The headcold began a few days before we were to leave and I thought, 'no problem! I'll get this over before we go and all will be well!' In fact, Saturday night I had a low grade fever, which really made me think it was done.
Not so.
Sunday morning I woke up feeling just as horrible, though no fever. Keep in mind we were to leave after lunch and I had gotten nothing accomplished in the past two days, thanks to this cold. I managed to get things together and somewhat cleaned up the kitchen, and we were off early afternoon. I was pretty much worthless in the car.
Got to Patti's after dinner, hung out for a little bit and then went to bed.
Monday I still felt icky, but took some drugs and thought I could power through. We went to the City Market and had some wonderful food, then wandered around downtown a bit.
Once back home, I needed to rest, so I went to bed.
And stayed there. As the night progressed, I went downhill fast and had another fever (worse than the first!) and didn't get back out of bed. Meanwhile, Patti and Chip watched tv and ate Chinese.
The next morning, I still felt a bit icky, but pulled enough energy together to get ready to head out--our reservations for the next stop were that evening! We had a great lunch (the blueberry pancakes at Le Peep are fantastic!), said bye to Patti, and then stopped at REI before driving south. Another stop at Oliver Winery* and zipped past Bloomington (which made me wish we had more time to drive through) and ran into some road construction just past Bedford.
Finally arrived in French Lick, got lost trying to find our cottage, located it, unpacked a little and then I had to sit on the couch until bedtime. Because of little sleep the past several nights (lots of coughing, in particular), we both slept pretty well.
Wednesday morning proved to be more of the same: headache, sniffly (yet stuffed up), plugged ears and a bit of a cough. Had a mediocre breakfast, then made our plans for the rest of the day.
It was right before lunch that I noticed I couldn't smell anything. And not just because I was stuffed up: I could breathe (slightly) through my nose and there was nothing. It was a weird sensation.
The weirdness started to turn to panic when I continued to smell nothing for three more days. What if I was stuck with not being able to smell? How would I eat? How would I cook? How could I enjoy drinking anything ever again? If you know me at all, my life kind of revolves around being able to taste and taste well.
There was some crying, some praying and a lot of worrying (and trying really hard not to worry), but all I could do was get through this. I wish I had advice at this point for hard times--the only thing I can come up with is sometimes you just can't take away the bad stuff. You have to persevere and live through it (with plenty of prayer). Distraction helps, too.
Finally the swelling went down a little Saturday afternoon/evening and I could start to smell things again (Praise God!). It's hard not to take things for granted, but I hope I don't have to have anosmia again, at least not to this level.
AND, if me being under the weather wasn't enough, it rained pretty much every day...
Fortunately, there were enough breaks to take in things, like downtown Indy and the gardens at the resort in West Baden. I'll give you a photo-heavy post with all the stuff we saw and did, rather than make this one even longer! Stay tuned!
*I posted all along the trip on Instagram... you easily could have followed our trip there!
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