SOS

…_ _ _... The universal signal for distress…

This is it…the white flag it out, my arms are up and I surrender.

The last week has been interesting. Then again most of our weeks are interesting. None the less, this one takes the cake.

Wednesday we saw a slight improvement in Ellie’s case of chickenpox. I never really saw them as a threat, however with our luck you just never know what will happen! On Thursday I happened to notice that Ellie was getting a few more “pock marks” which didn’t seem “normal” to me b/c it had been almost an entire week after her diagnosis. I called the doctor (b/c I just couldn’t let a week pass without seeming desperate and neurotic to him) and he was also a little concerned. He said that with her atypical presentation of the virus she should NOT be breaking out with any new marks. His instructions were to keep watch over her and let him know on Monday if she got progressively worse. OOOHHHH…you mean a whole week of house arrest and I thought we were in the clear and now I might have to worry myself through the weekend with every red spot that pops up on her body. I am just not sure how much more I can take…little did I know!

Friday I was a nervous wreck! I even called my poor neighbor over to play doctor and give me her opinion on Ellie’s condition. She has kids, so I trusted her opinion…she said to just relax. Ellie looked fine and the rash was minor. So I took her advice and relaxed! Saturday the whole family slept in! When we finally woke up we all ate together at the table and talked about what we were going to do. B didn’t mention having to do work (for the first time in weeks…so, I took advantage of the family time). We decided to buy a new grill and have a good old fashioned family day barbequing and playing outside in the beautiful weather. We went shopping together and got a pretty cool BBQ/smoker for my chef to practice his “Bobby Flay” skills on. Uncle Chris, Uncle Dave and Aunt Katie came over and we just relaxed for hours together cooking, playing and eating!!! It was awesome. That evening Ellie was a little cranky and I was a little worn out from being On Call all week. As the evening wore on I started to feel a little under the weather. After all of our family left I was on the couch shaking with the chills. It was so bad that I had to bite the inside of my cheeks to keep my teeth from chattering together. I asked B to bring the trash can (yuck…I know) with the hopes it was just to be safe and not sorry. Turns out I would have been pretty sorry if he hadn’t put it next to me. An hour later I was horribly sick…I mean so sick I wanted to call 911. I woke B up (he was in our bed with Ellie and I was still on the couch) and asked him to help me change the bag and get some medicine. By now, most of you know about B’s sleeping issues. Once he is tired…THAT’S IT! There is no turning back for him and bless his little heart he is just useless. So, I called my mom at 1:30 to ask her what I should do. She thought maybe I had contracted shingles from Ellie’s chickenpox virus and that I needed to get to the hospital…ugh. What was I supposed to do? We couldn’t bring Ellie to the hospital and there was NO WAY that I could drive myself to the hospital. I am sure one of our neighbors would have taken me, but I decided to just wait a few hours to call my brother. At 5am I couldn’t wait any longer. I was sure I was near death and I had to get to the hospital as soon as humanly possible. I mustered up the strength to literally crawl into our bathroom shower and use a little soap to freshen up…a mix of BBQ smoke and vomit was probably not going to make a great first impression on any nurse! I got back into my pj’s and Uncle Dave was there to drive me to the hospital. God bless Dave for answering his phone at 6am on Sunday! We got to the hospital and I was admitted and put into a room rather quickly. In no time they were taking blood and because of an elevated heart rate they were inserting an IV for some medicine and fluids. Now, I have never been to the ER…ever! They only time I have had IV fluids is when I gave birth and I would have been perfectly happy keeping it that way. I HATE needles…but, I didn’t even put up a fight when she put the IV in. I was miserable. I couldn’t manage to keep my eyes open after the meds hit my system and poor Dave had to sit there and watch me sleep until my mom could get to our house to watch Ellie, so that B could drive to the hospital. What a nightmare! I was scared to death of my mom watching Ellie b/c she has CML. It is a rare form of leukemia and she has to take Interferon daily as a form of Chemotherapy to keep her cancer under control. The last thing she needed to do was go into my obviously contaminated house and watch my baby who was getting over the chickenpox! She wouldn’t hear any different and was at our house by 8:30am…what a family I have.

B got to the hospital and Dave finally got to go home and get some sleep. You should have seen the look on the doctors face when he came in the second time…he said to Brandon, “You changed…” and then he looked at me in a very confused manner. We laughed and explained that Dave was my little brother…blah blah blah.

Anyway, after a few bags of IV fluids my heart rate was still elevated. All of the tests came back normal, so there was no flu or shingles to worry about. I decided that rather than sitting through another bag of IV fluids I would rather be at home with a ton of water and my baby girl. They discharged me and we were on our way. I was certain that I only had a 24 hour bug and I would be better in no time…and here we are on Tuesday evening…not a whole lot of progress.

I love my job. I love being here with Ellie...doing the dishes, cleaning the kitchen, keeping the living room clean, being a stay at home mom…BUT, when the mom is sick there is NO ONE left to help! I was so sick still on Monday that I begged my poor mom to come back out and help me. She did and she even made homemade chicken noodle soup for me (not that I could eat). I decided that today had to be better than yesterday, but mind over matter just isn’t working for me this time around. I was feeling better in the head ache department, but other parts were not doing well at all today. I am SURE that I will feel better tomorrow. I don’t think Ellie can take one more day of me sitting in the couch replaying Mickey Mouse Clubhouse for her for the 100th time while she has to entertain herself. To top it all off, sometime this weekend Ellie got a terrible diaper rash and for the last two days I have had to let her run around with no panties on just so it could heal. So, B came home to a worthless wife yesterday and a ½ dressed baby girl with a toddler potty in the middle of the living room…did he hit the jackpot or what!

Basically, this post has drained the reserve energy that my couch has been saving up, so I’m off to rest. I’ll keep up the update posts with hopes that great news is on the horizon!

Blessings,
Angie