If you haven’t seen the James Corden clips of Carpool Karaoke with Sia yet, or dancing Toddlerography to a Sia song with Jenna Dewan Tatum , please take the time to do so. Both are incredibly enjoyable. I mention them here because I am finally feeling human again after 12 days – 12 DAYS! – of throat-induced hell, and “I’m Alive” feels like a bit of an anthem for me right now.

I realize that sounds terribly melodramatic and to an extent, it is. But you go 12 days without swallowing properly (first six days felt like sharp needles and the next six like a sludge ball in the back of my throat) and tell me you don’t experience some increased levels of distress and drama.

I won’t go into all the doctoring part of it, but my best guess of what happened is that when I had a Strep test a few days in, it was a false negative. And then a kid urped at our house Tuesday night, so when I too came down later that night with what I figured was a stomach bug, I didn’t realize for another 48 hours that it could be related to the fact that my throat was still agonizing and antagonizing me. When I finally got on medicine Friday afternoon and was already noticing improvements by Saturday afternoon, I was so, so relieved because just existing, let alone mothering, is tough when something nasty spikes like that.

To complicate matters, of course, I had to add nursing into the mix.

Have you ever gone 48 hours without eating hardly a thing and drinking only what you had to avoid dehydration and milk dry up? If so, my sincere sympathy to you. If not, I really wouldn’t recommend it. I was a wiped out MESS for all of last Wednesday, Thursday, and most of Friday, too. Could hardly get myself around the house for two of those days and when I left to pick HD up from school on Friday, I wasn’t entirely sure I should be driving a car.

Yesterday was the first day any real signs of improvement surfaced which meant the five day hiatus of housework slowly began to lift, too. And today, with the exception of a wee bit of sludge still when I swallow, I feel like just a tired mama, not a sick and drained of every little bit mama. So, yea! Yea for Leap Day and Monday and medicine working and all that!

From the sounds of it, Strep and various other bugs are flying around like mad right now, so really this post is to just to say, “Hi – I’m still breathing!” and good God, may the force of health be with you right now!