Stop knocking on death's door mummy, we want Dora on!

7am...

''Muuuuuummyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy..... muuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuummy''

*Sar opens her bleary, aching eyes, and blinded by the sun which sends searing pain through her head, stumbles half concious to her daughters' room...*

''Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa?''

''I want Dora on.....''

*Sar struggles with the stair gate, her aching joints shooting needle like pains through her limbs with every movement.... she hobbles over to the tv and puts Dora on for her ever so beloved children...''

''D-D-D-D-DOOOOORA!!! D-D-D-D-D-DOOOOOORA!!!! DOOOOOOOORA DOOOOOOOOOOORA DOOOOOOOOORA THE EXPLOREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEER!!!!!....''

*Each syllable of the hell that is Nickolodeon's finest export echoes around her head with the force of Hurricane Andrew, tearing down her immune system like a picket fence, and leaving what small amount of sanity she had left, a scattered field of primary coloured and educational debris....*

*Sar staggers across the hall, the creak of the floorboards tearing at her ears and collapses into bed, muttering faint prays to whatever the hell god is responsible for easing the pain of swine flu.. *

''............ muuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuummy.....''


Welcome to the world of single parenthood. When you're a single parent, you are simply BANNED from being ill.

Ever. At all.

Never.

Cold? Awww shame... where's my breakfast..

Appendicitis? That much hurt! Change my nappy!

Swine flu? Oooh piggy! I'm going to have a tantrum now!

Dying? Not before you put a movie on for me.. THEN you can die..

No matter how ill you are, no matter how grave your circumstances or how rough you feel. Life HAS to go on. You can't just forgo any duties around the house or to look after them, even if the only thing that'll help you get better is 24 hour bed rest....
Yea. good LUCK. In 24 SECONDS they'll have destroyed the house, set themselves on fire, defurred the cat and eaten the entire contents of the fridge/freezer, frozen/consumable or not..

If you think about it seriously it's quite scary. There has been a few times since my exhusband and I seperated, where I have been so ill I've been on the verge of being physically unable to look after the girls, but I've had to struggle on... food poisoning was one where I demanded that my ex have time off work and had the girls for the morning as I had been up for 36 hours and spend 12 of those vomiting violently.. but that was back when we were still on speaking terms, presumably because he thought there was some hope of us getting back together.
Another time was when my health really suffered because of the hell and upset of the whole 'best friend romantic involvement' incident. In the end the stress and I guess mild depression affected my health and I became really ill, could hardly breath, had chest pains, palpitations, could hardly stand without needing to lie down.. but I had to carry on regardless. In the end after a few weeks I got better and all was well.. but at the time it was horrendous.
The most recent time being this bloody swine flu.

Still quite scary to think about... even if I keeled over seriously ill.... and I needed to go to hospital and was literally at death's door.. I'd STILL have to sort the girls out even before that.... now that's a chilling thought.... :\

*cough* oink *cough*

Emotard officially becomes a UK swine flu pandemic statistic... yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay.
*cough*

Yesterday I woke up with a slight cough, so presumed that either
A)Being in a room full of smokers the night before had wreaked havoc on my respiratory system
or
B) I had a cold coming.

By midday I was starting to feel really awful, blinding headache, deep chesty cough, aches and pains, COMPLETE loss of appetite and general lethargy, however I still went to meet the fella for lunch. He seemed to be quickly going down the same slippery slope of health I'd been going down, and had similar symptoms. Didn't think anything of it at the time, but come early afternoon I was pretty much confined to lying on the sofa or bed, feeling weak, sensitive to light and with a gradually worsening cough and headache. Other than getting up to see to the girls I don't think I moved at all. It hurt too much!
The fella an I had been joking about it being swine flu and out of interest I googled the symptoms and eventually came across the Flu Pandemic website which said that

''Congratulations! You have swine flu, and your prize is a special one off code to take to a special collection point to claim your prize... a course of Tamiflu!!''

*rolls eyes*

by 6pm I was pretty much unable to get off the sofa without serious amounts of pain, and when I was up, I had to walk around with my eyes closed because the light was agony to my head. Once I'd put the girls to bed I set up basecamp on the sofa, and kept drifting in and out of dozy consciousness until I was woken by my boyfriend who'd text me as he was worried he'd not heard from me in maybe 1-2 hours. After that I just slobbed, avoiding the light and any major movements until I could summon up the energy to go to bed about 10pm.

Armed with water, paracetamol I stumbled up to bed.. numb and very much looking forward to collapsing into bed. Little did I know I'd end up with around about an hours sleep in all, after spending all night tossing and turning through waves of pain and intense fever, nearly passing out a couple of times from it. Looooovely.
One of those nights where you're glad to see sunrise!

Thankfully, this morning, with some paracetamol and continued slobbing on the sofa in front of the tv/laptop I'm feeling a little bit better this morning. The paracetamol I had first thing has tamed the fever and headache for now, so just having to deal with the cough and general lethargy but fingers crossed the worst is over. Apparently I'm supposed to stay in the house until the symptoms are gone, and the symptoms can last anything up to 7 days apparently. I've not gone down the road of the Tamiflu as I've heard bad things about it and would rather just let me body get on with it. Also hoping the kids don't get it but will see how it goes I suppose.

And to quote my boyfriend, ''I'm having a big sausage and bacon sandwich when this is over, REVEEEEEEEEEEEEENGE!''

Had to do my food shopping online and have it delivered (poor tesco.com man's probably going yo get swine flu... oops..) and on my shopping list? Bacon and pork chops... the go with the sausages I already have.... revenge is a dish best served with red sauce.... :D

Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh...

I think I may get this once this is over....

clicky..