Not Good Dinner Conversation

If you're faint of heart or have just eaten Indian food, do not read on.


I had the stomach flu today. Or maybe food poisoning. It started last night after dinner. I didn't feel good. I thought I had over-eaten. I had a bad stomach ache that lasted into the night. Then it turned into diarrhea. Not the kind you're thinking of. No, this was the kind where you instantly know you have 5 seconds to get to the bathroom or things will end badly. Very badly. And then when you do go, there is no sound difference between #1 and #2. Pure liquification of the intestinal tract.

This went on all night. About every 2o minutes. Sometimes as soon as I would stand up to pull my jammies up, I'd have to sit down again.

It was bad.

I took Pepto. Then I took Immodium. Then I took Advil. Then I laid back down for the 800th time and waited to die.

This morning things were no better. In fact, they were worse. I added a headache, lack of sleep, and awake children to the mix. Big Daddy had his first day back from vacation ahead of him at work and couldn't skip out. My mother was in Texas. My Mother in law had an injured arm. I was on my own. And the immodium hadn't kicked in.

I stayed in bed as much as possible, TVs, iPhones, and computers up and running in every room in the hopes of keeping the children occupied. Still, they found reasons to desperately need me every 10 minutes.

Finally, by lunch time, they were fed, put down to nap/quiet time and the immodium seemed to be working. I finally got some sleep.


24 hours later, I'm better now. Not as weak, not as sickly, not as poopy.

And the upside? Down a pound and a half. There is always a silver lining to crazy diarrhea.

Pirate Patch(es) Needed

I want to kill myself.

Actually, that's not true. What I want is to stab both of my eyes out. But I'm pretty sure death would follow, so I might as well skip straight to killing myself.

I have double pink eye. Pink eyes, I guess you would call it. Thank you, Beck. (Aren't mothers supposed to get automatic immunity so that they can care for their young?) Beck got over it after 24 hours of antibiotic drops. Me? Not so much. I woke up on Saturday morning with my right eye red and gooey and sore. And since Beck had just been diagnosed the day before with pink eye, and I had all the symptoms, plus a triple refill from the Doc for just such an occurrence, I began self-medication right away.

Flash forward to Sunday....Beck's eyes were fine. My right eye? Completely crusted shut during the night. And swollen. I'm talking swollen nearly to the point that I couldn't open it. Here...picture three large marshmallows, large pink marshmallows, pressed together with a chocolate chip in the middle. That would be my eyeball. Yep, that's how I looked. Big Daddy said it wasn't so bad, I just needed an eye patch. Thanks, Hon.

After the hours of pain, constant wiping of goo, crusting of the lashes, and scaring of the children with my hideousness was too much to bear, I took myself to the Instacare. The doctor proceeded to poke and prod my eyeball for 20 minutes and pour at least four kinds of medication into my eye "just to see" if I might have this or that other eye problem. I didn't. So in the end I walked away with a near coronary from having my eyes poked and prodded, and a stronger eye drop prescription.

Flash forward to today. Some time during the night my right eye went from looking like I had been slugged by Ivan Drago to looking like I had been punched by Miss Piggy (that would be an improvement in case you're not sure). But my left eye? You guessed it. Crusted shut, beet red, raging.

It's not so bad, Big Daddy says. You just need another eye patch.

Darn, I'm just a few days too early to dress up as One-Eyed Willie for Halloween. Er, make that No-Eyed Willie.

Please. Just get me a nice sharp knife so I can cut my eyes out. Or a loaded gun would work too. Ok, fine. I guess a pair of eye patches will have to suffice. But could you at least make them gold-studded? ARRRR, Matey!

Doctors Are Always Right

About six weeks ago, I took Beck to the doctor because he said his ear hurt. He was on the tail end of a wicked, 3-week cold. He had nasty green mucus that wouldn't seem to go away and he wasn't sleeping or eating well.

Sure enough, he had a double ear infection. One side was so bad, the doctor said, that it would for sure rupture that night. (It didn't.) He also said that once kids were old enough to talk and say that their ears hurt, he'd never seen a case of a kid being wrong about their ear pain--it always turned out to be an ear infection.

So when Beck woke up this morning after 4-5 days of being sick, having swollen goobery eyes, a runny nose, and a bad cough, and said that his ear hurt, I took him to the doctor again. But guess what? No ear infection. Both ears looked just fine. Wrong again, Doc.

However, he was sick. Nothing big....

JUST PINK EYE AND PNEUMONIA!!!

Poor kid. I'm glad I took him in. He's now on antibiotics of two sorts and will hopefully be on the mend soon.

But you may not want to come anywhere near our house for a while. Unless you're bringing get-well soup. Or get-well balloons. Or get-well cream-cheese brownies. In which case, swath yourself in sterile gauze, surgical masks, and latex gloves and come right on over! Nothing cheers up pneumonia like cream-cheese brownies. At least that's what the doctor said. And, you know, the doctor is always right.

Dead Man Walking

I'm positive. Positive for strep, that is. Lovely, huh? Just what I wanted for Christmas. And because I'm also a total chicken about needles, I went with the oral antibiotics. So now I get to stew in my sore throat and congestion misery for an extra few days. I know you guys are all feeling so sorry for me right now. I can just see the tears welling up in your eyes, and your heart aching for me. So I'll be expecting chicken soup and homemade rolls and hot chocolate and herbal tea and pecan pie (because you can't eat JUST sick food, how boring) to be delivered to my house soon. I'm laying back now. Waiting......

Death Warmed Over

I dont' know what the term "Death Warmed Over" means, but I know what it feels like. This weekend our house got hit by the stomach flu. UGH. Big Daddy started throwing up Saturday night. I figured it was just something he ate because the rest of us felt fine. But by 4am I was having the worst diahrrea--the kind you have to run to the bathroom for or you won't make it. And every 15 minutes thereafter, sometimes less, I'd have to run to the bathroom. I began getting achy and having chills, and by morning I was sick as a dog. (And that's another thing; Where does THAT idiom come from? Why a "sick dog?" I've never seen a sick dog. All the dogs I've ever seen are robust and hyperactive. Is there some island in the world where all the dogs lay around with aches and fevers and throw up? Remind me never to go there.) I took Immodium, followed by another dose of Immodium 4 hours later, and things finally got under control about 11am. But I was feeling like....ya, here it is again, death warmed over. Every part of my body hurt. Even lying in bed hurt. I couldn't sleep--my brain wouldn't shut off. I had the Deigo theme song stuck in my head for about 20 hours straight. I was too weak to get up, my stomach was too crampy to eat. I can't remember the last time I felt that awful. I was hoping that the kids had been spared. But when Big Daddy went to get Daphne up, she had thrown up sometime durig the night. And Beck had the same kind of diarrhea as me. None of us had much of an appetite. And Beck kept lying down on the floor, he was so tired and weak.

The worst part about it is that I had a TON of stuff to do to prepare for my trip to Texas the next day. Laundry, packing, tying up loose ends, etc. And I got NONE of it done. By evening I wasn't feeling any better...maybe worse. But Big Daddy was on the mend, so it gave me hope that this was just a 24 hour bug and that I'd soon be better.

Well, its 7am the next day and I AM feeling better. I'm not 100%. I still feel a bit weak and shakey. But the aches seem to be gone and so far I don't feel any stomach cramps. But I also haven't tried to eat yet.

Well, I'd better get going. I have a full day of work ahead of me to get ready. Traveling by myself with the two kids was daunting enough; now I have to try to face it at 80% strength. And I just called the airline and found out that there are no extra seats on the plane for me to put Beck in, so I'm going to have to hold him, which will be such a joy. Wish me luck!