No More Kisses

As I type this, I should be on a plane flanked by a recalcitrant spouse and preschooler and complaining about congealed airline food and the proportion of my hips in relation to the economy class seats. I'm not. It's been a disastrous week, and this episode might serve as my therapy. 


I don't have the time or the inclination to recline on a tastefully bland office while a therapist asks me to go back to my earliest memory. Considering I have no recollection of a family trip I went on to the UK--when I was 20-- the shrink will be in it for the long haul.  


My nutty sister ever so swiftly produced photos from the alleged vacation, but I still deny it and I accused her of adding me in with Photoshop.  I have a bevy of second cousins and a set of worried parents to back up her story though. This is very troublesome. But that's another kind of madness, this week's drama was far more draining.


After all the ado and adoh!s* trying to get to the motherland, we really were hoping to have a nice family vacation for the grand ten days we had to spare here. Initially, we had a ball and thoroughly enjoyed good times with family and friends. Sadly, it all went south on a trip down south.


We went to the beach for some fun and sun with my diligent spouse, P's, family. By ''we" and ''sun and fun" I mean everyone else wanted sun and fun and I wanted to hang out and order room service. I love it when food materializes in front of me, especially if I had nothing to do with preparing it.


Our four year old, Lanes, who is also known as my appendage, disengaged herself from me and attached herself to her cousins, who delightfully and blessedly took over for me. I love those girls! They patiently tried to teach her to swim and took her on an elephant ride.


While we were there, P's twin (yes, there are two of him--what won't I say about that?) came down with a fever. Luckily, he travels with a pharmacy in his suitcase and was able and eager to self medicate. If it was legal for those twins to write prescriptions, they would love be handing them out left right and center.


Thus, his wife and I enjoyed a lovely and relaxing Balinese massage, during which time I fell asleep and might or might not have snored. P was in charge of the three girls and his parents in charge of his twin. That was the last fun I had on this vacation.


On the way back from the beach I kept asking P to turn down the AC, and each time I think my mother-in-law wondered if I was rather touched in the head considering it was scorching outside. I also had to put that in there because she was eager to know what I'd put in the blog this week and she begged not to be given an honorable mention. So I had to!


Any old how, when we got to my parents' house (where we are staying), I felt like I was on fire and freezing at the same time.  I would have been handy at the Sunday buffet at the hotel--I could have fried a dozen eggs with the heat generating from my legs alone. I might have got a gig as the egg station and freak show all in one.


Lanes was immediately packed off to my unsuspecting aunt and uncle's house, where they unwittingly became the proud parents of a four year old at their ripe old age.  I was under a duvet in this tropical heat, having visions of visitations from my dearly departed black Labrador, Muttley. 


At this point, P thought I was ready to cross over. It didn't help that in between chills, I gave him strict instructions on how to care for Lanes my way should I kick the bucket because I had no intention of coming back from the other side just to nag him some more. He barely hears me in this dimension.


Hallucinations aside, I decided later that I was getting a heart attack because I felt my chest tighten in a way it never had before and I was unable to swallow. Eventually, after a restless night, and several assurances from P that he could indeed take care of Lanes upon my untimely demise, my fever came down.  


I must say as much fun as I make of P, he took excellent care of me during this time...until five am the next day when he caught the bug.
Lanes was shipped off to my aunt and uncle's house yet again, where she had to eventually spend the night. 


She looks for me like a heat seeking missile and as much as she adores them, she was in tears.  Our attempts to keep her away from our germs failed as the next day, she fell ill and remains sick to this day.


It was all rather stressful. Lanes is usually up to more tricks than a barrel full of monkeys and to see her eyes go wonky and roll up her head as her fever peaked really freaked me out. Meanwhile, P was lying in bed lamenting his 99 degree fever. I was up and at it by that point.


He looked like an extra from TV serials filmed in the motherland, where shirtless hairy chested thin men in flimsy sarongs lie on tetanus threatening iron cots wailing for their mothers in dramatic general hospital scenes. 


Only difference was that he was in shorts and mournfully silent. With a quick bark from me when Lanes nearly fell over when I took her 101.7 temperature, he snapped into reality. 


He refused to believe that rest and Panadol/Tylenol alone will help and was vehement that he needed the good drugs. He got himself another thermometer and was jabbing it into his armpit every ten minutes. In my case, I was flat out and he was jamming it into my mouth--perhaps it was a clever way to keep me quiet!


Eventually, his fever did go to 103. I suggested that he go to the ER and get something, anything to appease himself so that we could focus on Lanes. I also knew that for him, psychologically, he will only feel better if he feels he is taking something. Of course he ignored me.


With that I sat on the floor anxiously by Lanes as she uncharacteristically had a long nap in the afternoon. P came down looking like he just ran a leg of the Iron Man marathon and said his twin suggested he go to the ER to get some medication and that that was a brilliant idea.


As I always say, if P actually heard the words coming out of my mouth from time to time it would save him a lot of trouble. I made a note to buy a cheap aluminium saucepan from the store if I ever get to leave the house. That way I can hit myself in the head when P comes up with these gems. I'd hit him, but that's violent and possibly illegal.


After P returned with twenty-five antibiotics and cough suppressants, he felt better after sleeping in. He was told he was not fit to fly, and neither was Lanes (I didn't bother checking myself up).  Then came all the stress trying to get another flight out and extending P's leave from work. Luckily, P in his ever diligent manner, figured those things out as I was taking Lanes far too seriously for my own good.


Meanwhile, I have been running around with Chlorox wipes in hopefully not futile attempts to disinfect the room as P has tissues strewn all over the floor by his bed and he is constantly fidgeting with the light switches and faucets in the bathroom. Plus, he has got the runs to boot. I don't think my suggestion of using the extra thermometer to put a cork in it went the right way. At least he is out of bed.


Lanes was out of it today and threw up mucus. She is now finally up and is watching Caillou in Japanese without complaining. I thought I'd take this rare quiet moment to sign on. I'm not even sure this blog makes sense because this has been one sleepless anxiety riddled week. I'm sure unlike our trip to the UK, I'm sure not to forget this one.


With that I must sign off and call Guinness because P is making a roof shattering attempt to cough out the biggest phlegm ball in the world. The ferocity of his coughs is rattling my nerves and wrecking my train of thought. 


More musings from....well for once I can't tell you where I'll be musing from next week, but I'm just glad I'm here to do so this week, all things considered. Send good vibrations our way!


*adoh! is an exclamation used in the motherland. It's kind of like ''yo!"  or ''oie there" I think.