Sister To The Rescue in The Day To Day Ramblings

Do you know what love looks like? It looks like a big cold bowl of frozen yogurt hand delivered by your sister when you're too sick to move off the couch. It looks like a restocked refrigerator with milk and fresh fruit and countertops full of Gatorade and boxes of lotion infused Kleenex and chapstick when your sweet but utterly hopeless husband leaves town and your sister swoops in. Love is answering a phone call from your sobbing, 'so sick all I can do is cry' sibling and instead of freaking out or alternatively minimizing her struggles, you get in the car and drive 45 minutes to her house and save her.

Damn I love my sister.

I lost it yesterday. Completely. Rob went out of town to celebrate his grandma's birthday and left me on the couch on Day 4 of The Worst Head Cold Ever and I tried so hard to take care of myself. I did. But I was trying to Google (terrible idea) and everything and everyone online said all kinds of scary things about being sick while pregnant and I knew I needed someone who would know what they were talking about but who wouldn't freak out. I needed someone who gets pregnancy and gets being sick and gets when you need someone else to take the reins and decide if it's Urgent Care worthy or simply Double Your Efforts At Home time. So I called my sister and while simply trying to talk loud enough so she could hear me through my raw, vomit lined, aching sore throat, she deciphered my call for help and just came over. She wasn't worried about getting sick, she stopped for unexpected frozen yogurt and she instinctively knew what I'd be out of and need more of. She saved me.

She helped me in the shower, she helped me wash my greasy tangled hair, she helped me into clean pajamas, she made me sit out in the sunshine on the deck and breathe fresh air and distracted me with conversation about babies and our jobs and our parents and our lives. For five glorious hours she babysat my broken, sick, miserable body and made sure I had chicken noodle soup to eat and yogurt so soothe my throat and a popsicle to help my aching mouth and she helped me start to feel better. She pushed fluids and made me feel human and despite no nursing or medical knowledge, she healed me the very best way.

There are things people do for you to help themselves, to make themselves look better, to put down payment for a future need of their own...and then there are things people do for you simply to be kind, to be gentle, to be family. She helped me in a way my pathetic and sobbing phone call couldn't convey I needed and in ways I don't think I could ever thank her for enough. I wish everyone had a sister who loved them so selflessly because being cared for when you can't even bathe yourself is a blessing everyone deserves.

So today, as I called in for yet another shift, I am crediting her with the fact I'm sitting upright for the first time in two days, that I'm going to try to walk the dog a little, that I'm thinking in full sentences again. Sometimes even nurses need a little nursing and sometimes even 29 year old baby sisters need their big sisters still. Sometimes all we can do is ask for help and sometimes we're lucky enough that the person who answers knows just what to do. <3