In Sickness and in Health

"For now I will stretch out my hand, that I may smite thee and thy people with pestilence; and thou shalt be cut off from the earth" 
                                                                                      -Exodus 9:15

I swear this is what happened to our household last week… God smote us with a pestilence and no one was spared (except Ben who must have an immune system made of steel).  I don't know what we did to invoke His wrath, but I truly believe it was a call to repentance. Too much time on Facebook, not with the scriptures?   Yeah, probably.  Too much time watching Downtown Abbey, not enough time  sharing the gospel?  That's very possible.   In truth there's a myriad of things we need to work on, and believe me, we got the message loud and clear.

It started last Friday when it looked like death had overcome Emily.  You saw the picture from my last entry.  She spent the weekend in bed with fever, chills, fatigue, and just downright sickness.  By Monday she was on the mend,  but that's about the time I wasn't feeling so hot.  Monday night I gave Ben his steak salad and then plunked my head down on the table… tired with no appetite to eat.

 Tuesday I felt like I had been hit by a train.  Don't get me wrong, I get the occasional head cold and overall sickness just like everyone else… but this was different.  I believe (although I never went to the doctor) that I had the flu.   The scriptural phrase "laid to waste" comes to mind.  Fever, chills, fatigue, cold, couldn't get out of bed sickness.  I called Ben in tears asking him if there was any way he could come home because I knew there was no way I could care for the little ones feeling the way I did.

This is the part where I want to get all mushy about my husband (so hurry and read this before he sees it and makes me delete it).  He came home as soon as he could.  When he walked through that door it was like Superman had arrived. I closed the door to my bedroom and fell into a coma, not to come out for hours.  Ben took over and performed wonders.  He did every single geo puzzle with the girls. He fed the kids, put them to bed, cleaned up (well, his version of "clean"), and voluntarily slept on the couch.  He put the baby monitor next to him saying he would get up to feed the baby and get Emily off to school.  I slept soundly that night, but in the morning found out that not only had the baby been up for his usual feeding, but C had been up several times in the night puking! Apparently she picked something up from preschool!  Ben had taken care of everything.  He made pancakes for Emily, got her off to school, and then went on to work without having hardly any sleep at all.   Again, he was able to come home in the early afternoon and pick up Em from school so I didn't have to.  He did crash out on the recliner, but who can blame him?

All tuckered out after going to battle

That night he did the same thing… slept on the couch with the monitor next to him while I slept soundly in our bed with the door shut. This time though, I woke up at 3:30 to the sound of the baby screaming.  "Surely he's got to hear that" I thought.  I laid there awake but heard no movement from the couch.  I went out on in the family room… the baby's screams were blaring from the monitor but Ben was out cold.  If you didn't know him better you would fear he was dead. He has an uncanny ability to sleep through anything (he once slept through a bear attack, but that's for another time).  Anyway, I let him off the hook on that one.  

The second half of the week was as bad as the first culminating in James finally succumbing to the pestilence.  He started puking in the middle of the third night that Ben was sleeping out on the couch, and again, he took care of everything.  And then Friday, just when I thought I was coming around, I picked up what ever stomach virus C and J had… so yeah, it's been a LOOOOOONG week.

But at the end of this whole ordeal I can't help but stand in awe of how Ben was able to come to the rescue.  Really, when you're dating, do you even THINK about this kind of thing?  "How would he handle a situation in which me and my three children are violently ill and puking all over the place?"  It's more like,  "Oh we're perfect for each other!  We both like the same music AND the same flavor of ice cream!"  Or, "We are so funny together.  He makes me laugh and I make him laugh. hehehehe"  and all sorts of other nonsense.  But really, when it comes down to it, in this phase of life anyway, it's all about being able to depend on your battle buddy because we are in the trenches together.  Our married life is far from glamorous.  And believe me, there are things about each of us that seriously annoy the other.  But where it matters  most we've got it covered.  For that I can sleep well at night (as long as he's not snoring in my ear).