Happy (Belated) New Year

Since graduating from Vermont College, my routine has been to put down my writer's pen by mid December and take it back up again after the girls return to school. Unfortunately, my reentry into 2009 didn't go as planned.

My last post on Kat's Eye was three weeks ago. Three. I didn't realize I'd been absent from cyberspace for so long until my good writer friend, A, called this evening to ask if I was alive. The subtext to her question was really, “Is everything all right?”

The question isn't a trivial one, especially when taking E and her many health issues into account. In the past, unplanned hiatuses from this space have been caused by unexpected hospitalizations and prolonged illnesses. For the record we're all fine here. But if you're near a good solid piece of wood, preferably oak, walnut, or cherry, please knock on it for us.

We survived the holidays, and all its requisite visits to relatives and from relatives. We even hosted our traditional New Year's Eve sleepover with family friends we've known since high school. We did all this and more without serious illnesses or mishaps. Our healthy run lasted so long that for a few bliss-filled weeks I seriously believed that the new medication E had started was the circle of protection I'd been praying for, the one that would keep her healthy during the dark winter months.

The magic wore thin near the end of Christmas Break. We suspected something was amiss when E lost her appetite. A cough followed. Then the fever arrived. Diagnosis when it was all over: ear infection. The medicine kicked in in time for E to return to school Thursday.

Then it was my turn. My head hurt. My sinuses ached. I was coughing and crabby. And instead of feeling energized after Jazzercise, I felt like I was 90 years old. I should have been writing on E's first day back at school. Instead, I parked in the waiting room of my physician, feeling guilty that I hadn't seen him in person for over a year, and praying that my cell wouldn't ring with a call from the school that E wasn't well enough to return to school after all.

In the end I was diagnosed with—you guessed it—a full blown a sinus infection. All this time I'd been attributing my headaches and fatigue to the holidays and my bottomless to-do list. Um. Doy.

On a positive note, the medicine is already working its magic. Day two and I'm able to think in complete sentences again. Yea me.