Knocked Me Out!

Whatever this virus is that I had really knocked the wind out of my sail! I feel old and tired.
I have spent so much of my time sleeping these past few weeks. I'm taken aback by my weakness and really bewildered by it all.
It seems not that long ago I was spending my mornings walking and bike riding with my sister Diane (I'll post about that another time), and I knew all of that was going to have to change with Jayden home from school now in the mornings, but I didn't think my mornings would take on this much of a change! Jayden and I sleep in late, and then we have a leisurely breakfast of rice and toast. Well, Jayden has the rice, a great big bowl of rice each morning (and then a bowl of chicken and rice for lunch):




My breakfast is whole grain toast with honey and cinnamon:





If the weather is not too hot and humid we eat breakfast outside:


And then Jayden spends a lot of his mornings drawing and coloring and I spend my time here at the dining table working on jigsaw puzzles:

(My daughter Ellie bought these Thomas Kinkade puzzles and they are very hard to do, I was yelling at her because they take up half the dining table, and they take so long to do. But after I got sick I was happy to have them to work on!)



(And the second one went together much quicker than the first one!)


And then it's usually nap time for us!

Listen to this bit of weirdness that happened to me while napping one day. It was the day of Jayden's graduation from Pre-K, and Ray had taken the day off, that afternoon I went out back by the pool with a pillow and laid on one of the lounge chairs to nap in the sun (it was one of my days when I could not get rid of a chill inside me). Anyway, I think that I have sleep apnea because I will wake up many nights (a few times a night) gasping for air, if you've had that happen to you, well, you know it's not a nice feeling at all!
While napping out back I dreamed that I was visiting my Mom when she was in the nursing home, and all of a sudden she said to me, "You better go", and with that, I was on my front porch and my best friend Barbara pulled up in her car, she leaned over to the passenger window and called out to me, "Eileen, breathe! Eileen, wake up, it's happening again!"
And I did wake up gasping for air.
I settled down, fell asleep, and this time dreamed I was visiting my Dad on hospice care, and he said to me, "It's time to go now", again, I was on my front porch, Barbara pulled up in her car and said, "Eileen, wake up, it's happening again."
And again, I woke up gasping for air.

And later that day while sleeping I dreamed that Raymond told me to wake up because it was going to happen again, and it did!
So I wonder is my brain triggering these episodes? Am I so fearful of it happening that I make it happen? Or is my brain trying to protect me?
Either way, very weird, right?

This sleep apnea thing (or whatever it is) isn't something new, it's been happening on and off for a few years, it just seems to have gotten worse lately.
But definitely this sleeping all the time is new! Yesterday we were at my sister-in-law Susie's house, she invited us over so we could visit with my mother-in-law Helena. Sue and Doug picked her up from Jersey on Saturday and she'll be staying with them for a few weeks (I warned Susie we might be bringing a virus into her house, she said she didn't care). It was a nice, relaxing day, just us and Jayden. Susie has a beautiful park-like yard, very big, and they have a pond, and her husband Doug had Jayden feed the turtles that were in it, and Jayden also had lots of fun swimming in their big pool.
I'm still not feeling great, and after eating my stomach was bothering me (that's what happens now, I have a stomach ache for a few hours after eating all the time now), and I laid down on their couch and proceeded to fall asleep for a few hours (if I didn't know better I would think I was bitten by a tse-tse fly)! How rude, right?! Thank goodness it wasn't the usual big crowd, so I didn't have to be too embarrassed.

I don't know what this is that I have, but I'm going to wish it 'good riddance'!
My sister Diane thought it was food poisoning, but my oldest son came down with it last week too (he missed two days of work and he had fever and many of the same symptoms Jayden and I had), and my youngest daughter too is not feeling well now, and Ray said he feels like he's coming down with something. Whatever this crazy virus is, I wish my household (and my body) would be rid of it once and for all!

Okay, so there you have my past few weeks, not very exciting.
And now I'm off to visit with you before nap time!