If You're Happy and You Know It, Rub My Leg?

I'm back from Michigan in one piece. No head full of mucus was gonna stop me from coming back to my home and native land.

This guy was quite happy to see me:

Birth Control

You know how they have Take Your Kids To Work day? Well I was thinking about another day/night they should have for high school aged people (or really anyone considering bringing spawn into the world) - a sort of birth control, abstinence, safe sex over night trip. The trip would involve staying with a family that had children while the children were puking or having bad colds in the middle of the night. The victim/teenager/adult would be on bucket brigade and mop duty (or carpet stain removal). I don't know, but dealing with multiple puking little ones at 3am doesn't make me horny.

I tried to come up with some pithy slogans for this initiative. This was the best I could come up with - feel free to add your own...

• Other people's kids: making you less horny since they started puking at 3am.
• Think you're ready to be a Daddy, tough guy? Explain to your 18 month old why he can't breath.
• Does puke make you puke? Then keep your pants on!
• The 100% successful birth control - a combination of other people's kids and abstinence.
• Don't be a chump. Before you hump, think about a night of runny stuff coming out of their rump. (too far?)
• Abstinence; it-snot the worst thing that ever happened to you.
• Cough, cough, cough, cough, what? Keep it in your drawers.
• Nothin' spells lovin' like vomit chunk covered laundry in the middle of the night!
  

The Velocity Of Bricks

Once upon a time about 13 days ago I got a cold. It seemed like an other cold. I snotted, I sneezed, I hacked a bit. I figured I'd infect some family members over Easter, come back to the hammer, snot a bit more and get on with my life.

Um no. I thought the cold was getting better. Then it decided to get worse. Then it decided to drive me to the point where I'm beginning to wonder at the velocity bricks would pick up as a hurled them off of my balcony onto the cars below.

I decided to seek medical attention on Monday (day 10) because it seemed I had started to develop pink eye and as previously mentioned here, green stuff was emerging. I couldn't get into see my doc (until Friday), so I went to a clinic. The doc there said I had a bad cold and that my asthma was making it worse. Ok says I - that doesn't explain the ear pain or the green stuff, but sure.

Last night at 2am -not having slept since Monday at 4am, I broke down and hit Shoppers up for come cough syrup, vapo rub, eye drops and kleenex. I came home, and at 3:30 finally got to sleep and stayed that way until 7am. And I'm still up. I didn't sleep today, even though I didn't really leave my bed. I'm exhausted, but I can't sleep, cough cough, why cough, can't i cough, sleep cough, snot, cough? Every time I get close to sleeping or even when I finally do begin to sleep I wake up coughing. Stupid cough syrup, you are not doing your job. You are supposed to be an all in one. But you are turning out to be a none in none.

So now its almost 3am - my throat is raw and burny, there is no skin left near my nose, my nerves are shot, my body is weak, my eyes are getting sticky, my ears won't pop and yeah. But I have popsicles thanks to a visit from Jacki and Amanda and sometimes the cough sounds looser and when I'm not coughing so hard my eyes look pretty good.

The argh.

Not As Skilled As I Think I Am

Remember how I'm a dope, and went to part of banquet?

This is how I was trying to project that I felt -





This is more how I was actually feeling -



None of which matters anymore, 'cause I'm feeling way better every day!

Thanks for your prayers!

Cupcakes

Sometimes there is a raging snow storm outside. And sometimes I've been sick for a few days and am only getting back to real food today. But sometimes you eat a bowl of soup, it fills you up and you want cupcakes. Sometimes I want cupcakes. Sometimes I want to brave the storm and get myself some preservative laden hostess cupcakes. Sometimes I'm worried about getting eaten by a polar bear.

This amount of snow reminds me of this day a few years ago.

Not Scary

Remember last week's post with the (bad) pictures of my red, swollen arms? That was another fun allergic reaction to my shots! I had to take lots of Benadryl and ice my arm and all that other exciting stuff. Anyway, the doctor wondered why I haven't had so much as a bump on my arm when I leave the office, but then 4 hours later I have an escarpment forming.

I mentioned to him that instead of taking the not as strong but longer lasting anti-histamines like Allegra, Reactin, Aerius, etc I was just taking Benadryl, because that's what I had around. He thought that maybe it was the strength of the Benadryl that was keeping reactions away at the office and that as it wore off at home that's why I had my reactions.

So he told me not to take anything before I come in and he knocked me down to the first dose of vial 2. Now, we've been over this vial thing a bit, but lets refresh... Three vials, each vial is progressively stronger, and I get a progressively larger dose - So, I would start with vial 1, I'd get 0.05somethings of vial one, the next week 0.1 and so on until I don't know 1.0? I think there are only 4 or 5 doses for each bottle. Anyway, my troubles started part way through vial 2 and it took a solid 3 months to get through it. This is because every time I had a reaction, for the next week's shot I would have to go down 2 or 3 doses. So the doctor took me back down to 0.05 of vial two with no antihistamine.

I was a little worried. Not big worried that I was going to die, but um, cautious. Chelsea came with me just in case. I'm kinda glad she did. I got my shots and after about 10min they asked me how I was, and I was really ok. Then I started to get pretty dizzy, my chest started to tighten up, Chels said I was getting Rosy cheeked and I was just feeling bwah. After around 40min they came back to check me. The nurse looked at my arms (and there were only little bumps and a tiny bit of redness), but didn't ask me anything. Since my arms looked good she told me I could go. So I did.

Chelsea took me back to her place where I spent the next few hours on her bed feeling drunk and weirded out. But then I had to go for so much performing. I went through the afternoon and the evening with a fever, a headache and an urge to not breath deep. As the evening went on I felt better and better.

So go my body! It had to fight a little (ok, sort of a lot - but i didn't want to get all fussed over at the doctor's office, and it turned out ok), but this morning I'd say that other than a little rasp in the chest, you wouldn't even know what had happened!

Blood Removed and Groceries Bought

Well I had my specialist appointment on Thursday. I wish I could tell you lots about it, but there isn't much to tell. The Dr asked me a lot of questions; felt or listened to (or both) most of my body and then told me that he didn't think that there was some terrible disease lurking in my background. He felt like I was a healthy woman with whom there was just a couple of things that were 'off'. So he ordered up a bunch of tests. I had a bunch of blood removed today for them. Now we wait...

So there you are. Not dying which is good news, don't know what is happening, which is a little less encouraging.

Bad News That Turned Into Good News

Remember how I was supposed to have my specialist's appointment on the 18th of December? Well the other day I got this letter in the mail telling me that my appointment had been moved from the 18th to the 21st. This brought a nice mix of both rage and disappointment. The 21st is five whole days after I'm done exams. So either I would have to go home and come back or stay in the hammer for a very long time. I was not so excited about either option.

I had to call the Dr's office to confirm that I knew about this date change. So yesterday I called and while I was talking with the receptionist I mentioned that the appointment was so far after I was done exams, and that I'm not at all from this area and that my Mom has limited mobility and I really need to go home and help get Christmas going, etc, and if there was anything she could do to get me in earlier it would be really appreciated, but that I knew I was on the low end of the pole for getting a cancellation. She heard my plea and told me that would have loved to give me something earlier, but that she just didn't have anything. She said it would be especially hard because I have an hour long appointment and those very rarely get cancelled. But she said she would put a note in the books just in case. I thanked her for her time and that was that.

Ten minutes later the phone rang. It was Dr Gibson's office. A pre-op had cancelled and I could have my hour on....wait for it....November 23rd! Woooo! I'm pretty excited. Thought I should share.