sick

The Neti Pot

/ Shane / 2 Comments

I have very small sinuses. Because of this, any cold or illness always, always, always ends up being a sinus issue. Combined with my terrible allergies, I probably spend 25% of my life with some combination of a sinus headache, a stuffed nose, and irritated, watery eyes.

“You should get a neti pot!”, said everybody everywhere all the time. “It’s great! When your sinuses feel bad, you just shoot boiling hot salt water directly into your brain cavity, and then you’ll feel better, because when you’re done you’ll be thinking ‘I might have a sinus headache, but at least I don’t have boiling hot salt water in my brain cavity anymore!'”

Everybody swears by these things, and they sound like a classic case of the cure is worse than the disease to me. Sara has been trying to get me to do this since forever, in fact, just this weekend I had multiple people urging me to try it out next time my allergies were acting up. Just the thought of warm water wooshing around my sinuses makes me want to kill myself. “I would rather die then try a neti pot,” I swore.

The next day I bought a neti pot.

It was only about $12, so Sara talked me into it. IF I was ever going to try one of these torture devices (and that’s a big IF), it would only happen if I happened to have one on hand at the exact minute that I needed it. Otherwise, my sinus-induced moment of weakness would pass, and there’d be no second chance. It turns out, that sinus-induced moment of weakness came sooner than I expected.

The VERY NEXT DAY I came down with some sort of sinus-superflu that got worse and worse throughout the day until I couldn’t take it anymore. I was actually looking forward to using the neti pot when I got home. (that’s how bad it was!)

In short, in the span of two days I went from, “I’d rather die than use a neti pot!” to “lets put a picture of me using the neti pot on the Internet!”

Me: “I can’t believe I’m putting this picture on the Internet.”
Sara: “I know, look at how little hair you have.”

Okay, so the neti pot wasn’t pleasant, but it wasn’t as bad as I feared. It certainly cleaned out a ton of gunk from up there (something you really should be prepared for, like with a kleenex or something, the way I wasn’t). However, it was very salty, went in my mouth and down my shirt, and only lasted for about 5 minutes before my sinuses filled back up again. Was it worth it? I really don’t know. I guess some days I go the entire day without my sinuses clearing a single time, so I guess having them clear for 5 minutes would be a plus. On the other hand, it seemed like a lot of effort and general unpleasantness for only 5 minutes in the clear.

So it might be worth it, however, I’m not sure it would be worth it just to clear out the allergens if my sinuses weren’t completely blocked. I guess it was okay enough that I’ll give it another shot if the situation called for it.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, my sinuses are about to explode.

Plague House

/ Shane / 1 Comment

DO NOT ENTER!

I know it is that time of year, but at the moment we seem to be over our limit as far as infection goes.

We have all been snotty and coughing for quite awhile. Sort of run of the mill stuff, just colds. Starting yesterday, it really took a turn for the worst. Poor Ollie just got hit like a ton of bricks. Double ear infections and conjunctivitis (a.k.a. “pink eye”) in both eyes, on top of the cold he already had. It’s like his whole head just dissolved into a goo. He leaves face prints on everything he touches. It’s less like a sickness and more like being cursed by a gypsy.

I really thought there was nothing sadder than seeing a a little kid with a bad cold, but then I saw Ollie with conjunctivitis. Hoo boy! This morning his eyes had literally swelled shut. At dinner last night, Evie couldn’t stop sobbing just looking at him. “He doesn’t look like Ollie!” she cried. He really did look that bad. We had to keep her from touching his eyes, because she was determined to help him see by manually opening his eyes with her fingers.

If that wasn’t enough, when I went to pick up Evie from school yesterday, it turns out she has an ear infection as well! Keep in mind that I have been feeling terrible on top of all of this. So when I woke up this morning and my left eye was too gummed over to open, I thought, “You’ve got to be kidding me!” At least my conjunctivitis is so far contained to my left eye. I can function on some human level, so I need only look over at Oliver to realize that I really have no right to complain.

Only Sara seems to be untouched. I can only assume she made some kind of deal with the devil for her good fortune. For the rest of us, we’re just trying to keep Evie from catching pink eye.

Tubes Round 2

/ Shane / 2 Comments

On Tuesday, Evie went in for another round of ear tubes. For Sara and I, this wasn’t nearly the proposition it was last time. Aside from the fact that we have been through it once, she was so young the first time that it was very traumatic to think of her going off with these doctors to be put put under the knife (can you believe she was barely older than Oliver is now?). She just seemed so vulnerable. She doesn’t seem that way anymore! This time she took the hospital by storm.

Of course, nothing can go smoothly. In this case, they forgot to put us on the surgery schedule. So we had to show up at 11:30 and wait for an opening, which didn’t come until quarter till 4. For an adult this wouldn’t have been a big deal, but for a kid it’s a little hard to not have anything to eat since 6 p.m. the night before, and nothing to drink since 9:30.

Evie was such a trooper though. There was no complaining, no whining, no bad behavior. She was just so excited and so patient. Evie got a “She looks like Reese Witherspoon” from the doctor this time, not the Shiloh Pitt that she usually gets…I guess she’s maturing? She was cracking everybody up at the hospital: telling jokes, singing, shaking her booty in her surgery outfit singing, “Look at me! Look at me!”, and finally, skipping down the hall to the operating room. I’m guessing that is not the typical response to being stuck in a hospital all day with no food, leading up to knives in your ears. Nobody could believe that she was so excited, so they kept saying things like, “It’s not going to hurt at all…” Why would you say that?? She’s obviously not thinking it’s going to, but now you’re planting the idea in her head. A girl like her is going to pick up on the fact that everybody keeps telling her it’s not going to hurt and start to wonder why they keep reassuring her.

I will give them this, the child-life specialist gave her a really nice blonde haired, blue eyed “buddy” doll, dressed in a gown/hairnet/face mask that was ‘just like her’. It’s a really nice, high quality doll (way better than all the junk they piled on us later, like the plush Donald Duck). Evie took to it right away, and took it to school the next day to show it off. She really cares for this doll, putting her to bed, reassuring her she’s not going to have any more surgery, etc. which is a lot more than I’ve ever seen her care for any of her other “friends”. It’s like they went through a shared experience together or something. I’m sure by next week it will just be one of the endless parade of stuffed animals.

I had a doctor’s appointment at 4, which seemed like it would be no problem when we expected the surgery to be in the morning, and even after, when we were told to come in at 11:30. As it was, I left immediately after she went down, and didn’t get back until she was already awake in recovery. I had to take Oliver with me, because we weren’t sure he was going to be allowed in the recovery room, and if Sara had him we wouldn’t have had any choice (ultimately, he was allowed in).

By the time I got back there, Evie already had them eating out of the palm of her hand. The nurse said when she woke up she just said, “Hello!” I imagine this was a bit unusual based on some other examples I saw in other recovery rooms of people waking up from anesthesia. Of course, at some point she ended up singing the “State Song” for a packed room of nurses (and by the way, go click that video and watch her singing it when she was only 2 1/2…ADORABLE!). Her performance garnered her $5 (which was $3 more than she got singing it at karaoke the other night). The nurses wanted to know what her youtube page was, so there’s the link.

One of the best parts of surgery is that you get a lot of popsicles. Evie was munching away on them in the recovery room, and poor Oliver couldn’t take it anymore! He just started crying until he got a popsicle too. We had brought some food for Evie to eat when she was done. Her special “after-surgery lunch” that she picked out was pretzels and a peanut butter and jelly bagel. However, when she tried to eat it, she got a little sick from the anesthesia. So she had to wait until she got home to eat anything.

So that was it, she slept a lot at home and was back to her old self in the morning, no worse for the wear. Hopefully we’ll get rid of those ear infections this time!

Misc.

/ Shane / 4 Comments

I just have a lot of random miscellany to update on, so here you go, in no particular order:

Some Norwegians came to visit. Meg, I really appreciate the effort you put into keeping in touch with me. I can’t count the number of friends that I’ve regrettably lost contact with since college. And giving me bacon / cheese popcorn doesn’t hurt either (although it wasn’t all that bacony, mostly just tasted like cheese popcorn).

Evie finally learned how to jump on Friday. She’s a little behind schedule on that one, so I was working on it with her. I’d like to think that my excellent advice to “put your feet together, bend your knees, and push with your toes” are what put her over the top. She’s going through a bit of a trying phase at the moment, so, after our initial giggling and hugging fit, the fact that we wanted her to jump again pretty much guaranteed she wouldn’t. She did jump some more on Sunday though.

Everyone was sick, back to back. It took each of us about 4 days to shake it, so we had a rough patch for about 12 days.

American History X, good movie!  Really good! Has anyone seen it? Oh yeah, Sara and I were the last people on earth who hadn’t.

We finally checked out the Harry Potter exhibit at the MSI. It was pretty cool, and well done, but not exactly what I expected. It’s pretty much a tour through a bunch of movie props. Since it was in the museum of SCIENCE and INDUSTRY, I kind of thought it would be like explaining about the special effects, or like “real life invisibility” exhibits or something. Not just, “Here’s the clothes Ron wore in this scene…” Also, our scheduled time was before the museum opened, which was pretty confusing to begin with, but they had a lot of trouble getting people lined up for the right times and stuff. You’d think for the money they’re pulling down, they could have invested in a couple of signs or something. Still, it was fun. I can’t say if it was worth the price of admission or not, since it was free for us.

Football is officially underway, and what better way to start the season than to beat the Bears? And the best part? I get the double win in the morning when I get to ride to work and listen to Chicago sports talk radio rehash the game!

We had fun at the 57th Street Children’s Book Festival over the weekend. Every year that we go, Evie enjoys it a little bit more as she gets old enough to appreciate the events. We listened to a story teller, made a crown, dug for pirate treasure, attended a music class, watched a dance troupe, painted and glued a paper box, and danced to some music (including jumping on some bubble wrap). Side note, Sara said, “Jeeze, there sure are a lot of pirate themed things here.” When will people realize, it is not me who is obsessed with pirates, but rather all rational human beings who are obsessed with pirates when confronted with their awesomeness.

Finally, the other day I opened the back door to discover an enormous spider web over the opening, trapping us inside. Right in the middle of the web, directly at eye level, sat Lillith the spider queen, bigger’n a quarter. I quickly slammed the door shut before she could spray venom in my eyes. Now I ask you, what could that mean with the web directly across the door opening like that, other than this enormous spider was trying to catch humans? Finally I took it out with a broom, shrieking and cursing the whole time. The spider sat for a while on the porch, memorizing my face before slowly sauntering under a potted plant. I could have squished her with the broom (at least so I told myself…that was a big spider) but do I really need the wrath of all the spiders in the world for killing their queen? No sir, I do not. So I let her go and the next day she had spun her human trap over Evie’s chair on the porch. That’s right, I put a little fear into her and she decided to try for smaller prey. Me 1, spider queen 0.

Hand, Foot and Mouth

/ Shane / 3 Comments

Some friends came to visit over the weekend and, unfortunately, Evie wasn’t feeling very well. On Sunday, Evie woke up at 4:15 (Happy Father’s day!) and proceeded to have an absolute fit until maybe 6. It was a doozy and I was very embarrassed to have her behaving as such with company over. It’s one thing for us to wake up at 4:15, but quite another for the entire building to wake up then.

We soon realized she was sick with a cough, a runny nose and a slight fever. She’s pretty much always sick though, so we decided to proceed with our plans anyway. We hit up the Pirate Exhibit at the Field Museum…so maybe it was a successful Father’s Day after all! She had a good time at the museum, but on the way home she was clearly exhausted.

Sara had noticed that she had a rash on her hands and was a little suspicious, but later when Evie fell asleep and Sara took off her socks and shoes to get her into bed easier without waking her up, she confirmed her suspicions when she saw a rash on Evie’s feet. It was not surprising, therefore, when we noticed some sores on Evie’s tongue: she had hand, foot and mouth disease. I will save you from seeing some of the awful results that show up in an image search, but if you’re a glutton for punishment it is quite disgusting.

We confirmed with the doctor that there is really nothing we can do except ride out the virus. Our friends wisely ducked out once it became obvious that “irritability” and “tiredness” (which are more or less the same thing) were actual side effects, not just the idle threats.

So we had a couple of rough days, although she seems like she is on the mend now. She can’t bring her plague to daycare this week, so her grandparents are staying with her.

I feel really bad for her because she was probably as miserable as she has ever been in her short life. One of the things we did to help her feel better was allow her to watch a movie. Now keep in mind this is only the second time we’ve ever let her watch T.V. The first was an Elmo potty video. And you can tell she doesn’t see much T.V. because when the movie started and Tinkerbell came out and painted the Disney logo, Evie said, “That was great!” and jumped down from her seat and made to leave.

The height of movie technology

The height of movie technology

She enjoyed the movie, especially the songs, but she got bored before the end. One of the best parts for me is when she went over to our cat and said, “Nala, I’m watching a movie about you. You’re big now.”

(Note to grandparents, this does not mean she’s allowed to watch T.V. whenever!:) )

Another funny thing that happened this weekend, obviously we were taking her temperature a lot due to her illness and, as usual, she replicates what she sees. Therefore there was a very awkward moment for both Sara and I independently when she pretended to take our temperature…let’s just say we don’t take her temperature orally.

In completely other news, the other night I had a dream that I was in Wisconsin and I got a fine for not having a moustache.