I am so sick

I haven’t been this sick since I was a child. My throat is covered with big white sores and the glands under my chin and my neck are so swollen. It doesn’t even look like I have a neck right now. Even swallowing spit hurts. I’m miserable. I just made myself a cup of green tea to sip on just to keep hydrated.

I don’t even know what to do. I don’t feel like doing anything because my pain is peaked at the moment. I always have my never-ending constant hip pain and it’s only gotten worse and it’s about the max I can handle. Any additional pain on top of that and it’s just over the top. I can’t handle it. I wish I could just sleep. Sleep would be the greatest escape and be good for my body but, I have the kids.

Z-Library went down on TOR yesterday and I just figured that would be the end of that. The telegram bot is ever faithful and hasn’t gone down yet but the actual website just shows so much more. There was an update to TOR this morning and as soon as I did the update Z-Library started working again. Thank goodness. I don’t know what I would do without this website. Reading is my life. Books are just too expensive for me to buy and the library just doesn’t have everything I want to read, there are long holds and wait times. I can’t read a series in order back to back. Yes, I understand that it hurts the authors, but books these days, even in ebook form are astronomical in price. Taken from Z-Library’s blog:

We believe the knowledge and cultural heritage of mankind should be accessible to all people around the world, regardless of their wealth, social status, nationality, citizenship, etc. This is the only purpose Z-Library is made for.

It was made for people, like me. It was made for all people. And it’s deeply appreciated.

It’s been a busy few days and I’m sick, again.

Saturday we went to my Mother-in-law’s house to celebrate Seth’s birthday. Then on Sunday, we went to my Mom’s house to have Thanksgiving with her and Larry.

I got my hematologist appointment made. It’s at the cancer center in the hospital. That was an unnerving text message to get, saying I’d been referred to the cancer center. The hematologists here are also oncologists. It’s going to be heavy walking in there. Being as empathetic as I am I tend to absorb the emotions and the energies around me. I’m guessing I’ll have to have iron infusions since my iron is so critically low and I’m severely anemic. This has been an ongoing issue in my life, almost all my life. I’m still waiting on endocrinology to call me and make an appointment. I need to get these issues fixed, and fast.

I had to go to urgent care this morning. I had a 104 fever last night and I have sores in the back of my throat. I thought for sure I had strep throat, and I would have put money on it but the test came back negative for strep, covid, flu, and RSV. It’s just a really bad cold, and with my immunity, it’s hitting me really hard. No over-the-counter stuff for me, I’m already on too many meds that would have too many side effects if I added anything else. So in the meantime, I just need to tough it out and hope I get better sooner than later. With us going to Drake for Thanksgiving and Tristyn’s party on Saturday, not much rest is going to be had. Plus I still have to Mom. I was talking to another Mom friend of mine and we decided that a vacation would include hiring a housekeeper, a nanny, and a chef for a week. Let me tell you, that would be paradise.

Heavy news this morning

I’ve been going through a lot with my kids and their sickness and it’s been really hard. I have to put it in perspective. The illness that my kiddos have are temporary they go away and life goes on.

That’s not the case for one of my oldest best friends this morning. His son has been in the hospital for the past few days with a mysterious illness for which he’s needed blood transfusions. Today they finally got a diagnosis. It’s every parent’s worst nightmare. Cancer. My heart is so heavy and I feel so badly for my friend and his son. It’s a heavy diagnosis.

It’s -1 degrees outside and it snowed a little last night. It’s COLD. I have physical therapy in the pool today and I’m dreading the whole getting out of the pool and going out in the icy air. With my anemia and thyroid issues, one of the side effects is cold intolerance. Coldness feels like fire on my skin, it really hurts. It’s not pleasant. I can’t wait to get all my issues fixed. I’m really looking so forward to it. Health is one of the most important things. The older I get the more I realize that it is almost everything other than happiness.

I have a few people in my life who take health as a last priority. They don’t adhere to their diet, they aren’t proactive in issues they know they have but refuse to do anything about. It’s so frustrating to me and I struggle with understanding it, especially when there are children involved that are affected by it daily. My kids are the only excuse I need to better myself, not just sit passively by and continue unhealthy habits. Habits are so easy to make, you just have to be consistent about them. There are so many ways of reminding yourself, via phone reminders, alarms, and asking others for accountability. I could go on a tangent with this so I’m going to stop there for now.

It’s going to be another busy day today. I have physical therapy this morning and after that Tristyn has an awards ceremony at his school. He’ll be getting the golden paw pat award for the 4 b’s. Be kind, be safe, be respectful and be responsible. Only 5 kids get this out of the whole school and Tristyn was nominated by one of the staff members, so it’s a big deal. I couldn’t be more proud of that boy. After that, we’re going to go shopping for Daddy’s birthday which is tomorrow.

Doctor’s appointments and new karate belts

It has been one very very busy day today. It started off with a snowstorm and a very brisk cold morning. I had to drive to Fort Collins for my appointment with my bariatric doctors and dietitian. It went so well, they are just so awesome there. My dietitian feels that I’m on the right track and I’ve lost another 5 pounds in the last 2 weeks. There were some issues with my blood tests, however. I’m extremely low in iron even taking a multivitamin and iron supplements. According to some of my other blood work, I’ve been severely anemic for years and it’s a bigger issue than I realized. I’ve been referred to hematology for that. The doctor also said my thyroid numbers were off the charts and she’s also referred me to endocrinology. I wasn’t surprised about that, I knew that was an issue.

Another big issue is the decline in my hip function. It’s progressing faster than we first imagined and she’s going to see what she can do to move my weight loss surgery up. With the surgery, I’m getting I am expected to lose 120-150 in the first year. I couldn’t tell you how exciting that is. They are also going to help me find a hip surgeon. Top-notch place. I’m so happy I have started this journey.

Tristyn had his karate belt test today. He received his double-brown stripe belt tonight. I’m so proud of him, he’s worked so hard for his accomplishments.

I got his birthday invitations all done so he can hand them out tomorrow at school.

Yesterday was a nightmare

I hated yesterday. I don’t want another day like yesterday to ever happen again. I want to forget that yesterday even happened.

Zahkya woke up with croup again as I wrote about yesterday. I tried to make an appointment with her primary care doctor and she just didn’t have any openings like I expected. I’m so frustrated with that doctors office. They never have appointments when I need them. They have appointments booked out for a week or two, which isn’t helpful at all.

So we went to the emergency room, again. When we first got there she was still having her croup cough (she’s never had it in the daytime before) and she started complaining that her ear drum hurt. Fast forward 20 minutes and she was crying that her eardrum hurt so much. Fast forward 20 more minutes and she was screaming in the waiting room because she was in so much pain. Help me help me she screamed. As a Mom, I felt totally and completely helpless. They took us back to a room finally and she screamed and cried and withered around on the bed, screaming and begging for help for another 40ish minutes before anyone came in to see us. They did determine that she had a severe ear infection in her right ear and she was starting an infection in her left ear. She was coughing her barking cough the entire time we were there. Because she was so inconsolable for so long they finally decided to give her a shot of morphine. After about 15 minutes she was fast asleep in my arms but she would wake up every now and then still complaining about her eardrum hurting.

They reviewed her history and saw that she was just in 16 days ago for croup and they had given her an IV steroid that she could take orally. They saw that we had to go in twice to get that steroid so they asked me if I wanted to try giving her the steroid via IV. I said yes. Whatever it took to get her feeling better and out of pain. They also decided to give her IV antibiotics as well to start fighting the ear infection. Zahkya is not good with needles so she screamed bloody murder getting poked.

After about 2-3 hours she was finally calm enough and had all the medicine in her so they decided to send us home. They had to wheel her out because she wasn’t standing up very well due to the morphine.

I drove her home and carried her inside and got her all settled with pillows and blankets on the couch. That’s where she remained until about 8 pm when I walked her to bed. She slept until around midnight when she woke up wanting to watch her pad. I let her watch it for an hour and then she went back to sleep until 5 am. She is happy and in good spirits today, thank goodness, I’m just scared for when that steroid wears off. Nana picked up her amoxicillin and they had to give it to her in capsule form because that’s all they had since there is a giant shortage nationwide.

I was so broken hearing my baby scream and cry and bed and yell for help. That has got to be the worst. I hated that part most of all. I just wanted to take all her pain away from her.

Today is my appointment with my dietitian. I’m going to leave really early because it’s snowing outside and pretty slick so I need to give myself enough time to drive to Fort Collins. I hate driving there under normal circumstances, let alone in a blizzard. Wish me luck!

Zahkya has croup again

I could just about cry. Zahkya woke up last night saying, “Mommy I’m having a hard time breathing” and started coughing that dreaded barky cough again. My heart sank. She just had this a few weeks ago and it was scary. I’ve been dealing with Tristyn’s sickness, which doesn’t seem to be getting better either, and now I have Zahkya sick again.

So the very first thing I did this morning was to call her doctor. I knew what they were going to say even before they said it. Her doctor doesn’t have any openings until next week. I’ve had this problem with them for months now. I feel like I’m living in urgent care and the kids never get to go in and actually see their doctor who is supposed to be in charge of their health. It’s just so frustrating and I told them that when I called. I had made her an appointment at urgent care before I called anyway so she got a time slot since urgent care is so busy these days.

Hopefully, they can give her that steroid today and we’ll have 2 good nights and then I’ll take her back to get more and we’ll have another good two nights, and maybe we can keep doing that until the croup is gone.

I’m still coughing and I seem to be coughing more now. I’m starting to cough up some rubbery gunk. My oxygen hasn’t been the greatest either, I’m hovering in the low 90s to upper 80s so I need to be checking that throughout the day.

I wish I could just keep my family inside and away from people for the next month so we can all recover and have a moment of feeling good before we have to join life again.

Back to school

Tristyn went back to school today after being so sick the past 5 days. He was tired and worn out when he got home due to not having all his strength back. He fell asleep pretty easily tonight before his bedtime. His cough is still pretty bad and he was coughing all night.

Zahkya is starting to get something now. She’s super congested and her nose is a never ending faucet of snot. I hope her little body fights this off and it doesn’t become anything too serious. No more sickness, no more!

I’m still feeling pretty bad. I went to the hospital after I dropped Tristyn off at school and got my bloodwork done for a doctor’s appointment happening this Thursday. I’ve already gotten some of my results back and I’m extremely low in iron, even taking a multivitamin and an iron supplement. What a bummer. I feel like I have enough stuff to deal with, I don’t want to go in for an IV iron infusion. We’ll see what the doctor says before I jump to any conclusions.

I had PT today too in the pool. I’ve really noticed how I’m declining. I was so worn out afterward that I had to come home and lay down. My sore throat is coming back too and it tastes like that sick infection taste. Grrrrrrr. Got my #100DaysOfCode completed and I’m ready for bed.

I am tired of all this sickness

I spoke too soon yesterday. Tristyn had another rough night with extremely high fevers. At one point I had ice packs on him and made him suck on ice cubes to get his fever down. High fevers, especially those that are 104-105 are just scary. He was shaking and really out of it from being so hot. He’s had 4 doses of his antibiotics now and I’m just hoping that it does its job. I feel so bad for him being sick for so long. He’s been going through bouts of sickness since mid-September. I kept him home again today. He’s not eaten much for days and he’s still not himself.

I feel better in some ways but worse in other ways. I don’t have the body aches as bad but my cough is a lot worse. Maybe it’s the sickness working its way out or something.

I got my #100DaysOfCode done already this morning and I got groceries ordered. I’m working on laundry today and the dishes. It’s never-ending. Just when I think I’m caught up I realize I’m not. Isn’t that the definition of insanity, doing the same thing over and over expecting different results? Ha. I must be in deep.

I’ve been doing terribly on my diet while the kids and I have been sick. I need to get back on the wagon because I have an appointment with my nutritionist this week. Tristyn will be testing for his double brown stripe belt and he also has an awards ceremony on Friday where he will be receiving an award. Lots going on this week.

My sickest day yet, Tristyn’s better

This has got to be the hardest day yet for me and whatever this is that I have. My body aches are terrible and I’m coughing and I’m breathing fast. I’ve got really bad brain fog and no focus. Moving hurts. I’ve had to get everything ready for the week, however, because Moms still have to do their job even when ill. I think that’s why I’m not getting better. I haven’t had any resting time and I’ve been taking care of everyone else instead of myself. I just made myself a cup of tea to sip. I think someone warm in my throat might soothe it a bit.

Tristyn’s fever broke last night around 1:30 am, the antibiotic finally started doing its job. I had both kids in my bed with me so I didn’t get sleep at all with the whole foot and a half of space that I was trying to sleep on while having Molly dog and Tommy cat between my legs. I’m so happy Tristyn’s better but I don’t think he’s in any shape to go to school tomorrow. I’m going to keep him home so he can rest up and start eating to gain his strength back. I got a text from his school today saying that he’d been selected by one of the staff members to receive a Golden Paw Pat award for the first trimester. Only 5 kids are picked for that so I’m extremely happy for him. I’ll be going to the award ceremony on Friday to watch him.

I’ve got a lot of medical phone calls to make tomorrow that I’d been putting off and time has run out to stall. I have to make these phone calls no matter what. I have a ton of laundry to do too. I need to finish washing the clothes and get the beds stripped and washed too. I’m ready to wash all this sickness out of this house.

I just got both kids to bed and I have to go work on my #100DaysOfCode before it gets too late or one of the kids wakes up.

Tristyn’s turn to go to urgent care

I tell you. I’m really over all this sickness. Tristyn had a really bad night last night. He was coughing all night and he had a 104 temp this morning. He said his ear hurt and he couldn’t breathe. When I checked his oxygen levels they were all over the place, from the 70s to the low 90s. So I rushed him to urgent care and we had to sit and wait over an hour before we ever got back into a room. They tested him for all the viral things, COVID-19, Flu type a and b, and RSV. He was negative for all of that but they found that he had a pretty bad ear infection in his left ear. My oxygen meter must have been low on batteries or something because his oxygen was stable in the low-ish 90s while he was at urgent care. I changed them when I got home.

I’m going to have him sleep in my room with me tonight so I can keep a close eye on him. Even with Motrin on board, his fever has been around 101-102.8. He’s already asleep in my bed and I’m having Zahkya sleep in his bed for the night. We’ll see how this goes, I’m sure before it’s all said and done they will both be in my bed tonight. Heh.

Meanwhile, This has been my worst day yet with whatever I have. I haven’t slowed down tonight with everything going on. My batteries are completely dead tonight. I did follow through with my commitment to #100DaysOfCode and I read about code and finished up my challenges on #freeCodeCamp.