Job

I have what feels like a full-time job now. No, I'm not talking about Katie, though she does take quite a bit of work. What I'm talking about is taking my medicine. Seriously, I feel like that's all I do anymore.

Obviously, I'm still sick. I went back to the doctor yesterday, and I am now taking an antibiotic in addition to everything I was already taking. And some of these pills I have to take are SO HUGE that I just can't take them all at the same time. Or on an empty stomach. So, I have to space them out and schedule them around my meals.

I'm also taking a couple of inhaled meds on top of all of the pills. It's such a pain! And, yes, I know I'm whining, but at this point, I think I've earned the right to whine.

Another Week Sick

Here we are. It's been another week since I've posted anything, and I'm still sick. I think I may have had the flu last week, but I'm not 100% sure about that since since not everyone in my house got it. Whatever it was, though, it has left me with a lingering nasty cough.

So, I went back to the doctor this morning to get checked out. I saw my asthma doctor today, since my problems seem to be located in my lungs. First, they checked my lung function, and it was pretty low. Amazingly, though, my oxygen levels in my blood weren't that bad. They weren't great, but they could have been worse. After a breathing treatment, my lung function improved slightly, but it still wasn't good. Now, I get to get pumped up on steroids for the next ten days.

Backtracking a little bit now, I saw my OB last Monday morning for my regular monthly check-up. Because of my illness, I had lost two pounds at that point. But we listened to the baby's heartbeat on the Doppler, and it was nice and strong.

Then, I asked my OB about my test results. I figured that everything was okay since they hadn't already told me that there was a problem. However, after looking through my chart, I was told that the measurements from my ultrasound for my nuchal translucency test were "a little high." My doc said that he wasn't going to worry about it now, though, that they were going to wait until after they get the results from my second round of blood tests before they make any conclusions. I will be having my blood drawn for the second round of tests in two more weeks, so I have at least that long to keep worrying about this stuff.

I also got a phone call last week from my OB's office to let me know when my Level 2 ultrasound at the hospital was scheduled for. I will be having that done on April 6th, and I will be one day less than 18 weeks pregnant then, which means we should have confirmation on the sex of the baby then. Less than one more month to wait for that. I'm pretty excited about it.

In other news, I've been having a very difficult time with Sarah recently. One of the things that has been causing me (and Phil) a lot of headaches has been the fact that Sarah has been going around telling lies about me and our family. It's made for some very stressful times in my house, and I'm at my wit's end about what to do about it. I sent her to stay with her bio-dad last night to see if he could make any headway with her. I'm hoping that she'll come home from school today with a better attitude, but I know that it's not likely that she'll change her attitude overnight. Please pray for us.

Sickness

I realize that it has been a while since I have posted anything new. I also went to the doctor yesterday and should probably update you all on how that went, too. But, I am just WAY to sick right now to blog about anything, so you're just going to have to wait a little while longer. Sorry.

Illness Update

They're all sick now. All of my girls are sniffling, sneezing, coughing, aching - basically they are walking advertisements for Ny-Quil. Emily never returned to school this week, and Sarah decided to stay home today, too. I took them to my mother's house near Ocala so Phil and I could get a break and a little bit of rest ourselves this weekend. Hopefully, they'll all be feeling better when we get them back on Sunday.

Dedication

Now that I am finally starting to feel better, it seems that all of my girls have come down with their own illnesses. For Katie, it's just a cold. I took Sarah to the doctor last Thursday, but even though she's been on antibiotics since then, she seems to be getting worse.

Then there's Emily. Emily started throwing up sometime Sunday evening, and it continued all day and night on Monday. And even though she was still feeling pretty miserable, she went to school yesterday anyway. Why would my child who felt so sick choose to go to school when I told her she didn't have to? Soccer.

You see, the middle school soccer teams around here have to have a minimum number of sixth graders on their teams or they can't play. Emily's team has the exact minimum number of sixth graders. Since Emily didn't want to be the cause of her team having to forfeit the game due to a lack of sixth graders, she forced herself to go to school so that she could play in the game last night. That's dedication!

By the way, she's home with me and Katie today. She really needs to rest for a while.

Nothing But Phelgm

So, I'm still sick. I'm starting to wonder if I'll ever get over this nasty sinus cold. I'm just glad that I don't have morning sickness on top of all of this.

Last Wednesday night was Emily's first school soccer game, and I had to miss it because I was so sick. It was also the coldest night of the year, so it was really a good thing that I didn't go out. Emily's team ended up winning the game 3-0, though I really feel that the other team should have had to forfeit the game since they showed up a half-hour late.

In other news, Katie is completely and totally potty-trained now. We've been putting her in pull-ups at night, but she has woken up completely dry every day for more than a week now, and has even gotten up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom on a couple of occasions. She is so proud of herself, and we are proud of her, too.

As for Sarah, there's not a whole lot of exciting news there. She's just working hard at school and getting great grades. She's been really enjoying her science class lately, as they have been working on lots of fun projects. A couple of weeks ago, she and a friend had to design and build a self-propelled car for class. Over this past weekend, Sarah had to build a container that would keep an egg from breaking after being dropped from the second story of the school. They dropped their eggs today, and Sarah's egg did not break.

That's pretty much all that's been going on in my household. I'll be going back to the OB office next Friday for my next ultrasound, which is part of my nuchal translucency testing. I can't wait to see my baby again!

Oh, and I dyed my hair today. No, I don't have any photos to show you what it looks like, but it is definitely more red than my last attempt.

A Whole Lot of Nothing

You may have noticed I've been MIA lately. There really hasn't been much going on around here. I've been sick, which has kept me from doing much. No, I'm not sick because of my pregnancy. I got a nasty cold shortly after finding out I was pregnant, and not being able to take any good OTC meds for it made it get out of control.

After a trip to see my asthma doctor - yes, I'm already having issues with that - I am now on some new meds and an antibiotic for my now infection. I'm starting to feel better, but I'm not 100% yet.

Katie is potty training off and on. We're not pushing her to train, so we just let her work on her own schedule. Yesterday was a great day on that front. Even though Katie wore a pull-up all day, she kept it dry all day. She even pooped in the potty at least two times. Maybe she's really ready for this now. As long as she's out of diapers by the time the new baby arrives, I'm cool with it.

Emily begins practice this afternoon for the school soccer team. She's been looking forward to this all year. I hope she enjoys it.

Withdrawal

For a number of reasons, I have decided to go off of one of my medications. Not only am I uncertain as to whether or not I needed to be on the medication in the first place, but it has also caused me to gain weight - a LOT of weight. There are also other reasons that I need to stop this medication.

The problem with quitting this medication is that the withdrawal symptoms are horrible. I get a headache, numb, tingling fingers, and nausea just from going more than one day without it. I told my doctor about this, and he suggested that I just take one capsule every other day for about a week before completely stopping.

Currently, I'm on day three of this new plan. I hadn't taken my meds yet when I saw my doctor on Friday, so I went ahead and skipped that day. I took another one yesterday, and nothing today. I didn't really have any symptoms on Friday, but today I am feeling them. It's not as bad as it would be if I hadn't taken anything yesterday, but it's still noticeable.

So, now I'm wondering, if I'm going to have withdrawal symptoms either way, should I keep going this route, with mild symptoms stretched out for a couple of weeks? Or should I just quit "cold turkey" and let the withdrawal symptoms hit me hard and fast?

Sick, Sick, Sick, Sick

You may recall that I had to take Katie to the doctor on Thursday for her throat infection. Well, her cough kept getting worse over the weekend, and this morning she was so congested that she vomited up a bunch of phlegm that she had swallowed.

Then, Emily came to tell me that Sarah was sick and she didn't think she was going to school.

And did I mention that I haven't been feeling so hot myself?

So, I got on the phone and started making appointments for the three of us to see our doctors. My appointment was first.

I have an upper-respiratory infection. No surprise there - story of my life! I got some antibiotics and a decongestant.

After my appointment, I decided to call the girls' doctor back and see if they could get Emily in with Sarah and Katie. Emily has been complaining off and on about her throat hurting, so I figured that I might as well take her in, too, just in case.

After picking Emily up from school, we went to lunch at Chick-fil-A, and then headed to the pediatrician's office. Our regular doctor, Dr. Bob, is in Rome this week, so we saw one of the other doctors for the first time. We all really liked her a lot.

The verdict? They're all sick. (Duh!) Katie's throat infection has spread to her upper respiratory system, so she was given a different, stronger antibiotic. Emily has a nasty ear infection and a mild throat infection. Sarah was actually the least sick with nothing more than a mild throat infection.

The doctor left it up to me whether or not to give Sarah an antibiotic. Since the rest of us are taking them, I decided it would be best for Sarah to do so, as well. This way, we'll all be infection free at the same time and we won't keep passing this junk around to each other.

Hopefully, we'll all be feeling better by the weekend. Especially since my birthday is Friday AND Twilight comes to the theaters the same day.

Katie Update

A little while after I gave Katie the cough medicine this morning, Emily said that Katie felt warm to her. So, I decided to take Katie's temperature. Everything was normal there, but I decided to give her the once-over to make sure she wasn't any sicker than she appeared to be.

When I lifted Katie's chin up so that I could feel her glands, I realized that there was no need to do so. Why? Because Katie's right gland was so swollen, it looked like she had gotten one of those rubber bouncy balls stuck in her throat!

As soon as her doctor's office opened, I called to get Katie an appointment. Sure enough, her throat was infected. Thankfully, it wasn't Strep (or not enough Strep to get a positive result with the rapid Strep test).

So, now Katie's got an antibiotic to take, and she should be feeling much better very soon. We're planning to take her Busch Gardens to see Jack Hanna on Saturday, so I hope she's feeling well by then.

Early Morning Funny

It seems that Katie has a cold. She started coughing yesterday morning (so did I, for that matter), and it's only gotten worse. Her cough kept her up late and got her up early this morning, too.

So, when we got up this morning, I went to the medicine cabinet to see if we had anything for her cough. Luckily, we had some Pediasure cough medicine, and I gave her a dose of it. As I was putting the medicine away, Katie exclaimed, "I'm all better now!" LOL - If only it were truly that easy to make her feel better!

Getting There

Well, it seems that Katie is getting over this thing a lot quicker than I am. She is no longer running a fever. YAY!! She woke up with a little fever this morning, but after one dose of ibuprofen, her fever went away and never came back. Words cannot express how thrilled I am about this.

As for me, I still have that nasty cough and drainage, but it does seem to be lightening up some. Hopefully after a nice restful weekend, I'll be all better by Monday. Please cross your fingers that this actually happens.

I had been hoping to take Katie to Busch Gardens on Saturday for a little while to see some of the animals, but Phil went and dashed those plans for me by decided to go get his son for the weekend. Since I don't feel up to taking Katie anywhere on my own yet, we'll have to try it again some other time, I guess. It would have been perfect to do it this weekend, though, because I already have to drive Sarah and Emily to our church in Tampa on Saturday morning so they can go on a youth group service project trip. Our church is only about ten minutes away from Busch Gardens (yes, we do drive quite a way to get to church), so by combining the two trips, into one, we could have saved money on gas. Oh, well!

A Little Better

I had another rough day with Katie today. I was up all night last night coughing, so I had a very difficult time staying awake today. Katie's fevers were still coming back faster than she could take her ibuprofen doses, so we were quite miserable several times today.

Eventually, when Katie took her nap, I was able to catch up on my sleep a bit, and was able to function well enough to take Emily to her Girl Scout meeting this evening. When we returned home, it was a bit past when Katie could have her next dose of ibuprofen, and even though she hadn't had it yet, she was still in a good mood. I took her temperature, and it was only 100.3.

Yes, I know that 100.3 is still a decent fever, but it's not so high that it makes Katie miserable and whiny. This is such good news! Hopefully, she'll continue to improve tomorrow and we can start to get back to normal again. Whatever "normal" is anyway!

Poor Baby

My poor little Katie is so sick. I feel so terrible for getting her sick. Her fever suddenly rose up to 103.1 this morning, so I called and got her an appointment to see Dr. Bob after lunch.

At 12:30, I was able to give her another dose of ibuprofen, so by the time we got to the doctor's office, her fever was completely gone and she was back to her normal sweet self. I doubt she would have been so cooperative for Dr. Bob if she still had such a high fever.

Dr. Bob said that Katie's little throat was very red, but that the infection hadn't moved anywhere else yet. And her strep test came back negative, so he just gave her an antibiotic Rx (which was FREE at Publix). Hopefully, she'll be good as new by the weekend.


On another note, Phil had his annual check-up this morning with our doctor, and he asked him about me not getting much better yet. The doctor pulled my file and saw that the doctor who saw me last Friday hadn't given me anything for the drainage I'm now having. So, he sent me some sample meds home with Phil. Maybe now, I'll start to feel a little better.

Passing It Along

I think it's Katie's turn now. Not that my turn is over, but she's getting it, too. She was sneezing yesterday, but not a lot, and that was really all she was doing. But when I was holding her this morning, she felt a little warm to me, to I took her temperature. 99.8.

I didn't do anything about it then, because it wasn't that high, and she had no other symptoms - even the sneezing was gone. But after a little while, she started getting whiny. Then she barely touched her lunch. Then she started complaining that she needed to go take a nap. So, I took her temperature again. 100.4. Time for ibuprofen.

So, we went and took our nap. It was two hours long, but still not enough for me since I had been up so late reading. But the nap and the ibuprofen worked their magic on Katie and she's now fever free and back to normal. But, I see a visit to see Dr. Bob in our near future.

Dead Fish

While he did last for quite a while, Fishy Version 2.0 has passed away. I really loved that fish, too. He had quite the personality and I could tell he loved me, too. He would always get so excited when ever he saw me with his fish food. And I loved the way he would sleep in the little plastic plant in his tank.

Since Fishy V2.0 was gone, and Katie was very unhappy with the empty tank, Phil decided that we needed to replace him right away. But he didn't want any more Betas. So, we picked out a couple of glo-fish and guppies, and threw in a pleco for good measure. After getting them home, Phil put them all into our fish tank.

I have no idea what the problem was, but our green glo-fish started acting crazy and died within the first ten minutes he was in the tank. Within the next 10-15 minutes, his pink counterpart was also dead. We'll be returning them to Walmart first thing tomorrow.

So far, the pleco and guppies are still with us and seem to be doing well. Hopefully, when we wake up in the morning they'll still be with us.

Oh, and for those of you who are wondering about how I am feeling today, I'm not feeling any better yet. I really shouldn't have gone out of the house at all today, but I was afraid to send Phil to pick out the fish by himself, or worse, with the girls. It was a completely miserable experience for me since I was running a fever and was achy all over from that.

I really want to go to Mass in the morning, but I'm just not sure I'll be up to it. Please pray that I'll wake up feeling great in the morning so I can make it to Mass. I would assume that if God really wants me there, He'll make it easier for me to get there.

Woomp, Woomp, Woomp, Woomp

That's the constant sound I heard along with the pounding in my head. It doesn't stop.

I've been getting sicker and sicker as the days have gone on. I finally made it to the doctor today. I probably should have gone in sooner, but I had to wait for pay day to have the $20 for the copay. I could tell by the way the doctor was visibly taken aback when he looked into my throat that he thought I should have come in sooner, too.

The verdict? Nothing really out of the ordinary, at least not for me. A major case of sinusitis, a bit of bronchitis (made worse by my asthma), double otitis media, and some nasty pharyngitis to round it all out. If you're not up on your medical jargon, that means that my sinuses, lung, ears, and throat are all infected. That's basically my entire respiratory system. Fun times!

Now, I'm going to go beg Sarah to stop banging out "Axel F" on the piano so I can lay down and wait for the headache drugs to kick in.