again?!?

Today is day 5 of Rose's 5-day course of antibiotics. I thought that meant that she was on the mend, but alas she woke up with a fever of 103.1 this morning. Sigh. It seems like whatever illness she had last week has passed, but now she has contracted a new one: one that involves a milder fever (thankfully!) but lots and slots of nose goo, which does not make for easy breathing for Little Miss. Other than errands, we've had a really nice relaxing weekend of not camping, but apparently it wasn't relaxing enough. I feel terrible that she's sick again!

As a CBT therapist, I spend a fair amount of time talking to clients about cognitive distortions. During my little psychoeducational spiel, I always give a little disclaimer about how everyone has cognitive distortions (even people without clinical depression, diagnosable anxiety, an eating disorder, etc.), and that it's very important to know what our "favorites" are so we don't fall prey to them. I then self-disclose a bit and tell clients that I'm an expert catastrophizer. (It's true!) I keep catching myself today, and it goes something like this:

Rose is sick again.

Rose was just sick last week.

I already had to use PTO last week, and I'll have to use PTO tomorrow.

Remember last year when Rose caught every. single. illness. that went through the school? What if that's starting again?

I don't have enough PTO to take off as much as Mike was able to "work from home" last year. 

What if I run out of PTO and have to take unpaid leave? 

What if I lose my job because my daughter is sick so often?

We're already taking loans out for Mike to go to school. We can't survive on his loan money alone!

Would we even be able to sell our house if we couldn't afford the mortgage?  Where would we go to live if we lose our house?!?

Usually around that point I'm able to catch myself and bring my anxiety down a bit, but I've been hovering around step 6 of my spiral of catastrophe (i.e., what if I run out of PTO and have to take unpaid leave) almost all day.

Quite frankly, it's exhausting.

I just had a good cry with Mike, and gave him a little coaching. Here's what  I need to be telling myself right now, and apparently what I need others to tell me as well (since I haven't been able to convince myself quite yet):

We have a plan for tomorrow. We'll each take a half day.  I have the PTO available for tomorrow, and that's all we need to think about right now. Breathe. Just because she's sick today doesn't mean she'll be sick again, and worrying about it now won't do any good. 

We have a plan for tomorrow, and that's all we need right now. 

Breathe.

Sigh. So, on that note I'm off to bed early so I can get an early start on my workday tomorrow. Please send some restful, healing vibes in Rose's direction. Let's get her immune system working to fight off these bugs!

On Saturday Rose helped me to bake.

Yesterday she and Mac had lots of fun.

Note: I just re-read my post, and I noticed that I'm not at all worried about Rose's health. I have complete faith that she will be fine. Truly. So why can't I have the same faith in our finances?! It's a bit ridiculous.