Quiet Sunday in Bed

I did too much this week. There's not one part of it I would have wanted to miss, but I sometimes resist living within the limits of my body and end up paying the price for overextending.

Both of the younger kids were away from home with friends or family for much of the week, so Joshua and I snuggled down in bed and plowed through nearly three weeks worth of school work that had fallen behind during my IVs this year. It felt so wonderful to be so productive and we both are thrilled with the accomplishment!

On Wednesday morning two wonderful friends from church came and cleaned my house while I chatted from the recliner. I felt guilty and lazy, but also quite blessed. (In reality I was running a fever the whole time they were here and would have been in bed otherwise, but how could I not "feel lazy" when others are cleaning my house for me?)

That night Rick drove the boys and I (our daughter was visiting grandparents for several days) a few blocks from home to enjoy ice cream together as a family. Just an easy, simply, normal family thing.

On Thursday morning I woke up tired but was functional enough to drive my kids the 10 minutes to homeschool co-op. I used my wheelchair there then drove them home again. Dinner had been slow-roasting in the over for hours, so I came home and collapsed into bed. Got up long enough to eat with the family, then back to bed and didn't get up again until after 1 on Friday afternoon!

Friday evening Rick took the kids to a movie and I hosted Bunco for some friends from church. I sat every chance I could and let others share the workload, so really my main energy expense was rolling dice and simply processing conversations. We had a blast! This is the kind of thing our home is made for, the social interaction that makes me feel alive and joyful and fulfilled. It's been a good solid few years since we have had anyone other than family in our home (other than a couple of kids birthday parties more than a year ago) and I was thrilled to see this huge house filled with fun and laughter. But by the end of the evening I could hardly put together a coherent sentence and my mental fatigue was evident.

Yesterday morning I joked with my husband about my inability to process thoughts into words. I laughed, he frowned. He reminded me of my doctor's cautions that when I'm like this it's literally because my brain is "fried" and short-circuiting and I've pushed myself much too far beyond wise thresholds. :( He's right of course, but I didn't like hearing it.

We agreed that I probably could have done either co-op or hosted Bunco, but trying to do both in the same week was too much for my body. In the future I will have to be careful to schedule special things like this for weeks when I have nothing else happening, so that basically means summers will probably be the only time I can plan such hospitality even with the help and support of such great friends as co-op runs Sept. - Nov. and again Feb. - May.

I spent much of yesterday in bed but my body was fidgety and I couldn't sleep. By evening I was experiencing my "ice-pick" stabbing, roving, random pains, a bit of muscle twitching, and hives. I had a hard time getting to sleep last night, but after benadryl for the hives around 11PM, slept amazingly well other than strange dreams all night.

This morning Rick loaded the kids in the car for church and I've been in bed ever since and see how very wise Rick was to be firm in his request that I stay home. I am so blessed by such a loving husband. Yes, I probably could have pushed myself to sit through an entire sermon if I went in my wheelchair, but it certainly wouldn't have been a wise move. Even in bed my body feels almost too heavy to endure the effort of laying still, deep aches run the course of my back and limbs and a different kind of pain fills my head.

I haven't been able to actually sleep much this morning, but our bird is keeping me great company, I've done a tiny bit of writing for my Paul book, and I've gotten a couple of blog posts auto-set for future posting on my Hannah's Hope book blog (that is finally active again after a year of posting technical difficulties - please find it at its new home at HannahsHopeBook.blogspot.com ).

I would like to try to take a shower before they bring home our lunch, but I'll see how I feel when I climb out of bed before I commit to that energy expense. Our neighbors are having a birthday party tomorrow night and I was going to get the family all settle there before running over to writer's group. Guessing writer's group is totally out of the question now and I'll have to hold hopes of attending the birthday party very lightly, realizing that the rest of the family may well have to go without me. :( I didn't make it to writer's group last month either and probably won't next month (because it will be less than 2 weeks after my next Stanford trip and I probably won't be functional enough). It could well be that my next chance to leave the house doesn't come around until homeschool co-op again this Thursday!

Updated 2 hours later to say I never managed that shower. At lunch my 7-year-old informed me that my hair looks "snarly and wet" (greasy). Yuck! Maybe I'll shower tomorrow...