Healing

I had forgotten how the beginning of the school year is also beckons the first round of colds. As evidenced by the last 3.5 years, I love to get whatever virus afflicts my offspring. I am certain it is due to the close quarters of caring for a sick child. I had a morning show on this week where an expert suggested we, as parents, should wear gloves and, especially, masks while caring for our flu-ridden kiddo. Or, alternatively, the aforementioned child should wear the mask to protect the whole family. Clearly this "expert" does not have really small kids. Those kids also don't have sensory issues - Sweet Pea would totally lose it if I tried to place a mask on her while she was feeling under the weather. I can't even imagine the fight Panda Girl would put up. I'd probably get a black eye from all the thrashing.

We seem to have survived this week of colds. Three of the four of us ended up sick (Sweet Pea appears to have been spared). Thankfully this was a mild virus. The main symptom for Husband and I was fatigue. Thankfully for me, I love coffee. So, in some ways the week was not so bad. I realized early on that if I skipped the coffee, I felt like I had just run three marathons followed by an impossible spin class. However, if I indulged and drank coffee every three to four hours all day, I felt mostly fine.

While not all physical illnesses are this easy to manage (please don't think I am in any way saying serious and life-threatening diseases are easy - those are not the physical illnesses to which I am referring, think colds and flu bugs), I am very aware of how much more work is needed in managing mental illnesses. It is not a matter of taking some meds, doing some therapy and then you are functioning well again in six to eight weeks. I have been fighting with depression for a year. I am not close to functioning well yet. Granted, I didn't seek real treatment until recently. I don't think I am an unusual case. Think about it, how many women run to a doctor for a lump in their breast, as they should, but refuse to seek out a mental health professional? Thus my point is that we need to take our emotional well-being seriously. How do we think we can properly care for our sweet children if we can barely get out of bed each morning? If we can't find joy in our lives each day? If we can't meet our kids where they are and appreciate them and the phase they are experiencing?

Thankfully we have all physically healed around here from our inaugural week of colds. Tomorrow we will have no problem getting up early. We are even thrilled with our plans. We are going to go have breakfast with the elephants at the zoo. I can't wait!