Pitiful Daddy

I started feeling not-so-great last Thursday morning, and by Thursday night I was definitely under the weather. Chills, fever, body aches... the whole nine yards.

Samantha and Jack had battled a virus for much of the last week. Samantha's seemed to settle in her stomach and left her nauseated and lethargic. Jack just spiked a fever, as he always does (over 104 again multiple times), but he also had some sinus issues.

It hit Jamie too, at the exact same time it hit me. I had always thought there was some law of nature that would prevent both parents from getting sick at the same time, but apparently I was wrong. Jamie shared Samantha's symptoms -- nausea and no energy.

I shared Jack's fun -- fever and sinus trouble. Only I had one bonus item that didn't hit anyone else: the virus settled in my left eye. The eye was watery all day Thursday and Friday, but other than that it looked fairly normal. On Saturday it started getting red. Today it looks and feels like a devil eye.

Thankfully everyone else has recovered nicely, and I'm the only one still sick. I honestly don't remember the last time I was this sick, and especially for three days. Usually I'm over a bug in about 24 hours.

This meant that I didn't get to speak at church this morning. And who knows if I'll even be allowed to go to the office this week, with my eye looking like it does. Fortunately I already had an opthamologist appointment for tomorrow morning to get my LASIK dry-eye evaluated. Now I'll have something extra special to show them and see if they can treat:



This all reminds me of the 90% rule, which states that there are thousands of things in our lives that cumulatively add up to less than 10% of our attention, as long as they're going well. But if just one of those things goes wrong, then that one thing can command 90% or more of our attention.

For example, how often do you think about your spinal health? Probably not often. How often would you think about it if you had severe back pain?

Well, I've never really thought much about having normal, healthy eyes, or being able to swallow without feeling like there's broken glass in my throat. But I'm sure thinking about it now!