Last week I held a Salon and one of the guests showed up sick. That’s right. Sick. Came in to the home of a pregnant woman and dropped her germs whilst sick. Coughing, hacking, snotty-nose-blowing, had to leave the room once just to do more of her hacking and nose blowing kind of sick. When she arrived at the door I hugged her, not knowing she was sick. The noise level was so loud in the beginning and I was ushering other guests, I didn’t know it then either.
It was only until we sat down quietly, in a circle, about 16 of us… was her illness omnipresent. Shit, I thought. Maybe it’s just allergies, I hoped. I was torn. In the middle of a sacred conversation, do I stop, ask her to leave? I didn’t have it in me to do it– thinking it would shame or embarrass her. After the discussion part of the Salon, I approached her (with some distance) and asked, “Is this just allergies or are you sick?” She said, “Oh, uh… I don’t know… I think it’s just allergies now. But it’s been a week. I’m sure it’s fine.” I told her that I needed to be very cautious being pregnant and I need to keep distance from her as she still seemed contagious to me. She left right then. Sent me an apology email which was nice but the damage was done. Now lesson learned for both of us. Only, I’m paying the price.
Two days later, I woke up in the middle of the night with a sore throat. Within 24 hours, I had a burning chest, mucous and coughing. Last night, just pulling the yogurt from the fridge made me toss my dinner (already well digested) in the kitchen sink. Only to head to the bathroom for another 10 minutes of wrenching, puking, peeing on the new bathmats and yes, you guessed it, fucking up my ribs on the OTHER side.
I’m so fucking pissed off I don’t know what to do with myself. I’m mad at her. Mad at me. Frustrated that my immune system doesn’t work better. I used to be around sickies all the time and not get sick. Now, growing two babies… I guess ALL my energy goes to them (that’s what midwife says anyway). It’s not just a cold for me being pregnant. It means not sleeping well, labored breathing, throwing up (calorie concerns), peeing myself all the time, and this really, really ouchy pain in my rib which now impacts how I move, sleep (at this stage in my pregnancy I can mostly only sleep on my left side but now with the cracked/pulled ligaments in ribs, it’s too painful), how I move, roll over and get up. It also impacts Gina’s world as she’s now left to work AND care for me again.
I have 3 weeks left of clients, a 50th birthday party to attend, a wedding to officiate … not to mention just groceries to buy, pools to swim in, friends to see and a couple weeks of summer left to enjoy. Now, because that one women “hasn’t been around pregnant women much at all and didn’t know….” all of that will either be missed or compromised. Well, and because I didn’t have the tits to kick her out, stat, too. Fuck.
More lessons on things not going how I planned; I know. But more than that, I’m grieving. And angry. I’m just so pissed off that I’m here again. I had THREE WEEKS of enjoying — savoring every moment of– my pregnancy. Three weeks! I was JUST getting in the groove of it. Last time I was sick it took 6 weeks to get over and another 6 for my right side rib to mostly heal. My rib cage and ribs are already working so hard, they have been stretching so much (I’ve grown 2 inches in my rib cage in just 6 months!) that there is concern that the ribs just won’t entirely ever heal as the babes keep growing and pushing upward.
I am totally grabbed by the fear monger. I feel desperate to not go down the path of misery I was down before. I’m in tears. Afraid that by the time I heal from this nasty bug that I’ll be so big and uncomfortable I won’t be enjoying it anymore… I know that’s not all true or rational … but it’s where I’m at today.