For the record
2010 has come in like a demon, nevermind a lion.
This isn’t meant to be an entertaining post, mostly a record so I don’t forget the details if I need to look them up later. So feel free to ignore.
At the end of 2009, I had a clogged milk duct leading to mastitis and a round of antibiotics which led to some other feminine issues having to do with eating more yogurt and probiotics, if you catch my drift.
Early 2010 saw Coral having some weird issues like puffy, itchy, gunky eyes after playing with a friend’s cat, and it seemed to morph into a cold of some sort. Plus she has a few light red bumps on her back which I forgot to mention to the doctor b/c all her other symptoms seem to have cleared up, and she grabbed my iPod where my list of issues to discuss with the doctor was.
Shortly after Coral got sick, Michael and I came down with something flu-like, perhaps the seasonal flu, perhaps strep. I had it worse than Michael. My symptoms last Sunday were sore throat, exhaustion, chills, aches, fever. The chills, aches, and fever abated (perhaps b/c of ibuprofen I took) and the wicked, unbelievable sore throat remained for 4 days. I could barely eat or swallow saliva to coat my raw, dry throat. A couple days later, my left eye started oozing this gunk, then stopped. Later, my right eye did, too. The oozing has stopped in both eyes, but they’re oddly sore. Also, I thought I felt something going into my lungs and had a few productive coughs, but nothing much else. Only today, Friday, am I able to swallow without noticing too much, though there is definitely still rawness and dryness there, and I feel something at the edge of my ears inside the throat. The exhaustion lasted a few days and went away. My cough developed a couple days ago. It’s an intermittent cough, the kind of tickle cough that gets in the way of speaking.
When I saw my doctor on Tue she said my throat was red but didn’t look bacterial and my body would fight it on its own. I regret not asking for a strep test anyway b/c I found out from a coworker only today that kids under a certain age don’t have developed tonsils and can pass on strep to parents without showing symptoms themselves. Now that I’m recovering, I don’t know if there’s any point to insisting on a test for both of us. If it comes back positive then what–a course of antibiotics for both of us (all of us, actually, since Michael had a mild case of what I had)? I could see doing that to prevent rheumatic fever, but the flip side is unnecessarily taking antibiotics, which you don’t want to do either.
Anyway, here’s everything I took to help deal with the pain:
- lozenges, regular and medicated
- antihistamines
- ibuprofen/acetaminophen
- warm salt water gargle
- teas with honey and lemon, ginger brew
- chloraseptic
- ice cream
- a prescription to keep the coughing down
- vitamins/Emergen-C
- Sambucus black elderberry syrup
- zinc and echinacea sore throat spray
- homeopathic sore throat tablets
Seriously, I tried everything. Say what you will, but the hippie stuff seems to be doing the most good.
It’s been a tough week, trying to work through the sickness (you can take sick time at work, but at a startup that has a release scheduled with you holding up the release, there’s only so much resting you can do) and be a mom. I’m afraid I haven’t been a mom this week. I took Coral to daycare each weekday morning, then worked, from home much of the week, and hid in the bedroom when Michael brought Coral home so I could work. Otherwise, she would want to play with me, which of course I wanted, but couldn’t do since my illness was slowing my brain down enough as it was. I really want to get past this illness and return to being a proper mother. And wife, and employee.
The past couple months is the sickest I’ve been in years and I want it to stop. 2010 better not continue like this!
