Feeling better

I slept better last night than I have in two weeks. Yesterday, I saw a dentist in my dentist's practice for an emergency visit. Is your own physician or dentist ever available in an emergency? The good news is that because my mouth sore came on so quickly, he doesn't think it's a tumor. Well, gosh. That is good news!

The bad news is that I do have some kind of secondary infection on the roof of my mouth, something that probably started with a small burn or abrasion from eating something pokey (like hard crusted bread). It's progressed pretty far considering the level of pain I've had and how abused my upper palate looks.

So I'm on an antibiotic and pain pills and I have to go back for a checkup on Tuesday. I actually think the spot has gotten bigger since yesterday, so hopefully the next dose of antibiotics will sock it good. Regardless, I'm feeling better.

Thank you to all who sent good wishes!

Recovering?

Don't bother reading this, it's boring. Really. Click on Dooce or Allthatcomeswithit or something. Still reading? Don't say I didn't warn you.

In two days, it will be Friday night again. When that Friday arrives, it'll be two weeks ago that I first started feeling like I was coming down with a cold. Sore throat, tickle in my nose, you know the feeling. I really didn't feel like becoming sick, so I decided to try some of those homeopathic cold remedy things. You let the lozenge dissolve in your mouth every two freaking hours until either the cold symptoms go away or you're so busy blowing your nose that you forget to take your next lozenge. I religiously did those lozenge things for two and a half days, until the bottle was empty.

By then, the symptoms had arrived with a vengeance. Two days later, I started coughing and I mostly lost my voice. Another day later, my entire throat became sore. Not just when I swallowed, which is sort of expected with a cold and nasal drainage, but my entire neck. Sore glands, I guess. Oh, my neck hurt. I started taking Motrin pretty occasionally, at least twice a day. And now, a week later, I'm still taking Motrin at least three times a day.

For the last two days, my jaw has been aching. My teeth are very sensitive on both the top and bottom and if I don't take something when it starts to build up, my entire head aches. My neck still aches. And I have a sore spot on the roof of my mouth. My cough is now in response to numerous dry tickles and I'm still not really sleeping.

I know I should probably go to the doctor. I probably have some kind of sinus infection going on or something and/or I do have strep throat (though I don't think so). I just know that if this is a viral cold, my 7-10 days of misery didn't end in 7-10 days and so I am really ready to feel better. After all, I have a date this weekend! And I'm out of Motrin.

Oh, lord

Greg and I are watching a special on PBS that's pretty much guaranteed to scare the crap out of any parent. It's about social networking sites for teenagers, cyberbullying, and kids who have committed suicide as a result. We've been watching it for about 1/2 hour. At this point, my children are never going online unless I'm sitting next to them. Ever.

Caution - sick girl ahead!

Greg and I are going to the theater tonight to see "Spamalot." The tickets were a birthday gift to him way back in September. Thank goodness we didn't lose them in the meantime, which is no mean accomplishment in this house.

So we're off to the theater. You know, turn off your cell phone, no talking, don't get up during the performance, and for goodness sake, don't have a coughing fit and disturb everyone around you. Umm, yeah. About that last one?

I've been fighting a cold since Saturday. It really started kicking my butt on Monday night and I've been exhausted in the evenings this whole week, which makes it fun to try to get up the energy to clean our house (the in-laws are coming this weekend). My cold is now at the coughing stage--lots and lots of tasty, disgusting yellow and green phlegm. Obviously, my coughing can't be controlled to any large extent.

I'm sneaking in a bottle of water and crossing my fingers. Good thing that Greg and the girls got me that huge purse for Christmas.

Early evening play

This evening after dinner, the girls wanted to go out and play. Allie grabbed a blanket from the garage, Greg's hammock pillow, and her umbrella. She set up a lounge on the old bench under our backyard tree. She draped the blanket over the whole bench, put her head on the pillow and laid down, sheltering herself from the wind with her open umbrella. I thought she looked quite comfortable.

Then Greg came upstairs and made an exasperated noise as he looked out the window. "She's practicing to be a homeless woman!"

Simon's saga

Simon is going to be just fine. If you've followed our journey with him for the last three weeks, you know that our cat suffered a serious leg injury when he fell nine feet in our front entryway. We originally thought he might need $2000 in surgery. Instead, it appears that he had a significant sprain/strain with some bad tendon action that he's slowly been recovering from. Last night, I saw him run for the first time. And, he's back to fighting with his brother Rabies.

If you add in the time last summer when he wandered outside for about two hours, I'd say he's now on life number 7. At this moment, he's cuddled up on our bed with Greg and Julia, getting massive love. Not a bad life, even for a cat.

Summer?

It hit 83 degrees here today. The girls wore summer clothes and Julia got to play in a sprinkler at daycare.

Considering that my tulips are still blooming and that my lilacs haven't really formed much into flower buds, let alone bloomed, I don't think it's summer yet.

It is definitely May though. I think it's safe to put away the winter boots.

Visitors

My parents are here visiting their granddaughters. I don't bother to trouble myself any more that they're actually here to see me or my husband. There was one point in time, somewhere between Allie's awesomely-cute babyhood and her not-really-that-terrible-in-retrospect twos when I thought the pendulum might swing back over to them wanting to see me more than my kid(s), but I was deceiving myself. So they're here, visiting and doing us a favor by watching Julia tomorrow (and taking her to preschool, and meeting up with Allie, and maybe doing some of my laundry) because our daycare is closed. Not too bad of a deal for us, obviously.

Greg and I seldom go out alone because we lack evening and weekend childcare and because we want to be with our girls since we're all apart all day, so you would think we'd take advantage of the free and available babysitting to go somewhere, anywhere, without our kids. Instead we had pizza and salads tonight and watched some TV and Allie did her homework. So we did pretty much the same thing we do every weeknight. Except tonight, we had more dishes.

I could get used to it.

Get the ark?

I drove on some of Wisconsin's lovely state highways yesterday. On two separate roads, I had to slow down and move over because one entire lane of the highway was covered with high water. The amazing amount of snow we got this winter, plus the hard rain we received at the end of last week and this week, has definitely had an impact.

The good side of this is that a local spring, after being dry for decades, has started flowing with water again. Back in the early 1900s, a lovely park surrounded this natural spring. People picnicked and children used the cool spring water to make lemonade (or so my local newspaper alleges). But, so many years ago that no one can remember exactly when, the spring went dry, victim of the excessive groundwater pumping to supply the city of Madison.

But now it's back. No one knows how long it will flow. I think Mother Nature has a plan and I hope humans don't screw things up so much that she can't win. I think springs are kind of magical, and so is the return of this one is an awesome thing. I'd just like Mother to keep things off the highways.

Patient update

I haven't written about how Simon is doing lately. He's doing remarkably well. We've been very lucky.

Tuesday afternoon, Greg took him back to our vet and she removed his splint. He was pretty cautious with his leg at first but over the last few days, he's started using his leg more and more. He's running a little and going up and down stairs and even jumping some. I think he's really going to be OK. And all it cost us is--well, actually we still don't know how much it's going to cost us because our vet hasn't billed us yet. But it's just two office visits, X-rays, and the splint. And pain medication. That shouldn't be more than $300, right?

I'm waiting to see if he decides to jump over to the plant shelf again. And by the way, did I mention that Rabies occasionally jumps across too? I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

JULIA LEE

Julia and Allie just came upstairs to get ready for bed and little Miss Lee typed her name by herself (with just some help on the double e). Some day, she's going for the world speed typing record. Today, not so much.

How does this make me tired

Yesterday, I went to an all-day seminar in Milwaukee. It was almost a 12-hour day. I drove for about two hours, I sat through introductory remarks, I attended two breakout sessions, I ate more for lunch than I've eaten for lunch in months, I attended two more breakout sessions, and I drove for about two hours. I was sitting for almost the entire day.

Yes, I recognize that I sit for almost the entire day every day, but this seemed a lot different. Normally, I get up and walk around between tasks. I deliver documents, prepare mail, fax things, consult with people in their offices. But this was a lot of sitting. I felt very tired when I got home. I definitely didn't feel like doing anything physical.

So, like I have for 15 weeks now, I dragged my sorry butt down into the basement and walked on the treadmill. Yep, me. I've been exercising (however minimally, really) at least every other day for at least 1/2 hour for 15 whole weeks. That means I've been walking since two weeks before we went to Disney, since I was trying to prepare somewhat for all the walking we did on that trip.

Disney seems forever ago, unfortunately. But hopefully this minor legacy of activity will continue forever-- we'll see.