The Five Weeks of Extreme Suckage

What is playing on the iPod? Wake Up - Three Days Grace

Unfortunately, I have had an extremely long period in between blog entries again, which is the inspiration for this particular entry. My youngest child, Logan, loves school. The whole process, learning, being with the kids, every part of school makes him giddy with anticipation. So, when he came up to me last month, crying and asked to stay home from school, my Spidey senses went off. This was so not good. A visit to the pediatrician later that day resulted in a bronchitis diagnosis. Logan missed the better part of that week of school, much to his dismay. By the end of day two, he was ready to go back and truthfully, I was ready to send him. In the meantime, I sounded like I was trying to cough up a fur ball the size of Alaska. I was fully convinced that it was a sinus infection until I ended up hooked up to an IV getting fluids the next week for dehydration. As it turned out, I had bronchitis and a kidney infection. Lovely, especially for someone who has been deemed immunocompromised (due to my four autoimmune conditions). Week two of hell was well underway. After 12 days of migrating from the bed, bathroom and vehicle to transport the kids back and forth to school, I gradually became upright - yippee! The Monday, which began week four, my oldest tells me he feels like he was hit by a truck. He woke me up at 2 in the morning, getting two inches from my face and informing me that his throat was in dire pain. After politely asking him to remove his undoubtedly contagious mouth away from my face, I got him some medicine, made sure he was comfortable, went about Purelling myself and crawled back in bed. The subsequent visit to the pediatrician later that day resulted in a negative strep culture (that was what my money was on) and a positive flu test.

After a litany of mentally spewed four letter words, I discovered that he met virtually every CDC-established criteria for H1N1. Being a healthy child (thank God), he was not eligible for Tamiflu. However, I was. I called my local doc (the only non-Duke doc I have) and informed them of the situation. A prophylactic prescription for Tamiflu was called in.

As evidence of my weird sense of humor, as soon as the nurse said "prophylactic", I snorted. I had all sorts of lewd thoughts running through my head...

"Trojan, it's no longer for birth control! We are now making Tamiflu!" Sorry, I digress.

Anyway, back to the five weeks of extreme suckage. Carson recovered and this past Monday went back to school. The day before he went back, it was a beautiful, sunny day. The day held much potential. Barring any unforeseen events, both children would be at school the next day and I could work on book two - woohoo! That night, my right eye started tearing up. Another mentally and verbally spewed litany of four letter words started as soon as I discovered that I could not bear to look at light. I went to the doctor the next morning for a recheck. As soon as the doc asked "is there anything else", I took my sunglasses off. She took one look at my eye and said, no joke, "Oh my God!"

Boy, does that boost confidence.

She went to get the black light and after getting some stain rubbed on my lower lid, she found that I had scratched my cornea.

Week five was off to a rousing start.

I got a good bit of antibiotic goo smeared on the inside of my lid and had my eye patched. I have not put a picture up, but let me assure you that I am white. Not only am I white, I am a shade of white that makes cotton balls look like they have a tan. I tell people that Duke has to keep a special set of pink sheets on hand for when I have surgery so I don't blend in to the white sheets. So, I dubbed myself Snowball, the pirate and went about the next 24 hours, which is the amount of time I had to wear the patch.

Here we sit on Thursday of week five and I am patch free. I still have some light sensitivity, which is normal, but not a deterrent to keep me away from the computers. I am back people and I am hoping for a much less eventful next week.

Until next time.