The last few days have sucked. I was in denial that I was getting sick.... then last night it hit me like a ton (or two or three) of bricks. I hardly slept - I was feverish, my head was pounding, I was coughing, sniffing, sneezing.... I was a perfect commercial for cold remedies, and I didn't even have any. I told myself that I'd feel better in the morning, but I was worse. I actually called in sick to work, which I never do. I sent the kids off to school and came home to sleep. Tonight I feel better, thanks to my neighbour, Connie, who gave me an echinacea flower and told me how to make a tea with it.... it actually helped. I'm gonna go buy a whole bouquet of them tomorrow and that's all I'm gonna drink for the next week, just to be sure that I'm 100% better.

I haven't felt like this for a while. Last time I was sick was the first weekend in May when we were all sick, right around Joey's first communion. Everyone who came over that day ended up sick. It was awful. My father-in-law got it too, and he told me that he had never been sicker in all his life. It wasn't long after that that his symptoms started showing up, that things started getting weird, and 4 weeks later they removed a brain tumour.

Looking back I can't help but wonder - if Al hadn't come to Joey's first communion, if we hadn't been around him when we were sick, would he be better today? I can't help but think that somehow getting what we had lowered his immune system or something, and let the cancer cells take over his system. If we hadn't been around him, maybe he would still have been healthy and would have been able to beat this.

I know that no one is to blame for what Al is going through right now. Its hard seeing him in the hospital, sometimes so weak that he can't even hold his strawberry shake, and there's absolutely nothing that any of us can do. But somehow, in the back of mind, I'll always wonder if things would have been different if we had postponed Joey's celebrations, had dinner a week later instead of when I was sick.

I'm hoping that I feel better soon, and that no one else gets this. Joey's been asking to go to the hospital to see Grandpa Al, we haven't been since Saturday. I've been spraying Lysol on everything and washing my hands everytime I sneeze, hoping that this doesn't get spread around like last time.