Shana
Hold on, Shana, I’m looking for a suitable dinner dish to brighten up the quiz page this month. How’s this?
What is it?
It’s a Philly Cheesesteak! I made it myself, with a whole wheat cheesesteak bun, of course!
Mom, I think you better leave this to the professionals on 9th Street!
I came to the same conclusion, Shana, after eating it!
So what’s this about a scary Halloween Virus?
Shana, you are not going to believe this! I’ll let Claire tell it, since it was her house that got hit!
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Well, Elaine, AB fell asleep again as we neared bedtime and I imagined I would just be carrying her up to bed, and/or that she might wake up briefly to get upstairs and then drift back off again. Instead, after I got the second twin to sleep, AB woke up and was having a night terror in the middle of a well-lit room, where she had been sleeping! She looked at me, like she didn’t have the words, like someone was after her! She was looking around, grabbing my hand and then dropping it, starting to hug me and then pulling away. I would ask her things calmly, and she would answer things that I couldn’t understand or that made no sense. She said something about bears and how they were going to get her.
Then she started literally writhing, clenching her fists and acting like things were crawling on her head, holding her head and neck and acting like she wanted to shimmy out of her skin. She broke into sobs, saying she wished she didn’t have so many problems. I asked what problems she was referring to. Her eyes just looked wildly fearful and she said how her hair sticks up. As she says something like this, she looks in different directions, like she is terrified someone will overhear her saying it. She stops mid-sentence and will shudder or grab me and then let go really fast. It is so bizarre. I knew I was probably looking at a full-blown night terror but a part of me, wearied by the day’s drama, was worried the fever had affected her brain! I told her that her hair doesn’t stick up; it is long and in a braid. It was almost as though she thought she was something or someone else. Then she sobbed again and at the same time had this terror on her face, really big eyes, and she was saying she is afraid she will not turn out to be beautiful! HUH??
So at first I gave her ____________30C, since in the past it has helped with night terrors. But after a while she was still acting strange, and said she felt strange; I gave her one pellet of ___________30C and she returned to Earth, thank goodness, no more looking “through” me like we were in some creepy horror movie… because that really… really… freaked me out.
So weird, it is Saturday night, my second daughter, now, Isabella, is over her bout with this strange virus, and she is sitting near me and you can tell she is thinking about things. Her chin starts quivering and her eyes water and she keeps telling me she doesn’t like dark things…dark windows behind me, for instance. Night time. The dark. I’ve never heard this from her before; in fact, she seems pretty fearless characteristically; but, in the middle of the night, she let out a blood-curdling scream that had my heart *jumping* as she was laying right next to me! Also my youngest twin Mira today seemed to have some inexplicable fearfulness. I don’t know if it is this virus? Mira had a fever and was hot and dry in her sleep all Friday night into Saturday morning, and though she did not have terrors, she talked to herself ALL NIGHT LONG, and I got no rest! It is not typical for her to talk *that much* in her sleep (she is known to say something just before waking up sometimes). It was literally all night long!
Weird to consider that a viral infection can affect mental states, even after the acute aspects of the virus have abated? Yes! Once the fever abated and they got some energy back, then a fear state kicked in!
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Wow, is all I can say! What remedy do you think all three children needed? Write to me at [email protected] and let me know. The answer will be in next month’s ezine.
