Still Here...in the USA!

Ack...I'm behind in posting all the details of our trip back to the US and the Great Sicknesses of 2010, so here goes.

As it turned out, I ended up in the ER in Doha before we left because the pain in my neck was so severe. The regular doctor wouldn't see me because he knew I needed a specialist, so he referred me to the orthopedic doctor. The orthopedic doctor did a new x-ray and decided I should see a neurosurgeon. He also suggested I'd be a good candidate for neck surgery, but not the disk fusion kind...Honestly, I was in too much pain to understand/remember what the details of the surgery he was explaining. I got very little relief because apparently they don't care to follow the treatment that has always worked for me in previous episodes (steroid treatment combined with pain meds).

As if this wasn't enough (happening just days before our trip), the morning we boarded the plane Eliza said she wasn't feeling well. Hmm. She looked fine, she'd eaten breakfast, so we didn't think much about. Before the first 4 hours of the flight were over, Eliza was getting feverish and Amelia started having green goo oozing out of her eyes. Evidently she wasn't over her sinus infection. Luckily, I'd packed the antibiotic eyedrops--just in case--and we started giving them to her in-flight. Eliza proceeded to get worse, saying that she felt like she was going to puke. I could feel her fever getting higher and higher, despite the Tylenol. She basically slept on and off the whole 14 hour flight. I had no idea how sick she was...

Once we got to DC, we landed, got our luggage, got our rental minivan, went to my uncle's house, ate a quick dinner, then headed to the urgent care clinic, where Eliza was diagnose with strep throat (super positive reading) and an ear infection! She looked awful as of Friday evening. Antibiotics, however, are clearly miracle drugs because she was 10 times better the next morning.

Saturday morning we headed for Ocean City, NJ. The drive took longer than expected, but we made it just in time for dinner. Hubby's mom was grilling out, so he and the kids ate, played with cousins, and visited while I made the trip to the grocery store to stock our beach house. Speaking of the beach house---perfect :) Small, but typical for most of the property at the shore. Just enough space for us to eat, sleep, bathe, etc. The rest of our time would be spent at the beach or the boardwalk. Despite some minor lingering pain in my neck, I couldn't pass up the first morning's opportunity to take a jog in the beautiful sunshine. Mild temperatures and perfectly-landscaped yards made it all seem like something out of a TV show. Really and truly, I fell in love with the place. I basically spent the next 6 days thinking about how in the world we could ever afford to own property there. Everyone had a great time shopping, eating, visiting with family, and soaking up the sun, sand, and the waves. When Thursday came, I didn't want to leave!

We headed to Home State on Friday, only to find out that our short-term corporate house wasn't going to be ready for another 5 days. A long story, but we stayed with my parents until it was ready for us to settle in, and here we are. We've been here since last Wednesday, and everything's going well. I was able to get Eliza into a great swimming lesson program that includes arts & crafts time, story time, and a snack. Hubby and I are taking turns using the public library as our makeshift office, and there's a great park and aquatic center very close to our house! We joined a local YMCA, where they also offer childcare, so we've been able to get some much-needed exercise in, while the girls have some play time outside of the house-- a win-win situation indeed :)

The only inconvenience right now is that I still have a few minor corrections to make on my dissertation manuscript. Initially I had a TON of corrections to make, for I am evidently the Sloppiest Dissertation Writer in the History of the World (SDWinHOW). True story. I'm now down to three corrections: 1) revise my abstract, 2) change the long quotes from plays, 3) and get page numbers for plays from the collected editions I used. Don't ask me why I didn't have this last one finished before I left Qatar....clearly I was out of my damn mind because the 7 volume collection of Aphra Behn's plays that are edited by Janet Todd??? Yeah, they're not really available at your local public library or local bookstore. I'm going to make a run to the nearest R1 library, where they have at least 2 of the volumes. If I need the others, then I'll have to see if I can get ILL privileges somehow.

Anyway, once I get these corrections made, then I'll feel like I have some breathing room, and I can move on to revising the article and researching the piece for the collection I'm submitting to in September. I also need to somehow make the latter fit into one of the ASECS panels for 2011.

Yeah, I'm kinda hoping that at some point we'll get more than one 6-day vacation in a year.

The ER, Mucus, and Home

Yes, I know...what the heck is up with the title?? Well, Wednesday found my hubby and I taking baby to the Dr. with pink eye. She's also had a horrible cough for more than two weeks, and since it was combined w/a fever, the Dr. was tempted to put her on antibiotics, but didn't. He just wanted us to keep an eye on her-- hello?- like we do this 24 hours a day! That night, we were up 5 times w/a coughing, hacking, choking miserable baby E. Nothing we could do. The next morning found baby E choking on her cough, which caused her to spit up most of her bottle. Cough got worse throughout Thursday, and her breathing started to seem labored and more rapid. Fever of 101.5. At 10:00 p.m., she and I head to the ER at the suggestion of the on-call doctor. After 2 hours of waiting, the ER Dr. examines her, hears her cough, and says "That sounds like RSV." The nurse takes a booger/snot sample and adds, "I'll be shocked if this doesn't come back positive. This just screams RSV." ... Then, they leave. They leave me alone with my child, imagining all the horrible consequences of RSV. I've heard horror stories of babies being constantly in & out of the hospital, on almost weekly breathing treatments, complications that lead to pneumonia.. I finally break down and start crying hot tears right on my baby girl's head as I hold her and rock her, trying to help her get just a few minutes of sleep.

We were there until 1:00 a.m. The results....negative! Those assholes had me freaked out! Note to ER docs & nurses: Don't say s*#t until the tests come back!

Mucus. Baby E & I have lots of it. I had an ear infection that started last week, but my doc is stingy w/antibiotics, so he prescribed them for me, but said not to start them unless I got worse. Yeah...I got worse. By Friday my ears were burning, throbbing, and aching, and my equilibrium was so off that I was getting dizzy when I stood up. The infection spread to my sinuses as well. Needless to say, I started the antibiotics. To make things even better, the ER nurses kindly showed me how to use the bulb syringe (nasal aspirator) on Baby E's throat! Yes, her throat! She coughs up the phlegm, then gets choked up b/c she can't get it out. So, I have to suck it out with the booger sucker by shoving it to the back of her throat and sweeping it across. Can you just guess how much she's freaked out by this??!!

Home. I'm home now.. Not home w/hubby, but home with Mama. Because my oldest daughter had scheduled visitation w/her natural father in neighboring state, and my mom hasn't seen the baby in a month, I packed up BOTH girls (8 yrs. and 4 months) and headed out for the 6-hour drive. Well, it used to be 6 hours. We made it in 7 hours and 20 minutes yesterday. Yes, that's yesterday...after the ER visit until 1:00 a.m.! Me, the girls, and a ton of Spring Breaking college students on the very busy interstate. With my aching ears, a coughing baby, and a human garbage disposal that wants to eat every hour, I made the trip back to my hometown. No better place than Mama's house to convalesce I suppose. And hey, my stepdad is a pharmacist, so that's good :) And, since I'm in town, I can go visit that friend of mine who's in rehab (if she wants to see me, that is). If all this doesn't sound like a helluva Spring Break, I don't know what does.