Being sick as a parent of a baby

It has been nearly two weeks since I started not to feel well. Today, I am still coughing and blowing my nose. I have what the doctor would call a "wet" cough. My throat is sore still and I think it is because I have to constantly talk to or yell at Tristan all the time. I have the common cold. It is a complete mystery how I got it since I was home for 3 days straight when I started to feel under the weather. It is the first time I have been sick with a cold in almost a year and a half. Luckily, I don't get sick often but when I do, I get super duper sick!

Jean-Louis was on vacation last week. Thankfully, he was home with me to help out. I tried to stay away from everyone and I washed my hands after I coughed or blew my nose. I would also flush my tissue down the toilet and was careful not to contaminate anything. I drank like mad and peed like mad. I did everything I could to protect others. It was very hard to breastfeed Tristan. I stuff tissue up my nose to prevent it from dripping on him and I had lozenges nearby in case I had a cough attack. Breastfeeding was my only real contact with Tristan. I felt good knowing that I was passing on my antibodies over to him when I fed him. He has not fallen sick (yet).

What is worst than being sick and having to take care of a baby? Right now, that seems to be the worst. It makes you think about how fortunate you were back when you were the child and your parents were taking care of you. Or when you didn't have children and you could just sleep in and rest whenever you wanted to so that you could get better quick. Sadly, parents don't get sick time off :( We have no one here to help us either so we just have to manage to cope.

My sickness peaked over the past weekend. I lost my voice for 3 days and I coughed all night and couldn't sleep well. Tristan has actually been sleeping in his own room for the past 3 or 4 nights since we moved downstairs. I cough hard and it would most certainly wake him up. Feeling miserable, weak, and not being able to take proper care of myself really sucked. I wished I could have been on COLD FX since it usually works for me in 3 days but I couldn't because I was still nursing. Jean-Louis helped a lot but I couldn't just rest. I had to cook and help with the baby too. If you saw the way I cooked, you wouldn't have wanted to eat. I had to blow my nose every 10 minutes and coughed at everything in the kitchen. When my hands were too dirty to grab tissue I just let my nose run. Yeah, it was gross. Was that TMI? We had no food. I had to cook.

Jean-Louis went back to work this week. I'm just trying to survive the week alone. Unfortunately, I have been coughing near Tristan a lot. I sure hope he doesn't get sick. Jean-Louis on the other hand is starting to feel a bit under the weather :( I am feeling well enough to do a few more chores around the house now. Sorry but blogging feels a bit like a chore these days. I do want to squeeze in a nap before the baby wakes up though.