I awoke again...

I awoke again wondering what time it was... it must be 5:30, I hope it is 5:30 as I reach for my phone which lay on the floor, less than an arms reach from the couch.  I push the side button and sure enough 5:23.  Right on time, I thought to myself as I was racked with yet another coughing fit.  Four hours on the button from the last time I medicated this misery. I had become very good at figuring out what time it was in the middle of the dark.  I groaned to myself, this is the fourth morning of this misery.  "God have mercy on me and my family!"  I couldn't help but wonder if my boys had fared any better through the night than I.  And my precious wife, had she still been spared this misery?  That was a blessing though all of this.  At least she had not had to deal with all of this.  That and she is really gifted at caring for me when I am at my most pathetic. 
I closed my eyes.  Maybe I could fall back asleep and I wouldn't need to go get any more meds.  But I knew better.  I was freezing cold.  Shivering and soaked in sweat again.  How could this keep going.  Surely it had to break soon, like two days ago. 
I lay there for what seemed like an eternity.  What should I do, should I get up? I was not sleeping at all and the coughing fits were getting more violent.  Reminding me of my brother's advice to breath while I was coughing.  I needed to go hack, but I couldn't get myself off the couch.  The memory of yesterday morning was still too fresh.  The violently shaking shivering. So much so that I could hardly pour more medication.  Reminding me of a recently read book The Mountain Between Us by Charles Martin.  At that moment I could identify with the main character when he fell in to a snow covered river.  I didn't care to repeat that this morning.
What should I do?  I couldn't even make up my mind what to meds to take.  PM or AM.  Did I want to be awake now, or sleep until mid morning? Well in any case it was probably too late to take PM now, I should have gotten up and taken some immediately upon waking up.  Surely I had been awake for an hour.  I grabbed my phone again and hit the button.  5:35. This was some sort of sick dream.  I had been living an hour of shivering, violently coughing, and my body was aching like I had about five pulled muscles in my legs.  All that in twelve minutes.  I knew I should have gotten up.  I needed more sleep.  Maybe another hot shower.  Yesterday's worked, it only took thirty minutes to take the edge off of the shivering.  That long before I could start using soap and shampoo.  No, I didn't want to repeat that again, at least not the shivering.  I decided to try sleeping again.  But I was still terribly cold.  Maybe I should pull that other blanket over me... no that wouldn't work, I was already sweating profusely.  Then the coughing fits started again.  I needed to get up, the drainage was getting worse and my throat was raw.  I was sure that if I started hacking it would be bloody, it was always that way when I had bad drainage into my lungs.  I drifted off only to wake eventually to another coughing fit.  Now it must be well after six, maybe even 6:30.  I checked my phone again. 5:43.  This was impossible, I looked at my phone again, my eyes weren't playing games with me, but they were burning.
Then it hit me, again.  It had been on my mind a lot over these miserable days, more so as they piled on and I became more exhausted.  I bet our two young friends one in her very early twenties and the other our age and a mother who had to start chemo several months ago at seven months pregnant, I bet they would love to feel as good as I do.  I was counting the minutes aggravated they weren't hours and that I wasn't better already, they between the two of them are a year and a half into there battles and praying for good news, holding on to Christ in faith.
Bless you sickness, you miserable sin spawn, bless you for again I am moved to prayer for our friends.  What had been occasionally on my mind was now continually before my face and in my heart in a way only something like this could have done.  So bless you sickness, and God please have mercy on Julia and Anna.  Heal them Lord, comfort them, comfort their families, have mercy...