Instead it has become a post about the decisions we a forced to make when faced with the dilemma of becoming sick or ill.
Yesterday Kevin, iyla, and my parent in laws all went to a ribfest in our local area. It wasn't long after it that Kevin started feeling off. He spoke about having the chills and soon after the sweats started too. The headache came next, with symptoms of being lethargy. He had a coffee to wake him up first which didn't work and then went for the Tylenol. Same result, no change. Last but not least he opted for the horrible tasting 'Buckleys' flu/fever medicine with the tagline..."It tastes awful, but it works!"(which funnily enough, Kev likes the flavour). Buckleys did the trick temporarily, Kevin's energy came back and he was getting organized for our 5am departure time the following morning. After packing lunches, organizing both Kaiser and iyla's bag, laying it all out ready to-go, we all went for an early bed at around 10pm.
2am came around and both Kevin and iyla were up...Kevin with the chills, and iyla with a hungry belly! Kev got up and put on enough clothes to fend off the coldest of winters...I could here his poor teeth chattering away. I came back after feeding iyla to find him in the fetal position curled up. So sad! I asked him what he wanted to do about his race and he said he would take some more Buckleys and make a decision closer to our leave time. 430am and my in laws were up to get ready, while Kevin had discarded his clothing and lay atop all the covers due to a heat flash. It was time for him to make a decision.
This is when the guilt gremlin (as I call it) came out. Kevin began feeling guilty about disappointing his family if he didn't compete. He didn't want to disappoint anyone. This would be the first time they'd see him race while also getting to visit Muskoka country!! Now no one in his family would be disappointed and I went on to stress this to him and how he knows we all care more about him and his health than anything else. He agreed after a bit more self debating with his ugly hairy gremlin and went to let his parents know.
In that moment of indecision, I could relate to a degree with this guilt. It brought me back to a marathon I ran after being sick for a full week before it. Only I decided to run and couldn't finish because of how sick and drained I was. I had only made things worse but at the time I couldn't get over how much training I had put in, thinking what a waste if I didn't race, and I had a goal I wanted to reach.
You just can't plan out everything and/or predict anything. I have friends that purposely only enter one race a year because they don't want to get injured before it, but at the end of the day there are things outside of our control. unfortunately, there may be a time when you are faced with what happened to Kevin. There is no right or wrong, strategy and planning can and will only take you so far.
So today instead of being in Bala we made today great by having an indoors game day. Settlers of Catan, Bananagrams, and Taboo. We even had our cheerleader to support each of us. At the end of the day we followed the ever famous quote, 'Carpe Diem'. We made the most out of today as a family and had, and are still, having a blast!
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