A day late but oh so many reasons why

Yesterday was my birthday and my blog's birthday.  I am 39 and the blog is 9.  The blog's age is much more surprising to me than my own.

For many years I was rather superstitious about my birthday.  I wouldn't have called it that, I could list all the things that had happened on that day which made me a rough day.  Dr. Mind worked very, very hard with me so that I stopped dreading it and eventually came to enjoy it (nieces helped with that).  

But today was one for the superstitions I claimed I didn't have.  For one thing I have influenza.  This is our 2nd round.  I think the first time we had Influenza A and then my uncle had B and his immune system was so bad I think he was a carrier of B and my mom caught it from him.  I have now caught it from her and it is so much worse.  Fevers and body aches so bad that it took vicodin to sleep last night and it's looking like again tonight and Advil every 4 hours.  I've had stomach upset and nothing tastes good.  Even saltines taste terrible.  So I'm mostly living on sherbet which tastes ok but is so cold when my fevers go up.  So far I'm controlling the coughing by not moving much.  I don't want to have to deal with asthma meds when I feel like this.  Agitated and achy and exhausted don't go well together.  I read today, when it was too late, that if you think you have influenza this year you do and call for tamiflu.  Tomorrow is too late for it to do anything.  Even today might have been since I started having a sore throat Monday and it just took until today to build into something painful.

And then my uncle died.  In many ways this is a blessing; his suffering the last month has been beyond my ability to explain.  Horrible.  It is so good that he is finally at peace.  But my poor aunt.  I don't know how to explain their relationship except that it was a true love story, always.  That was clear to me as a tiny child and it never changed.  They were the opposite of my parents, always willing to take on 2 more girls and their family was happy together.  When I was small, when there were just 2 or 3 little girls and my brother who usually stayed at my grandparents we went to their house or they came to ours nearly every weekend.  When the last 2 babies came (5 in 3.5 years, all girls) that slowed but we still were together a lot until my aunt wouldn't have her children around my father.  

even then we had a lot of time together, it just was always at their house.  We went camping as a big group when there were 3 of us under age 2.5.  And their family did so much for us whether it was getting my sister and I away for a week in the summer or taking us places or in an incredible move the year my parents divorced there was no money for Christmas presents.  My aunt showed up with a carload of them.  They cared when that wasn't easy to find and it is so sad that she has to find a way to live without him. They were such a team that soon after his accident he was able to talk her through wiring ceiling fans and doing various home improvement tasks.  He read directions and explained and she used her hands since his didn't work well.

I haven't seen him or them much at all in the last 9 years.  But I'm still so sad tonight.

And I'm also not particularly rational because I feel like crap.  And now I'm crying which makes my nose run and I know I dropped the tissues.  So I should get those.