Bilateral Pneumonia

Bug is doing better.  The antibiotic shots have worked wonders and it appears that the new oral antibiotic is working too.  I’m cautiously optimistic at this point.  Her temp is below normal, which is weird, and she says she feels better than she has been.  The pain in her back hasn’t returned yet either.  Honestly I don’t think I’m going to calm down any until she makes it through this weekend.  Having had her respond SO favorably the first time she started antibiotics only to backslide has me on guard.  The antibiotic and the dosage she’s on now is a doozy.  Even the pharmacist commented on how strong of a dose she was on.

Bug first got sick on the 3rd of January.  She started sleeping and coughing.  And then sleeping some more.  That was a Sunday.  By the next Tuesday we were aware she also had a fever.  103 is hard to not be aware of at any rate.  Chances are she had a fever before then but I don’t know.  I didn’t check.  I figured she just had a bad cold bug and would get better.  Hopefully before school started again.

But the fever Tuesday night precluded any chance of her going to school the next day.  I hoped and hoped she’d be better before Thursday… and then they canceled school.  Her fever went down at some point on Thursday and I figured that meant she was on the mend.  Friday brought another cancellation of school and her acting a little better still.  Saturday brought the return of the fever.  I sent Frank with her to the MinuteClinic (I was sick most of last week also and didn’t want to go out anywhere.)  There she was diagnosed with strep and started on Omnicef.  They also checked her for H1N1 and a myriad of other illnesses.  Her lungs were clear at that point.  Or at least not bad enough that you could hear them with a stethoscope.

Saturday night brought a pretty drastic turn around.  I threatened to keep her meds from her so she would stop talking, lol.  Sunday she went to a friend’s house for an hour or two and talked to another friend.  She also ate for the first time in a week.  So I sent her back to school on Monday.

I did send her with instructions to go to the nurse if she felt too tired.  I knew I was taking a chance since she had had so little to eat the week before.  But I thought if she took it slow she might be okay, especially after all the energy she had had on Sunday.

The nurse called at Bug’s lunchtime.  Her temp was 99, which I consider normal most of the time.  We went and picked her up and she came home, climbed in bed, and didn’t get back out for 5.5 hours.  She also started complaining of her back hurting her again.  I thought the back pain came from having been horizontal in her bed for over a week and ignored it.  She also complained about her legs hurting her, etc.  No food for so long, being almost bedridden for a week… I thought it was all just incidental.  But I started to wonder if she had mono instead of strep.  Because, dude.  This wasn’t normal.  She should have bounced back with the antibiotic.

Tuesday I said “Fuck it!” and scheduled an appt with the doctor.  We went that afternoon and they were thinking H1N1 until we told them she had already been tested for it.  In fact most of what they thought she might have she’d already been tested for.  We KNEW she had strep because of the positive strep test but we were stumped.  The doctor agreed it was probably mono and then she listened to her lungs and said, “I think she has pneumonia.”

WTF?  That wasn’t one I had thought of.  I mean, pneumonia?  How would she have even gotten pneumonia?  We had Christmas break and she hadn’t been anywhere or around anyone… Where did it come from?

So Bug got a rocephin shot in her arse (which she screamed at), then we went for a blood draw so we could rule out mono, and a chest x-ray.  Depending on how she responded to the shot would decide whether or not she was admitted to the hospital the next day.  The doctor called later that night and let me know mono was not a possibility and that she wasn’t sure if she saw something or not on her x-ray.  She thought it might be clear so she sent it to radiology and scheduled us to come back Wednesday morning for another arse shot.

Wednesday brought the news that not only did she have pneumonia in her left lung, she had it in her right lung as well.   She got another antibiotic shot, a new oral antibiotic, and strict instructions not to do anything physical for quite some time.  And momma was told to watch her for a return of fever or back pain.  Turns out her back had been hurting her because of the pressure from her fluid filled lung.  Logically I know there isn’t a way I could have known all of this, especially since she never told me where her back pain was and I just assumed.  The doctor also managed to justify what she saw on the x-ray and sent it for a 2nd opinion just to be safe.  But I still feel like a crappy mom.  I let her be so sick for so long.

But now she’s doing better.  She’s eating a little again.  Today she actually appears to have color returning to her gaunt cheeks.  Hopefully this trend with continue.

There are times where I don’t feel the same towards her as I do the younger kids.  She’s approaching teenagerhood and I spend so much time dealing with her and her hormonal moods.  Yet this past week all I’ve wanted to do is cry, caress her face, brush her hair with my hand, and keep her safe.  She is still my baby.

The Crazy Little Thing Called Life

I’m beat and don’t have the energy or the inclination to write much at the moment.  Most of you know via Facebook that my oldest is sick and we’re fighting to get her better.  I also have some pretty big plans that are moving and shaking and I’m just exhausted.  A lot going on and very quickly.  BUT I wanted to say that once I know how everything is going to come out in the wash, I plan on updating y’all with it.  Woohoo!

And hopefully I’ll be with it enough tomorrow to blog more.

My 365 project

I talked about my potential 365 project the other day and about how I was having a hard time figuring out what to do for it.  I think I finally have an idea!  Instead of leaving it to a single subject, I’m going to pick a letter of the alphabet.  Every day I will post a picture of an item that starts with that letter.  I have a poll… if I can figure out how to add it to this post, lol.  Please vote for a letter!

Walkin’ in a winter wonderland….

I woke up this morning to the sounds of my children playing merrily.  I rolled over, sat up, and blearily stumbled to the couch, where you can find me most days from the time I get up til the time I go to bed.

I logged on to the internet, got on Facebook (because where else would  I go?), and realized that all of my FB friends who actually live near me were all a-twitter about the snow!  Their status updates regaled me with tales of sledding and all the fun they were having with their kids!  I couldn’t believe I’d missed realizing there was snow.

I managed to lift my gaze from the computer screen, look out my back window, … and blinked several times.

(Sorry for the crappy picture.  I don’t feel good, the window is dirty and it’s freakin’ COLD out.)

But… yeah.  I guess it shows that I’m not a Southerner, lol.

Revealing the secrets of bloggers or Durh de durh

I follow Aunt Becky’s blog, though not uber-religiously.  (I know, I know, Aunt Becky!  I’m not worthy!)

I’ve always been amazed, if not a bit stumped, at how she manages to post every day and usually fairly early in the day at that.  She also manages to get quite the varied topic matter.  I’ve sat and pondered how she can go from disco bands, to airport security, to New Year’s resolutions, to whether or not her boobs are nicer than mine.  (They aren’t.  I’m positive of that.)

Then it hit me.  There is a scheduler function on blogs!  Durh!  I can write and write when I feel like it, when I’m witty and funny and have an attention span larger than a gnat and then I can SCHEDULE them to be published later!  OMG!  Squeeeeeeeeeeee!

See, this way it looks like I’m devoted to my blog without having to pay it that much more attention at all.

God, life is good sometimes.

Are you ready for some FOOTBALL?!?!?

At some point in my early teen years, my dad and I started a tradition of watching New Year’s Day bowl games together.  I don’t think he had always watched bowl games… I think that at some point he realized he could get us kids to leave him alone and he could get some serious napping in if he sat in front of the TV all day.  But he had to have a reason to sit in front of the TV.  I think his biggest flaw in this plan was that I love college football.  Thus our New Year’s Day tradition was born.

It wasn’t just watching football.  It was betting on said football games.  Coming from a Mormon upbringing meant that this was the ONLY opportunity I really had to wager on anything.  And it was a blast.  We’d sit down with the paper during the parade and pick our teams.  The first year we each had to pick different teams.  After that we just picked whichever teams we wanted and went off of the grand total of the final scores.  I won a pair of jeans the first year.  Dad paid up too.  After that he started looking at stats and all the technical crap and I started loosing.  But every year we had the teams we would root for and we’d spend all day watching football together.  It was awesome.

Then I grew up.  I got married and didn’t even have a TV the first year.  Then I had kids and kids are NOT conducive to spending the entire day on your butt ignoring reality.  Not only that but Frank was never a sports guy.  So for several years it just went by the wayside.

This year has been different.  There have been several games that he has decided to watch.  This is odd for me.  Frank NEVER watches sports.  Every now and again he’d watch a baseball game and we’ve gone to several baseball games but football?

I’ve LOVED it.  It’s been so much fun to sit and cheer and just spend time together.  Watching football is different than watching normal TV too.  Normal TV means we’re both sitting on the couch, staring at the boob tube, and we occassionally share a laugh at some witty reparte.  Football is so much more involved than that.

We watched the Texas v. Alabama game together AND we Facebooked it with several of our friends.  It was awesome.  Being connected with each other and with friends… It’s just great.  I would have preferred a big game party but I feel like crap (I’m sick), we have a sick kid, and the weather sucks.  Plus most of our friends are IN Texas which makes the distance a difficulty.  But still, I’m loving the games this year.  I’m sad that this is the last game til next fall.  I’m thinking that we need to get some tickets to the minor league ball games this spring.

What about y’all?  Do you watch sports?  What traditions do you have that you love?

A 365 project

Frank has been following the most awesome 365 project for the last several months.  It’s funny, intelligent, creative… Basically I love it!

It’s also not the only 365 I’ve seen.  I have one contact who is taking a self-portrait every day.  I’ve seen one 365 on clouds.  The topics and possibilities are endless.

That would be my problem.  I really want to do a 365.  I think having to take and post a picture every day would do me good.  I just can’t figure out WHAT to do a pictures of.  I’ve thought of my kids, my critters, a toy, trees, flowers, sporks, etc.  I am decisionally challenged (if you hadn’t noticed that from my attempts at figuring out what I should do next as far as jobs go.)

So I’m opening it up to you all.  Do you have suggestions on what subject matter I should pick for my 365?

Babble, babble, babble

So today was the first day back at school since the Friday before Christmas!  WOOHOO!  I’ve been looking forward to this time longer than I care to admit.  Of course the oldest was home sick and the youngest doesn’t go to school every day.  Oh, and school is canceled tomorrow due to the “snow” that we are slotted to receive.  They’re actually calling for a couple of inches and there is an 80% chance that we will get actual precipitation.  I’d be giddy if it had happened on Saturday.  But no.  It HAD to happen the day after the first day of school after Christmas break.  (How is that for the world’s most poorly constructed sentence in this blog post?)

Bug is going on day 4 or 5 of being sick.  We have no idea how that happened as she hasn’t been around anyone to be exposed.   What started out as a bad cold has morphed into a weird fever.  She was kind enough to cough in my face a couple of days ago and now I’m beginning to get “a bad cold.”  I hope it stops there.  If not, oh well.  At least I’ll be sick over the weekend and Frank will be around to duct tape the chillins together.

I can’t believe it’s 2010 already.  I can’t believe it’s January.  I’m still in September.  It seems like things blew up back then and I haven’t had any time to sit and adjust.  Life really is what happens when everything whizzes by.

I am looking for a job.  I’m still seriously thinking about school as most of the jobs that interest me would take more schooling.  The hardest part of that is that we can’t afford to go without some type of income from me.  I can’t figure out how to be everything I’m supposed to be all at once.  I’m also trying to make sure I do something that I’m going to love.  In all honesty, I want to attend a college about an hour from here and major in photography.  I’d adore it.  I’d beyond adore it.  BUT the time it would take, including traveling and classes, is prohibitive.   There’s also the throwback of my mom having gone back to school and feeling like she disappeared from my life.  I don’t want to do that to my kids.

So many things to think about.  So many things to consider.  So many variables.

I think I’ll just go play in the sandbox.

2009 in review

Every year I think that I should look over last year, write up a blog post about it, and I never.ever. do.  So this year I’m stealing this Meme from Aunt Becky because she is full of Teh Awesome.  And because I’m too freakin’ ass lazy to come up with something of my own.

1. What did you do in 2009 that you’d never done before?

I got promoted at my job in January.  I also went to Seattle and visited my BFFNAlways.

2. Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

I don’t do resolutions.  I’ve always had issues with goal setting and having been forced to do it and usually do it in a manner that made other people happy and I thought was completely and totally inane.  That said, I work on what I need to when I need to.  Because I’m all cool and self-aware like that.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

YES!  My BFFNAlways had her first baby after years and years of trying and several failed adoptions.  I was and am so freakin’ happy for her.  Because she rocks, is an awesome mom, and is full of teh awesome too.

My SIL also had her first baby girl this past year.

4. Did anyone close to you die?

In 2009?  Yes.  My hubby’s granddad died.  It makes me very sad because I loved Granddad a lot.  He was so much fun to be around and talk to.

5. What would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009?

Sanity and direction.

6. What countries did you visit?

Denial.

7. What date from 2009 will remain etched upon your memory, and why:

Mid-June.  It was my last period of the year.  Not because I’m making them stop, not because I’m preggers (I will never be preggers again, thank god), but because that’s just the wonder of me.  Also Nov9, 2009. That’s the day I got laid off of the job that promoted me in January.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Playing hours and hours of Bejeweled Blitz.  Because I suck.

9. What was your biggest failure?

I really prefer not to go anywhere near that one.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

No injuries.  At least nothing major.  Illnesses…. way to many to mention and some that will never be forgotten.

11. What was the best thing you bought?

My Nikon D90.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

Frank’s.  He’s done some awesome things this year.  Some of it has taken a lot of prodding, but ultimately he’s done it and on his own.  He rocks.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

Legally I am not allowed to answer this question the way I would like.

14. Where did most of your money go?

On surviving.  And then there are my critters.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

A lot of different things briefly.  Then the enormity of it all would hit and I’d sob.

16. What song will always remind you of 2009?

Tim McGraw’s Let it Go

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:

i. happier or sadder? Sadder.  Healthier but sadder.

ii. thinner or fatter? Really about the same.  Maybe a little thinner.

iii. richer or poorer? Poorer.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?

Taking pictures.  Editing pictures.  Going to doctors.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?

Playing Bejeweled Blitz.

20. How will you be spending Christmas?

Christmas was spent at home.  We don’t travel ANYWHERE for Christmas.  That is straight out.

21. There was no #21. I don’t know why there was no 21.

I’ll make up my own question here, then. Hmmm.

Name one random thing that people would be surprised to know about you.

I’m actually very shy.

22. Did you fall in love in 2009?

Yes.

23. How many one-night stands?

Every time is a one night stand.  That’s because there aren’t enough of them to count as anything else.

24. What was your favorite TV program?

LOST, Medium, Criminal Minds, Mentalist

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

Oh absolutely.

26. What was the best book you read?

The Gospel According to Biff

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?

Uh…

28. What did you want and get?

More stability.

30. What was your favorite film of this year?

Star Trek

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

I packed to go to Seattle.  I was 33.

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

Having an attention span bigger than a gnat and being able to figure out where the hell I should go from here.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2009?

I’m going to wear what looks and feels good, dammit.

34. What kept you sane?

My Internet.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

All of the 300.

36. What political issue stirred you the most?

God, I hate politics most days.

37. Whom did you miss?

My mom, my dad, and Chris, who lives too far away for my liking.

38. Who was the best new person you met?

Did I meet new people?

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2009:

Nothing in life is sacred.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
All day
Staring at the ceiling
Making friends with shadows on my wall
All night
Hearing voices telling me
That I should get some sleep
Because tomorrow might be good for something
Hold on
I’m feeling like I’m headed for a
Breakdown
I don’t know why
I’m not crazy, I’m just a little unwell
I know, right now you can’t tell
But stay awhile and maybe then you’ll see
A different side of me
I’m not crazy, I’m just a little impaired…

(It’s not been the best day. *Twitch twitch*)

I think I’ll go to Disney World!

You know, now that I have all this time on my hands.

I worried that this was going to happen but I honestly thought, based on emails I had gotten, that today they were going to add to my workload.  Not lay me off.  It makes sense now why they wouldn’t talk to me on Friday as I was driving around WORKING FOR THEM.  It would have been stupid as hell to fire me in the middle of  me doing WORK FOR THEM.

2 years.  I’ve been with the company for over 2 years and have had a sum total of 1, count ‘em 1, complaint and that complaint wasn’t against me, it was against other people and I happened to be where the shit stopped rolling.

I’ve already applied for unemployment though I think I messed up the form.  It’s what I get for doing it so quickly.  My brain wasn’t functioning completely appropriately.  I’ve also been told that I should use this to do something I WANT to do.  The thing was if I couldn’t do what I wanted to do while I was employed there, I doubt I’ll get myself to go it now.

God, this sucks.  I’ve never been laid off before.  I’ve never lost a job before.  This just doesn’t happen to me.