Stop the Ride, Please.

Phew. I’m dizzy. That could be my infected ears talking though…

Last nite was the first time I feel like I have just “sat” and relaxed in over a week. Probably because it WAS the first time in over a week… what a whirlwind the last week and a half has been!

So Kendall was discharged from the hospital late Tuesday evening, we had to fight traffic home for 2 hours, just in time to pick up the girls from dance class. We get home and have to unload everything because we need to repack everything in the car for our trip. Literally trying to rehook Kendall up to everything in the house, scrambling to find the right meds cause the IDIOT residents forgot to write scripts when we left (luckily I hoard meds and she is ALWAYS prescribed the same crap so we had plenty on hand, i just had to dig through the cabinets to find the right combo), and my throat feels like it is on FIRE. The girls are literally hanging off of me because they haven’t seen me in a few days, they are excited to go on vacation/be on break from school, I have 892 things going through my mind about what we have to do that nite and what i have to do in the morning and the laundry I need to do and how I am going to DO all of this in the next 12 hours.

But somehow we got everyone to sleep properly hooked up to what they needed to be hooked up to, meds in the right bodies, laundry running, babies all packed, and a plan for the morning. And then I crashed in my own bed for about 8 hours before getting up to start the craziness! we had dentist appointments for the girls (where I got the fun speech about Kealey needing to see the orthodontist – which, when I questioned the poor girl who cheerily told me this info whether kealey needed to see him because she had crooked teeth or because she was 8 and this was just the age they tried to sell everyone the whole “orthodontia bill of black market goods”, made her quickly lose her smile and start stuttering about teeth health – that’s what i thought…). So with my throat still on fire, we make it home where we throw a few last minute things in the car and off we go. Or try to go. Except the garage door won’t shut. (It’s always something around here, I swear…)

And then we were off! For the 7 hour trip to Minnesota. Where it was snowing and freezing. In our car with no heat. Or – more accurately, no heat in the front. apparently it kind of warms up the back part of the car. But Ben and I froze the whole 7 hours, and this just added to my already miserable feeling existence.

We had a BLAST with cousins and aunts and uncles and namna’s and poppa’s and swimming in the hotel and freezing our tuckus’ off every time we had to go out in the 10 degree cold (still with no heat in the car) – but seriously – it was a great Thanksgiving. I really wish I had been more THERE for more of it – but as it was, I had to drug myself to be able to even remotely function. So then I was just a drugged up functioning person. (Say that fast – its fun!)

We got home late Saturday evening, got everything unpacked, got all the laundry started, and got just about everything put away. Spent all day Sunday cleaning up the house that had been left in more disarray than I like to leave before vacations, and was finally able to RELAX last nite for an hour or so. Before i had to drug myself again in order to get to sleep. By yesterday I could tell that whatever ebola virus I am currently suffering from was unlikely to just “fix itself”, and that I needed to call the doctor. (well that plus my darling father-in-law’s parting comment that “If you’da called the doctor, you’d be feeling better by now!” – I hate when he and his son are SO DARN RIGHT!!!!!)

so – luckily my awesome doc was able to fit me in today, where she promptly declared that I had a “sinus infection gone wild”. (and if that doesn’t sound like a good late-nite TV marketed DVD set, I don’t know what does!) Essentially my entire head in just full of infected snot. I know – try to contain yourselves from being jealous of the hotness. Along with the sinus infection gone wild, I have a double ear infection and croup. Just, you know, in case I wanted to feel like a 4 year old or something. I mean honestly – what adult gets a double ear infection? Let alone with CROUP on top of it? I guess what is going on is that I got the virus that caused Kaylen and Kendall’s crappy week of coughing a couple weeks ago, and landed Kendall in the hospital. But in the hospital with no sleep, and being around all the other little germ factories on the floor, my immune system crapped out, and all those little bugs just took up residence in my sinuses. The one good thing about having my sinuses, ear canals and vocal chords swollen off is that it amazingly HASn’T hit my lungs yet – praises abound. My lungs could NOT take a hit right now with as bad as the rest of me is doing! So yes – everything from my trachea up is swollen and puffy and full of snot. I swear to you I will lose four pounds just in SNOT once all of this goes away.

I am now on two antibiotics ( I didn’t even check for how long  – I think for a couple of weeks, but if I am not seeing MAJOR improvements by next monday, they are extending one of them for another two weeks), a steroid pack (which will nicely combat any snot-related weight loss I may hope for – gag), and cough syrup with codeine!!!!!!! (Not that i am excited about that last one or anything….) I know I will still be semi-drugged up, but hopefully I will be a more functional druggie with this stuff vs. my home-made OTC med cocktails I have been having to mix up in order to TRY to be functional.  And to answer the inevitable question – I just didn’t have time. By the time you realize you are sick enough to go to the doctor, its because you have finally stopped and thought “you know, it’s probably been almost 3 weeks since I have not been coughing or in major sinus pain…” It wasn’t like I didn’t think I might need to see the doc at some point – it was just a lack of time to go and see one.

So now that Kendall has gotten a major illness (well before RSV season really begins up here even – eyeroll), and I have my first winter illness under my belt – I am HOPING that we will make it all the way through December without anything else cropping up. I am really looking forward to having a fun family month, of documenting all the fun craziness that leads up to christmas, of ENJOYING all the fun things that are part of your “traditions” without even thinking of them as such.

and now i am just rambling. what else is new? it’s the steroids talking. Maybe I should rename the blog for the next couple weeks – “Steroids Talking”….things might make more sense through that filter, so just keep it in mind!

We have to be up early to hit the road for a neurology appointment up in milwaukee, then back in time to get the girls from school for dance drop off. THEN I’ll have more time to blog more coherently. I think. or hope, at least!

anyways.

thanks for checking on us. and for the prayers of so many of you. You keep us going, and i cannot thank you enough for it.

peace out homeslices.

 

terra