Dread and damnation.

This has been a long week. I just want it to be the weekend. I am tired of the work of running around after a sick child and trying to keep on top of the household chores. I feel guilty that we're living out of laundry bags. It took me a while to get up the energy to get the kitchen mostly clean. Here it is, Thursday, and I am filled with a measure of dread over the coming weekend and next week.

Snuggle Bug has strep. He has been home from school for most of the week. We didn't realize it was strep until yesterday. As such, he had been extra cranky with out relief for several days, much to the vexation of Beloved and I. It started out where the school nurse and ourselves thought the problem was ear wax. Because his right ear was well and truly plugged up with wax. We did the ear drops and then got him in to see our family doctor. (If you're looking for a general practitioner and you're in my neck of the woods, look up Genesee Valley Family Medicine. They're good people and I, personally, have been working with them since I was a small child. They know what they're doing and have an excellent track record.) Snuggle Bug acted all excited and happy as soon as his ear wax problem was resolved, so he went back to school after his visit.

A few hours later, he was in full meltdown mode. So, I picked him up from school (and his brother because it was about an hour before the end of the school day and doing so just made things easier for everyone). Then we got in to see the doctor at the tail end of the day. Between his meltdown in the nurse's office and when we got into the doctor's office, Snuggle Bug had a dose of ibuprofen and it seemed to help a lot with his discomfort. After the strep test came back positive, we rushed to get dinner taken care of and pick up his antibiotic before the pharmacy closed. To say the least, Wednesday was a very rushed and stressful day for me. I tried to take it all in stride, but it was very hard.

Today, I have just felt exhausted all day. I don't know how much of this is due to the fact that I slept poorly last night and how much of it is a general sense of malaise that seems to be rising as the week has gone on. Snuggle Bug was home from school so that the antibiotic had time to start working before he went back to school. I spent my day attempting to keep him out of trouble and trying to build up the stamina to take care of household tasks, like cleaning up the kitchen. I found myself spending a good amount of time just standing in the kitchen staring at my cupboards trying to figure out what in Hel's name I was doing in there. It was pretty awful, to be honest.

Now, I'm looking forward to tomorrow and I feel a measure of dread. I worry that Snuggle Bug will not be well enough to go to school tomorrow. I worry that I am going to get a phone call while I am at my therapy session in the early afternoon. And I find myself worrying that if I have to reschedule the therapy session I am going to get into some kind of trouble. A part of me says that I shouldn't even go to therapy tomorrow.

I find myself feeling like my work to keep things running smoothly is ultimately a futile endeavor. I find myself feeling like I am a bad parent for not realizing that he was actually sick before Wednesday afternoon. I also find myself feeling like I am a bad person because I am not producing any sort of written work or getting anything done on any of my projects. A part of me says I should just give up on it all, go sleep, and wait until my brain magically decides it is well again. I am angry that I am feeling this way. I am angry with myself for being angry over it too. It's kinda ridiculous.

I don't know how to discuss this with my therapist or anyone at the clinic. I worry that if we try to tweak my medications again that I am going to wind up back in the hospital. I am afraid of there being horrible consequences if I try to do something about this and, at the same time, I recognize that doing nothing will result in my feeling worse and ultimately being sicker.

Beloved is confident that when the weather warms up and it feels more spring like I will see an improvement in my mental state. He also is telling me not to let my anxiety run the show here. It is, however, very hard. I find myself afraid of nebulous terrible consequences of all possible actions and all possible inaction. It is exhausting and depressing. I thought that I was starting to feel better. And now I'm like this. I don't know what the next phase of this is going to be.