Forget Me Not Friday

*We had our annual campout under the Christmas tree last night; even mom and Jaycee joined the festivities!  All went well until 6:30 am when Jay woke up screaming.  I put her in her crib and all was well again.

* The kids are bursting with Christmas and Santa excitement.  Sometimes it’s an energy level I have a hard time being patient with.

*These past two weeks have been a very trying time for me as well as my family.  I started getting what I thought was a sty in my right eye (Dec 11^th), and about three days into it, my eye was pretty swollen, more so than it ever has with a sty.  I decided to go to the doctor (Dec 14^th) just to have it checked out.  She agreed that it was just a sty that may have gotten infected so she put me on an antibiotic.  After being on the meds for 24 hours, I could still feel the infection moving into all my lymph nodes down my throat and neck.  I called the doctor back and expressed my concern about the infection spreading and that I had had a staph infection a few years back that was resistant to antibiotics.  She decided to add another antibiotic so I now was taking two.  By Friday afternoon (Dec. 16^th) my eye was swollen shut and very red.  I decided to go to the ER and have it checked out.  My biggest concern was how far had the infection spread?  Was it in my eye or just in the eyelid?  How close to my brain was it getting?  The doctor’s decided to give me an IV antibiotic, changed the oral antibiotic I was taking and sent me home.  They told me if it got worse to come back.  By Saturday (Dec, 17^th), (which was the day Jon was getting back after being gone for two weeks.  He calls me from Los Angeles and says his plane broke and they had to wait for the next available flight out.  Not what I wanted to hear after anxiously awaiting his return) I felt like the swelling had moved over to the bridge of my nose and now my cheek bone area was a little puffy.  After Jon finally made his way back home, he took me back to the ER.  They did a CT scan to make sure the infection was not spreading past my eyelid.  Everything came back as normal as possible on the CT scan.  They changed my antibiotic once again and gave me an appointment to see the eye doctor the next day.  Sunday (Dec. 18^th), Jon took me to the eye doctor.  She did a full eye exam and said that so far the infection was not in my eye, Yeah!!  She recommended that I just be checked into the hospital for another round of IV medication.  We checked in at the ER, again.  The doctor’s got me all set up for another IV.  I was starving, so after the nurse left, Jon left to go get us some dinner.  I was alone for about fifteen minutes.  When Jon got back, I expressed to him how I thought it was weird that they would give me a medication I have never had before and not come back and check on me to make sure I did not have a reaction to it.  As sure as I had finished saying that, I began to itch terribly bad.  Bad enough that I wanted to rip my hair out.   Jon then mentioned how red my neck was.  I pulled up my shirt to find a horrible hives rash all over my stomach area.  I told Jon to hurry and call the nurse back in, I was having a reaction to the medication.  She quickly stopped the IV and gave me a dose of Benadryl which knocked me out cold for about two hours.  They changed my antibiotics again and told me to wait two days and then get in to see my primary care doctor for a follow up.  So I waited the two days.  At this point, things were not getting worse, but there was not one sign of improvement.  I called my doctor and explained all that had happened.  She returned my call later saying that they had already admitted me to the hospital and that I needed to pack my bags.  At this point, I am really nervous that I had MRCA, which is a staph infection that is resistant to antibiotics and so far nothing they had given me was helping.  I had Jon drop me off at the hospital door and got myself admitted.  Once I got upstairs, the nurse put me in a shared room, told me that she would be back to start an IV.  I waited, and waited and waited some more.  After about forty minutes, she came back and told me that they didn’t have any orders for me, no doctor had been assigned to me so therefore she couldn’t even offer me something to eat.  At this point I am in tears.  I am alone, scared that nobody knows why my eye looks the way it does and I have a roommate so I can’t even make a private phone call to cry to someone.  Finally about two hours later, they got things together, moved me to a private room and started the IV line.  I had one more CT scan and a bunch more blood work.  By now it is almost ten pm and they have sent in another eye doctor to check on me.  She was the NICEST person I had encountered so far!  She took one look at me and said you have shingles.  I could have hugged her!!  To finally have an answer and to know that it was not an infection.  Just to be safe, they did give me all the IV medication originally planned for and I spent the night at the hospital.  I have since been back to the eye doctor and my eye itself and eyesight are doing very well.  The worst side effect of shingles is the residual nerve pain that I will experience.  In some cases it heals and sometimes it doesn’t.  The top of my head on the right side is so very tinder to the touch.  The cause of shingles is most likely stress induced…..if I had to pick the cause of stress, it would be my recent calling.  It has given me pure anxiety.  All is well now and I don’t have to be in the hospital for Christmas.

I am so grateful for modern medicine and pain relievers!  I am also grateful to all those who have prayed in my behalf and those that were so willing to help me with my kids during this whole ordeal.

* Sydney drew my name for Christmas this year and she has struggled with what to get me.  She has packed around a little notebook everywhere we go making notes of what to get….chap stick, candy canes and candy where a few of the things she had listed.  At the very bottom of her page in big letters it read: A new eye.  (This was while we were trying to figure out what was wrong with my eye).  Sydney does not know that I have seen this and it brought tears to my eyes.  She has such a loving heart and tender spirit.  The day that I was going to the hospital, she brought me a bag of all her change with a note that said, “I hope this will help pay for the hospital bill.” 

*  Once again, I did not get a Christmas card out this year, but sure have enjoyed the ones we have received from some of our dearest friends and family.  Thank you.  I am looking forward to sharing a great Christmas with my family.  Merry  Christmas to each of you.