becomingkate

 I developed strep throat over the weekend, and I'm not really sure where that came from because my son and husband don't have it, and now I'm afraid they will.  I started feeling icky on Saturday but still managed to make it through the day and even went out to dinner with my husband and had some bad food and two Jack and diet cokes.  Then started to feel shitty that night which sucked because our son wasn't home and we could have drank and ate more and watched stupid loud movies and listened to loud music and I just wasn't up for it.

I slept all day Sunday and all night, and got up late on Monday to go to the doctor.  Fortunately my husband has Mondays off so he was able to help me.  They gave me abx for strep and I started feeling better really fast.  I have to take them for 10 days so I should be well soon.

The funny thing is, I felt like a bladder infection was coming on, too, and since they gave me abx, those symptoms have diminished.  I'm so happy I could explode. (hope I don't though)

So just a heads up folks, if your neck gets all swollen (like literally you touch the sides of your neck right under your jaw and they're all puffy) and you ache all over and you've slept for a day and a night, RUN to the doctor (I know, it hurts) and tell them you think you have strep.  They don't even have to take blood, they did the throat swab but that's nothing.

I felt so much better today that I actually went to the grocery store, finished putting together my mom's package for Valentine's day and sent that off.  I was torn between a funny card and a serious card.  I went with the serious card because jeez, it might be her last Valentine's day.  I didn't want to end it with a Mickey Mouse card and a dumb joke.  But now I feel bad because she's going to read that card and know that I was thinking this may be her last.  I guess it sucks either way, right?

(I feel like I need to add a disclaimer that I did check on the length of being contagious with strep--apparently you're not contagious after you've been on meds for 24 hours. So I'm good. Not gonna make anyone at the grocery store or PO sick.)

I got an invitation from my cousin to my aunt's 60th surprise birthday party which I'm looking forward to. I hope it'll be a happy time and not overshadowed by my mom's health.

My son and husband went to the Lego movie yesterday and they both enjoyed it, so if you've been wondering if you should go, you probably should.

 Still falling apart. I am the only one who is really sick now, although Josh still has a slight cold and my husband hasn't been getting enough sleep (because I've been sleeping in and he gets up with Josh).

On top of that, I burned my fingertips when I touched a hot pan and now my skin is peeling and I can't leave it alone.  

We bought some new bath towels and drinking glasses today and that was nice, I enjoy buying new stuff.

I've lost my patience with my son so much lately.  He just seems like he's completely oblivious to any type of etiquette or common sense.  He demands things and doesn't appreciate them when he gets them.  He begged and begged for Minecraft, we (well, Santa) got it for him and he's played it like, twice.  He expects perfection from everyone and everything and becomes irrational when he doesn't get it.  He still interrupts, doesn't use his manners, sometimes he doesn't speak when spoken to...and then he goes to his therapist and pretends everything's fine.  "We haven't fought lately" he says, even if we just had a huge meltdown that morning.  I let him go in to talk to her alone, because I want him to feel free to talk without me sitting right there, but I think I still need to go in there more often.  But when I do, it seems like we don't make any progress and I'm not sure if talking at him about manners and behavior is helping.

I hate the kind of mother I have to be with him.  I hate that I can't be gentle and let him lead the way because with him, if you give him an inch, he takes a mile.  I've had to become a lot more controlling than I want to be.  I didn't want to have to be so firm but he is too headstrong.

So, let's go over how I've been over the last couple weeks.  We know that I had my bladder stone procedure on the 4th. I was wicked sensitive and sluggish for a week or so after that but I was up and about the day after, including having a very busy weekend that week.  I felt nasty though and spent a lot of time on the couch.  

A couple days after the procedure, my husband got sick and I mean sick.  Stuff coming out both ends, confined to the bed or couch, sweats and chills, nightmares.  So here I was, still recovering from my thing and all of a sudden I had to take care of him. I took him to his doctor's nurse who happened to be working at the walk in that day, they took a full blood panel and x rays of his chest and everything and it was diagnosed as a virus because they couldn't find anything else wrong.  He was supposed to take off like 5 days from work per nurse's orders but decided he felt better after like 2 days and went back.  Also didn't stick to the BRAT diet as recommended.  

Meanwhile, I had a mild cold but nothing I couldn't handle.  It kind of sucked on top of feeling shitty from the procedure.  A couple days after my husband's nastiness, I got something similar. I had taken a Sudafed that day for congestion.  It helped, but I forgot that I'm mildly allergic to Sudafed and my abdomen was breaking out in an itchy rash.  That evening, long after I'd taken the Sudafed I was drinking a wine spritzer with ginger ale and we watched Breaking Bad.  I started feeling dizzy and decided to go to bed.  That night I dreamed about Breaking Bad for what seemed like all night.  Just over and over, the characters were in my head replaying the episode (and it wasn't even an exciting episode, LOL).  I had the headache from hell and it was spreading down my neck and it was horrible.  It felt like I was lying on concrete and I barely slept.  I almost woke my husband up in the middle of the night to take me to the hospital, but I held off.  In the morning I felt better but had residual pain in my head and my neck still hurt like hell.  That was a couple nights ago.  

Since then I've been taking it easy.  I haven't had much of an appetite since the procedure and my eyes are also wicked dry and sensitive so I can't even really enjoy watching tv or being on the computer.  Last night I played a little bit of TWD season 2 but I wasn't really able to enjoy it and my neck was still killing me so I took some Nyquil and went to bed around 9.  I woke up a couple times during the night, once when my husband came to bed a couple hours after me, and once in the middle of the night and the pain in my neck was gone.

I woke up today and felt so much better.  But guess what! My husband is sick again.  Turns out he could barely function and he had to get our son to help him get dressed and everything because he didn't want to wake me up.  He feels nauseous and poopy but he says he has to go to work because he's on call this week.  I hope he's doing okay.

Meanwhile my son has also has a cold, nothing bad enough to keep him out of school, but he's wicked stuffy and has a sore throat.

Oh yeah, I also had a killer sore throat.  It was weird though, it kept feeling like the pain was moving around.  It was on the left side of my throat and then in the back and it felt like something was stuck there and if I just swallowed enough it would go away so I was swallowing a lot and it didn't help.  Yesterday morning I was so fed up I was crying and I prayed to the powers that be to just take away my sore throat.  And then I took a tablespoon of children's tylenol.  LOL.  I had to go to the grocery store and I found some of my favorite ginger beer there (it's non-alcoholic, it's like ginger ale but actually has real ginger in it and it's pretty strong) and I drank 2 of those yesterday and I picked up some sushi and had that with some miso soup for lunch.  I'm not sure what worked, the praying, the ginger beer, the medicine, or some combination, but my sore throat went away.

So, that's been my life!  I feel so much better today but I'm scared that it's going to come back in some shape or form, especially with my husband being sick again.  Keep that shit away from me!