Category: Health

Aikido

The boys lined up to learn

Adam has volunteered to get tossed around the mat for as long as I’ve known him. Back in college, he used to be part of an aikido group. I remember watching them on the basement floor of Smith/Burdick – the upwelling lights revealing crazy people in white tunics throwing each other dangerously on the floor.

He took a brief hiatus after graduation, but about five years ago he found a new dojo not unreasonably far from us. Since that day, he has gone to aikido between one and four times a week (it depends on the week).

The art is fantastic for Adam. He’s in really, really great shape. (If I could do the things he can do, I’d be showing off. Constantly. He can do pushups from a handstand.) It’s also excellent mental rest for him – it allows him to meditate and be physical and not intellectual for a while. I think it calms and relaxes him, and helps him reduce stress.

Monday, sensei gave him the big news that he had passed his first kyu test. He’d worked his way from nothing, to fifth kyu and on up – each taking a year or more. For the last three or so belt tests, he’s been warned that maybe he wouldn’t get to test for the next one (since he only averages two sessions a week), but each time he’s studied books and videos, mumbled to himself while making striking motions in the hall, and proven himself on the mat.

Tiny Grey starts aikido

Over the last few years, he’s gradually become the senior student in the dojo, and assumed greater and greater responsibilities for teaching. There is a children’s session at the dojo too, and as our sons turned four they also donned white little gis and learned how to roll, and do the forms and techniques. Grey is now a green stripe. Thane still has to earn his first belt. But it has become a family thing, and an assumption about our time and energies. Monday, Wednesday and Saturday, there is aikido unless there is a pressing reason that there cannot be aikido.

Until now. Sensei has a little one on the way, and a job. The martial arts are a rather consuming passion that don’t mix well with, oh, a full time job and children. And so, with sadness, the dojo (a labor of great love) is closing.
It’s funny, but even though I never took a single ukemi, even I feel at loss. What now? How will Adam be happy if he never gets to test for his black belt, or months go by with not a single person throwing him over their head? Is there an activity I should do with the kids instead, to make sure they’re developing the appreciation of exercise, grace, coordination and workout? What does life look like when Monday, Wednesday and Saturday are back on the table? Can we find another dojo for Adam, and if not… what takes its place in our lives?

For many years, this has been a wonderful thing in our lives. I’m grateful to sensei for the hard work, love and dedication he’s poured into it. A tiny part of me is excited about a summer “off”. But I also hope that what comes next is as wonderful and fulfilling as this has been for my family.

I was trying to look up when Adam started doing aikido, and I found this post from June 2008 that seems to be the starting point! I had completely and utterly forgotten!

So, to put it clearly, my husband was laid off today.*

This wasn’t entirely unexpected and it won’t be devastating. I’m pretty confident with his skill set, he’ll find a new job quickly. But it also makes for a less-than-fun Thursday. Anyway, he has a $300 wellness benefit from his current employer which, if he does not spend it in the next 2 weeks, he will lose. He had been talking about doing aikido for a while now. He did it in college and loved it, but in our grownup life we didn’t have time for both gaming and aikido, and gaming has won. With the dissolution of his standing Wednesday night game, he’s thinking about doing aikido instead on Wednesdays and (while working) maybe sneaking it in another night of the week. While unemployed, he could participate daily if he chose. And the $300 wellness benefit will pay for nearly 6 months of it.

I think that’s such a smart and productive way to deal with the layoff. I know that working out will make him feel much better and much sharper. I know that aikido in particular really helps keep him inside his skin. And since he’s got that benefit, it’s even fiscally responsible.

*He had a new job before he even had his last day at the old job, if memory serves.

Seven weeks of constraint

Just over seven weeks ago, I wrote about how I was going to try this crazy diet, and work out for Lent. You know, to see how it went.

I tried the Four Hour Body diet, in combination with actually going to the gym multiple times. I was actually very compliant with the terms of the diet. I didn’t cheat. Visions of losing like 2, maybe 3 pounds a week floated through my head! For weeks not so much as a stick of artificially flavored gum passed my lips. (It probably would have helped if I’d actually read the book FIRST, instead of relying on blog posts and my husband’s interpretation, as I was actually more rigorous than required.) Annnnnnd. Nada. My weight stayed stubbornly right where it was, which is really frustrating after three weeks of egg & bean breakfasts.

So I took another look. And I decided that the key was that a high protein diet helped you restrict calories. In thinking I could eat as many calories as I desired as long as they were proteinaceous, I was mistaken. Instead, in order to assist in living with a 1500 or 1600 calorie diet without perishing of hunger, I needed to eat a lot of protein. I’d gotten my cause and effect mixed up. I found that at the end of the day, a 50/50 split between carbs grams and protein grams was effective, if the total calories were roughly 1500. That doesn’t allow you to eat much bread, or dairy, and stay full. But you can eat that few calories and not feel hungry if those calories are eggs, beans, lean meats and vegetables.

When I made that change, the diet DID start working. Last time I weighed in, I had lost 8 pounds – or about a third of my desired weight loss. YAY! I’m not sure it really shows (my wardrobe is not designed to reveal small fluctuations in weight) but it was progress!

Mmmm poutine

I had also burned through my available stock of willpower. I am not (NOT!) dieting on my vacation in Montreal, although I hope I’m not being so horrendous that I’ll have gained much back. Then again, I did have poutine for lunch, so… yeah. And I’m planning on caribou steaks for dinner! When in Canada, eh?

Yes, kind sir, she sits and spins

I find myself at an odd confluence of events today. I hope that you know me well enough by now to know that although I pay attention to my body and appearance, I’m far from obsessesed with the Western standard of beauty for women. It helps to have realized it is unobtainable for me.

However, I am starting to think that the pregnancy weight I put on with Thane will not actually come off by itself. Call it a hunch. I would like my maintenance weight to be the weight I was before I started procreating lo eight years ago. This is a matter of 25 pounds. I believe this is achievable, having worked my way back to it before between the boys. So when my husband asked if I would join him in this diet he’s done a ton of research on, and which he has found efficacious before, I figured this was a good time to attempt the challenge again.

The diet is a called the Slow Carb Diet and is more or less a geek’s attempt to optimize weight loss. In some studies, it’s been shown to be more effective than other forms of diet. My husband did a ton of research on it. The basic concepts are this:

1) Eat all low glycemic index foods: lean meats, vegetables and legumes
2) Eat no high glycmeic foods: any form of carb, fruit, diary, sugar, sweetener. Any food that “comes in white” is right out. (With exceptions).
3) Take one cheat day in seven and eat all the carbs you want (to prevent other cheating, and to prevent your body from going into starvation mode)

In practice this means that breakfast is eggs and beans (breakfast is the hard part). Thank HEAVENS I drink my coffee black! Lunch is dinner leftovers. Dinner is a compliant meal like split pea soup, cassoulet, black bean casserole, morrocan chicken, lentil soup…

Snacks have been the hard part. I’ve probably had more nuts than I should. Hard boiled eggs are great for this. Veggies with hummus become the culinary highlight of your day. My husband says the hardest part is that you get absolutely not taste of anything sweet with this diet. It’s true. Even artificial sweeteners are out. He says the flip side is that you “reset” your perception of sweet, so that a glass of milk or an apple seems deliciously sweet.

I’m on day three, and so far I’ve been compliant. We’ll see how it goes. I figure that an attempt is better than no attempt, and that the possibility of success is motivating. My weight is pretty stable, so once I’ve lost the weight, i believe I will be able to keep it off using more normal dietary constraints.

If you’re curious, here is some other information on the diet:
http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2012/07/12/how-to-lose-100-pounds/
http://gizmodo.com/5709913/4+hour-body-+-the-slow+carb-diet
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2012/09/10/160757730/low-and-slow-may-be-the-way-to-go-when-it-comes-to-dieting

A few weeks ago, I had finally decided that my knee was far enough from right — nearly 18 months after massive knee surgery — I was not content with the condition of my knee. I can’t cross it. I can’t kneel. It hurts with the weather. And most importantly, the differences in strength between repaired left knee and normal right knee are more than obvious enough to be seen in my legs. They’re still working differently, and my body is pulled off center. Like weight loss, I’ve concluded this won’t fix itself. So I went to my orthopedic surgeon – expecting a PT prescription.

Instead, he gave me a prescription for spinning class. Greaaaat. Now, I believe that when you ask for medical help and advice you should consider it, and assuming it passes the sniff test, you should implement it. I suppose I shouldn’t have needed an orthopedic surgeon to tell me that I needed exercise for my knee, but apparently I did. Having gotten that advice, I treat it as sacred as a PT prescription, and decided that logistic impossibilities aside, I needed to comply.

In truth, I am really feeling the need for exercise. I don’t feel strong, or flexible, or powerful. I feel weak and fragile. My two mile a day walking simply isn’t enough, or the right kind of exercise. Of course, the flip side is that I truly do not know where I can find two hours a week to go to the gym. I will simply have to be opportunistic about it. But that is no excuse for not trying.

So I have signed up for a froo froo gym with a gazillion classes* and exercise equipments and the kind of strutting gym rats that have provided disincentives for unathletic, pudgy geeks like me since the gym was invented. Fortunately, I’m no longer 22 and do not care for their disregard.

So here I am, in February, with mounds of snow on the ground, on a wacko diet that means I can’t have Honey Nut Cheerios for breakfast and the kind of gym membership that everyone has and no one uses.

I’ll let you know how it works out!

*Critically, it has about 16 spinning classes a week and child care and is less than 5 miles from my house.

A year of zombie life

September 16th is one of the dates I remember. On September 16th, a year ago, I became a zombie.

Apple picking with knee brace
Apple picking with knee brace

The story is this: 14 year ago, I went skiing for the first time and snapped my ACL. Being young and dumb, I figured six months of limping was normal for a sprain. Then 18 months ago I jumped off a wall and tore my meniscii – both of them – badly. A summer of physical therapy, then I re-injured it and the MRI showed that I had massive damage to my knee. I was scheduled for an ACL replacement surgery and repair of both my meniscus.

I think that exactly this time last year I was fading in and out of consciousness, in and out of pain. I don’t remember that day too well. The rest of the week I spent ensconced on this very couch, an awesome ice pack circulating cold water over my bruised and violated knee. It was a long, slow, obnoxious journey back to (mostly) full mobility from there. I hated the crutches stage. I limped for months and months. Even now, I can feel that my knee is different than it’s partner on the right.

There are a few things I bring out of this experience.

First is gratitude. My new knee with its excellent function is a gift. There was a person who chose to be an organ donor. There was a family who affirmed that donation – in grief – after they lost that loved one. We all think about donating hearts and lungs and livers: the life-saving organs. But there is so much more than just that. There are tendons, eyes, skin – things that make life better. I carry a bit of my donor with me – and it carries me. There is a person who lives on, in some small way, in me. And I am grateful.

Second is also gratitude. It turns out that chronic pain and difficulty moving are mentally, emotionally and physically debilitating. Last year was one of the hardest – the worst – years of my life. This year has, so far, been one of the best. There is more to it than just pain and disability vs. no pain and ability… but that is a huge amount. It is salutary for the young and able bodied to see the world through other’s eyes. I’ve been fearful walking across slick ground in a way I never was before. That gives me sympathy and care for the octogenarians who always walk with such caution. I also being to understand the toll chronic pain takes on its sufferers.

Finally, there is the moving on. This appendage has taken up a tremendous amount of space in my psyche in the last year: with the pain, the fear, the disability, the limitations. But that’s pretty much over with. Now I have all this lovely extra space in my thoughts for new things, like guitar!

So that’s a wrap. One year later, I am signed up for the next Red Cross blood drive and saying, “Sayonara knee preoccupation!”

A Tale of Two Summers

One of my last ambulatory days of 2011
One of my last ambulatory days of 2011

I’ve been enjoying myself quite a lot lately. Other than the breathless busy-ness that is the inevitable outcome of trying to DO ALL THE THINGS, we’ve been having a lot of fun. This past weekend we spent at the beach, my children increasingly fearlessly ducking through waves. We’ve been hiking and camping and beaching and farmer’s marketing. I walked through London.

I was thinking, the other day, how much more pleasant this summer seemed than last. Of course there’s a lot that goes into that. I’m in a different job, which plays a role. My sons are 6 and 3 instead of 5 and 2, which also plays a role. But one of the most critical factors to my family’s happiness has to be the condition of my left knee.

As you all well remember, last May I epically blew it out. Or rather, I prosaically finished a long slow decade of disintigration with two major tears of my meniscus, precipitated by the fact that I had no ACL to protect those secondary tissues. I spent last summer in physical therapy, in my doctor’s office and in constant pain and fear. Pain obviously, but fear that I would step wrong or it would hurt worse. Fear that was, I should say, regularly reinforced by coming true.

Camping ended up being brutal. The shifting sands and rolling rocks of a beach, plus the fear that my then two year old would attempt to swim his way to France, meant that we entirely avoided the beach the entire summer. Last summer vacation, right after the MRI revealed the massive extent of the internal damage, I spent my summer vacation processing the reality that I would need my first ever major surgery. Mt. Rainier’s shoulders went unmolested by my feet – except for the tamest trails. I did PT in the hotel room and packed a large bottle of extra strength Ibuprofen. I planned ahead for my next “vacation”, quickly exhausting my paid time off and attempting to work through the sheer exhaustion of a healing body and pain-ridden system.

It’s amazing how much more fun it is to be out of pain and relatively healthy.

That’s where this post was intended to end two weeks ago, when I first thought it up. (What can I say, I’ve been too busy having fun to actually write about it!) My knee had finally reach all better, about the time I went to London. Look ma! I can kneel!

And then something went oogly. I’m kind of so used to limited motion and pain that it took me a bit to notice my knee hurt and I was favoring it again – limping a bit. I know it’s not the ACL, but I have to wonder if there’s still a tear in the mensicus, or even a new one. I think the way I was sitting might have “caught” it.Or maybe it’s the new normal – I have very little cushioning my knee now, with the meniscal tears removed. Maybe running for a bus one day is an action I pay for over the course of the next few weeks. I realize that the right thing to do is to call my dear Orthopedist and ask to be reviewed.

The idea of initiating anything like that is appalling. So instead I’m ignoring it for now. If it is a really remote meniscal tear that only gets activated when I sit a particular way, well. I can learn not to sit that way.

My husband and I were commisserating the other day. He was going through his extensive nightly ritual of caring for his hands and feet. When not attended to with slavish devotion, the skin on both tends to crack and not heal, which is just as painful as it sounds. This accumulation of familiar aches and chronic (minor) issues is almost like a rite of passage itself. It marks – as if our increasingly gigantic and independent children did not – our transition from the flower of youth to the fruit of middle age. You notice you’re walking with a limp – after 26 sessions of PT and two hours of surgery – and you kind of wonder if you will ever spend a full year in which you do not limp, and what it might mean to be the Mom that Limps a Little. (Of course, putting it that way almost resolves me to call my orthopedist. After vacation.)

What about you? What aches and pains have you accumulated, that have become as familiar as your own face in the mirror? Or tell me about ones you have resigned yourself to, only to be unexpectedly and permanently freed from them.

How’s he doing?

Many of you have written or dropped a note to ask how Thane’s doing. So I figured, I’d give you all an update. For those not following along at home, Thane went to Children’s Hospital Boston for a hydrocele repair on Thursday. He was under the knife for just under an hour.

That day, we treated with alternating ibuprofen and acetaminophen, nothing stronger. He was a bit laid low that day. The next day, Friday, he was right as rain. Today, with the original dressing still on, you would never guess anything ever happened. The really hard part of this whole recovery thing is keeping him from excessive rough-housing/jumping/doing things that might split his stitches. So our regular life has more or less resumed.

Making pizza for dinner tonight
Making pizza for dinner tonight

Ground Control to Major Thane

Before launch
Before launch

Today was the day for Thane’s surgery (basically a hernia surgery with a few added complications). Last night, Pastor Rod came over with a little game of reassuring notecards for ostensibly Grey but really for me. He prayed with us prior to the surgery, and wished us well. This does give one the sense that, holy cow, surgery is tomorrow. ACK!

It wasn’t too early this morning – we got up around the usual time. The biggest difference was not yelling “eat your breakfast!” every 15 minutes. Adam and I packed our perfectly-healthy, right-as-rain kid into the car to go to surgery. Stuck in traffic on 93 South, I tried to remind myself how very, very lucky we are that our completely routine surgery would be done at Children’s Hospital – Boston one of the best pediatric hospitals in the world. (Actually, according to US News and World Reports, THE best for urology.) Thane was really quiet on the way in, just looking out the window while Adam and I chatted and listened to NPR.

The intake was uneventful. There’s a wistful look you get when you take a very healthy child into a hospital like this. The doctors and nurses see some awful, sad, horrible things and they seem to find it refreshing to watch a perfectly happy kid playing with the toys brought to him. Things really started to heat up when his surgeon arrived, with a cheerful and reassuring bedside manner. We verified that we all thought Thane was here for the same thing. After a brief clown-intermission (I kid you not – Thane kept telling them, “You look like clowns!” as they metaphorically honked their red noses), the anesthesiologist came. He leaned next to Thane and said, “Hey, I’m going on a rocket ship ride. Would you come with me on the rocket ship?” He proceeded to explain that (of course!) astronauts on rocketships have to wear masks. And sometimes they go so fast it makes them dizzy. Thane declared his intention to go to Uranus.

The entire team grabbed the successful metaphor and ran with it. I put on a scrub and hair net, and Thane and I walked hand in hand to the operating room. When we walked into the brightly lit, cold, instrument-filled room I contemplated what a good analogy the space flight was. Of course there are bright lights! (The anesthesiologist mentioned that they needed the lights because space is dark.) Of course there are complex instruments, gleaming bright! Of course there’s a big captain’s chair in the middle of the room, just waiting for Thane to pilot them all to Uranus!

Thane cheerfully sat on the chair (surgical bed), announcing he couldn’t wait. He reached for the anesthesia mask, and held it to his mouth (sitting up). They put “Boo Boo Bunny” into a captain’s seat next to him. They asked him to push buttons and squeeze things, all the while the entire assembled operating room cast shaking the table like a rocket ship taking off, making zooming noises and generally behaving like a bunch of loonies. I held his feet, and watched as the drugs took over. (He fought valiantly for consciousness, but never tried to remove the mask.) He had an increasingly goofy expression the further down he went – the further out into space. Finally he lay still on the operating table, a heart-achingly small figure with the touch of a smile still at the corners of his mouth as his surgeon leaned over his body and the door closed.

Adam and I spent an hour in a nice waiting room with free wifi while I did work (well, attempted) and he read. We discussed washing machine options. Then the surgeon brought us the good news that the procedure had been perfect, and gave us some information on what to expect. Fifteen minutes later, we were brought into the recovery room where Thane was deeply and happily asleep.

All in all, I cannot imagine how this experience could have gone better. Great team (I think I’m in love with that anesthesiologist!), great outcome (assuming we avoid infection or post-operative trauma aka rough-housing), pretty good experience. Thane was superbly behaved. And, Lord willing, in two or three weeks this will be the sort of thing you write in the baby book or no one will even remember it happened.

I do wonder, though, in that dark place of anesthesia beyond memory… did Thane go to Uranus? Did he dream of rocket ships? Or perhaps, with body and mind temporarily more separate than normal, could he see beyond the bounds of his eyes and journey to far away places? Did he, in some way, blast into space?

Ground control to Major Thane
Post op: Ground control to Major Thane

De-nial is a river in Egypt

Thane building ships
Thane building ships

Hey, so did I mention that Thane is scheduled for surgery tomorrow?

Yeah, not so much. I was in complete denial until about, oh, yesterday at 7:30 pm. (No particular reason why then, but I finally admitted that why yes! My little baby boy was headed under the knife on Thursday.) You know the reason why, a hydrocele. It’s a pretty standardish operation, but has the usual nerves associated with general anesthesia. Also, that’s the area of the body that has a lot of blood vessels, as well as some things he may find important when he grows up.

I have no idea what to expect for a recovery. Dr. Internet varies in his estimate between 2 – 3 weeks for light activity to almost immediate. I suspect Mr. Roughhousing Is My Hobby Thane will probably be hard to keep quiet past a day or two. Tomorrow morning, at some time to be determined, I will pack Thane into the car without offering him breakfast. (He will be confused. I am adamant about breakfast.) We will take him to the hospital (how lucky we are to live close to a pediatric surgical powerhouse of excellence! In this case, Children’s Hospital). We will dress him in scrubs. I have done this before, but I’m not sure it gets easier with practice. This time, he’ll understand more.

Grey is already worried. Combined with a refresher on mortality thanks to Magic, he’s worried about his brother. He would like you to know that he is a caring person, who takes care of people who need it: even strangers. He moped through class yesterday because of this, and I got a note home from the teacher. (I WAS going to tell her the day of the surgery, since I figured he’d need support then, but I didn’t plan on sending a note today.)

I know the odds, and therefore try not to worry. But I can’t help thinking about surgical mishaps, general anesthesia, infection rates and hospital-reared super-bugs. And when I lay those aside, I worry about “preschooler without breakfast waiting in a hospital waiting room for heaven-knows-how-long” and how one takes care of said preschooler after surgery, and what exactly this is going to do to our already-rather-unsuccessful potty training progress.

Ah well. There it all is. I’ll let you know how it goes tomorrow.

Healthy for a sick kid

Thane on Saturday
Thane on Saturday

Thane is awfully healthy for a sick kid. Alternately, he’s awfully sick for a healthy kid. Something like that. After Thane’s three days of vomitin the week I was off, we had a week of general good health as I started my job. Then last weekend it was Grey’s turn to throw up. 

But on Monday when I went to pick up Thane, the nice daycare lady had a piece of paper for me to sign. After two – ahem – liquid stools a day, a kid can’t go back to the Y for at least 24 hours. So Thane was verboten to go back Tuesday. I’m having trouble remembering now if that’s when the problem really started, or if it stretched back to the weekend. Usually I would check my blog, but I periodically pretend to make attempts at taste and discretion and failed to chronicle this fascinating issue. Anyway, my patient, long-suffering husband worked from home with a constant Scooby Doo sound track in the background. Wednesday morning my husband took my son to the doctor for another issue. While there, Thane – ahem – demonstrated his digestive problems for the doctor. 

The doctor recommended immediately discontinuing all dairy products for at least a week after Thane got better. This threw us into a tizzy since 80% of Thane’s calories come from dairy products. His favorite foods are milk, cheese, yogurt, butter and bacon. (The bacon being the 20%) But the very idea of a long term dietary constraint terrifies me, so I comply. I’m not strong enough for a life without dairy, or an elimination diet. No! Thane returned to school – briefly – before being sent home again. Once again, my husband manned up to the task.

Thursday dawned with no improvement. My husband now has the dialogue memorized for all the Scooby episodes, including that one with the Speed Buggy. I called my brother, figuring hey! He’s part time! It’s totally, like, pastoral to drive 8 hours in a 24 hour period to watch your sister’s child with digestive problems, right? Anyway, he gets several dozen hero points for taking Thane today, and moreover having dinner ready for us by the time we got home.

Now I simply exist in fear. What if Thane isn’t ready to go back to school on Monday? Or Tuesday? Or ever again? I’m in week 3 of a new job. My husband has a wonderfully flexible company, but there are limits. (It’s also tough on the ol’ patience to have a three year old with a Scooby fixation while you’re working on some complicated code bug.) Ugh. Anyway, Thane is eating a diet entirely comprised of constipating foods (would you like another banana?) and I’m crossing my fingers.

Which brings me to his other issue. As I mentioned, he was taken to the doctor on Wednesday for another delicate, but unrelated problem. After long soul-searching, I think it is not TOO inappropriate (or at least no more inappropriate than usual) to tell you that we’ve learned that Thane has a hydrocele. Given his age, it is not unlikely he will need the surgical remedy, since it hasn’t resolved itself and it might lead to complications if left untreated.

So here I have a little boy who’s been sick from school several days with – ahem – diarrhea (and hey, I actually wrote it out this time because this bout has been bad enough that I have FINALLY ACTUALLY learned how to spell diarrhea!) and who probably needs surgery. And yet this kid is the least sick kid around. He’s full of vim and vigor (I almost said piss and vinegar, but that’s too close to the truth…) He’s FINE. He’s bored. And he sooooo needs to go back to school on Monday!

Reasons blogs are useful

The doctor asked me, “How long have you had this?” I answered with confidence, “At least since October 14.” “Hmm… that’s quite a while.”

Sure is, doctor.

Last week I was sure I had a sinus infection (when your molars hurt, that’s the hint). I did get a prescription for antibiotics, but an infection I might have had just laughed them off. HAHAHAH!

This week I had a doozy of a week. Monday was a work from home day due to having no power, followed by Halloween. Tuesday, I was at work at 7:15 am and returned home from work at 10:30 pm or so. Wednesday was another all day, intense meeting with no time for even checking my private email. Thursday at work was an attempt to catch up from all that, but when I got home, I couldn’t handle even gaming. I went to bed at 8, right after dinner. I woke up at 7 this morning not much improved.

It seemed like, maybe, it was time to go to the doctor’s. I made an appointment for 2:30.

At 12:45 I got a phone call from my son’s school nurse. He’d bumped his head during recess and needed to be picked up. I made the pffft sound in my head, believing that they were overreacting, and moved even more meetings in order to go pick him up, knowing I’d have to drag him to my appointment.

Yeah, maybe that's legit
Yeah, maybe that's legit

Sorry kid, I’m not taking you to the doctor because I’m totally more sick than you are injured. He was jealous of my x-rays though. He says he wants x-rays. They are pretty cool, but not as exciting as you might think. I haven’t heard the results yet, but my dr. said that she was pretty sure it was pneumonia and that she would treat it accordingly.

So now I have a note from the doctor saying “Brenda is really sick”, a rescue inhaler (yes, it is that bad), some high power antibiotics, and a weekend to recover.

Here’s hoping that works!