Walk it Off

 My wonderful son is EIGHTEEN, despite my efforts to keep him tiny and cherished. I can remember him chasing cats around the kitchen in his walker, and changing his diapers, and holding him when he was scared.  We had such wonderful conversations when I drove him to and from school with him securely strapped into a car seat.  We would talk about God and the whole world.  Now he actually drives himself to school while I say a silent prayer that he gets there safely.  

When I was that age, I didn't see myself as an adult.  I moved into my college dorm without a care in the world, thinking that college was just high school, part two.  Mom and Dad were there to take care of any emergencies that popped up. The first time I ever got sick while in college, I called my Dad. Any time I got sick, I talked to my dad, because he would say, "Meh, it's nothing, walk it off," and I knew that I would survive.  Except that is not what my Dad said this time.  

"What do you want me to do about it?  I'm a few thousand miles away." 

And I remember thinking a bad word, because Dad, in his infinite wisdom, was right.  That did not solve my dilemma, however. My stomach really hurt, and not in the way a stomachache has you laying on the couch sipping Sprite and eating crackers while watching soap operas.  This was actual pain, knives poking into my gut repeatedly. Never happened to me before, so I freaked, of course.

My anxiety immediately went to the conclusion that I was going to die.  

I eventually realized that there was a clinic on campus, and I walked there, slowly, in the dark. I saw a person at the clinic that may have been a doctor, but maybe not.  This person looked at my pale, tearstained face, listened to my tale of woe, gave me a prescription for what was probably Prilosec, and sent me home.  No emergency room visit.  I was fine the next day.   I probably could have just walked it off, but I was eighteen.  

So now my boy has been having stomach issues, but I am right here to share the wisdom of my Dad, and the OTC Prilosec.  And my son did indeed go walking, and his stomach stopped hurting.  There's a lesson in there somewhere, maybe about problem solving or pausing for a breath before freaking out.  I'll let my child figure it out.

Walk it off.  

Fever of Unknown Origin

Last Thursday afternoon I started having chills.  I thought perhaps that I had had too much sun the day before, so I didn't really worry about it too much.  My parents are both nurses; as long as I'm not bleeding from an eyeball, I figure I can walk it off.  The chills continued, I grabbed a blanket.  Then another.  Larry put his hand on my forehead.

"You feel warm," he said.  So I took my temperature, and he was right.  It was 99.6.  I took some ibuprofen, and went about my business.  After all, 99 isn't that big a deal.  I went to a hair salon and had my hair cut and colored.  Larry and I went out to eat, because Zane was spending the night at a friend's house. 

By the time we arrived home, I was having chills again.  The joints in my body were aching; my hips in particular.  I took my temp; it was 100.7.  I mentioned the number to Larry in passing, and took more ibuprofen.  He was concerned, but his main job is to worry about me.  I'm usually not concerned about fevers, especially not after all I'd been through in the last two years. Shrugging it off, Larry and I watched some Netflix for a couple of hours, then headed upstairs.

My fever was 101.2.

"Do I need to take you to the emergency room?" Larry was joking/not joking. I was a little concerned now, too. I'd take a lot of ibuprofen, and the fever had gone up.  What did that mean?  I thought about the open wound in my belly, but dismissed that idea immediately. There would have been other signs of such an infection. As for the aching joints, the chemo drug they have me on has that particular fun as one of the main side effects. Taking a couple of Tylenol this time, I went to sleep underneath four blankets.

I woke up at one in the morning,  burning up.  Holy cow, was I hot!  I threw off all the blankets.  I sat up and had a drink of water.  That was when I realized that I wasn't sweating.  I was extremely hot but I wasn't sweating.  For some reason, that particular detail bothered me, and I couldn't let it go. I finally woke up Larry. 

He didn't even grumble, but got up and took my temperature.  It was 102.9. Another red flag for me.  I hobbled out of bed; my joints were now extremely painful.  I'd spent time on WebMd.  High fever, painful joints...probably the flu.   Yes, I am ridiculous about trying to diagnose my own maladies without an actual medical degree. I know just enough to freak myself out...and when I need to go to the hospital. 

"You are going to have to take me to the ER,"  I told him.  I didn't even change clothes.  I put on my shoes, threw a blanket around my shoulders, grabbed my purse, and away we went to the closest emergency room.  It was relatively empty; thankfully.  I was led to the back and started answering questions and letting them examine me.  Everyone was very nice, but at some point the nurse(who actually lives right across the cul de sac from me!)  leaned over his communicator and said some concerning words.

"Sepsis alert."

Sepsis?  Wha?  No!  I have no time for such things, my brain argued.  This is the flu, dammit!  They'd all looked at my open wound and pronounced it a beautiful specimen of wound packing. How could I have sepsis?  I started to feel panic, and then they came to take my blood and set up an IV.  Instead of the normal test tubes, however, they brought these bottles that looked enormous. About the size of one of those mini cans of soda they sell now.  That was painful, but I made it.  Then a little later, another nurse came in and took another gallon from the other arm, and she DUG into that vein like it was the Mother Lode.  I nearly punched her in the face, even though the doctor was standing right there talking to me.  She also took my blanket, because, she said in a singsong voice,  "Fever means no blankets!"  

Oh, and they did a flu test. 

I couldn't pee enough in a cup to make them happy, so they gave me fluids.  And...ibuprofen.  800mg of it, instead of the paltry 400mg I'd been chewing on all day.  This time, my fever went down, and my liver did not leap directly out of my body in protest of all the ibuprofen. I call that a win.  I even slept a little. Larry sat next to me and put his head on my stomach and slept, too.

And at five in the morning, the doctor came in to my room to announce that...absolutely nothing was wrong with me.  Nada.  All my blood counts were perfect, no trace of the flu, and I no longer had a fever.  My discharge papers said "Fever of unknown origin".  Like I was an X-file or something, and David Duchovny was going to come and ask me about aliens. 

As we walked out to the car, I was annoyed, because if I go to the ER in the middle of the night, there should be something actually wrong, dang it.  Larry was just relieved, because this was a happy ending, as far as he was concerned. After I calmed down, I realized that he was right.

Larry and I need a few happy endings to our medical adventures.    

The Secret to a Happy Marriage

I've been sick this week, with either a cold or allergies. It's kind of difficult to tell at this point. I just feel cruddy, but I don't have a fever, and I can't take off work this week because next week is spring break. So I've been muddling through. Emphasis on the word 'muddle'.

I hate to be sick. I hate not feeling like myself. I hate wanting to sleep so bad that I start nodding off in the middle of conversations. I hate feeling like my brain is in a fog. I hate being so irritable that I want to just start smacking everyone around me for no good reason. (even when I'm perfectly healthy, I sometimes want to smack someone. But I usually have a reason.) I need TWO spring breaks. If all this sounds odd, it's likely the cold medicine I took so I could get some sleep. It apparently makes you wacky. It actually says that on the box.

But enough about my wallowing in the self-pity trough. The Secret to a Happy Marriage is (drum roll)...separate bathrooms. Even if you don't have indoor plumbing, you need to have a "two seater" separated by a partition. Everyone needs their space, especially married couples, who are 'supposed' to want to do everything together. Togetherness is nice, but a little of that goes a long way, especially in a marriage.

Some of us are downright slobs(*raises hand), while others are obsessive compulsive neatniks. Separate bathrooms allows each person to express their personality to the utmost without fear of the other person completely ruining everything simply by crossing the threshold. One can leave the toothpaste sitting out all day, for instance, and nobody cares, because it's not in the other person's space. No random arguments that escalate over time until Cold War is declared!

Discuss.

Does A Mental "I Told You So" Count?

My husband has been ill these past 48 hours. He has been spending a lot of time in the bathroom, if you can imagine. Well, I would advise against imagining that.

When you have a stomach bug, you don't keep stuffing your face. You drink s lot of water or gatorade, but you don't eat much. If you do have to eat, you eat very bland food, like saltine crackers or plain toast or plain white rice. Stuff that won't make things inside you worse. Prolonging the agony is not the name of the game. Unless you like that sort of thing. Ew.

So I walk into the kitchen this evening to find Larry about to cook himself ham and eggs.

"You can't eat that, Larry," I told him. "You will regret it. A lot."

"What? It's just eggs!" Larry said. I just looked at him, eyebrows raised, then turned around and walked out of the kitchen.

Twenty minutes later, a very unhappy husband rushes past me on his way to the bathroom. I did not say a word. I did, however, think it.

"I heard that!" he yelled at the top of the stairs.

Family is an Awesome Thing

One of the biggest issues that a working mom faces is what to do when your child gets sick. On the one hand, the ever present desire of your heart is to look after the welfare of your child. On the other hand, working women have a duty to their employer to show up to complete the work they were hired to do. And on the third hand, there's the paycheck. The paycheck that can make a huge difference if it is not there on billpaying day.

I once told my husband that he needed to become a famous person so he could support me in the lifestyle to which I could become accustomed, he apparently did not believe me. So we both work at this point in our lives, and it will be that way for awhile. When our beautiful little big boy is sick, one of us is more than willing to stay at home with him.

Except...when I have federal deadlines to meet, kids to test, important parent meetings to attend, lesson plans to create, writing projects to present, and workshops. Then it's not so easy to decide to stay home with a sick child. Larry usually ends up staying home, because he, at one point, had more sick days than I did. But it is getting close to the Imaginary Time, as I call it, when all of the school children will suddenly and magically learn to read fluently and write coherently for the flagrantly worshipped idol called TAKS. So now his days are limited as much as mine. We live in Converse, but carpool to New Braunfels. Sometimes we work late, for various reasons. Sometimes,as painful as it feels, we just cannot drop everything and leave to go pick up Zane.

Yet just as we have been gifted with the most miraculous child, we have been gifted with the blessing of family. My family is not very chatty. We don't talk a lot on the phone. We do try to eat lunch together every Sunday, although I don't get to pay as much attention as I would like because I have to pay attention to Zane around sharp knives and forks. My husband marvels at how little I seem to communicate with my family, and I marvel at his seemingly constant communication with his mother. (when we first started dating, Larry was on the phone with his mother at least 7 times a day. I am not kidding.)

But here's the thing: whether I talk to my parents or my brother five times a day or never, they are there for me when I need them. My sister-in-law spent two years taking care of Zane for us because he wasn't supposed to be at a daycare. Denise did this cheerfully on most days, and Zane thrived. He still talks about going to 'Auntie's house'.

On Friday, when the daycare called and asked us to come pick up Zane because he was ill, Denise went and picked him up. Then my parents picked him up from her house and took him to our house and played with him until we were able to get home. Today, Denise is going to be taking care of Zane(once again, he's got the runs, so no daycare). If my parents finish their appointments early(my dad has a CT scan to check for any cancer, they are going to go and get Zane and take him home and will watch him until we are able to get there. Occasionally, when we have to work late, Larry's mother will go and pick up Zane from daycare and take him home and wait for us.

I think that it doesn't so much take a village to raise a child as it does a family. Parenting is such an extreme sport that you never know what is going to happen. I am grateful that Zane has such loving and wonderful people in his family to help raise him up to be a good man. His Mama and Daddy sure do need and appreciate the help!