Remember how I was spectacularly sick about a month ago?

When I was so sick I couldn’t even talk? When I was so sick I couldn’t even talk and that sickness lasted FOREVER?

Yah, that time.

Guess what?

I am sick.

AGAIN.

This sucks a duck. Or a goose. Or quite possibly a turkey.

The bad part of all this is that it has all the makings of being a repeat of spectacularly sick.

I have felt this coming for a few days and have been trying to cut it off at the pass with Airborne and sucking on zinc lozenges that my awesome friend Chelle brought me, to no avail.

I have a sore throat, infected sinus mucous and a fever.

I have FIVE MORE performances to do, people.

FIVE and I feel like complete crap.

Missing a show when you don’t have an understudy is not an option. IS NOT. It puts a huge number of people in a shitty situation. I am also responsible for herding five kids around the stage and it would be a huge problem to stay home sick. You just DON’T miss a performance unless you are dead or hospitalized.

They aren’t kidding when they say,”The show must go on”.

So now I have to take Mucinex and Nyquil and a million liquids and vitamins to try to feel better as soon as possible. I don’t have a show until Thursday night. I will handle feeling like a millions shades of suck if only, only I can still sing. It’s a crapshoot; Sometimes I keep my voice through sickness like this, sometimes not.

Last month when I was sick I couldn’t even SPEAK.

Keep your fingers crossed for me, people.

SuckasuckasuckaSUCK.

My.kids.are.still.vomiting.

6 days and they are STILL vomiting on themselves, their beds, me, and just about every other surface in my house EXCEPT THE TOILET.

Apparently, their vomit likes my brand-new shoes as much as I do.

Jon is sick, too.

It sucks.

The end.

I’m still in Mesa.

I made it to the funeral. It was a beautiful service and I managed to look quite presentable and I even smelled very nice and non-offensive. I had a great visit with all my family.  I even got to see a blogging friend, Heather. She provided a much needed evening of relief from all the grief and sadness.  I will post about our night when I am able to upload my photos.

Anyway.

I was supposed to be on my way home today, and indeed, I was packed, said goodbye to family, and my sister and I were just going to stop by to see my aunt, Regina in the ICU to say goodbye and be on our way.

Nope.

I need to rewind slightly.  For those that are confused: I have an aunt who is in ICU. Her name is Regina and she is the eldest sister of my mother.  I have another aunt (Pauline, who is the middle sister to my mother) who just passed away from pancreatic cancer and her funeral was held on Monday morning.  They both live here in Mesa, Arizona.

We thought my aunt Regina was actually doing very well. Despite having had a massive transfusion a few days ago, she was taken off her ventilator and was talking to everyone. She told them that she never wanted a tube stuck down her throat again.  They were getting ready to discharge her to more of a hospice care setting as of Monday morning at the funeral.

When we went to the graveside we found out that the siblings of my aunt Regina had been called to the hospital. The minute the last “Amen” was said we took off to the hospital to see what was happening. It was all very dramatic, even for me.

Because the hospital couldn’t get a hold of anyone  (Cell phones off during the service) they re-intebated my aunt despite this being against her and the family’s wishes.  When everyone arrived, they called a meeting and decided to take her off the ventilator.  Then, at the last minute, another doctor came in and said that he strongly felt that this was just a hiccup in her progression and that if they gave it 72 hours to work, she could get a lot better. As they already lost their dad, Regina’s kids consulted with all the aunts and uncles and everyone felt good about keeping her on the respirator given the information that they had.

The aunts and uncles who came down from Utah (Including my parents) all said their goodbye’s and most went home yesterday.

Back to this morning.  It seems that there was a lot of misrepresentation about her prognosis. That she is too sick to ever leave the hospital and that keeping her on the ventilator was prolonging pain and could be creating a much worse situation in the end.

It took most of the day and much of the night, but finally everyone got on the same page and they extebated her.  So, now?  We wait. They will make her comfortable and she will pass away.

I don’t want to talk about what the last 16 hours have been like.  For one, you can’t really ever describe just how hard it hits you to see someone you love so sick and in that kind of state. It seems unreal and you just can’t know the extreme nature of it until you go in and see it.  For another, it has all been too painful, spiritual, and emotionally exhausting to try and relay right now. 

This day brought me back to the worst day of my life and I hate revisiting it in such an extreme way.

BUT. 

I will say that however much hell I’ve re-lived by being in this kind of setting has been worth it because I have been ABLE to go through it and still be able to give comfort to my grieving family.  I wouldn’t have been able to set foot across the door a year ago. I would have run away from it. I just couldn’t have done it.

So.  Here I sit. I don’t know when I will be home except that I know we have to get my sister home by Saturday for her daughter’s wedding reception.

I’ll try to keep in touch. Thanks for all the kind words. It helps more than I can say.

P.S. My cell phone reception sucks a duck out here. For everyone who has called, I just want you to know I see your missed calls and love you for them.  I promise to try and get all of this out and delt with while I’m here so I am not a perpetual sad sack of crap for you all.

I haven’t been around because I am pretty sick. I’m not surprised, everyone around me has been ill lately. I look awesome ‘possum, don’t you think? Not at all like someone that has been giving out $5 blowjobs and using dirty needles in a rat-infested alley, right?

The Messiah closed on Friday.I don’t think I have ever felt so awful during a performance. I woke up really sick in the morning. I’m used to feeling like I’ve been run over by a train, a semi and a couple of tractor trailers in the mornings, but this was “Fever, sinus, sore throat” SICK. I also kept violently sneezing which killed my back.

It was an hour drive to the city we performed in. I am glad that my passengers, Mary Ellen and Rachel survived. As she filled the role of “Diva Dress Fluffer“, I let Mary Ellen share my dressing room. I put off getting into my dress until the last possible second and I spent a lot of my time curled up in on the floor of my dressing room in the fetal position. I had enough painkillers and cold meds to kill a horse and I still felt like major suck. I can’t complain, though. Even though I felt like shit, I managed to look pretty damn good.It wasn’t easy getting the above photo. I have weird friends.
I can’t bitch too much. I blame myself.

I don’t know how I did it, but I managed to sing OK. That was important to me because this is the performance they recorded the DVD they produce annually. I’ll post it when I receive it, but it won’t be for a few months yet.

I even had some dear friends and family in the audience and I will be forever grateful that they cared enough about me to come. It said a lot about my relationships with the amazing people.

While it wasn’t as great as last weeks performance I was still happy with it and it was still such an amazing experience. I am so glad I got to do it and am looking forward to next year.

I’ve been sitting here trying to get Ye Olde, Sucky, Yeast-Infected Wench (Otherwise known as Blogger) to upload photos of my weekend and my earrings from Penguin and it is not letting me.

Big shock, I know.

I’m giving up and going back to bed. I have the worst sore throat I have had in years and a fever and sinus infection that needs to go away. Preferably soon.

Bleck.