Amazingly enough, church was pretty good. No one was in a bad mood, either before, during or after the service. For the first time in several weeks, we were able to be part of the service for the first half. Peter was called upon to do the prayer of confession and I love hearing him pray. He is so thoughtful and deep and prays things in a way that enables others to look on the Kingdom of God in a fresh way and confess where we have failed to live as part of that Kingdom. I was also very relieved that it wasn’t me! I had all the kids once again but that turned out to be OK. We finished up our little series on Creation. One of the little boys, Tadiwa, ran out to tell his mother afterward that God made him and that it was very good! She was very pleased.
Jason hasn't been acting himself lately, exhibiting low energy and low appetite. He had a bit of diarrhea but nothing significant. There aren't a lot of other symptoms. So we took him to the clinic today to be tested for malaria, and sure enough, he has it again. The lab technician was impressed that he barely flinched when his finger was pricked. This is his third time with malaria and at first he was a bit distraught over this until we told him that he was our “malaria champion.” It is all in how you spin it, right? He liked that title! He should be better by the time Peter leaves so that helps at least. Jason isn't a bad patient. In fact, yesterday he was reminding everyone of their manners and Peter looked at me and said, "He must be sick." He generally has good manners but he is hyper-tuned into being polite when he is ill.
By the evening, Jason started vomiting. All a part of the malaria. The high fever hasn’t hit and hopefully it won’t tonight. That would be nice.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Welcome to my terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.
It was a long, sleepless night. In anticipation of needing to care for Jason during the night, Peter was banished to the guest bed and Jason joined me in my bed. At least Peter had a good sleep. Jason woke up about every half hour, needing a drink,. He would stifle his coughs which made it sound like he was going to throw up. That had me bolting upright in bed and grabbing the bucket to be ready to catch. The real thing didn’t happen until 4 a.m. and Jason made it to the bucket on his own. I was a bit sluggish in my response by that time. Neither of us slept much and he threw up again at 6 a.m. By then it was time to get up and get Brendan ready for school. Jason proceeded to throw up three more times in the morning, alternating with Hero who threw up twice. Like I really needed the cat to get into the vomit scene.
I took advantage of Peggy being here so that I could do some grocery shopping for birthday meals. There’s a good chance Jason will be home with me tomorrow again so I thought it best to shop today while I had a babysitter. Unfortunately, while I was gone Peggy fed Jason a bunch of tortilla chips. He was hungry but having trouble keeping anything down. Then she tried to make him microwave popcorn. But she has never microwaved popcorn before, let along used a microwave, so she opened the bag first and managed to get grease all over the turntable. Which, amazingly enough, I discovered later she left it for me to clean even though she is the housecleaner. I also explicitly asked Peggy to polish Peter’s shoes on a piece of newspaper so she wouldn’t get the polish on anything else. Somehow she still got dark brown polish on our light brown wood table. Not a good Peggy day.
In the midst of his malaria, Jason is also pulling out a tooth a day. It began on Saturday, then another one came out on Sunday. Today he yanked another out. This one was one of his two top front teeth and the root is still hanging down which, honestly, turns my stomach every time I look at it. He looks a bit funny with his one remaining top front tooth hanging down crookedly. Maybe it will go tomorrow. That is the last one that is very loose at this point. If he loses any more, he will be in trouble!
The toothless wonder on his sickbedLunch had it’s own share of irritations. I tried to salvage the popcorn Peggy mangled by doing it in a dish instead of the bag and managed to ruin one of my plastic mixing bowls that I guess wasn’t microwave proof. Then I was trying to use the microwave to heat up leftovers for Brendan’s lunch. Our microwave has always made us act like the Fonz, hitting it in just the right place to make it work. But today I had to stand and hold the door down the entire time for it to work. The whole point of microwaves is to be able to do other things while it is working it’s magic. Annoying.
Meanwhile Peter was having troubles of his own at work. Someone else is supposed to be arranging his flight to Sudan but their fax doesn’t work, so that task has stalled out. Peter is dependent on others to sign forms so that the institution can begin gathering the necessary finances for Peter to travel with, but some of those people aren’t around and, knowing that things don’t move very fast around here, it would be good to get going on that. His students are completing their final projects and so he is needing to help them before he leaves. Plus there is a team here to so some kind of accreditation so Peter had to have lesson plans, class files, grades, etc. ready for them to peruse.
There were a few good things that were my saving grace today. A lady at Lechwe had strawberries for sale and I brought home two lovely containers.
We received a care package from Grandma Gail and Grandpa Roger and we all enjoyed examining the contents. I took a much needed hour and a half nap in the afternoon while the boys watched a movie. Peter talked with the man who installed our water system and they discovered the electrical problem which turns off our water. Now I know how to fix it if it happens while Peter is away. And it was Peter’s birthday and he is definitely worth celebrating. We were going to all go to a restaurant that serves Mexican food during lunch only, but Jason’s malaria altered those plans. I’m fortunate to have such a wonderful husband who is content not to be the center of attention on his birthday.
Because, really, it was Jason who ran the show today. He had a bloody nose right before dinner and another round of puking in the evening, and that completed Jason’s day. He crashed soon after dinner. We’ll see how the night goes.
I guess it could have been worse. It could have been my birthday instead of Peter’s.
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