Riding the Struggle Bus!

[ErinKC]

Hi All - I've been posting more than usual lately because I've just been through the wringer! Now I'm just feeling generally low/anxious/out of sorts and wanted to kind of vent and get some advice and good vibes.

First - my daughter has been sick EIGHT times this school year. She's in 3rd grade and she's missed 17 days of school. The worst was this past two weeks when we all had the flu, which was horrendous, and she missed a full week and then I kept her home two days last week because her sinuses were so bad and she was just so miserable. The school gives me such a hard time about it and she has a really obnoxious teacher this year and it just adds so much extra stress! I have no idea what they expect from me when she's sick. I'm not going to send her in sick but they make me feel like she's the only kid getting sick all the time. But, then I talk to our pediatrician who says it's mania out there and everyone is sick with 100 things. So, I don't know if the school is just gaslighting me or what.

I was finally feeling better from the flu - not 100% but better than I'd felt in 2 weeks - and then my daughter woke me up at 5am to say she had a terrible sore throat. By morning she felt ok and I think it was just a dry throat from her persistent post-nasal drip from the flu - but at 5am (which is like my anxiety witching hour) it really set me off thinking she might have yet ANOTHER illness.

I have also just been knocked down hard by this flu. It took me this full two weeks to even begin to feel better and then today I'm just still feeling all brain foggy and blah from my sinuses still being kind of gunky. The panic that my kid was sick with something new that we'd all get just really got me overwhelmed. I'm having such a hard time dealing with all the sickness. Part of me just wants to pull her out of school to homeschool and keep us all safe at home again. I hated all the lockdowns and isolation, but at least I felt safe. I was at work yesterday and my coworker was SO SICK, full of snot and coughing, and I'm just SO TIRED OF IT ALL.

I just feel so out of sorts across the board. I want to take a break from the world, but obviously we can't do that. How are others coping with this terrible winter of viruses? Have you experienced this if you have kids - just sick CONSTANTLY? It's too much.

[ErinKC]

I'm just going to add to this post so I don't keep making new ones. Still struggling. I went to work today and was mostly feeling fine. I'm still a bit stuffed up from the flu and didn't have a good sleep last night because my throat was sore. I felt ok when I got to work and then about an hour or so in my head started feeling really fuzzy and full and heavy. It's not that I've never had this feeling, I certainly have. But, then my boss called me and my coworker in for our morning meeting. I was sitting there looking at him, listening to him talk, answering him coherently, but it felt like my head was just floating off my body and the room was getting smaller and smaller around me. I started to get cold and clammy and dizzy. I got up to go to the bathroom to see if that would snap me out, but when I sat back down it was just more of the same. After a minute or two I thought I might just keel over, so I interjected that I had just had a terrible migraine hit me and I had to go home to take medicine and lay down. I came home and took a lorazapam and fell asleep for about two hours. I felt a bit better after that, but my head is still SO FULL and fuzzy and wonky feeling. In my rational mind I know it must be the tail end of my congestion and sinus pressure, but it's just so disconcerting. It's been 16 days since I came down with the flu and I still don't feel normal.

I suspect the full head feeling triggered a panic attack because I was stuck sitting in my boss's office at the time, but I'm really anxious about going to work now. I don't have to go tomorrow, so I'm hoping more rest and maybe more water and ibuprofen for inflammation in my sinuses might help. I went to work last Wednesday and Friday and was fine. I did forget to take my lorazapam or bring it with me, which I normally do if I've been feeling anxious mostly as a placebo to make me feel like I'm in control. So, that probably didn't help either knowing I didn't have it with me as a crutch. I hadn't needed it at all for weeks and week until the flu hit and now I've been needing it almost daily to prevent panic.

Just venting I guess. I know the fuzzy head feeling is extraordinarily common both from sinus stuff and from anxiety, so I know all of you will understand! I just want to get back to feeling normal! I have to write a long take home final exam for one of my law school classes today and tomorrow and all I want to do is sleep!

I also haven't bought any Christmas presents for my daughter yet! I just feel like I'm living under a cloak the last few weeks and I can't get fully out from under it. My daughter and husband are fully recovered and I'm just feeling so blah.

[.Poppy.]

I'm sorry you're not feeling better. I caught something from my niece in October and it took me several weeks to get past it, and I'm still not over the sinus stuff completely. It's like it will be fine for a couple of days, and then that pressure and fuzzy feeling hits again- I may go to the doctor at some point, I just don't want to pay the copay.

It's just a hard season across the board. Get as much rest and relaxation as you possibly can and hopefully we can go around the bend.

[ErinKC]

I'm sorry you're not feeling better. I caught something from my niece in October and it took me several weeks to get past it, and I'm still not over the sinus stuff completely. It's like it will be fine for a couple of days, and then that pressure and fuzzy feeling hits again- I may go to the doctor at some point, I just don't want to pay the copay.

It's just a hard season across the board. Get as much rest and relaxation as you possibly can and hopefully we can go around the bend.

Thanks, poppy! That's definitely how I'm feeling. I felt pretty good yesterday. But, I also cleaned my house because I was feeling better so the extra dust probably didn't help. This was the absolute busiest and most stressful school semester I've had - and honestly, maybe the busiest and most stressful time in my life thus far - and I also think it's all hitting me now. Once the flu knocked me down and forced me off the conveyor belt of inertia that had been propelling me forward since August all the pent up exhaustion hit me at once.