Made in Richmond

(Yes, it’s true. You’re not supposed to have cold deli meat when you’re pregnant.)

Around 3pm yesterday afternoon, my throat started to get a little scratchy. By 10pm last night, it was burning. The culprit? A waterfall of congestion coming from my sinuses. That was a lovely picture, wasn’t it?

Last night was rough. There was much waking up to gargle with warm water and pound glasses of cold water. And general moping, let’s not forget that.

Turns out, it’s best to avoid over-the-counter antihistamines and decongestants while pregnant because there’s so much junk in them that could potentially hurt the baby.

So I guess it’s just me and my faux neti pot.

There is much moaning, whining, and lying around in my own filth happening over here. Will write soon.

Incoherent emails sent: 4

Advils taken: 8

Glasses of orange juice drunk: 5

Hours slept: about 15 million

Husbands (who were nice enough to stay home to take care of me) cuddled: 1

Hopefully I will come back from the dead tomorrow. Until then, I sleep.

(*Note: please don’t remind me of the fact that I get sick a lot. I’m well aware. WELL. AWARE.)

I started getting a sore throat last Sunday. I assumed it was all the dust/sawdust from clearing out the house and putting down the hardwood floors. Well, not so much it seems.

I ended up having to leave work at around 11 today. In the three hours I was there, the slight soreness morphed into an inability to swallow accompanied by a headache and overall crippling sluggishness.

The best part was, all I had to do was go to my boss and say, “I need to go home. I don’t feel well at all.” Then he said, “Ok.” And then I got to go home. No frantic calls trying to find a substitute, no begging children to behave while I’m gone, no wondering if it was better for to just stick it out so I wouldn’t have to deal with the hassle of being out.

So I came home, had a quick bite to eat, and slept for about four hours. And when I say slept I mean SLEPT - like the waking up sweaty like a two year old taking a nap kind of slept. A pretty good sign that I was not feeling well.

I actually managed to get some work done after dinner. Not any major projects I’m working on, but some minor things that needed to get done.

I’ll be going back to bed soon. And I’m so looking forward to it.

So I went up to Fredericksburg for the fun ladies’ night and ending up driving home at midnight because my stomach decided to turn itself inside out.

It all started when Maura, Chris, and I went to dinner where I ordered a club sandwich.  Club sandwiches are possibly my most favorite thing on this glorious planet.  Well, they were until tonight.  I don’t know if it’s that I haven’t consumed mayonnaise in months or maybe the restaurant doesn’t like to wash the lettuce, but let’s just say that my body is doing its best to rid itself of any remnants of this sandwich by any means possible.  I knew I should have ordered the falafel.  The falafel is always the right answer.

Now I’m missing out on watching such fabulous films as Material Girls and The Lake House.  And I bet that tickle-fight is happening as we speak.  I just know they are making prank phone calls to the cute boys in our math class while singing “Son of a Preacher Man” into their hairbrushes right at this very moment.   They are so lucky.

Oh well.  At least I still have my goodie bag.

I didn’t go yesterday because of extreme exhaustion and I’m not going today because of continued extreme exhaustion sprinkled with a head and stomach ache and I think a fever. I guess the kiddies couldn’t let me leave without another germ infestation.

Fortunately *this* death held off until Spring break started so I won’t have to take time of work. I was doing ok earlier this week-just really bad allergies that actually required me to get eye drops. Stupid Richmond. However, I took a turn for the worst Friday morning. My chest was super congested and I had a 101 fever. I knew those symptoms didn’t really come with allergies, so I decided to go to my most favorite place on Earth: Patient First.

I got there at around 6:30 and didn’t leave until around 8:30. No, it wasn’t because of a long wait-it was because it was apparently time for me to fall apart.

I went into the examination room and after asking 879 times if I was pregnant or nursing and when the last date of my period was, the doctor decided he wanted to do some blood work AND get a chest X-ray to rule out pneumonia. Sounds pretty easy, right? Yeah no.

Apparently I have the tiniest and deepest lying veins in the history of medicine. They stuck me in the right arm, left arm, right hand, left hand, and even my right middle finger before realizing that maybe the whole blood taking thing wasn’t going to work out. So, they sent me off to X-ray where they had me stand up and breathe in and out lots and lots of times-not the best thing for someone who is having trouble breathing and who had just been treated like a human pin cushion. BTW, getting stuck in the hand HURTS. A LOT. Especially when they have to do it TWICE.

So, I passed out.

That’s right. I keeled right over onto the poor X-ray technician, probably exposing much of my upper half. After sipping some orange juice and resting, I managed to stand up long enough to get my X-rays and waddle back to the examination room.

They had me put on my sweatshirt and a blanket with hopes that warming me up would make my veins more accessible. Didn’t work, but luckily they figured out it wasn’t worth it before sticking me again.

The doctor came back in and chatted with me for a while. We talked about how Richmond is seriously the worst place in the world when it comes to allergies. He actually said to me, “And I know you know, because you were ‘Made in Richmond,’ as I saw when you were X-ray.” Nice bedside manner. Anyway, it was ruled that I have allergies on top of a nasty case of bronchitis. I was given a decongestant and a packet of antibiotics and sent on my way.

My fever finally broke last night. I realized this when I woke up in a pool of my own sweat actually feeling like I wasn’t being roasted from the inside out. My coughs are being quite productive (yum!) and I can kind of take a deep breath without dying. God bless modern medicine.

Ever since my experience with the Norovirus (or as Ross likes to call it, “The Winter Vomiting Disease”) I have become incredibly stupid. Often when I walk into a room I forget why I am there. I love Wikipedia and often go there with excitement, but by the time the page loads, I don’t remember what I want to look up. It’s starting to take a long time for me to come up with words when I’m talking. No one else has seemed to notice. Maybe my brain worked at super speed before and the Norovirus has simply put me down at everyone else’s level. Or it might be that I no longer need to know anything beyond the required intelligence of a 10 year old.

Ok, it’s actually only 4 work days that I’ve missed, but I haven’t *been* to work since last Friday. When I go back on Monday, it will be 9 days that I haven’t worked. I’m not very good at this, to be honest. I feel like I’m misbehaving or something and that it is totally reasonable for me to go to work and just drag trashcan behind me in case I start puking.

Janie, my mentor teacher, called me today to let me know that the kids are doing really well. She could be lying so I won’t worry about them, and God bless her if she is. She knows if she even hinted about them acting up I would be over there in all of my feverish glory to wield my trembling sword of authority.

Well, I thought the sickness on Monday morning was just a quick, little, passing thing. Not so much. I felt great Monday afternoon, even great enough to go to Capital Ale House with James and Jennifer. Turned out to be a bad idea. At about 9:00 that night the vomitting and other things started and didn’t stop until I got some anti-nausea medicine at Patient First at 8:30 the next morning. At least I didn’t need an IV this time.

So, it looks like I’ll be out of work this whole week. When I had this thing last year I kept thinking I’d be ok to go in, but now I know not to push it and just use the sick days-that’s what they’re for, right? And considering feeding the dogs exhausts me enough to warrant a 2 hour nap, I think I made the right decision.

My co-worker’s have been awesome. I’m very nervous though because this is one of the last weeks I had to get my kids ready for the writing test. Oh well, I’ll just have to hammer it in over the next week and a half and pray a whole lot.

I hope this made sense. Typing has proved to be very difficult, just like touching my nose with my index finger and walking in a straight line.