starting this job, and now his wife took away his phone service so he can't text his boss to say he'll be late, and he is reaaaalllllly hoping the Uber driver isn't a serial killer because as soon as he gets in that car he will have zero way to call for help.

No idea how Josh held it together, but he did. Thank goodness this is the man I married. 😂 Josh figured out a way to email his boss instead of text, the Uber finally arrived, and Josh ran out the door. I stared at the GPS tracker on my phone until it finally relocated Josh's phone though his school's wifi and I knew he was safe. Then I looked up from my phone and spotted his lunchbox still sitting on our dining table. Whelp, at least my husband got safely to school, even if his food didn't. I'll take the win.

At this point my fever was raging and everything hurt. To make things even more fun, my POTS was flaring up, and my body had also decided that today was the *perfect* day to queue up some crippling period cramps, too. I just barely mustered the strength to brave the cold long enough to let the dogs out, and then desperately crawled back in bed with no plans of moving anytime soon.

I woke up around lunchtime to sunshine and birds and a very sore throat and pounding head. Enough people had gone to work that there was finally an open parking spot next to my car-shaped brick, so I got my insurance's roadside assistance to come and restart my car while I stood far enough away that I didn't breathe on the guy fixing my car. And I managed to not pass out from my POTS in the process too 😅. It was the easiest jumpstart I'd ever seen and the guy was gone in less than 5 minutes. Finally, something went right!! I kept the car running for a bit to recharge it and then crashed in bed again for yet another fever dream.

At the end of the day, very much still in my pajama pants, I finally picked up a VERY starving and exhausted hubby and got him some food. I still have no memory of what the food was; all I can say is that this week was only made possible through lots and LOTS of takeout. Thank goodness for takeout!!

I gotta say, it might not be conventional, but my pajama pants got me through the day. And that was only Monday. I very much did not shower or change those pajama pants for an embarrassingly long amount of time simply due to exhaustion and dizziness. I'd rather NOT take a shower than have Josh find me blacked out on the bathroom floor. When you are dealing with an acute illness on top of a pre-existing chronic illness, every move you make becomes very calculated and there is no wiggle room for life "luxuries" such as hot showers. 

I am very happy to report, though, that as of today I no longer have greasy hair and I am currently curled up all cozy in bed with brand-clean pajama pants (definitely may or may not still have a MOUNTAIN of other clean laundry to fold, but that's a problem for another day... at least it's clean, right?? Scroll up to this blog post's header image for a glimpse of our clean laundry patiently waiting to be folded... 😂). 

I am also very happy to report that we deciphered our car problem— we accidentally left the interior lights of my car switched on all night long, which means the lights sucked the juice out of my battery, which means nothing is broken and nothing needs to be replaced! Bless the Lord.

If you made it this far in my rambling, I applaud you. I don't actually have a specific point or theme to tie everything up all pretty this week. This week we're just showing up and being raw and real and messy and honest, and that's okay.

Here's hope for sunshine just around the corner. ⛅ Even if all you can muster right now is pajama pants, you got this. 😊

Bonjé

P.S. What's your favorite sickness remedy? Asking for a friend... Lemme know in the comments!