As I mentioned in my Anniversary photo post, it’s been a week. The first week of 2013 was definitely a roller coaster.

After an awesome New Years Eve, we spent a couple evenings helping clean up the bar in our annual deep clean. (Beginning of the year, we close down and do maintenance, etc. that just never gets around to being done through the year.) It was hard work, but also super satisfying.

After the second night, we came home tired and sore from scrubbing and painting. I fell asleep on the couch, and my husband fell asleep in his recliner. After a couple hours, I woke up going, “I don’t feel so good…”

So I got ready for bed — brushed my teeth and whatnot — and woke my husband to tell him I was going to bed… I didn’t feel good.

I tossed and turned. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong exactly. I tried to chalk it up to having worked too hard and just being that tired.

The next morning, I finally gave up and got up. My stomach churned, and I thought, “Well, I guess I’m hungry. I didn’t eat that much yesterday.” So I grabbed a slice of bread and ate it.

And that set it all into motion.

Let’s just say I lost that and anything else I might have still had in my stomach. That certainly woke my still-sleeping husband and brought him running. Bless his heart, he did all he could for me. I felt better for a moment, and I told him maybe that did it. I’d be better now. I’ll come back to bed. He gave me some tums, since I’d been experiencing acid reflux off and on through the night as part of my yuckiness. All that did was send me running all over again.

Once I settled down, I sent my husband to get Gatorade, chicken noodle soup and Saltines. I dared to take some Ibuprofen to try to combat the ache that went into my bones. My skin hurt. My hair hurt. My eyelashes hurt. My toenails hurt. Every single inch of me hurt.

I finally was able to settle into bed and go into a deep sleep, which helped. I woke up and moved from bed to the couch to watch my Aggies play in The Cotton Bowl… unfortunately, I slept through about half the game. Anything to escape the aches and pains.

Somewhere in there, my husband started to feel bad. By the end of the game, my husband was laying in the living room floor in as much agony as I’d been in all day. I joked to him that at least we already had Gatorade and Saltines.

My husband and I were both to work that next night, but I wasn’t sure it was a very good idea. Even if I felt better, I would be weak, and chances were that I was still contagious. I didn’t want to get any customers or my co-workers sick! But… I figured I’d see how I felt when I got up.

I got up the next day and made myself some noodle soup. I ate it, and while it settled okay on my stomach… my stomach ached from the food on it. Like I’d literally been punched in the gut over and over again. My husband was definitely NOT better, running about 12 hours behind me in the course of the virus, and he wasn’t even to the point of wanting to try to eat. It was all the final straw that led me to call out of work for certain.

And that… that killed me to do. We’re in the season where we need every dollar we can get. Taking a Saturday night off… ouch. Just. Ouch. But I didn’t have much choice. In fact, after calling out, I promptly fell back to sleep for a couple more hours. My husband slept about 8 hours in his recliner that afternoon into evening!

Once I started to feel better, though, I got dressed and started trying to slowly sanitize the house. I washed the towels and sheets in hot water. I wiped down phones, laptops, door handles, etc. with Clorox wipes. I sprayed every room with Lysol. I sanitized toothbrushes. All of those between breaks to recuperate.

Another good night of sleep for both me and my husband, we woke up today feeling… completely normal. It was downright bizarre! I was still hesitant to say I could run any races, but I ate breakfast. Then we had dinner out for our Anniversary. And… all was fine. To look at us right this instant, you’d never guess that about 48 hours ago, we were wishing for a bomb to hit our house and put us out of our misery.

Stomach viruses are weird that way. They hit you out of no where. Leave you wishing for death. Then almost just as suddenly, they leave. And I know for us… we are GLAD to see it leave. And please, please, please don’t come back again.