This should be a post about my birthday weekend

I had big plans for my birthday weekend. Randy and I had gone away the weekend before to spend a few days in a fancy hotel and relax. While I was down there I came down with a bit of a flu bug. Nothing serious, just feeling tired and nauseous. The rest of that week I alternated between feeling okay and feeling a bit run down. I just tried to sleep as much as possible so I'd be ready for my birthday. I had planned on spending Saturday sleeping, drinking coffee, knitting and cooking an Indian feast with my Mom to enjoy with our friends and family. Sunday was supposed to be a leisurely float down the Cowichan River on a tube.

Saturday morning I woke up at 6:30 with a splitting headache. I elbowed Randy and he got me an advil. I tried to sleep but my head was in bad shape. Randy took the kids to church with him and I headed off to the chiropractor to see if he could help my head. No luck there so I spent the day in bed trying to sleep off what I thought was a migraine. Mid-day I realized I'd have to cancel my birthday party and just rest up for tubing the next day. By dinner time the pain had progressed to hospital-level pain so Randy took me to the ER. My birthday evening consisted of narcotics, a lumbar puncture and 2 different types of CT scans. Happy Birthday, eh?

To make a long story short I was diagnosed with a nasty case of viral meningitis and spent 2 weeks in the hospital on a more or less steady stream of narcotics. I've been home for 5 days now and am getting better. The first few days home were awful. Withdrawing off the narcotics, horrible headaches, no balance, intermittent hearing, so tired, trying to convince my body to digest food again after nearly 2 weeks of no eating. The last couple of days have been better. I still feel pretty awful and the doctors say that I'm looking at anywhere from 1-6 months for a full recovery but I'm optimistic that I'll at least be back to being able to fully take care of my kids, students and home within the next few weeks.

I'm just looking forward to feeling well enough to get a do-over on my birthday! This was easily the worst birthday ever.