Almost Better

I am feeling a lot better than I did. My headaches are gone, aches are gone, fever is gone, everything is just about gone except feeling a little tired and unmotivated, and a cough that just won't quit. Hopefully, I will feel 100% soon, but I am very glad I am no longer feeling as horrible as I did for so long. I can't believe I ran a fever for just about a week straight!! Yuck. On top of that, I was in bed for 9 or 10 days. I hope to never have to feel that bad again (or to have any loved ones feel like that either!)!!

Fortunately, no one in my house had picked up my nasty flu turned pneumonia junk. However, poor Ray came down with a doozie of a cold that had his head all congested and making him feel like crud. He did such a good job taking care of me, I feel so bad he feels bad now. I'm just glad he didn't get the flu! I think he is feeling better today than he has, so thats a good sign.

Not So On The Mend.......

So I wasn't going to go back the NP unless I was feeling a lot worse, and quite frankly, I don't know how much worse I can feel. But, I was hacking up a storm and wanted to see if she can give me a better cough medicine than what she had given me because I wasn't getting any relief in the coughing department what-so-ever. So after I went to school to take my midterm that I didn't study for, and because of email problems was not able to make any arrangements for retaking the test with my professor, I went to the walk-in clinic to see the NP. She went ahead and listened to my lungs again, and this time she said my right lung sounded diminished, which meant I could have pneumonia. She ordered a chest xray, and I went so late this afternoon, I was told it would probably be tomorrow before the radiologist called the NP. However, by the time I got home from picking up my prescriptions, the NP called and told me I did indeed have pneumonia.

Yuck.

I have to take this time to to thank Ray and his mom. They have been an INCREDIBLE help to me during this time, and I don't know what I would do without them. Mom had taken the kids out of the house several times, and even had a few sleepovers. Ray has been my "caretaker" (I called him my nurse, but he HATES that, lol). He has woken me up every few hours to give me my meds, he's helped get me whatever I need, he's done laundry, he's cleaned up, he's drove me around today like crazy. Thank you both very much for your help. I'd be lost without it.

I hope to report soon that I am better. I start my new antibiotic today, and the NP said I should feel better after 5 days. I'll keep you posted.

On the Mend....

Or so I thought. I had a pretty decent day. I had alternated taking Advil and Tylenol every 2 hours and felt pretty decent except for feeling beat down. My headache was really controlled and I think it almost went away completely. Then I made a fatal mistake. I decided not to take my 5pm dose of meds since I thought I was on the up swing.

Not the best idea in the world.

By 9 pm I was in a world of trouble. Fever spiked. Severe shivering (and by severe, I'm talking it looked like I was having a seizure-- I had on pants and socks, a shirt and a long sleeved shirt, and was under a sheet and three blankets and was still cold). Headache returned. Achiness back. Add to the my cough got worse and as I hacked away, my headache only tripled in pain. I felt nauseous, and light headed, and just completely horrible.

Problem is, how am I supposed to know I'm better yet if I'm always taking medicine? I could be taking medicine for like 15 years and not know if my fever is gone yet, you know?

Not sure what to do with that department. But for now, I guess I'll keep taking my meds every 2 hours.

I went to the dr yesterday. Well, it was a walk in clinic and there was a Nurse Practitioner there, but whatever.....she's been trained to figure stuff out. Since I want to be a nurse myself, I'm a little partial to NP's. Anyway, she said its more than likely the Flu, which was what I kinda figured out on my own. Ray asked me to ask her if it was H1N1, aka Swine Flu. She said she didn't think so because it would be more severe and I would be completely knocked down. Then today, I was IM'ing with my best friend who moved far away from south Florida for a fancy job at the CDC. She's gone through some extensive information sessions on H1N1 due to her job there, and half jokingly said I probably had it. I told her what the NP said, about it being more severe, and she explained to me in all this fancy talk that thats not necessarily true and asked if I got my mouth swabbed. I said no, and she said that since people have been recovering pretty well, they're not getting swabbed as much because of the expense. Whatever. I don't really care what kind of Flu I have, I just want it to go away. Influenza A, Influenza B, makes no difference, just hurry up and go.

Now I sit here, wide awake, awaiting for my Advil PM that I took an hour ago to kick in. I'm hot, but then I take the blankets off and I'm chilly. It's crazy. My head is killing me, and I have to be back up in an hour to take more meds. Fun.

Ray says I might have to go back to the dr on Monday. Bleh. I really don't like going. Unless they can magically make me feel better or give me some super narcotics to take away this headache, I'm not sure what the point is. Yeah, I know asking for narcotics sounds bad, but remember, I don't even like to take meds in the first place. I just want some relief.

Anyone got any relief?

Still Sick

I couldn't sleep because of some crazy shivering I was going through a couple of hours ago. My fever is back up again, too. I've been controlling it with meds, but since I was asleep, I didn't take anymore since I went to bed, and thus my fever returned. I hope I feel better soon......I'm supposed to be studying for a big midterm on Tuesday. My headache still has not gone away, either. Also, the weird thing is that when my fever is up, I am nauseous, lightheaded and dizzy. Blah. This is beginning day 4 now. Perhaps I should go to the dr. I usually hate going because when I do, nothing is wrong. Then I'm afraid that if I don't go something IS wrong. Ha! Such a terrible predicament.

By the way, its funny how I can go from shivering so bad I can barely breathe, to sweating like I'm running in 100 degree heat.

I really hope no one else gets sick. This is pretty stinky.

I think I will try to go back to sleep now.

Blah

Tonight I feel blah. I started coughing, and then I started a fever, albeit a low grade one, but for me, whose base temp NEVER reaches 98, I got really warm feeling inside, and started the shivers. I think I had about 3 blankets on and my hands were still like ice. I had some serious chills. I went to bed with out taking any medicine, because if you know me, I am stubborn like that. I HATE taking medicine. I will try to live out a migraine until the migraine wins and I succumb to taking tylenol, advil or excedrin. I went to bed at 10:30pm (we were in the middle of a thunderstorm, so it was so soothing to watch the lightning and listen to the thunder roar as I faded into a slumber). It is now 1:30am and I can't sleep. I took my temperature, and it was 101 point something. Ok, time to take some meds. I am achy, and coughy, and headachy (yes, these are words!) but no longer cold. I think I will try to retreat back to bed and watch some TV until I fade out again. I can't even remember the last time I had a fever over 100, much less at 101 point something. Hopefully it will not return, and hopefully the advil will work (and tylenol, too in a couple of hours).

I feel really blah!

Whoa.....

It's hot out! Apparently, it feels like 108. That's pretty hot y'all!

Happy Father's Day to My Wonderful Hubby!

Happy Father's Day to my best friend. I am a very blessed woman to have a husband like you and I am so grateful that our children have such a wonderful dad. Thanks for being such a great man. I love you!

My Big Girl

Last night, my big girl, who in just two and a half months will turn 7, took her first shower. I told her we'd have to get ready for a bath, and she asked if she could try taking a shower instead. My little angel is growing TOO FAST!

From the Mouths of Babes

Mom: "Nate, what do you want to be when you grow up?"

Nate: "Nobody. I want to be me."

Mom: "Nate, you don't want to be a real firefighter and drive a real firetruck?"

Nate: "No, I want to be little forever."


Ah.....if only they could really stay little forever.

Yesterday

Yesterday, Ray wanted to work on organizing the kids' toys and relocating them from the living room toy bin into the new cubicles in their room. While we were in the midst of said project when some kid decided it would be really cool to pull the fire alarm in my building. Well, besides the fact that the alarm outside is REALLY loud, we have an alarm inside our house that was even louder (and its not a smoke detector, its like a little speaker)! I seriously had to plug my ears with my fingers. After Ray went outside to make sure there wasn't really a fire, he came back and covered up the alarm so it wouldn't make us deaf. Finally after about 10-15 minutes, the fire department showed up to shut it off. The meter room happens to be right next to my back porch, so I saw the fire fighters pass by and thought, "I need to get Nate and go see the fire trucks before they leave!" So I yelled for Nate, and Ray, Grace, Nate and I all went outside to see the fire truck. Just as we got there, a Lieutenant walked up behind us and said hi to Nate and then asked if Nate wanted to go in the fire truck. But, just as he said that, they got a call and had to go. It was very cool of him to offer, though. Nate was just glad to see yet another fire truck.

Bad, Bad Blogger

Sorry. Again. As usual, I am so busy, and I often forget to update this. Ray and I took the kids to see the movie UP yesterday and we would highly recommend the movie to any one of any age to see it. It was a very good movie. I do think it moved a little slowly at times for Nate, since a few minutes before the end he asked me, "Mommy, how long does it take?" I interpreted that as, "Man, is this thing over yet?" Nate liked the movie, though, despite wanting it to be over. Hey, its hard for a three and a half year old to sit anywhere for over 10 minutes straight, let alone an hour and a half.

Today, I got to take the kids on a tour of the fire station. They had such a great time, thanks to my friend Tessa who had plans to go with a play group and got me in after some cancellations opened up. In case you don't already know this, Nate is obsessed with fire trucks. He probably is either playing with his fire truck, or pretending he is a fire fighter and making fire truck siren noises about 75% of the day, so this we a delight for him. Grace was super excited, too. I took some pics and I promise to have those up in a few days.

I Love It When......

• Nate tells me he wants to "nuggle" with me. I love to snuggle with my kiddos.
• I don't have to cook
• My house is clean
• I go to Olive Garden
• I go to any restaurant, because that means I am not cooking that meal
• I do well on a test
• I can hear the rain pounding on my windows and I can hear the thunder roll and I can stay home and relax because I don't have to go anywhere
• I go on vacations
• Its quiet
• I can take a nap
• I get hugs from my husband. He's the best hugger, ever!
• Its cold outside (is it October yet?)
• I drink Chai Lattes
• I drink Caramel Lattes
• Grace makes pictures for me

Tonight is Grace's Kindergarten Graduation. How cute! I can't believe she'll be a First Grader in the Fall. Yikes....time flies!

My Computer

A little over a week ago, my computer crashed. I was able to turn my computer on, but after it VERY slowly loaded up, I was only able to do a few small things. I was not able to do anything in Windows, which included shutting the computer down properly, check my email, etc. I ran a diagnostic test on it which indicated I had an issue with my hard drive failing. I called Dell, told them the code I received from doing the diagnostic test and they just confirmed my address and sent me a new hard drive with no questions (guess they thought I knew what I was talking about, ha ha!). Ray and I decided that I would just increase my hard drive space and buy a new hard drive at Comp USA, and use the one Dell sent me as my external hard drive instead. After getting my new hard drive, format it, reinstall Windows, load up all my drivers, figure out why my wireless card was not enabled and fix it, figure out why my sound wasn't working and fix that, then I had to transfer the data from my old hard drive to my new one by plugging it into my computer as an external drive and I also upgraded the size of my RAM. Phew! It was exhausting. But I did it. I almost threw my computer out the window a few times, but its done and its working and I'm glad its finally over. Hopefully I won't have to do this again for a LONG time. :)

Experiment

I decided to conduct an experiment tonight.

Perhaps I should back up a bit and give you a little background story. A while ago I noticed that when I ate just a few Pistachios, I would start getting a reaction in my throat, mouth and ears. I've tried to eat them several times after and its been the same every time. Then one night not too long ago, we had a jar of almonds, macadamia nuts, and cashews. I ate some, and soon realized I was having the same reaction. I was pretty certain that it wasn't the almonds or the macadamia nuts since I eat them more often than other nuts and have never had a problem. I started googling online, and soon realized that apparently people who have a reaction to pistachios have a cross reaction to cashews. Basically that means you can have a reaction to something and have a reaction to something else that is different, but similar to what you had a reaction to. Cashews and pistachios belong to the same family, Anacardiaceae, which also happens to be the family that Mango belongs to, however, I just ate Mango a few weeks ago and was fine. But there is a popular cross reactivity between the Cashews and Pistachios.

So my experiment was that I purchased a jar of Cashews from the store to eat to see if I got another reaction. Now basically, I had made note that in the jar of mixed nuts I had a reaction to not too long ago had contained some oils I was not familiar with, and hoped that was what causing my reactions, so I made sure to purchase a jar of Cashews that did not contain that same oil. Well, folks, its true, I am DEFINITELY allergic to Cashews and Pistachios. Goodbye Pistachios and Cashews. I will miss you. I will now make friends with Benedryl.

Bullet Updates

• I went up to see Wendi, John, Isaac, and Elijah a week and a half ago.
• I FINALLY got to meet my little Elijah
• I FINALLY got to hold my little Elijah
• I went to Isaac's first birthday party
• Nate now asks everyday to go see Uncle John, Aunt Wendi, Issac and Elijah again
• Nate is fully potty trained, but just can't seem to stay dry at naps and bedtime consistently
  
• I just cleaned out the kids closet and reorganized it
• I am about 96.5% done with the kids' entire room
• The hall closet is next
• Then its our bedroom closet
• Ray and the kids served me breakfast in bed on Sunday for Mother's Day
• Then Grace knocked over my milk onto the floor
• So breakfast in bed became breakfast out of bed
• But thats ok
• I need to restart my diet
• And I need to drink more water
• And I need to work out
• And I need to go back to the gym by June 1 or I have to cancel my membership
• I need to go read my Microbiology lab experiments for Thursday
• So I am ending my blog entry for today
• I'll try to blog again soon, but we all know how that goes :)