I'm back!

Sadly, it's not from a vacation.

Last Friday, as in eight days ago, my son came home from daycare with a Virus. This one deserves the respect of being capilatized, because it's a nasty one. It causes high fever, they told me, and it lasts about 72 hours. Okay, fine, we did the math and this meant that, in all likelihood, he'd have to be home from school Monday. We've gotten pretty lucky with this kid so far- he hadn't been out sick from school once- so we were pretty philosophical about it all.

So, Sunday morning, I woke up, went and interpreted in church, and came home early. Why? I had The Virus. I had a fever, chills and sweats, the works. So, all three of us stayed home Monday- Darrel to take care of the both of us, because I was too sick to even think about caring for Frank.

Tuesday we all stayed home again. Frank was fever-free by Wednesday afternoon, and they were predicting insane snow for us for Wednesday, arriving at the perfect time, so that meant, if all went well, the two of us would have one more day home to recuperate before going back thursday.

Wednesday- Yes! Snow Day for all! Frank seemed ornery, although fever-free, so we thought he was just bored and needed to go back. I still felt crummy, so I called in sick for Thursday.

Thursday- Darrel and Frank left around 8am, and I got dressed and drove myself to the local hospital. Why, you ask? I woke in the middle of the night with a pain in my torso, very similar to the pain I had two years ago when I had double pneumonia and an empyema. It wasn't as painful, but the location and type of pain were scarily familiar, and I didn't want to fool around and wait to call my Primary care doctor and try to get in later in the day.

After three hours of staring at the ceiling in the ER (the plus side? I now know what is involved in doing an intake for a detox bed- the guy in the curtain area next to mine was trying to quit heroin, and, curtains being what they are, I was able to hear everything!), I was diagnosed with bronchitis and "a little bit of pneumonia". Hm, isn't that like being a little bit pregnant?

The good news is, I am okay enough that they let me leave the hospital that day. I came home with a scrip for an antibiotic and orders to rest and not go back to work until at least Monday.

My mother is really worried, and she's not a woman who worries easily or outwardly.

I am just so frustrated- I am so useless, I cannot even care for my son through a virus without worrying about ending up in a hospital? It's really very depressing. The fact that winters seem longer and longer as I get older doesn't help, either. I'm starting to fanatsize about moving south, somewhere, anywhere. I've lived in NJ my entire life, but I may have to face the fact that the climate here just isn't good for me, at least in winters. I have to work in the NJ school s at least 25 years, though, to get the pension and be able to get the same health insurance after I retire. That means the earliest I can retire would be age 51. I am hoping to make it to 56, and make it a nice even 30 years in the system, but I just honestly don't know if my body will be able to handle it!

Oh, and the coda on this whole deal? The daycare called Thursday aftrenoon- Frank had another fever! This meant he'd be home with me Friday, because he has to be fever-free for 24 hours before he's allowed back. I called my best friend, the most wonderful, awesome, selfless, giving human being on the planet, and she graciously agreed to come and help me out Friday afternoon. Friday morning, I got Frank an appointment in with the pediatrician, and it turns out that he not only has bronchitis, but he also has a double ear infection, a bad one! Bronchitis, I had a feeling about, but the ears?? He never indicated pain with them! When I said this to the doctor, she shrugged and said, "Some kids just have a very high pain tolerance."

So, how do you explain to a little kid that there are some pains one must give in to and tell Mommy about without turning the child into a hypochondriac??

Inauguration Day

I watched the Inauguration this morning at school, in the cafeteria with about 75 high school students. I work in a very conservative, very wealthy district where many of the kids unsurprisingly parrot the views of their parents. So, imagine my surprise and pleasure when Barack Obama was given the oath of office and, at the end, the kids all burst into applause. It really caused goosebumps for me, and it made me a little teary-eyed.

I grew up in New Jersey, not anywhere near what you'd call the deep South, but I grew up in a town that was very white. We had some Asians in my high school, but we mostly were white. My father is a very prejudiced man, outwardly so; my mother is somewhat prejudiced, too, but not nearly as bad as my father. If you had announced to my family when I was growing up that I would see a black man become President before I died, they would have chuckled, at the very least. (I have always said that this country would elect a black man before it elects a white woman to lead it, but that's another issue altogether.)

I am so happy to be able to say that, when my son is my age, he will look back on this date and wonder what the big deal was. As he grows up, for him, a person of color reaching the highest office in the land will be a given, not a pipe dream. He will grow up automatically seeing black people as equals, not as the scary people I thought they were because the only ones I ever saw were on TV, being arrested.

I just hope that those who are heaping such accolades on President Obama now aren't disappointed in the days and weeks to come when he isn't able to fix everything overnight. In reality, Presidents don't really affect every day life all that much, and I hope that people's love for the man doesn't turn into contempt because he's not Superman and won't be able to change everything immediately.

It's kind of cool, what we do every four years. We elect someone new to lead us, and have a turnover of power peacfully, without any death or bloodshed of any kind. We were the first country to think that was a good idea, and for over 200 years, we've done it well.

God bless America.

Busy

This week, rehearsals began for the spring musical, "Cinderella". There are three deaf kids in the chorus, so I will be interpreting practices a couple of days a week from now until the show, the first weekend in March. It's fun, and it's nice to interpret rehearsals without having to think the whole time, "Oh crap...I really have no idea how I'm going to interpret this song and this line!" That's the kids' jobs, to figure that stuff out, for the times they'll be onstage. :)

So, combine that with Frank having OT once a week, and possibly adding speech therapy to that (His speech is fine, but the drooling...His OT says that the standard is if the child is still drooling after 24 months for the child to get evaluated. He's still drooling just as much as when he was six months old! Anyway, speech therapists can do exercises and stuff to strengthen jaw muscles so some of that drool stays in his mouth.), and leaving one day a week for errands or other doctor's appointments, I'll be busy for the next two months. That's good, because it'll give me less time to hang out around here and, you know, eat. And extra money is always good.

Scales are very annoying. My doctor's scale two weeks ago said I was 150 pounds. This was at 9:30am, and I was fasting because I was getting blood drawn. The scale in the nurse's office at school says 152. (I have decided that I hate that scale.) My brand new digital scale I bought last week says, when I weigh myself first thing in the morning that I am 146 pounds. I realize there will be some fluctuation between scales because of time of day I weigh myself, what I've eaten, and what I'm wearing, as well as just because they're different scales, but six pounds difference?? While I have decided that I like my new scale the best, I certainly don't think I have been so good and lost four plus pounds in two weeks! At least, that's not what my clothes are telling me.

Monday

I want some chocolate, and I want it now.

That is all.

Dietwatch 2009

The good: I bought Romaine lettuce yesterday, instead of my typical iceberg. Romaine is better for you, because it's darker green, and that means it has more good stuff than iceberg. Iceberg, apprently, is not even empty calories- it's got almost none, and it's got almost nothing nutritionally speaking.

The bad: I ate it in a salad as part of my dinner tonight (the Romaine). I don't like it- it's too bitter or something. *sighs* I guess I'll have to get used to it.

In other news, I took the curtains down in my bedroom and the bathroom today. These were the curtains the former owners had left behind. They were both the same- green and white flowery print. They were okay, but I don't do flowery prints. Taking them down was a major effort, too, because they were obviously professionally done-the curtain rods were a special kind like I'd never seen before, and they were just short of bolted into the wall! They had weird screws, too, so I went through three different screwdrivers none of which was exactly right, to get them out. (I think whoever put them up must have used some kind of mechanical aid.)

Anyway, I took them down because I went to Target today after church, and finally found curtains for both rooms that I liked. I'm not putting the bathroom curtains up until I paint the bathroom, which will probably be during my February break.

And, yes, I will take before and after pictures this time. :p

Triglycerides

That's what's wrong. My triglycerides are way high. My total cholesterol was 203- not great, but not terrible. Basically, my doctor told me that, in my case, the triglycerides are high because I'm thirty pounds overweight, and I need to lose that weight, stat. (This can also happen if you have diabetes, which I don't- my blood sugar was a nice, normal 81- or if you drink too much, which I definitely don't do!)

So. This morning we went food shopping, and I bought lots of fruits and veggies. We're buying a treadmill so both of us can exercise without leaving the house. (Because, really, who wants to walk around the block when it's 20 freaking degrees outside?)

As of this morning, I am 150 pounds. My goal is to lose twenty of those by summer.

Oh, yeah, and I have to get the triglycerides retested in three months, too, to see if they've gone down.

I'm cold!

Okay, just because some people asked:

:)

I un-decorated it today. Yes, I have a naked tree in my house. It is Darrel's job to bring it outside to the compost pile.

It's freezing in here today! I simply cannot get warm! We have snow, again, and it's 20 whopping degrees out. If I wanted this much snow and coldness, I'd have moved to freaking Wisconsin or something! :p

Frank is at daycare today. Darrel and I are getting some things done around here. I also have a doctor's appointment at 4:15pm. I had a complete physical Monday, my first in a few years, and I had blood taken as part of it. The doctor told me that for results from the blood and urine (eiuw) "no news is good news". Well, they called me Wednesday- they want me to come in and discuss the results. That doesn't sound good, does it? I bet it's either cholesterol or blood sugar. Not that I've had symptoms of either thing, but, hey, I'm 30 pounds overweight and my diet is really bad. Neither would be a huge shock to me.

Happy New Year!

I was asleep last night by ten pm. Yeah, I am such a wild and crazy woman, I tell ya. I think the same thing happened last year, too.

Our toilet in our bathroom is broken. It's hopefully being fixed tomorrow. Good thing we have two other toilets to choose from.

I'm watching "Say Anthing..." right now. I got it from Netflix. It's one of those movies that Everyone Has Seen...except for me. Honestly, I think I am past the age to properly appreciate this movie, because it's pretty well boring me. I should have seen it fifteen years ago, so I could appreciate it as much as I appreciate classics like "Fast Times At Ridgemont High", "The Breakfast Club", "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure", and "Ferris Bueller's Day Off".