Satisfaction. Sort Of.

Obviously I am not happy to be sick. Obviously. It sucks, and it takes a while to be clear of this kind of yuck.

But I cannot deny a certain satisfaction with the diagnosis. It's good to put a name on feeling like hot buckets of raw sewage. It was also particularly satisfying at the doctors office, in a third grade mocking "faaaace!' sort of a way. Too bad I have to have pneumonia to have that sort of "satisfaction."

And I hate to play the weight card, but I have to wonder as I look back on my experience, if I had not had one of those "fat hating" health care providers that I have heard about but never encountered. Really though, there is no telling. I have heard on the occasion that I rub folks wrong, and my daddy says that I do not suffer fools well. Perhaps she was just a lousy nurse, or a nurse having a lousy day. Who knows, but here is what happened:

Nurse calls my name and I walk back to the exam rooms with her. She indicates that I should get on the scales and then ushers me back to the room. Looking back on it now, I realize she has skipped the part where she is supposed to take my temperature. But if I noticed at the time I wouldn't have cared much. I never run a fever... as a matter of fact, my regular temp is exactly 97.5 and has been since my early twenties, so I never worry about it. I get strep and don't burn y'all... I just don't.

She takes my blood pressure and it's a little high. Then she sits down with the lap top to start taking notes.

"So, how long have you had this cold?"

"Oh, it's not a cold. I just started with a wheezing and a gurgling sound in my chest last Saturday, then I started feeling achy, supersensitive skin, and fatigued and sore joints yesterday."

"Ok... so you've had symptoms for five days?" She begins typing in.

"Nooooo.... it's been longer than five days."

She looks up and narrows her eyes, "you started with this cold last Saturday?"

"Yes, that's when it started, but it's not a cold. A cold comes with feeling like I have a cold."

"So five days." Resumes typing.

"Um, isn't today Friday?"

"Yes"

"So how is that five days?"

She holds up her hand like she is explaining math to a four year old.... yet again. "Well, you came down with symptoms on Saturday, so that's Sunday," holds up a finger, "Monday," another finger goes up. She continues counting till she get to six and then grudgingly says, "OK. Six then."

I really should let this drop, but I feel like crap and want to be taken seriously. Besides, why the heck is she trying to minimize my symptoms? Why won't she just listen to what I am saying? "So, if I started with symptoms on Saturday, don't you count Saturday?"

"Yes. I counted Saturday."

"Then that's seven days isn't it?" I watched her count again in her head. Her fingers twitch as she goes.

"Fine. Seven." She isn't even pretending to be nice nursie now.

"Yeah. Seven days. But I felt fine until yesterday."

She tippity taps for a few minutes, and then announces that the Doctor will be in in a minute, and leaves.

Y'all, I felt really sick and a little scared. I wasn't watching closely, so I am not sure what was going on with this woman... it could be that I pissed her off in a personal way. Who knows. But the nurse comes in with the doctor ten minutes later and the doc sits down with the lap top and asks the room in general "OK! What is going on with Mrs Chaos here?"

Nurse pipes up from the corner "she has had a cold for seven days."

I know myself well enough to guess that any "polite face" I may have had until that point is gone. I think she is an idiot and I am pretty sure it shows. "This is NOT a cold. I know what a cold is, this is something different."

More discussion and I am getting frustrated. I start to suspect that the doctor believes his nurse over his patient as he asks yet again if I am having any nasal congestion.

Finally he looks in my ears and down my throat and sees nothing. Listens to my lungs and now he starts to engage a little. "OK, well I am definitely hearing somemedicalterm in your left lung. What was her temperature nurse?"

"Um. I didn't take her temp."

"Please do that now," he snaps.

She jumps and the better part of 102 degrees later the doc is ordering influenza tests and a lung xray. This is the last I see of this nurse, and that's GOOD thing, because her replacement is the one who puts the shot in my caboose, and I am betting that could have gone worse than it did.

And now that I have written this whole post, I see how laughable I am. I am an easy target, and my daddy is sooooo right about me! MWahahahahahahaaaaaaa!

All-Girl-Super-Fun-Dance-Party.

Saturday I got a funny gurgle in my chest, but other than that I felt fine.

Sunday I got a wild hair and decided it would be fun to throw a dance party for the girls, so I took aim at Thursday and we got to planning. We hand made some invitations, got some prizes at the dollar store, some treats, a couple packages of balloons and broke out the Christmas lights. Planning and preparing for the party was really fun, but I always forget how much work goes into the simplest of gigs. So Thursday found LaLa, Pearl, the next door neighbor girl and I blowing up balloons downstairs after morning Kindergarten. We put the final touches on the party but I was starting to feel just a little funky.

I had had a hard time blowing up balloons, and actually had to put the smaller ones aside because I couldn't even get them started. During the party I started to sweat profusely, but I chalked that up to dancing around in the basement with a bunch of sweaty little girls. They tended to dance a little crazy and smack each other around like a good old fashioned mosh pit if not given a little direction.

"NOW let's dance the pogo!" demonstrate.
"NOW let's do the twist!" demonstrate.
"NOW a Congo line!" You get the picture.

Then they took turns picking the style of dance as I jiggled Henry on my hip, and then everyone got a turn doing a solo dance for the admiring crowd. A half an hour after the last girlee left I was barely able to stand. I washed the dishes, and tried to think up a dinner but when Dadguy got home he took one look at the mess that was me, and sent me to bed.

Two x-rays and a couple of shots in the caboose later, turns out I have pneumonia. Dang guys, I HATE pneumonia.

At least it isn't H1N1. I woulda felt all kinds of lousy about throwing an inadvertent Swine Flu party.

Whee!

And Yet Some More Pictures

It appears that all I am good for these days are pictures.

But what lovely pictures they are!

On Labor Day we went with Grandpa and a cousin to a little carnival that was a couple of towns away, and we dropped a small fortune on some rickety looking rides. After wandering through the various stalls of other ways to spend $$ we decided to just go home and make some popcorn and snow cones and get some homemade face painting done. Between the four girls getting butterflies on their faces and treats for their tummies, I am betting we saved more than forty bucks. It was do that or hit the ATM, and I feel comfortable with our choice.

Oh... and treats for the adults! Make that around $50 to $60!

She looks pretty comfortable with our choice too.

To say nothing of being downright, stinkin' CUTE!

The cousin looked great too.... but I don't know how her mama feels about her pic being on the internets... so ya get the Bird! Ta DA!

Last but not least, Tuesday was Pearls first day of her first year of Preschool. She picked this outfit at the store herself, and I think she did great. I think this is the first year I have taken pictures of the kids "first day of school" outfits... what a great way to mark the passage of time. Don't know why it took me so long to start doing it too. Am shmoe.