I'm spending today at home with my sweety, who is dog-sick. He had a little fever on Monday night, a bigger one last night, and spent the whole of our sleeping time retching in the bathroom, and trying to sleep despite the fever which was keeping him awake.
No, I'm not Florence Nightengale. I didn't stay home just to pet him with cool cloths, force him to go to the doctor, and feed him Sprite and dry toast. (Granted, that's what I've been doing.) I actually stayed home because between Forest and I, I think we got about 1 hour of sleep last night. I remember all-too vividly that after about 15 minutes of solid sleep at midnight, I awoke to the sounds of his misery, and started to try to make him more comfortable. I think it was about 4 AM when I went to Quality Dairy to get some Pepto, which didn't help, since he couldn't keep it down. In the end we managed to doze together in 5-minute increments, in between tossing and turning and trying to make him comfortable. Thus, this morning at 7 AM I got up and started making phone calls.
I informed my secretary that there was no way I could work after having had absolutely no sleep. I informed Forest's dad that there was no way in hell I was letting Forest go to work today, and offered to help fill in at the Store in the late afternoon if he was screwed for staffing (which I knew he wasn't, but thought it was nice to offer.) Then I made the appointment with Dr. Jamieson, and crawled back in for another hour of snuggling and trying to soothe my delirious honey. He had a fever of about 101, but couldn't hold down any water or Tylenol to make it better. Yuck.
I've never seen him this miserable. It's awful. He's so hot to the touch it's like snuggling with my oven.
I'm actually feeling a bit better, though I know he isn't. We got back from the doctor's office at about 10:30 AM, and both crawled in bed. He had managed to swallow a little ice water, and a shower had helped; so we both dozed until about noon; he rests pretty well if I can hold a cool cloth on the back of his neck.
So now he's on the couch, curled up with his back to the TV, which is playing Spaceballs. At least I think he's getting some sleep now.
I feel kind of bad for him, because he rarely has a full day off, and tomorrow is one of those shining occasions. It looks likely that he will spend it being miserable in bed.
Anyway, I'm off to replenish the Sprite and grab another quick nap while he's asleep. This is a skill that I've developed through the years as a parent! It's nice that it's handy elsewhere, too.
