That is to say….

The “gripe”, pronounced “gree-pay”, is worth a “GRIPE” (a grumble, a moan and groan).

This last month of April has been, essentially, “lost” to me. Early in the month, I got the “gripe”. We don’t really have another word for flu, or cold, or virus…. it’s pretty much just “gripe”. I can now understand why my good friend Mary Nevius, missionary to Argentina for forever, came up with her own word, “epizudics”. But anyway, back to our “gripe”.

It started with congestion… no biggie, I’m used to that. Then a HUGE headache that not even 1000mg of Ibuprofen could dent. Of course, the pain MIGHT have been augmented by the fact that this very day is the one where we find out that our double-stage patch on the waterbed mattress did NOT hold. [Not only did it NOT hold, but the glue that we found locally had weakened the vinyl AROUND the hole, and we now have a HUGE GASH in our waterbed mattress!]

So perhaps my “gripe” was intensified by the hours of bailing and tossing of water, the picking up of the mattress end to get the water away from the chasm and in wondering what in the world could we do to fix it. And of course, there was the ever present concern of “where WILL we sleep”!

So, several hours later we have removed enough water to be able to get a good “seal” around the chasm so that the hose could do the job of removing the water. OH… did I mention that I did a couple of hourse of siphon duty to try to get the water to drain, only to discover that until we could get some sort of seal pressure going on the mattress, it was NOT going to work? I can’t help but think that the mossy chemical water of the waterbed mattress contributed to the severity of my flu.

That night started the “gripe” for real. I won’t bore you with HOW the symptoms felt or were perceived , but here they are, listed:

* severe, debilitating headache
* nausea (but vomiting is NOT necessary)
* head congestion that feels like a brick
* chest congestion that feels like a vise grip
* rib-cracking coughing jags that last for minutes
* overall body ache and “organ ache” (I’ve never had a flu that made your INSIDE body hurt!)
* secondary bronchial infection that went into walking pneumonia before we finally found some Zithromax

Then… Nicholas got it… then Staton… then Thomas… then David… then Lorien… and finally Steven. Thankfully, by the middle of the 2nd week, we had found the right meds for me to help. So the others got on the right meds right away. By the time that it hit Steven, most of the “steam” had gone out of it. But Lorien still got a REALLY bad dose of it.

So we pretty much “lost” our Easter. I missed singing in the cantata, then missed our P/W group’s week to sing the next week. By the 3rd Sunday, I was able to sing most of our songs, and only had to lip sync during one. I knew that if I tried to make a sound, I would dissolve into coughs. ummm… Coughing into a microphone is, um… BAD! lol…

This flu was sure a DOOZY! I haven’t been this sick since the last flu season in K.C. and we can’t remember a time in recent years when the WHOLE FAMILY was down like this. The house was a wreck and it took us almost a week to recover, especially since many of us were still sick.

We don’t know about the rest of the world, but THIS part of the hemisphere got a good strong dose of the GREEPAY!  It’s SO good to be healthy again.

We hope and pray that YOU have stayed healthy this season. [Remember, this is Fall for us, working into Winter!]

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