Abscess Much? Part 1

The last week of August a big storm rolled through our neck of the woods that Monday night. I hadn't really heard much about it and y'all know I'm a weather nerd, so I figured there wasn't much to be worried about. Well, turns out, there were tornado warnings and 70 mph winds and so. much. rain. The storm uprooted trees and knocked down power lines all over the place. Our power went out at 12:30 in the morning on that Tuesday morning. I wasn't able to go to work that next day because our hill washes out super bad, plus there were trees blocking the roads every way out. It took Paul over an hour to get out of the neighborhood and onto the highway. So Kady and I just hunkered down and took naps all day. Well, after we moved the food out of both fridges to the garage fridge (aka the beer fridge) and hooked the garage fridge and deep freeze up to the generator. Abby and Dakota were without power as well.

By that evening (Tuesday), the roads were clear so we all loaded up and trekked to Mom and Pops' house on the north end of Miami. It takes almost an hour to get there, but we needed food and showers and it was worth the drive for Mom's mashed potatoes alone. The next day I took my flat iron and makeup to work and got ready there. The next night Kady went to her boyfriend's house to stay because their power had been restored. Paul didn't want to impose on anyone although we'd had multiple offers to come stay various places, at least come shower and eat, etc. but he's weird about stuff like that and wouldn't let me accept a single offer. So he and I showered at the public shower at the state park 15 minutes from the house. It wasn't as horrific as I had imagined it was going to be and I gotta be honest, I was kind of disappointed there wasn't a raccoon in there to greet me. I got ready at work again Thursday.

Also by Thursday morning my belly was hurting. Kind of down low, kind of achey and just present enough to make me wanna go to bed.

Y'all, I'm a shy pooper. I have a really hard time pooping anywhere but at home and maybe my momma's if I'm super desperate. The fact we are on a well means that when the power goes out, we have no water. There is something in my DNA that automatically shuts down my entire digestive system when the power goes out. I might even be linked to the electric co-op's main source at the dam for all I know. I mean, it's kind of coincidental if you ask me. So, after a few days without power and water and being just generally displaced and inconvenienced, I hadn't pooped and I had just resigned myself to the fact I had done gone and constipated myself. I took a "Women's Gentle Laxative" (Correctol in my Nana's day, but I'm cheap and always go generic) and hoped for the best. Around 4 that afternoon my sister-in-law called to say the power was on. We spent the evening moving things back to the proper fridges and cleaning the house.

I don't work on Fridays and had a hair appointment scheduled. I still didn't feel all that great and the pain was more present. I took another of those lovely "gentle" laxatives. I gotta say, the cute pink tablet that clearly states its gentility right on the box is oh so less-than-gentle when you take several a day because you're just that desperate to stop hurting. But even with a horrible case of diarrhea at this point, we watched the grandgirls that evening while Abby and Dakota went to a football game. They didn't feel well themselves, so it was kind of a rough evening all the way around. I didn't sleep well that night because I hurt so bad and tried to sleep in a little the next morning. I had Paul get some gas pills from the local Dolla Gentral to see if that would help. It did not.

Back in June, Sam and I had bought tickets to see Hamilton in Tulsa and had been anticipating it SO HARD for months. I could've been vomiting blood and I'd have still gone to the show. I loaded up on Tylenol and off he and I headed to Tulsa. We parked across from the PAC and walked 4 blocks to Dilly Diner. He got a spicy burger, spilled the pepper juice on the table, wiped it up with his napkin, then wiped his face with his napkin. It. was. hilarious. For me anyway. Him, not so much. I got half a sandwich and half a salad and ate most of it, even though I didn't feel like it. We walked the 4 blocks back to the car, made it through security, got our merch, then waited about another 30 minutes for the doors to open.

The show was utterly and absolutely amazing! I got home around 1 am and crashed, hoping to sleep off whatever devil was inhabiting my gut. I went to sleep with a heated corn bag, but got no relief. I laid around the house all day, worked on a little homework, tried to nap again. After a nap I was chilling and running a fever. I finally decided I'd had enough. I took a shower then did some Googling, called my dad for his opinion then decided it was time to go to the emergency room. I called Paul but he was at the neighbors working on a trailer and didn't have his phone. I asked Kady to go get him because I was in so much pain and kind of just wanted to cry and scream and possibly OD on some Oxy. He came flying home after she rounded him up and was ready to drive on. I told him he was dusty and smelled like the outdoors and I wasn't riding in a truck over an hour with him. I'm still kind of bitchy even when I've nearly lost the will to live. He took the fastest shower in history and off we went.

It was about 95* out, but I rode all the way to Claremore covered up and shivering. I tried to sleep. Every bump in the road was excruciating. I cried a little. I prayed. I text my mom and sister and kids and asked them to pray that the ER was devoid of crackheads and seekers that seem to really love holiday weekends. We walked through the doors to an empty waiting room. The nurse called me back before I was even fully registered. That was the only glimmer of hope in the entire thing to that point. 

...to be continued...

Insult and Injury

(Originally published in the Miami News-Record)

Now that life has settled down a bit, I’m trying to establish a routine at my house. Housework that has been done on an as-needed basis (read: only if I knew someone was coming over) is now being done because basically I’m only working a couple days a week now, there are no small children in the house, and really I have no excuse to not have a house that doesn’t look like crime scene investigators should be called in. I’m not aspiring for Chip and Joanna Gaines status, just less “There appears to have been a struggle” status.

A couple weeks ago I was happily doing my new Saturday cleaning thing. I sprayed down the shower and decided to dust while I waited for those scrubby little bubbles to work hard so I don’t have to. As I was finishing up the mantel I looked up and noticed the TV screen was fingerprinty. Not sure why since it’s mounted on the wall and it’s not touch screen, but in my house I have learned that my children are capable of just about anything and most of all, weird things. It’s pretty much a circus when they’re all together. My circus, my monkeys, nothing I can do about it even if I wanted to. I just embrace the chaos and wait to clean it up after it’s over.

I scrubbed all the fingerprints off at the bottom and saw some toward the top of the screen. I am all of 5’2” and the top of the TV is somewhere around seven feet so I was struggling. Having been this height since I was 13, I did what I have done for over 30 years - I stood on my tiptoes. I didn’t go full pointe like a prima ballerina. I just barely went up enough to allow my paper towel a liiiiiiiiittle extra oomph.

Then I felt a pop in the top of my foot. Followed by what felt like a horrendous cramp. Then I said a bad word. Followed by a few more. I sat down and did a few flexing and pointing exercises and felt the crampy feeling subside to a dull ache. I think I know now why people avoid housework the way they do – IT’S DANGEROUS. I figured I probably needed to put on my shoes to do housework from now on since I’m old and fragile, but instead of doing that, I went on with my vacuuming and then finished up the bathroom. As the day went on, I noticed the pain was intensifying and by evening my foot had swollen to comical proportions. Monday I shoved my foot in a comfy shoe and ate ibuprofen by the handful. Tuesday morning I could barely get any shoe on. I got a same-day appointment, they x-rayed it, and she said it sounded broken but didn’t appear broken on film. Then added that stress fractures don’t always show up immediately on an x-ray. She wanted to put me in a walking boot, but since it’s my right foot I begged for anything but that. I need to be able to drive because Kady is in physical therapy in Joplin twice a week for her very own foot injury. So instead she put me in a “surgery shoe” and scheduled me for a follow up in two weeks.

As she was walking out she cautioned, “Please be very careful the next few weeks. That shoe will affect your balance and you’re a fall risk.” I, being who I am, laughed and said, “Yeah, and at my age I’m probably at risk for a hip fracture as well.” She didn’t even smile, she just replied with, “Yes. Absolutely. So be careful.” Then patted my leg, gave me a sweet smile, and said I should probably schedule a bone density test.

Ouch. That hurt worse than the injury – or the fact that I have to tell people I am hobbling around in a Frankenstein shoe because I injured myself while dusting.

Liberating Plankton, Part 3: The Finale

Up until this surgery, my biggest stressor regarding anesthetic was the whole waking up and feeling like you had just closed your eyes and having lost time where you don't remember a damn thing. Like, it would freak me out to just think about it. But this time I didn't have that bewildered "Where TF am I?" panic moment upon waking. Again, I think that was another little knuckle bump from God.

So last we left me in the capable hands of "Guy Who Smelled Amazing and Had the Go-Go Juice In His Possession."

I woke up a couple hours later and, when asked, reported my pain as a 5. Post-Op Nurse Craig (who smelled almost as good as OR guy) (what's with these hospital guys smelling so dang amazing?) said, “Well, let me get you some Dilaudid for that.”

Y’all. I am 100% convinced still, six weeks later, that a magical sparkly unicorn delivered that blessed medicine to me right there in the recovery room. Soon my pain subsided to a 3 and apparently the goal was ZERO because I got even MORE of it. More unicorn. More awesome. The only thing that could've possibly made it better was if Deadpool himself had delivered it on that magical unicorn.

Turns out, there was a slight complication during surgery. The plan had been to remove the dastardly uterus and leave both ovaries which had appeared 100% normal in the ultrasound. Once he got in there, he discovered the left ovary had a big ol' cyst on it. And still, his plan was to simply remove the cyst and leave the ovary. Then, that ovary, who had probably been colluding with the evil uterus and was a full-fledged member of The Dark Side, decided to hemorrhage. Yes, actually hemorrhage. He tried to cauterize it. It wouldn't stop. He was considering an anti-coagulant, but given my Factor V, decided to not do that (thank God). So that ovary got evicted. There was also an almost-complication with my bladder, but just as he had called in the urologist, things rectified themselves and that was that.

I got the post-op report a week or so later. I had Adenomyosis, an ovary riddled with cysts, a shortened Fallopian tube, and an angry/inflamed cervix. So you could say, it was a gynecological shit show up in there.

I'm just glad it's all gone. I've since gone back to work (new job), my hormones seem to be doing a fair job of behaving (thanks to some Maca root) and I feel 900% better than when I was bleeding to death --or recovering from bleeding to death-- three weeks out of every month.10 out or 10, highly recommend. Go get ya a hysterectomy. You won't regret it. 

And every night in my dreams I search for the magical Dilaudid unicorn and well, as I typed that I realize that makes me sound slightly deranged, so yeah, forget I said that.

Liberating Plankton, part 2

Oh GAH! I told you I was going to TRY to be better at writing. Yeah, apparently I'm failing again. In my defense I started a new job last week, so hush.

So to continue.....

So surgery date scheduled, I had a lot of stuff to do. I am a worrier, a fretter, a preparer by nature. I try to be better about this, but sometimes it's just how I am. Kady and I sat down and made a menu for the first two weeks post-surgery. If it were up to her it would've been 14 solid days of frozen pizzas and tacos on a steady rotation. It was not up to her, so there were things like hamburgers, Cheesy Bacon Chicken Casserole (low carb), and some crockpot meals in there. Turns out, two actual weeks out from the surgery, she and Paul already went through the frozen pizza stash, so you can see the menu worked well.

I paid up as many bills as I could. Paul drew unemployment all summer and I had only been working two days a week, but God was good and the whole summer we didn't pay a single bill late. I cleaned the house furiously and would occasionally walk to the doorway of the craft room/office, then quickly turn around again and shut the door. Abby and Dakota and the girls lived with us for a year and that had been their room. When they moved out, it became the Room of Requirement - everything went there. Kady decided to paint her bathroom and bedroom, so the contents of her room stayed in there while that was happening. Heck, parts of her room are STILL in there, so that's fun.

Sam had been living on campus at Crowder for a year, but had come home the weekend before to hang out, love on his momma, and use my washing machine before he left for Falls Creek the day before my surgery. This was his third year to go with this church - first as a camper, second as a Junior Sponsor, this year as a Real Big Person, Fully Powerful Adult Sponsor. That Monday I took him to meet the church crew at the buttcrack of dawn and then went back home to finish freaking the hell out preparing.

My pre-op instructions included such horrifying phrases like: "No hair products" and "No lotion, moisturizers, or deodorant." Yeah, I was more upset over those things than the fact that very soon my doctor was going to pull organs out of an incision up in my lady bits. I am very dependent on lotion and deodorant. Oh and also, on top of not being able to properly moisturize my aging skin, I had to wash the night before AND the morning of surgery with Dial Gold. That golden bar of skin-drying, antibacterial soap which they say will kill germs, but also any of your body's own ability to retain moisture. I stepped out of the shower the night before and put on lotion. I had to. I could feel panic rising as I'd grab the lotion, set it down, pick it back up and stare at it longingly, then set it down, pace a few times as I'd feel my skin starting to resemble a raisin. I finally gave in. The morning shower I managed to refrain, but in my defense, it was like 4am so I really think being incoherent and half-asleep helped there.

I slept like a log the night before. I think that was God's way of just giving me a little knuckle bump.

Kady and I arrived at the hospital, checked in, then proceeded to people-watch until I was called back. She's nearly 17 years old, but leaving her alone in that waiting room was hard. The nurse assured me she could come back once they got my IV in. My mom was going to be there after a doctor's appointment, but it was still hard to leave her right then.

My pre-op nurse was sweet. Quiet, but sweet. She tried to get my IV in, blew the vein and refused to try again. She called in another nurse who managed to get it in the other hand after some digging around. She brought me several heated blankets since I was all naked under my gown. Dr. B came in to briefly visit. He said he had a baby trying to decide if it was going to be born any time soon, so I might be delayed a little. He was in the delivery room with Abby during Petal's birth around four hours so I was really hoping this new kid was a little speedier than my second granddaughter.

After he left, my nurse meekly - and without making eye contact - said, "Part of your pre-op is being shaved. So.....I need to do that......if that's okay." Sister. Is it "Okay?" Look, I'm about to let strangers cut on my naked body, yes it's okay. I'm okay with y'all doing whatever you need to do to make sure I don't die of infection like I'm having surgery in a third-world country. Also, sidenote: I'm pretty chill when it comes to medical procedures and my body. I don't enjoy my yearly well-woman exams, but I'm also sensible enough to, you know, not want to die, so I get my mammograms and pelvics like a good girl. But having her awkwardly announce she was getting ready to shave my downtown? Weird. So weird. But I smiled, trying to make things less cringe-y, and I told her to have at it. I flipped back my gloriously heated blankets and laid back.

And when she brought out this industrial-looking electric shaver that looked like something out of Mad Men I nearly lost it. Had her personality been less quiet and gentle, I'd have made a joke of some kind, but as it was I just kept quiet. I'm sure she misjudged my shaking as nerves or being cold, but it was really just me trying not to laugh. I just decided to look at the ceiling. And as I looked up caught a horrific glimpse of myself being shaved by a stranger in the reflection of the overhead light. And then I was just fascinated by this out-of-body body-hair-removal experience and all I wanted to do was text my friend Stacie and be like, "DUDE. You are never gonna believe what is happening to me RIGHT NOW!" Once she finished shaving me (super drafty, btw) she then said, "Okay, now I have to uhm.....get the little hairs with......this....." and donned what looked like a cafeteria-lady plastic glove. She giggled and said, "It's sticky!" Then for the next minute or so she just patted me down with that thing. And I was still trying to not die laughing.

After all that was over, they finally let Kady in. She immediately asked if I was "okay" which is code for "Are you freaking the actual f*ck out right now, Mom?" to which I answered, "I'm actually okay." And I meant it.

Dr. B came back in to discuss the use of Lovenox and the conditions of whether yes or no, I would be getting it. Because I have Factor V, I am at risk for blood clots after surgery, so that's always something to be on top of. A few minutes after that they said they were ready for me in the OR, I kissed Kady, and they wheeled me out. She chatted cordially as she pushed me along. I didn't have my glasses on, so I couldn't tell you much about the decor, although I doubt there was much actual decor. She she turned a corner she announced, "And here we are!" She pushed another button, the OR doors opened wide and everyone in the room looked up and said, "KRISTIN!" I felt like Norm from Cheers. The nurse who brought me in introduced me to everyone in the room. I just wanted to really look around some, but one, they were already in full OR Team Six mode and two, I didn't have my glasses on.

As I was scooting from bed to tiny little table meant for people with much smaller rear-ends than mine, the two gals on either side of me had a conversation:

"Dude. Remind me to tell you about what Mom said."
"Okay, dude. *eye roll*"
"Like, you're not gonna believe it."
"Oh, I'm sure."

I don't know if they were sisters or if "Mom" was code word for someone they don't like, but at that point all the laughter I'd held in while having my cooter shaved by a stranger, just bubbled out. And then everyone joined in and honestly, I think I could've had the entire OR team over for Thanksgiving dinner and we'd have gotten along just fine.

Settled in on my Barbie-sized table, a fella who smelled really good, told me his name and made some conversation I don't remember. Then there was a mask on my face and he told me to breathe deep and then it was lights out.


to be continued.....

Liberating Plankton, part 1

So I'm 45. I haven't dyed or bleached my hair in years and have fully embraced being silver-haired. I have wrinkles - more so now that I've lost 75 pounds - and my boobs are definitely slacking these days. I am well-versed in crossing my legs to avoid the dreaded Sneeze Pee and I also think 9:00pm is a perfectly acceptable bedtime.

I've been doing an intricate and somewhat emotionally hot-flash-punctuated dance with perimenopause for the last six or seven years now. Both of my grandmothers and my mother had hysterectomies and I was determined to be the first to just fade out into an estrogen-less wasteland somewhere in my 50's. My periods had gotten angrier in the last year, but again, I wrote it off as age. Then about six months ago the proverbial shit hit the fan. In six months I had 10 periods. All lasting 10 days or more. All painful. All horrible. I was getting maybe one good week a month if I was lucky - one week where I didn't cry all the time, spend it in bed with a heating pad against my gut, or just plain feeling like I was going to bleed to death. One of my best friends and I would send secret coded texts to each other every time we were on the ledge contemplating a self-directed hysterectomy with a serving spoon. We nicknamed our uteruses (uteri?) Plankton. Yes, like the evil single-cell organism on SpongeBob.

At my regular six-month checkup with my PCP I mentioned all of this. She said it could be age, but it could also be a fibroid. She sent me straight to radiology where they did an ultrasound. And sure enough, a week or so later the radiologist confirmed there was a fibroid.

Because I use Indian Health Services for most of my healthcare, they said they wanted to send me for a surgical consult in Claremore. Claremore Indian Hospital is not where I wanted to have surgery, so since I have insurance, I asked if they could just send the referral to the doctor of my choice outside of the Tribal Health System. The choice was immediate: Dr. Billings. I work for his in-laws, Kady nannies for his kids, he delivered Petal. I trust him.

On June 12th I saw him in office. He looked over my ultrasound and agreed there was a fibroid and my uterus was very large and "not normal." He gave me options, all of which sounded like bandaids to fix an organ I no longer had any use for. Trust me when I say, ol' Plankton and I were no longer friends. He agreed that given my age and the quality of life (or lack thereof), a hysterectomy was a valid choice. He did some endometrial biopsies in office that day. He made sure my mammogram was up to date. He said my ovaries looked perfectly healthy and he'd like to leave them for hormone regulation. (Mind you, radiologist who read the ultrasound also concurred the ovaries were healthy. I'll come back to this.) I was in agreement. He said as long as the biopsies came back normal I could schedule the surgery with his nurse. She said she had an opening on July 3rd. If I were physically capable of doing a cartwheel, I'd have done one right there with my paper drape a flappin' in the breeze. As it was, I politely and maturely agreed.

That gave me three weeks to get my house cleaned, my family prepared, tie up loose ends at work, and probably have another period. But oh well. I was *this close* to freedom. I felt like I could safely stop googling "How to remove an angry uterus at home" at this point.

...to be continued...

Hard Labor

Originally published in the Miami News-Record on June 19, 2016. 

A little less than 15 years ago I was pregnant and started having what I thought were Braxton-Hicks contractions. After a week of the pesky contractions other things happened that made me think that perhaps these contractions weren't merely for training purposes only. And sure enough, a visit to my doctor, then a trip to the hospital revealed that I was indeed in active labor and dilated four centimeters. Normally people get excited at this news, but I was only 25 weeks pregnant. They shot me full of steroids to speed up the development of her lungs and sent me home on strict bed rest. The doctor said delivery was imminent and the outlook was grim. Happy ending: we managed to keep the little stinker in place ten more weeks and, other than being a bit of a diva, she's a normal kid. 

Fast forward to this past Tuesday when my oldest, the one currently incubating my first grandchild, sent me a text that asked, “What does a contraction feel like? Because I'm pretty sure I just had one.” Well, that got my attention. I quickly text a nurse friend who said for her to drink a big glass of water and take a warm bath. They didn't stop. She called her OB’s office and they sent her to the hospital. As we walked in, Abby said, “This is going to be SO embarrassing when they say I'm silly and send me home.” She and her husband went into a room, my mom and I stayed in the waiting room. Finally after ten minutes I couldn't stand it. I knocked on the door and peeked in. My teeny tiny little girl was swallowed up in that big ol’ hospital and grew even smaller as she said, “I'm dilated.” A tear slid down her cheek. We spent the next few hours in a room while she was scanned, prodded, hydrated, medicated, and pondered over. It got kind of tense so Mom and I decided to lighten the mood by telling a story. 

It was December 19, 2001. I was in labor the second (and proper) time with Kady. My mom and mother-in-law had come up to visit us.  Now, my mother-in-law is a funny lady. She's sweet, but very quiet and matter-of-fact. She did not attend the birth of the other two and I offered once more to let her attend to which she quickly replied, “Oh nononono! I don't need to see…..that.” I laughed and told her the offer was there if she changed her mind. She stood there awkwardly and I patted the bed and said, “Martha, come sit here. There’s no need to stand!” Paul even offered her his chair. She waved us both away and said, “Oh, hush. I'll just sit on this stool here.”

What happened next still causes Mom and I to have to stop the story-telling because we’re already laughing. Martha backed up to the stool – which was on wheels – and started to sit. But the stool had another idea. It started to roll away from her. She started baby-stepping backward trying to catch the stool with her bum, rolling all the way to the wall across the room. Paul, Mom, Abby, Sam, and I watched in horror as the stool stopped rolling when it hit the wall and Martha fell squarely on her rear end. The room was silent then all of us busted into laughter so loud the nurses had to think we were crazy. Mom and Paul ran to her aid while I continued laughing until I was certain I was going to laugh Kady right on out. The telling of the story still makes her laugh as well. It's my favorite Martha story, second only to the one where she killed a goat. But I'll save that one for another time. 

Of course, by this point in the story, Abby and Dakota we laughing and the scary preterm labor monster was temporarily forgotten. Y'all know that my answer for everything in life is laughter and I was only doing my job. We’re still facing down some unsure times ahead over the next few months, but one thing is for sure, we’ll face it all together and we’ll do it with as much laughter as we can muster. 

Don't Throw Stones

Originally published in the Miami News-Record on May 22, 2016. 

Five years ago my husband had a kidney stone. And it was a testament of my enduring love for him.  

After two ER visits to two different hospitals he was finally admitted and scheduled for surgery. Paul all but kissed the ER doc when he said he’d get his orders ready to admit him. The plan was to have surgery the next morning where they would go in and…..ahem….retrieve the dastardly stone. Yeah. I’ve had that done myself. It’s as unpleasant as you’re probably imagining.

Bright and early the next day the anesthesiologist came in, visited with us, and gave him some Versed to “relax” him prior to them taking him downstairs to surgery. Paul sat there on the bed and said, “This stuff doesn’t do anything to me. I’m …..fi—“ and then he started snoring. I patted his leg and went back to reading my book. In came two cute little gals from the surgery department, ready to take him away. They managed to wake him up long enough to confirm his identity and were unlocking the wheels on his bed when one said, “Oh no. Mr. Hoover? MR. HOOVER?? Hon, you left your shorts on and we’re going to need you to take those off. MR. HOOVER??” She poked her head around the curtain and said, “Are you Mrs. Hoover? Uhm…can you try to get his shorts off of him? He seems to be pretty out of it.” She held the curtain open so I could see my completely unconscious husband. And his flowered Bermuda shorts just shinin’ there in all their glory. Then they told me they’d give us some privacy and stepped around the curtain.

THEY LEFT ME. I sighed. I patted his cheek, said his name, patted his hand. Nothing. Just snoring. I shook his shoulder. He waved me away. “Honey, you have to wake up and help me get these shorts off of you! Can you help me?” He mumbled, “Well, sure. Why didn’t you just ask?” I heard a giggle on the other side of the curtain. I shot her a death glare she’s probably glad she couldn’t see.

What ensued was pretty much the hardest thing I’ve ever done next to birthing babies. I would give him a command, make a request, he would agree to comply…..then he’d pass out and start snoring again. He was 100% deadweight and absolutely NO HELP. At one point one of the little gals on the other side of the curtain said, “Ma’am? You doin’ okay back there?”  to which I replied, “NO! I am NOT doing okay back here! Could I maybe get some help?” Then they giggled and said, “You’re doing great! Take your time. You’ll get it!” It was at that point I just busted out laughing. And they joined in. And we all had a good ol’ laugh. Which woke up my husband and he drunkenly said a bad word and passed back out again.  

After much wrangling, wrestling, persuading, and borderline accosting my poor husband, the Bermuda shorts were finally removed. By me alone. With no help. I considered a cartwheel, but then decided if I broke a hip and ended up in a different hospital room who would be there to remove any other stubborn articles of clothing if necessary?

The surgery was unsuccessful and a second procedure was scheduled for the next day. When the anesthesiologist came in the second time he said, “I gave him about half of what I did yesterday. Apparently your husband is a lightweight. We’d never seen anyone quite so out of it as he was yesterday.” Then he laughed as he said, “And I heard you had quite a time with his shorts…”

I dug those dadblamed shorts out of his laundry bag and threw them in the biohazard trashcan as soon as they wheeled him off to surgery. He’s mentioned them a time or two and wonders where they went. I’ll never tell. 

Operation: Fun

Originally published in the Miami News-Record on February 21, 2016.

I mentioned that our youngest, Kady, has been having some stomach issues and we have been on a months-long quest to find the culprit of the pain. After many tests and bloodwork and x-rays this past week she finally went in for an EGD (upper GI scope).

She has always been our most rambunctious child, is rarely still for any length of time, and will talk your leg off at 90 miles an hour and barely stop for air while she chatters, but she is also our most chilled-out child. (Talk about an oxymoronic enigma.) She pretty much just rolls with life and doesn’t get too stressed out about much. She wasn’t the least bit nervous prior to the test and the only real issue she had was the fasting. Girl likes her morning coffee. And wanted Taco Bell. Or a giant burger.

We checked in at St. Francis Children’s and after a hard-of-hearing senior volunteer finally figured out I was shouting “HOOVER” as our last name, we were given our surgery passes and sent upstairs. We got settled in and Mom and I took advantage of the free wi-fi by playing Words with Friends back and forth in a furious, never-ending cycle. Kady just took selfies. When we were called back to a pre-op room we met the sweetest nurse named Tammy. She told us about her grandson, how she put together his plastic ride-on Police car with only a screwdriver. And since her daughter didn’t have a hammer, “Sisters, I just used a garlic press!” She told us how she prayed over that baby before he was born, that he would be a “gentle gentleman.” She was precious. And even though she is 14, brought Kady a stuffed panda. Then the next time she came into the room was carrying about 12 urine specimen containers and told her “I need all these filled up, sweetie, so get busy!” The IV team was wonderful and encouraged Kady’s desire to become a respiratory therapist. We joked and laughed and before she was wheeled off for her scope we had become the “fun” family all the nurses wanted to come see. That’s just how we roll.

Mom and I were both hungry, but I refused to leave the waiting room and Mom refused to leave if I didn’t leave. So the Words with Friends frenzy continued. Every time the waiting room phone rang this woman would just get up and answer it. (Which was good, I suppose, since the adorable white-headed senior citizen manning the desk had gone AWOL. She was probably getting a snack. Unlike my mother.) And every time it rang it was for her. Until one time she turned around and bellowed, “Kady Hoover? Is there a Kady Hoover here?” I resisted the urge to tell her she might think about refining her receptionist skills and instead just took the phone from her hand. She sighed impatiently. I suppose she thought she might miss an important call. I secretly wondered if the guy who was trading stocks in the waiting room a few weeks before was who kept calling her.

We walked back to recovery to find Kady eating a popsicle. She was cold so I asked Tammy if she could have a heated blanket. She said, “That baby girl can have anything she wants! Does she want goldfish crackers? Animal cookies? A pony? Sprite? I will get it for her!” After recovery she nearly knocked over another nurse so she could be the one to wheel Kady out. After she made sure Kady was safely in the car, she grabbed me and hugged me tight, and said she would pray for us. And I believe she will.

By the way, the Sprite that Tammy brought Kady was apparently “real” Sprite and according to Kady, and “not the cheap stuff you buy, Mom…. No offense.” I’m going to blame that grocery-shopping critique on the anesthesia. 

Waiting (Room) Game

Originally published in the Miami News-Record on February 7, 2016.

Our youngest daughter Kady has been having some health problems for a few months now. We have been visiting Tulsa frequently to see a doctor there and he is running a lot of tests to get to the bottom of this mystery. It has been a long, frustrating process to say the least. The reason I mention it is to get to this point: all of this doctor’s office-ing we’ve been doing has given us so many opportunities to people-watch. And oh, have we experienced some real doozies along the way.

Kady is always armed with an iPad or book to keep her entertained when our waits stretch out too long. Most of the time she’s engrossed in either of those, but sometimes the conversations around us are too much for even her to miss. We have learned about virtually everyone’s political views. It’s amazing how when one person starts in, everyone else in the waiting room suddenly becomes a political analyst. We have encountered Democrats, Republicans, a few Libertarians, and a LOT of know-it-alls. We have heard all sorts of views on polls, primaries, candidates, platforms, and I have to say, folks around here are pretty adamant in their stances. To the point I wonder if some are bordering on treason. Eek. Those are the conversations where we just bury our heads in our books and hope we get called to an exam room soon.

I am well versed in the most popular conspiracy theories, including Area 51, and the assassination of JFK plus so many more. I know all about the benefits of apple cider vinegar, breastfeeding, co-sleeping, and essential oils. There was one particular exchange between two WWII veterans that brought tears to my eyes because one of them reminded me of my Papa. We’ve seen our fair share of sleepers over the past few months, too. Some snore. Some just lean until they wake up, then doze back off, slowly, slowly leaning again and again. Some don’t care of you notice, some wake up and look around to see if their doze was detected. One particular fella decided to take a snooze while his infant son took his own little snooze in his carseat. That one made me a tad nervous. When another guy got a little too close to the snoozing father and son, I almost tackled him. No one was getting abducted on my waiting room watch.

A few weeks ago the conversation turned to favorite breakfast foods. Virtually everyone in the waiting room was fasting for their tests and that always makes for some great recipe exchanges and reminiscing about comfort foods. One woman said she was getting bacon and eggs when she got done, even if it was 3 in the afternoon. One guy wanted a big platter of biscuits and gravy. I just wondered if any of them were having cardiac testing done.

My favorite character so far was the elderly Russian woman in the nearly-floor-length mink coat who was trying desperately to make someone, anyone understand that she was “WERY WERY SEEK” and would only speak to male employees because “Wimmin zey do not know enny-zing”. Although I did get a giant kick out of the guy who the redneck-iest redneck I’ve seen (and that’s saying a lot considering who I’m married to), covered in piercings and tattoos, wearing shorts and socks with sandals when it was 29* outside and spent over an hour trading stocks over the phone. Loudly. And he made a lot of eye contact to be sure you were listening.

That was the day Kady, while sitting in the chair beside me, sent a text that said, “Dude is totes obnoxious. But I think he’s got the inside track on some IBM stock. Better call your broker. Or the FBI. He MIGHT not be legit.”

We sure hope the doctor gets us a diagnosis soon. 

The Manager

Originally published in the Miami News-Record on August 16, 2015

While I was given supernatural mom-munity a few weeks ago when my entire family got the vile stomach bug that’s going around, apparently my super power wore off and I succumbed this past week. Instead of getting up on a sunshiney Tuesday morning to start our fourth year of homeschooling with my two beloved, smiling-faced, school-aged children I instead spent the entire day sleeping and barfing. Sam and Kady are both very independent learners and do the vast majority of their work on their own without too awful much from me, but I just couldn’t turn them loose on a new school year without being present. I like to call it responsible parenting and schooling. It might also be that I have control issues. But I digress.

Finally, after 14 horrendous hours of the worst stomach virus I’ve had in probably 20 years (No, I’m really not exaggerating) I managed to regain some semblance of consciousness. I wearily pleaded with my husband to bring me a Coke. We don’t normally keep soda around the house and the last I had bought as a treat for the 4^th of July was gone. Bless his heart, he valiantly drove to Turtle Stop to not only get a 12-pack, but also a pre-chilled bottle for my immediate consumption. I tried really hard to not think about how much he spent on convenience store soda and held back my desire to tell him that he could have gotten it cheaper somewhere else. I just sipped the dark, carbohydrate-delivering liquid that normally would never touch these lips and tried not to see dollar signs before my eyes nor dwell on the chemicals entering my weary body. After nibbling on some saltines and polishing off my Coke, I left the bedroom to seek the company of my family, who I was absolutely positive had missed some something awful during my hiatus.

It looked like they’d hosted a rave right in the middle of our double-wide.

There were blankets strewn about the living room like they’d made a veritable blanket fort mansion. There were Eskimo Joe’s cups in every cup holder – one with milk that was bordering on a state I can only describe as “thick”. The TV volume was on approximately 492 and they were watching “Storage Wars”. Actually, no. No one was actually watching the TV. It was just on. Apparently entertaining the blankets.

The kitchen counters looked like a family of rabid raccoons had been turned loose to scavenge and had done so quite successfully. The Hostess cakes I had bought as a treat just the night before (with a coupon!) had been all but obliterated and nary a crinkly white wrapper had found a home in the trashcan. Someone had made tea – and those who had consumed it had wantonly set the pitcher down repeatedly on the actual counter top. We have white counter tops and I always set the pitcher on a paper towel to avoid stains. People, there. were. stains. So many stains.  The clean dishes were still safely housed in the dishwasher and dirty ones were piled so very high in the sink. There were crumbs EVERYWHERE. I don’t handle crumbs well. I stepped on something questionable – I think it was raccoon poop.

And that was when I lost it. Still in my pajamas from the previous night, my hair in the worst bed-headed state imaginable and pale as a ghost, I’m sure I looked slightly crazier than I actually was, but that’s okay. I like to go for dramatic effect. I think I made my point, though. The makings of the blanket mansion were transformed into neat folded piles. Wrappers magically danced to the trashcan. Crumbs disappeared. There were voices mumbling “Sorry, Momma” and “Glad you’re feeling better, dear” any time they got in my vicinity.

I think they need me. They need me to manage them. And keep them safe from scavenging raccoons. And possibly themselves.   

A Whole Lot of Nothin'

[Originally published in the Miami News-Record on August 2, 2015.]

I try not to miss writing this column too often, but sometimes it can’t be helped. Last week 4/5 of us came down with a horrifically vile stomach bug that had me changing trash cans, spraying Lysol, applying cool cloths to hot faces, bleaching anything that looked remotely germy, and washing every sheet, pillowcase, and blanket in the house every time someone recuperated only to begin the whole process over again when the next one bit the dust. I just opted to just take the week off. I don’t think I could’ve written anything intelligent anyway. Paul and I slept on the couches or an air mattress for a solid week while the kids convalesced in our room close to a bathroom and nightly my slumber was punctuated multiple times by barfing teenagers or husband. Needless to say, I was kind of doofy by my Friday noon deadline anyway. But hurrah for “mom-munity” because once again everyone in the house got sick except me. Although … a few days in bed sounded kind of nice by week’s end.

In my “free” time I have been working on lesson plans. My dining room table hasn’t seen the light of day since July 4^th . I am in the home stretch, though, and by the end of the weekend should have both kids’ lessons written out through Christmas break. I have been having strange dreams about Moby Dick, the Jamestown colony, Hiawatha’s wedding, sentence diagrams, sonnets in iambic pentameter, and business ledgers for the better part of the month. Something tells me I need a vacation. Well, either that or some medication.

Not long after we moved a year and a half ago my washing machine stopped agitating. The repair guy said it was the transmission and it was on borrowed time. Well, we borrowed three days then she gave up the ghost. We took our monthly date night to Lowe’s to purchase a new Whirlpool. The new machine was fancy and weird, but we adjusted. Over time I grew accustomed to the strange clanking noises the owner’s manual said were normal as the load leveler and automatic doohickeymabobber did their jobs. But alas, a mere week after the one-year warranty went out, she began her death cry – a horrible racheting sound that makes the coyotes howl and the cats run for cover. It also makes my husband grumble and the kids moan. It just makes me see dollar signs. A call to my favorite repair guy went like this:

“Did you buy any kind of extended warranty on that washer?”

“……No…..”

“Well, you should have.”

*sigh*

Last June I began the construction of my very first rag rug. I got this crazy Pinterest-fueled idea to make all of my sister’s and my kids a handmade (with love!) rug. The idea was to present them as graduation presents. Since Abby had already graduated and my nephew Trust was about to be born I decided to tackle Trust’s first as a birthin’ gift then would finish Abby’s immediately after then be on track to finish my niece’s long before her graduation this coming May. I put the last stitch in my squishy baby nephew’s rug last Monday, a week before his 1^st birthday. So his birthin’ gift has turned into his birthday gift and I learned that homemade rag rugs aren’t to be rushed. I also hope he doesn’t mind that toward the end I jammed the needle into my finger so hard I kind of bled on his rug. But it’s on the underside, so as long as no one inspects it too closely, we’re good. It turned out really pretty and I’m proud of how it looks (blood and all). I know how to make things go smoother for the next one. And the good news is my niece should expect her rug in May.

Of 2025.

'Tis the (flu) Season

Originally published in the Miami News-Record, on February 8, 2015.

Our son had his wisdom teeth removed last Wednesday. We left our youngest in the capable hands of her older sister while we took the boy to Joplin and back again (sans four teeth). We got home, got him settled in, and I no more than took a deep breath to center myself when here came my baby girl with this pitiful look on her face. “I feel bad. Like, real bad.” Her main complaint was a headache and I figured it was just stress over worrying about her brother (with whom she fights and fusses with almost hourly, yet adores him endlessly) so I told her to take some Tylenol and go lie down. By evening her throat was sore and she was running a low-grade fever. The kid is a strep magnet and I figured that’s what it was. She slept with me that night because she was whiney and pitiful and I’m a sucker when it comes to my kids being sick.

The next morning her fever was over 102 and she was just generally miserable. There were tears. It was awful. So I left the swollen and narcotically medicated boy in the still capable hands of the oldest sister so I could run the girl to urgent care. Typically we get in with little wait, but when we pulled in Kady groaned loudly at the number of cars in the parking lot. She felt so rotten by then and we were both hoping for a quick in and out. I mused that maybe they just had extra staff working. Wishful thinking: the waiting room was full. We found a spot in a corner and she pulled out her iPad and I, a book. I noticed she was pulling her shirt up over her nose and thought, “Aww…she is so thoughtful, she is trying to keep her germs to herself. What a sweet kid.” Then she sent me a text message that said, “The guy next to me stinks like a dirty butt. And my nose is stuffed up! It’s bad, Momma. Can we move please?” The only chairs left were over in the area closest to the toys, the area I like to call Viral Chernobyl. Or The Place We Don’t Sit Because It Usually Smells Like Poop and There Are Boogers On Everything.

This is where met an adorable little tyke with curly hair, a fetching smile, and, as his mother loudly announced, “a funky rash on his hands and feet.” Oh, holy antibiotics, Batman, the little fella was probably incubating a hefty case of hand, foot and mouth and he wanted to be my friend. And he licked everything. in. the. waiting. room. Except my daughter and myself. I gently placed my hand on his forehead when he came at us, tongue at the ready.

Fortunately we were called back soon after we moved, but only for them to swab her, then they sent us back out. Over the last 20 minutes of our wait there were a few times I saw spots because I had held my breath for too long.

When we finally made it to an exam room the nurse told us she was positive for Flu type B. Kady promptly busted into tears. The doctor hugged her. She got a script for the good codeine cough medicine and I think if she would have asked, Dr. A would’ve bought her a new car or at the very least, a puppy. I just bought her a Sonic slush and tater tots. And even though she was a veritable Petri dish of viral cataclysm, I let her sleep with me again that night. I also came perilously close to Vitamin C toxicity before her fever finally left five days later. I’ve also decided my new signature fragrance for the rest of the winter is Purell with a hint of GermX and some Lysol undertones.

A Medical Adventure

Originally posted in the Miami News-Record on November 9, 2014

The older I get, the more often I find myself visiting medical facilities. Last week I found myself at the Indian hospital in Claremore for a CT scan.

As I pulled into the Sonic in Claremore (hey, I was early for my appointment and needed a sweet tea to calm my nerves) I got a call from my oldest telling me she was bleeding from her right ear. Since she hadn’t been to Sierra Leone recently I figured her Ebola risk was nil, so my next question was, “Did you stick anything in there?” She sighed and I’m fairly certain rolled her eyes (moms can typically sense an eye roll even over the phone) and said that no, she hadn’t put anything in her ear because she wasn’t a toddler. It sounded like a ruptured eardrum to me, so I did what I do in any crisis: I called my mom. After asking if she had Ebola and if she had stuck anything in her ear, Mom, too, said that it sounded like a ruptured eardrum. I then called Abby back and told her that she was going to have to take herself to the doctor. She was mildly freaked out by that what with being all new-to-adulthood and all, but I reassured her and hung up, ordered my sweet tea and as I reached for my wallet realized that I had her insurance card with me. I called the clinic and they told me they would see her and could look her up by her social security number. I called her back, reassured her once again that she could indeed take herself to the doctor, and then headed to the hospital. By then I was resigned to the fact that the sweet tea was going to do nothing to help my nerves.

Once I got to the hospital I checked in at registration, checked in again at x-ray, then sat in a faded pink hard plastic chair to wait my turn. I watched The Price is Right, listened to a woman have a rather loud and obnoxious conversation on her phone, gritted my teeth as a different woman sent text after text, which normally would be a non issue except she had the keyboard sounds turned up to about 40 million decibels and all of us in the waiting room were treated to “BEEP BEEPBEEPBEEP….BEEP….BEEPBEEP…BEEP…BEEPBEEP…BEEPBEEPBEEP” for a good 20 minutes, and got my toes stepped on twice. When the x-ray tech called my name I think I got up a bit too eagerly and nearly bowled him over as I ran into the CT room.

I was good and nervous by then so I was only moderately mortified that I had to don a gown for the procedure – not because I’m all that modest but because of all days to wear my comfiest underwear with two holes in them, it would be a day I’d have to wear a backless gown. It took them three sticks, a call to the lab for backup, and a full hour of inspecting my veins before they got my IV going. The dye made me nauseous and woozy and as I tried to maintain control of the world spinning around me all I could do was envision was me lying on the floor, my backless gown a’flapping while I showed off my holey underwear and legs only shaved up to the knee (because I totally phone it in in the shaving department from October through March) thus giving all of the staff of the lab department something to talk about at the dinner table that night.

Fortunately I stayed conscious and came away with nothing more than a metallic taste in my mouth and two wicked bruises. Oh, and my husband took me underwear shopping this weekend because apparently the thought of me wearing holey underwear to my next doctor visit concerns him, too. 

An Easter Tradition

A year ago, sometime around well, heck, I don't remember what time it was, but I do remember it was dark and I was asleep, Kady began barking the siren song of her people. You know her people: people with asthma. That siren song is a croup-y baby seal bark mixed in with with a raspy, horrible stridor and sometimes accompanied by wheezing and almost always by a look of absolute terror on my child's face.

Breathing treatments at home didn't help and she was panicking more with each breath, so I did what I have done so many times before: I tossed her wheezy butt in the car and drove for the hospital.

They released her just right about the time sunrise service was beginning. Paul took Abby and Sam to the church and I took Bugg and I home to the couch where I fell promptly to sleep while she, hopped up on asthma meds, watched TV and talked incessantly. No, it didn't matter I was snoring and drooling, she talked anyway. That's how she rolls.

This year we aren't attending any particular church and it had been awhile since we'd gone to the church where my Pops pastors, so we made plans to drive the hour there to be with Mom and Pops at their church. Shower schedules were set forth, everyone's Easter clothes were pressed and ready to go, I had the coffee pot fixed to kick on about the same time I hit the snooze button the first time, the day was essentially planned.

Until at 12:30 am Paul flips on the bedroom light to tell me that Bugg had just christened the bathroom with The First Official Barf since we moved in. He actually got a horrible stomach virus when we were nearly done with the remodel and ended up spending a few days sequestered here, sleeping on the hide-a-bed in the classroom, to keep the kids and me from getting it, but we weren't officially living here yet, so his barfing doesn't count. Kady gets the prize. Woot.

The poor kid puked about every 45 minutes for a solid 12 hours and ran a fever to boot. I didn't sleep much - but neither did she, so I shouldn't complain.

I'm a thermostat nazi and refuse to turn on the AC in April, so I slept with the windows open and I guess I really didn't know birds chirped and tweeted at night. I was used to owls at the other house, but never songbirds. I suppose I thought they tucked into their little birdie beds at night and slept like we do. In my restless dozing through the night, my brain mixed up the tweeting with my imagination and I was pretty sure I heard a mocking jay like in The Hunger Games. And of course, my dreams then sent me to the arena with Katniss for the next half hour or so to fight for my life. Fortunately (for me, not Kady) the sounds of retching woke me. My next pitiful bout of rest produced a dream in which someone was trying to break into our house and I, the hero of our story, grabbed a bolt action rifle and proceeded to shoot at the offender repeatedly. I don't even like to shoot bolt action rifles. I text my mom at 6:30 this morning to tell her we would not be attending Easter services to avoid spreading the love. Then I tried to doze some more, but Princess Barfypants in the next room wasn't having any of that.

It's now 7:30 pm. She's been puke-free since nearly noon. She is complaining about some lower abdominal pain that is freaking me the heck out after her brother decided to create a new holiday last October called "Appendix Liberation Day" - a day in which he was celebrated by a surgeon he pulled off the golf course as well as the on-call surgery staff and was the honored guest at his very own emergency appendectomy. So yeah, I'm a little paranoid when any of the kids (well, except Sam now) complain of abdominal pain on the right side.

I'm just ready to get some sleep. Without intermittent barfing or Katniss Everdeen and a random burglar visiting my subconscious.

And Then .... I Broke My Butt

Before I get to the part about my broken hindquarters, first I have to backtrack a bit.

Last summer, midst a flurry of church camp and VBS, an ever-growing and demanding youth group, three kids of my own, and a new school year bearing down on me I was bitten by a spider. A very. nasty. spider.

I woke up on a Sunday morning in July to an itchy spot on my hip. I had worn pajama pants to bed, so I figured it was a particularly ravenous mosquito who had bitten through the fabric. I commented about how bad it itched while I was getting ready for church, put some cream (or ointment or whatever) on it and went on to church. By the time we headed back to church that night for our YouthVBS program, the bite was as big as the diameter of a baseball and oh golly, how it itched. I took a Benadryl before I went to bed and marveled at how I had reacted to the silly thing.

Some time during the night I woke up drenched in sweat and aching all over. I had a house full of kids and I'm not exaggerating on that in the least. I had my three kids, my friend Kasey's three kids, plus her sister's two kids who were in from Tennessee. Kasey is a twin and her sister comes home once a year - I took the kids so they could hang out, so imagine how bad I felt when I had to call her at 8am and tell her I was sick as a dog and Paul was bringing all the kids home ASAP. I called the indian clinic, managed to get the very last same-day appointment with a nurse practitioner (with whom I was about to become very well acquainted with over the next few months). The bite was ugly looking, I felt like I'd been run over, I had a fever, I was nauseous -- needless to say: I was sick.

Abby had been bitten by a brown recluse a few years prior and considering we killed one of the nasty things about every other day somewhere in the old house, I assumed the offending spider was a recluse. The symptoms were the same, the bite looked the same, etc. The NP told me to expect it to form the traditional black spot as my flesh began to *gag* rot at the site of the bite, gave me two shots of steroids in the rear end, oral antibiotics, a prescription for Benadryl, said to drink water until my eyeballs floated and to stay down until I felt better. Two days later I woke up to find myself covered from the top of the head to the tops of my legs in a rash that made me look like I'd been dragged across the carpet for eight or nine hours nonstop. A call to the clinic then put me on oral steroids, more strict bed rest, and so much Benadryl I was *this close* to drooling. In fact, I may have actually drooled. More than once.

The following Sunday after the bite, after seven days of misery and pain, I sent Paul, Kady, and Sam off to church for the evening service while the Abby stayed home with me. I had been feeling funny, just slightly... off.... all day. Then my left arm, hand and fingers, the toes on my left foot and my face went numb. Well, my face was numb, but tingling. It was weeeeeiiiiiirrrrrdd. I called the indian hospital in Claremore, asked if someone could give me some advice before I drove the hour to the hospital for what might be nothing. They said they really weren't allowed to give advice over the phone, but asked what was going on anyway. When I described what was going on, I was patched through to a nurse who said, "Get here. NOW." I explained that I was an hour from the hospital and she said, "Then leave NOW. And get here." Abby flew to the church to get Paul and I called my mom to have her come get the kids and off we went. I had a little emotional meltdown in the car on the way because, as someone with OCD, I tend to imagine the absolute worst in any situation and imagine it often.

They drew blood (took five sticks, ow), examined the bite, called an internist and the final diagnosis was extremely elevated white count, systemic poisoning, definitely not a brown recluse, probably a black widow, the numbness/tingling was my body reacting to the poison, follow up with my primary in three days for a repeat white count. It took six weeks for my white count to return to normal. I was put on Neurontin for the pain that affected only the left side of my body and told that the nerve pain could come and go for as long as three years. She said stress would cause flare ups and also said to be very cautious during flu season because my immune system was pretty well shot.

Yeah.

By October I no longer needed the Neurontin with any regularity. I had a flare-up during the holidays due to stress, plus the remodeling of the new house, plus moving stuff, plus youth group stuff, plus a generally hectic schedule, but I was better.

Then in February I noticed this weird tingling sensation in my lower back on the left side. I immediately assumed it was a nerve flare-up and started back on the medicine. It didn't help. It would itch and burn and tingle, but when I would scratch, I couldn't actually feel it on my skin. When I was picking up a refill at the pharmacy I mentioned offhandedly that I was getting no relief and he got a verbal order from the NP to up my dose. Tripled it actually. Enter my new absent memory and a general foggy feeling in my head for about an hour, three times a day. But itching/burning didn't get immediately better.

It was Shingles.

Yeah.

Actually the whole shingles experience wasn't as bad as I've always heard. It was uncomfortable and I really don't want to do it again, but I never developed the blisters, so there was my little bit of mercy in the whole mess. I really only had two days where I hurt, but I survived.

So now it's April. I had my yearly well-woman exam, my mammogram, and my six-month follow-up for labs and general checkup all in a week's time. Turns out I do not have breast cancer (always a plus), but I'm anemic, my cholesterol is elevated, but my liver and kidneys are doing a good job at whatever their appointed tasks are. My lower left back is still numb/itchy/tingly and she said I may never regain sensation there. Dadgum stupid varicella.

I also mentioned the intense pain in my tailbone. Since last fall I have had a very hard time sitting. Actually the sitting isn't as painful as standing after sitting. My lower back hurts nearly constantly and did I mention my tailbone hurts? Well, it does. She got on to me for wearing crappy shoes, told me to wear good supportive shoes and an orthotic insert and said she wanted to do an x-ray of my lower back and pelvis just for good measure.

The next morning, bright and early, her nurse called to tell me that I was a congenital deformity in my lower back, to wear supportive shoes, and they had mailed me a handout to explain it all. Good-bye and good day.

Say whaaaa? I needed a bit more than that. So I spent the next 24 hours freaking the heck out.

So today I got the handout.

I have lumbar spondylosis. Actually, the spondylosis is no big thang really. Yes, it's degenerative and it's just one more glaring slap in the face that screams, "YOU ARE POSITIVELY ANCIENT, YOU OLD BAT." So that's nice. But it's actually pretty common. The handout they sent says that 80% of people over the age of 40 have it and it, in and of itself, has no real symptoms. It is typically found when they are looking for something else.

And for me, that something else is a pars defect. Yeah. It just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it? Pars defect. Say it like you mean it. Beautiful.

Anyway, this is the congenital deformity the nurse mentioned. And I have spent the last five hours Googling it relentlessly. And here are my findings:

My back is broken.

Like, seriously.

It is a break in between vertebrae and is typically found in athletes. HA. Like, I am so not an athlete. Mine is the L4 and L5 vertebrae, as is fairly common. Pretty much it can be a congenital birth defect or it can be from repeated hyper-extension. And since I have yet to be hired by Cirque de Soleil, I'm pretty sure it's a birth defect. Or from playing the bass drum in the marching band. Either way, I'm not supposed to have any high-impact manipulations at the chiropractor. I'm pretty sure this will keep my professional tap dancing career at bay. And also, if this keeps me off of roller coasters I am going to be so. pissed.

Because I have no one to blame, I am going to blame the spider. Pretty much everything bad that happens in my life these past nine months has been blamed on the spider bite - solar flares, my computer's motherboard dying a painful, messy death, the national debt, that time I smeared my toenail polish, and the fact that McRib isn't really pork, but instead gelatinous globs of pork-flavored pasted pressed into a patty thus rendering me physically incapable of eating the one sandwich that made me happy before I started eating cleaner. Yep, all of it. Blaming it on the spider.

Stoner (Part 2)

I made it to the hospital that Thursday morning by about 5 after 7, kissed my swollen and puffy husband's face then settled in with my iPod to partake of free WiFi while we waited for the Surgery nurses, also known to kidney stone patients as Angels of Mercy. Paul told me he had had a bad two hours during the night when the stone was trying to move again and he maxed out on pain meds and commenced to doing the Funky Chicken all over the room. His nighttime nurse was a Godsend and he said he's forever grateful to her. It must've been bad.

It was after 8 when the two gals from surgery came up, got his IV unhooked from the pump, put his cute little bootie socks on his feet and it was just as she pushed the Versed in his veins to make him a little groggy before they took him downstairs they realized he still had his Bermuda shorts on under his gown. (Dude is a little bit modest and said he didn't like his "junk" out there all flappin' in the breeze, so he wore his underwears and Bermudas under his gown. He is just precious.) The girls kind of giggled and said, "We'll step behind the curtain so you can slip everything off." I stepped over to the side of the bed to hold his IV line out of the way and quickly realized my husband was absolutely 100% drunk out of his ever-lovin' MIND already. We're talkin' like two minutes. I gently moved his hands from the zipper where he was trying to repeatedly unzip his already unzipped shorts and kept saying, "Come on, honey. Help me out here." I heard giggling from behind the curtain. I was not amused. Okay, I was kind of amused. I said, "Uhm....girls.....he's plumb goofy, could I get some help?" Just more giggles. So finally after several more minutes of me trying to get him to lift his rump I managed to get the Bermudas off him. I left the underwear for the team of professionals downstairs. I figured they were getting paid the big bucks, let them lift his rump from that point on.

I kissed his forehead and gathered my things from around the room and went down to the surgery waiting room. I checked what was going on around Facebook, glimpsed quickly at Twitter, but it was reading Testify Blog that soothed me and passed the time for me without nerves. About 30 minutes after they took him I saw Dr. Stout come around the corner. He sat down next to me and bluntly said, "I couldn't get it." I love this guy. Most of the time when you see him he looks like Paul Bunyan, usually with a full beard and a lot of hair (on his head and all over his body) and sometimes he wears flannel. In the office. He played the oldest brother, Ruben, in the local little theater's production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat a few weeks ago. He's just an all-around neat guy. So there he was in his surgery scrubs, sitting in the chair next to me like we were old friends catching up, all relaxed and laid back, explaining that the stone was too high, as he had thought it might be, while I sat on the edge of my seat in horror that this ordeal was not over yet. He also said that the kidney they thought was fine and not blocked, was indeed blocked and when he placed the stent....well, I shan't describe it here as he described it to me. Suffice it to say....YUCK and EWWWW. Then he reminded me that he was leaving the following afternoon for Boston and wasn't going to be in town until early the next week. Oh the tears that wanted to spill at that moment.

He said, "I can send him home with that stent in place and we can schedule a lithotripsy (where they bust up the stone with sound waves) for when I get back if that's okay with you." Well, I had no choice, huh? I nodded dumbly and looked at my hands, feeling helpless and worried and knowing that Paul was not going to do well in that scenario. Dr. Stout patted me on the leg and told me I could go on upstairs and wait for Paul there. As I gathered my things, I glanced down at my iPod where the post on Testify I had been reading had quoted the old hymn I recall Tennessee Earnie Ford singing when I was kid, "It Is Well With My Soul". I blinked back the tears, took a deep breath and as I walked the long hallway toward the elevators I prayed. God, you are in control of this. You are the Great Physician and I can't worry any more. You have this. I know it. Paul is in the palm of Your hand and You are in control. It truly is well with my soul.

And I made it to that empty hospital room with a renewed spirit and no worry. And moments after I sat down in that hard-backed chair to await my Prince Charming the room phone rang. The nurse aide came screeching into my room hollering, "ANSWER THAT! ANSWER THAT! IT'S DR. STOUT!" I said hello with trepidition - had something happened to Paul in those few short moments between then and now? I pushed the thought away and listened as Dr. Stout told me he had called Oklahoma City, pleaded the case, arranged for them to send the mobile lithotripsy unit up the following morning and the procedure was scheduled for 8am. There would be no waiting the weekend, no dismissal to home with the stone still there, no having to wonder if another urologist was available in Dr. Stout's absence.

Talk about God's favor!

I took Paul a long time to come around what with him being a sedation lightweight and all and as he had when he had his EGD procedure back in March, he had some temporary amnesia and asked me questions over and over and over. It's cute at first. It gets less cute after you answer the same question for the 27th time. He was groggy and nauseated, in a lot of pain and just generally grumpy when it finally hit him that the stone had not been rolled away, so to speak. He refused to eat that day. He was depressed. Peeing was excruciating for him. Watching him under all of it was excruciating for me. He had a lot of pain medication in him. He was intensely nauseated. They were pumping the IV fluids in him like crazy and there was very little output. He swelled up like a poisoned pup.

I went home that afternoon to get the kids off the bus, let them re-pack their bags for another school night sleepover at Gram's and said I'd take them to Sonic after going to see Daddy. Abby caught me off to the side as soon as we walked in the hospital room and said, "Why does  Daddy look like that? Why is his face so FAT?" That had to be startling and I assured her he was fine, just retaining a lot of fluids, like PMS on steroids. She giggled. They visited with him for awhile, then hunger got the best of them. After kisses good-bye we headed to Sonic. As I puilled in my father called and said the storms headed our way looked bad, to get the kids to shelter and forget Sonic. Yeah.....no. They needed food and Sonic is fast and close to Mom's. We made it to Mom's, flipped on the TV, watching the radar show the storm go around us. Mom and Dad were eating dinner and with the weather iffy I decided not the leave the kids alone. I took that time to put my feet up since they were swollen from sitting in that dang hard backed chair for two days.

Dad dropped Mom off at the house and headed up to see Paul and take him some magazines. I loved on my babies awhile longer, visited with Mom and then headed to the hospital myself. He was in the shower when I got there and seemed to be feeling better, probably knowing the end was near and he was 12 mere hours away from relief. I went home again that night to sleep alone, no Little Joe to protect me from the big, bad coyotes and panthers and bobcats out here in the woods, but I was so exhausted Fitty could've waltzed in and hacked me to bits without me ever knowing.

I was back to the hospital by 7 the next morning, things were very delayed and x-ray didn't come get him until after 8. They had no sooner gotten him in the elevator the anesthesiologist walked in. He looked around with a confused look on his face and said, "Uhm.....your husband? He would be.......where?" When I said x-ray had just taken him he said, "Come on, we'll go catch him" and whisked me off to the surgery elevator. We missed him by moments and waited patiently outside the x-ray room door. The anesthesiologist also laughed when he said he was only giving Paul a half dose of Versed this time since he was hit pretty hard by the full dose the day before. I rolled my eyes and said, "Don't I know. You ought to have been the one trying to take off his shorts while the surgery nurses laughed at you behind a curtain! That's blog material for sure!" He laughed then assured me he would take good care of him and headed for the OR. I got to kiss Paul's face before the other surgery guy (far less giggling from him) whisked him away, I met Dad in the hallway and we waited together this time. The hour and 15 minute wait was made far easier with him being there.

Finally Dr. Stout made his grand appearance with specimen cup in hand. He showed us a stone fragment that had already passed when the stent had been removed. It was about the width of an unsharpened pencil lead. Ow. He said he had also managed to bust up some of the stones that were in the proper position in the left kidney, thus hopefully eliminating a few episodes in the future. I thanked him for all his string-pulling, mad stone removal skillz and wished him safe travels on his road trip to Boston.

And thanked God the ordeal was over. And praised him for his goodness and mercy and healing.

Paul was awake, alert and HUNGRY when he got back to the room this time. The nurse aide brought him a sandwich because it was still and hour and a half until lunch trays would be there. He ate and acted more like himself than he had in four days. And he ate part of the lunch on his tray when it got there. He put on his Sooner pajama pants and OSU hat - he is an enigma, that man - and said he was ready to go HOME.

By 2pm we were heading home with three prescriptions for antibiotics, pain and nausea meds. Our kids were insanely happy we were both there when they got off the bus that time. We were, too.

____________________________

Fast forward to yesterday, one week after dismissal: Paul passsed SIX stones/fragments yesterday. They were all about the size of a match head. He never even knew he'd passed them until he saw them in the urinal. Talk about God's favor again. I can't fathom trying to pass something that size.

Sweet tea has not touched his lips since and he says it never will again. I doubt that. I mean, we live in Oklahoma, for cryin' out loud, that stuff is everywhere. He's been drinking a lot of water and since he heard lemonade helps to etch stones that are already formed, thus reducing them in size, he drinks a LOT of lemonade. Hey, I guess whatever floats his boat. Or his stones.

Stoner (Part 1)

Two weeks ago Paul came about *this close* to rupturing a disk in his back. It was awful. I had just stepped out of the shower when I heard Sam say "She's in the shower. Okay, okay, I'll get her." My 12 year old son with eyes squeezed tightly shut, hand over his closed eyes and while holding the phone as far away from himself as possible slipped the phone through the bathroom door and said, "It's Dad." I grabbed the phone with my dripping hand, said hello and was greeted with the soft, panting voice (no, not that kind of soft, panting voice) of my husband saying, "You've *pant* got to *pant* come out here *pant* and help *pant* me. NOW. *pant*" I said, "Well, I'm dripping wet, I'll be out there as fast as I can! Where are you?" He replied with "*pant* The carport *pant*" and hung up.

I threw my shorts and shirt on while still drippy, squeezed excess water out of my hair and ran out the back door fully expecting to find my husband missing an arm or his leg bent awkwardly out behind him since the last time I had seen him earlier was as he flew down the driveway on a four-wheeler. I wasn't looking forward to what I thought I was going to see. Instead I just found him kind of bent over at the waist beside the lawnmower. He slowly turned his head toward me and said, "I threw out my back." My initial reaction was that I wanted to laugh, but then fortunately I caught myself as I realized he was really hurting. It took about 15 minutes, but we slowly, and I mean slowwwwwwwwwwwly, got him straightened up and I walked him in the house.

Three days of missed work, four chiropractor visits and a metric ton of ibuprofen and he finally felt like a human again.

Fast forward to 2am this past Tuesday morning. A tote fell off the cedar chest at the foot of our bed. I got up, put it back up and crawled back in bed. I had just settled in and felt Paul get up. He said, "My stomach's cramping" and kind of staggered sleepily out of the room. I figured there was nothing I could help him with there and promptly went back to sleep. About 45 minutes later I was awakened to him shaking the bed violently and saying, "Kristin, you've got to get up now and help me. I'm hurtin'. Bad." I grabbed my glasses and followed him to the living room where he took up pacing as he apparently had been doing for the previous 45 minutes while I snoozed away.

It was the dreaded kidney stone.

In 2008 he passed five of the little buggers and he recognized the pain of them moving all too well. Three years ago he was admitted to the hospital and was scheduled for basket retrieval surgery the following morning at 6am only to pass them all a few hours later.

Not so much this time.

I text his boss and told her he would not be coming in and what was going on. I rummaged around in the cabinet until I found the blessed bottle of Vicodin from three years ago knowing they were expired, but also knowing the dude needed some relief. At 5:30 I got up to start my day having not gone back to sleep.

He felt fine during the day that day (Tuesday), achey and sore on the side where the stone was, but not the horrible pain he had felt during the night. He figured the stone had dropped into his bladder and it was just a matter of passing it from there so he got down in the floor to put together a new ceiling fan for our bedroom. The crawling and squatting and bending got the stone moving again and within 30 minutes he was begging to be shot. I instead suggested the emergency room and while he insisted a bullet would've been better, he agreed to the hospital. Mom and Dad couldn't get there quick enough for his taste, so we left the two  younger kids in Abby's care and headed for Vinita, about 25 minutes away. There was a little girl with an ice pack on her arm ahead of us, so Paul took to pacing the floor. When he was finally called back to Triage the nurse and I struck up a conversation which included the game of "Don't I Know You From Somewhere?" and "Man, You Look Awful Familiar". Paul was not amused and kept giving me looks that essentially conveyed that I was heartless and shouldn't be allowed to continue living.

Two shots of Demerol and a shot of Morphine landed him on a heart monitor and oxygen because apparently they were concerned at the amount of drugs they were having to give him to even give him any semblance of relief. After the Morphine he finally quit doing the Funky Chicken all over the bed and settled down enough they could take him to CT where they announced he was the proud owner of a 5mm stone which was in the ureter and was certainly considered "passable". 20 minutes later the doctor came back in and said that upon further perusal of the films the stone was 7mm and right on the border of "passable" and "no way in Hell that baby is coming out on its own." He also announced there were six more stones in the left kidney and three more in the right which means we have the fabulous opportunity of potentially going through this NINE MORE TIMES. By 11pm the doctor was writing dismissal papers and said to drink until his eyeballs floated and if the pain came back and we couldn't control it at home to go to either Grove or Miami hospital because both of those hospitals have urologists and they didn't.

I didn't watch Conner that next day (Wednesday) considering neither of us had slept in two nights and he was still in pain and couldn't stop throwing up. By the time the kids got home he was pacing the floor and cursing, asking for a bullet in between barfing into a trashcan and draping himself over various pieces of furniture. At one point told Kady her voice was so annoying he couldn't stand hearing another thing from her mouth. Fortunately it didn't break her sensitive little heart and she didn't cry. She knew her daddy was hurtin' bad. I told the kids to pack an overnight bag and called Mom and said I was bringing them to her and we were headed to the ER. We dropped them off and he staggered into the ER where fortunately we didn't have to wait long to be triaged and sent to a room. More Morphine and Zofran for the nausea and the doctor said he was sending him home. Paul nearly started crying. He was exhausted from the pain and the vomiting, he was so dehydrated they had to stick him five times (after having stuck him seven the first time in the ER at the other hospital) and he just wanted some relief. I called and texted my best prayer warriors and put them on mercy-prayer detail - we needed favor in the form of a sympathetic ER doc and urologist.

It helps that the local urologist is a stone producer as well.

Another CT scan to see if the stone had moved in the past 24 hours (it hadn't considering it was the size of Manhattan) and the ER doc came in and said, "I can send you home with oral pain meds and we'll see if you pass this thing in a day or two or you can be admitted and Dr. Stout can do a basket retrieval procedure in the morning." We both at the same time said, "Admit!" Dr. Stout, the urologist, came by to see him while he was still in the ER and said the stone was kind of high, but he would try his best to retrieve it. By 8:30 he was being wheeled upstairs to his room where my sweet, exhausted husband just wanted to sleep. I went home around 10:30 that night to sleep and was so tired I just knew that no howling coyotes or even Fitty coming to hack me into itty bitty bits was going to keep me awake.

I finally fell asleep at nearly 1am. I was up by 5 to be back in there by 7 because the surgery was scheduled for 8. I was running on fumes and about eight hours sleep in three nights.



To be continued......

Oh look. It's snowing. Again.

A week ago Sunday Paul, Sam and Kady stayed home from church, mainly because Paul wasn't feeling very well and Kady was kind of coughing. After church, though, we needed a few important things before The Great Snowtastrophe of 2011 hit the next day. We went to Walmart and bought toilet paper, bacon and laundry soap. You know, the really important stuff. When I got home from church Kady had complained of a stomachache. Not nausea, just pain. I told her to take a Maalox because I figured she had gas. By the time we got done in town she was in tears and when we got home she promptly curled upon the couch and couldn't stop kicking her legs and essentially writhing. I loaded her up and took her to the ER. I had felt her belly and determined she likely wasn't constipated (because we moms think poop is the root of all evil when it comes to our kids) and I knew it wasn't her appendix because it was on the wrong side. I was thinking kidney stone. The evil things run in our family like water runs downhill. When we got there the nurse thought the same thing and immediately ordered a UA. In the meantime the Nurse Practitioner came in to examine her. She poked and prodded her belly and decided the pain was from a pulled muscle, possibly from the beating she had taken on the basketball court the day before, but in a nine year old, who knew.

As she was walking out of the room, Kady coughed. It was the same cough she had had for days and it didn't startle me in the least. It did, however, make the NP turn around the ask, "WHAT was that?" She then carefully listened to Kady's lungs, ordered a chest x-ray and said the pulled muscle was from coughing, not basketball. She ordered a breathing treatment to be done as soon as the chest x-ray was complete. After two hours in a freezing isolation room in the ER the UA came back clear, the chest x-ray came back negative for pneumonia and the official diagnosis was: Bronchiolitis due to chronic asthma and exercise-induced asthma. We left with a prescription for six days of steroids and orders for breathing treatments every four hours for 24 hours, Tylenol/Motrin for the muscle pain and the use of the inhaler before practice and games. She was deemed non-contagious and as long as she felt like it was cleared for school. Knowing that The Great Snowtastrophe of 2011 was coming I figured she might as well go that one day of school because who knew when she'd get to go again.

Monday I wasn't supposed to have Conner for the day, so I took the kids to school and headed for town to run some last-minute errands before The Great Snowtastrophe of 2011 hit that night. I went out and got my monthly supply of free government cheese like a good little economically challenged Native American and then got the call I was indeed going to have my Conner for the rest of the day. I picked him up and headed for the Walmart where I did not get bread because they were out, but that's okay, I had gotten some the day before. I didn't really need a whole lot, but did stock up on very important things like chocolate chips and sugar. Had I been thinking I'd have gotten about four dozen eggs because they had them then and they didn't by that afternoon. And they haven't since. We went to the school for Kady's noon breathing treatment, I speculated with the teachers and staff about the impending doom and then came back home to finish laundry before my washing machine drain froze up for who knows how long.

Monday night we sent the kids to bed with nary a flake of snow in sight. Paul and I laid in bed and watched a beautiful lightning show, listened to some thunder that rivaled any we've heard in a Springtime storm and went to sleep around Midnight. I got up at 1:30 to check on the kids and saw that the world had turned white - but it wasn't snow at that point. It was sleet. I heard it pinging the windows, shivered and crawled back in bed. Upon awakening again at 4 our world was encased in a coccoon of white. When I got Paul up at 5:30 I begged and begged for him to stay home because given the looks of things and the forecast for 20 inches before day's end I had no intention of riding out the storm alone with three kids, one of whom was sick. He assured me he'd be fine, he'd be home and his 4WD would get him back here. He kissed me and left.

They had not one single guest in the casino all day. By 1pm they officially closed it. Since he was running the vault by himself he had to balance out, inventory and do whatever else those magical vault folks do. By the time he left he was pushing a wall of snow with his big ol' gigantic truck. He heard highway 60 had been closed by the sheriff, but he wasn't letting that stop him. My pleas and whines in the phone and reports of his youngest child running a 102* temp filled him with determination to get home. He made is halfway up 60, called his cousin who lived about 1/4 mile off the highway and said, "If I can make it to your house, can I stay the night?" His cousin said, "If you can get here, you can stay." He made it. They watched the weather reports and decided, given the reports of below zero temps for the night and that sick child of his, he needed to try to get home. He bundled up in his coveralls and took off up the dirt road. He made it 1/4 mile before he sunk and was stuck. His cousin pulled him back to his house with the tractor and there he stayed. He was three miles from us, but he might as well have been in California. I called my mother bawling from the bathroom so as not to scare the daylights outta my kids that I was terrified to be snowed in without him. She told me to stop crying, it wasn't changing anything, to pray and everything would be fine.

Kady burned up with fever all night. Her breathing was horribly labored. I didn't sleep much. Usually when Paul's not here I don't sleep well because I hear noises and end up convinced we're being stalked and are about to be broken into. That night I just listened to Kady wheeze and cough and laid my hands on her while I prayed that we be safe, that Paul would be safe, that I wouldn't have to call 911 for an ambulance that couldn't get here.

On Tuesday all three kids were sick, two with fevers, one with a sore throat. Around 2 that afternoon we saw a pickup go past our house. I was on that phone so quick to Paul telling him that if that truck could make it so could he. Two hours later he came sliding into the driveway with the finesse of a Duke boy from Hazzard County. He ended up stuck, had to dig his way out of his truck and walked the 1/10 mile driveway in 20" of snow. It was like a dadgum episode of The Waltons when he walked through that door. John Boy was home!

He spent Thursday home with us. Mainly because his truck was still stuck, but also because I wasn't letting him out of my sight again. Also by Thursday Kady had run a fever nearly nonstop for four days. Friday she didn't run one.

Saturday, after having not done a single stitch of laundry since Monday, we loaded up hampers and baskets of clothes and headed to my mom's. My washing machine drain freezes up at the mere mention of the word "winter", so laundering comes to a screeching halt when the temps dip too low. The kids played on the computers, Paul, who himself was now sick with bronchitis, slept most of the afternoon in a recliner in front of the TV and I visited with my momma. Paul and I made a quick run to Walmart for toilet paper, sugar, shampoo, cold medicine and milk, then headed back home. By the time we got to Mom's Kady was running a fever again.

Sunday I took her to urgent care where the nurse took her temp and it was a toasty 103*. Her bronchiolitis had turned into bacterial bronchitis. A test for strep came back negative. Then a doctor who looked old enough to have treated Moses for gout gave her the most thorough once-over she's had in years. He was great with her. And me. He sent us on our way with antibiotics and prescription cough syrup. She hasn't run a fever all day today. Praise God!!!!

And now it's Tuesday night. We are once again under a Winter Storm Warning and awaiting anywhere from six to eight to ten inches of snow. No one can seem to agree on an amount. Paul is still sick and refuses to see a doctor. Kady is better. I have PMS and my two oldest kids are begging to go back to school, however we received a call from the principal's office today letting us know that just in case we do have school tomorrow the bus will not come down our road. Considering their daddy leaves the house at 6:15am for work in the only vehicle with 4WD and my van will not navigate on the sheet of ice that disguises our road, I checked to make sure their absences will be excused. They will. Whew.

I never thought I'd say this, but I'm almost looking forward to summer. And I hate summer.