Monday, April 21, 2008

What kind of illness is that?

Rich got the flu and he was generous enough to share it with me.I'm not sure I really meant it when I agreed to love him in sickness and in health. I ended up missing 4 days of work last week!

Other than being out on maternity leave 10 years ago and recovering after my attack of pancreatitis 2 1/2 years ago,I have never missed 4 days of work in one week in the 17 years that I've been at my job. I was very tired and my throat and ears hurt. The nurse put me on amoxicillin and said to rest. I couldn't stop sleeping. Every time I woke up I wanted to go back to sleep.

I finally felt better for the first time on Saturday and I'm getting better every day. I actually slept late this morning and then started cleaning. Of course since I cleaned so much I took a 2 hour nap in the late afternoon but at least I'll be ready for work on Wednesday. I have today and tomorrow off because Lillianna is on vacation.

I was so surprised how knocked out I felt. The last time I was this sick was the winter of 1987 when I lived in Israel. My temperature was 103 which is extremely high for me because I almost never go above 99 no matter how sick I am. I may have other symptoms but I rarely run a fever.

I was too sick to even drag my body to see the nurses on the kibbutz so one of my friends went to tell them what my symptoms were.My friend came back with blue Acamol which is the equivalent of Tylenol with Codeine. I loved those blue pills back then. The nurses thought Acamol could cure anything and I guess it kind of did.

So when she gave me the pills she said that the nurse told her I had INFLUENZA!
My mouth dropped open. "Influenza????" I croaked in my raspy voice. "Don't people die from Influenza?" I kept thinking it was the Bubonic plague even though I wasn't actually sure what that entailed.

I kept repeating the dreaded disease to try to make sense of my diagnosis,"Influenza......Influenza.....Influenza...." Then it finally hit me and I asked,"Oh....do you mean I have The Flu?" My friend who was from England and probably knew what the hell Influenza was and wondered why I was going insane just nodded. Phew! I was relieved to learn that I would survive this illness.

So....that was my last big illness......21 years ago....that is until last week. I hate being sick but at least I was told I had a virus and not something like Scurvy 'cuz that would really make me crazy.

Friday, April 11, 2008

Wanna look thinner?.....buy this shirt!

I was looking in Wal-Mart for a couple of somewhat dressy tops to wear to the temple on Saturday morning services. Everything in the plus size section was for old ladies and women who wanted to look pregnant. I am not in either category.

I passed by a display of striped shirts. The tag on the shirts read,"This will make you look instantly thinner." I took a good look at the shirt and I figured out their thin secret. The stripes are so swirly,just looking at them made me dizzy and I had to look away. I started to squint to make the pain in my head go away. The shirts were blinding. Of course I'd look thinner in it. Who could look at me? It's like looking at the sun! I had to shield my eyes.

If someone tried to look at me it would be impossible for them to keep their eyes open. I'd be Twiggy in the swirly striped shirt! What a great sneaky technique. Blind them with stripes!! Maybe I'll just paint over my old shirts and attach neon letters. I'll be so thin then!

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Chest pains

I had some chest pain and tingling down my left arm on Tuesday and it worried me. Since my hospitalization in 2005,every time I have some weird symptom I think this is the end. I was considering calling my pcp and canceling my hair appt to go see her but then the pain went away and I figured I'd be ok.

The pain had been happening all that day in work off and on and of course I don't want to die yet but denial is a fun place to be at times. So as I sat in the chair with color on my head,the pain and tingling returned. I called my pcp's office and was told she was on vacation. This was at 4:30pm and I wanted to get in before they closed although the color was still on my head! The secretary told me to call 911 and go to the hospital. I didn't want to do that.

When my hair was finished,my hairdresser Karen massaged some cream on my arm and back because I could feel a knot in my arm. Then she told me that my left shoulder was swollen. (I had my scrubs on so my shoulders were kind of poking out in the back and she could see the swelling.) I went home with Lillianna,had dinner and tried to ignore the symptoms that I figured were a pinched nerve or stress related.

Yesterday morning,Rich stayed home and took me to the doctor. I saw Allison who is a nurse that I have seen many times. I really like her. She said my back had knots and was really tight on the left side. She saw the swelling too. Before she came in the tingling had gone up the left side of my neck,face and head. I thought I was having a stroke.

Luckily it's all related to the muscles which is causing these problems. I'm on a muscle relaxer and I have to heat my back during the day. She told me to take yesterday and today off and I can go back tomorrow. I do feel much better today. The tingling is gone but the back pain is still there.

I have parent/teacher conferences at 2pm today and lunch with Lil and friends at 11:30am (early dismissal)so I didn't take the Flexoril. I need to drive and talk coherently and the Flexoril causes me to be tired and to sound drunk. I'll take a pill tonight!

As I was leaving I said to Allison,"Well....I'm glad I'm not dying!"
She smiled at me and said,"Not today."
For me....that was the best news I could've heard!

Monday, April 07, 2008

Clutter.....BE GONE!

My bedroom was depressing me. We don't have any storage space in this apartment so it always seems cluttered.

I have a beautiful collections of fairies on my bureau that I haven't seen for months. Every now and then I get a glimpse of a glittery fairy wing but they're basically buried under a thousand little papers,stray socks,bills and layers and layers of dust. Just typing the word made me sneeze!

Due to a car problem this morning I ended up not going in to work. The car is fine now but I took it as a sign that I was meant to find meaning in the chaos of my bedroom and clean it all up! That's just what I did.

Except for a small messy space,this room is 95% better than it was this morning. I love it!! My lovely fairies are all displayed on my bureau without dust weighing them down. I have always gotten such joy from looking at my fairies and now I can do it again.

Some time last year I created a meditation area on the night stand next to my side of the bed. I took everything off of it and draped my sheer pink scarf from my matron of honor dress from Kara's wedding across the top. I placed about 10 or 15 things that brought me joy on the table: A large green candle with an "R" on it that Kara gave me, little porcelain hands that are cupped and hold tiny stones, the baobab tree that Liane gave me which reminds us of The Little Prince, a book on friendship from Liane (in case you can't tell,Liane is my very best friend in the world!), a flat stone that Lillianna painted purple for me and so on.

Over the past few months,the objects have disappeared under clutter. Today,they reappeared!!! My room is still a bit dusty but it's so much less cluttered and I can enjoy it again! Sometimes,I just have to realize I'm worth the effort!!

Thursday, April 03, 2008

What's cookin'?.......

......Rainbow chip cookies....that's what!

Today I am picking up Carly and Sarah from school since the girls have an extra Girl Scout meeting this week. Usually I'm at work until 4:30pm but I took the day off to go to school and view the puberty movie with 9 other moms. The 4th and 5th grade girls will be seeing it next week.

Since I knew I would be home all day I called Carly and Sarah's mom last week and asked if I could pick the girls up and then take them to their meeting. Usually Lillianna goes home on the bus with the girls and then Carly's mom drives them to the meeting. I pick up Lil and Carly after the meeting and Sarah is always off to soccer.

We only have about one hour at home after school before we have to leave but I wanted to have a yummy snack ready for them. They all love these cookies. I'm sure they'll be surprised.

Tuesday, April 01, 2008

Friday night dinner

Lillianna and I went to Hebrew school last night and as always,we loved it. The temple has Shabbat services every Saturday morning and the first Friday of every month. This Friday there is a dinner after the services. I told Lillianna that I thought we should go Friday night and also on Saturday morning. She said okay although she wasn't thrilled because she is just learning to read Hebrew and she can't follow along in the prayer book.

I asked Seth,the cantor,if I could take home a prayer book to translate the prayers for Lillianna. He said to take it for as long as I needed it.
Seth had made a cd for Lillianna's friend Lauren and I made a copy of it. It has the whole service on it so that I could learn the tunes that they use. My temple used some different tunes so even though I know the words,the tune is unfamiliar to me.

Tonight,with the cd playing in the background,I wrote the transliteration for the prayers. For example our most important prayer is called The Sh'mah and I wrote it like this:

Sh'mah yisrael
Adonai elohaynoo
Adonai echad

That way,Lillianna can still sing along with us in Hebrew. It took me over an hour to type it all up and I still have 3 more to do before Friday but I think she's going to like services more now that she can participate.

I am so glad we are joining this temple in September. The people are just wonderful.