Christmas Postponed … For the Second Time

And it was all my fault – both times.

The year was 2010 – and it was a tough year for our family. Kevin had his motorcycle accident, (the ER doctor said his pelvis was a “bag ‘O glass”), in April 2020 and by Christmas time, I couldn’t pass gas or have a bowel movement. (TMI, but we’re friends here, right?)

I remember being SO UNCOMFORTABLE when we went to Brandon’s Christmas concert at school, (he played the saxophone in band/Jazz), and I thought I was going to explode. I looked six months pregnant. I felt like a walking whale.

I couldn’t stand it anymore and went to the ER. They gave me a bunch of laxatives, kept me for a bit, nothing happened, they sent me home.

Let me repeat that, they pumped me full of laxatives and nothing happened. Now, my gut is full of liquid crap with no way to exit … after about a day of feeling like I was going to implode, I went back to the ER. They did a colonoscopy and prepped me for emergency surgery.

I had a blockage.

I mean – DUH. I tried to tell them that the last time I was in, but whatever, I was about to be fixed. The doc said, “No problem. The scar will only be about six inches long – you can still wear that bikini.”

DUDE – you clearly haven’t met me. This body hasn’t ever seen a bikini and never will, but I appreciated the positive attitude.

This all happened right smack dab during Christmas. I had my surgery shortly before Christmas and was in the hospital Christmas Eve/Christmas day. And my incision? Was gigantic. It went from the bottom of my belly button to nearly my lady bits.

I’m no math wizard, but my incision was CLEARLY longer than six inches. And I was stapled, so that was unbearably uncomfortable. But I pooped …. boy howdy, did I poop – eight times in the hospital, to be exact. And it was GLORIOUS. lol

It wasn’t until my post-op appointment w/ the general surgeon that flayed me open did I learn why my incision was much bigger than anticipated. I had not one, but TWO twists in my intestines and they ended up removing nearly three feet of intestine.

So. That was fun.

But being in the hospital during Christmas was awful, and sad. And I don’t wish that experience on anyone. (Don’t recommend having your intestines removed, either).

The boys were in high school when his happened. So, they were disappointed but it wasn’t like they missed a visit from Santa. I got home on the 27th and we had a late Christmas at that time.

Fast forward to now.

We had our family Christmas party on the 22nd. My family came over to our house – it was our boys, my mom, my brother and his family, and my sister’s sons. Mom brought over her signature “goodies”, (i.e. cookies, fudge, peanut butter cups, snowballs, etc- all homemade, by the way)., and Kevin and I made tacos, with all the trimmings, and little smokies. Mom brought over macaroni and potato salad. It was quite the spread (and I stressed about not having enough food … we had juuuust enough food).

After we ate, we played our (now) traditional Saran Wrap Ball game. Mom wraps up a bunch of small gifts, money and this time, she put numbers in the mix, up into a giant Saran Wrap ball. One person unwraps the ball, (you can’t tear it!), while another person rolls a pair of dice and tries to roll a double. Once a double has been rolled, the person unwrapping the ball must stop and hand it off to the next person while also handing off the dice to the next person to roll another double. It sounds easy, and it is, but the game actually lasts much longer than you think. When a prize falls out of the ball, the person unwrapping the ball can keep the prize.

The numbers are for picking a gift after the game is over. Everyone brought a “gag” gift with them to the party and after the ball had been completely unwrapped, we went down the line, starting at one, and people picked a gift of their choice. Other players had the option of stealing gifts along the way.

It was a lot of fun and I think everyone enjoyed themselves. I filmed the game while Kevin looked on.

But during the game, Kevin said he started to feel sick. I had no idea this was happening and I felt fine but when Monday rolled around, Kevin was down. He had a 101.9 fever and he was pretty much comatose. I made sure he was drinking fluids, giving him Tylenol and putting a wet cloth on his forehead to cool him down, but I felt fine, save for a dry cough.

Christmas Eve rolled around and yep … I’m feeling sick. I had chills and a fever but my fever never got as high as Kevin’s. We had to contact mom and the boys and let them know not to come over. We didn’t want to take the chance of infecting them, especially since we were running fevers. Kevin still had a slight fever on Christmas Eve, but not as bad as Monday.

By Christmas day, I was down. It had settled in my lungs and sinuses and I was coughing up a storm. Still a dry cough, but more consistent. We contacted the boys and had to tell them we needed to postpone Christmas.

What a terrible, sinking feeling that is to have to cancel something that people are looking forward to. I not only felt physically terrible, I just felt terrible, period, for being the reason it had to happen.

By Friday, my sinuses were a solid block of concrete – I couldn’t even blow a puff of air out of either nostril. I don’t know what happened, or what triggered such a reaction, but it was terrible. And of course, it happened while I was on the phone with my supervisor because yes, I still worked during this time. I didn’t feel bad enough to be bed bound and I work from home so … why not?

Neither one of us went to the doctor, and we’re still recovering though to be honest, neither of us are at 100% yet, (I’m still coughing up crap and sinuses are still pretty stuffy), but we were pretty sure we had the flu. Maybe it was COVID? Who knows. It doesn’t really matter at this point, I’m just GRATEFUL that no one else seemed to have gotten sick after the party and I’m especially grateful that my elderly mother didn’t catch anything. Getting sick, in general, is terrible and a challenge, but when you’re an elderly person, it can be really bad and this virus? Was pretty bad.

So, Christmas 2024 was a bust. It was a huge let down but what can you do? Viruses are out there and though you can make healthy life choices and cut down the number of times you get sick, you can’t avoid getting sick entirely. All you can do is get through it and try not to pass it on to another person.

How was your Christmas?