Six hours from now I'll be leaving work with the long winter break stretching out in front of me! I'm not overly excited about the holidays this year, but the break is sorely needed. I don't go back to work until January 6th.
Thank you to everyone who commented on yesterday's post for your kindness. It was a terrible weekend. Yesterday once I got the diarrhea under control, I had terrible body aches for a few hours, then those subsided too. I was feeling a little better by last night, but even so, I decided not to take a chance on work today. I got in touch with my principal around 5:30 to let her know that I wouldn't be in today. I hate missing work (which is why I have around 50 unused sick days with more accruing every month) but when I've been really sick like this, I try not to feel guilty about it.
This morning in the early wee hours before dawn I woke up drenched in sweat, twice. Then when I really woke up and got up around 7:30 I felt much, much better. Maybe I was sweating out the last of it. I sure hope so.
There's a bright side to all this, though. I lost 5 pounds! Haha!
But seriously, though, I've been actively trying to lose weight since May or June. I managed to lose 35 pounds by August, then couldn't seem to lose any more. Considering that I've had to take prednisone and antibiotics three or four times this year, a nurse recently told me that I've done really well to maintain the loss and not regain. I know she's right, but it's still frustrating to do all the right things week after week and the scale doesn't budge. Now thanks to this nasty little virus, I've finally hit the 40-pound loss mark! That feels like a win, finally.
Maybe I'll even get lucky, and this virus will have served as a good purge and reset. It certainly felt like one!
I left work early on Friday, having been suddenly taken down by nausea, an upset stomach, and body aches. I was so afraid that I'd caught the horrible stomach virus spreading through the school, and unfortunately that seems to be exactly what's happened.
Since late last night I've had the worst diarrhea of my life. I didn't know it was possible to have diarrhea like this. I'll bet I've had to run to the bathroom at least 20 times (probably more) and I just can't seem to stop. Gregg went out first thing this morning and picked up Imodium AD and Gatorade for me. It's only been about 30 minutes since I took the medicine and I've had to go 3 times since then. God, I hope it works soon. I can't stand much more of this. Plus I'm exhausted and my bottom is raw and feels like it's on fire. (Sorry if that's tmi)
I tried so hard at work to avoid catching this. Lots of hand washing, isolating in my office, etc...but it still got me.
I'm absolutely miserable. I suppose I can thank all those germy little kids for this.
This year the district gave us this whole week off for Thanksgiving instead of the usual three days. Everyone was super excited about it, especially folks who travel over the holiday. I imagine people who do lots of cooking/hosting will be grateful for the extra time, too.
We won't be doing any traveling this year (not that we ever do). We're in the process of preparing to paint the remodeled room, and so the meal I cook for the two of us tomorrow will be small and relatively simple. I picked up three large turkey breasts for the freezer last week--they were such a good price that I couldn't resist--and I'll cook one of them for the holiday, and the other two will be handy to have around later in the winter.
Gregg had three separate oncology appointments yesterday. He's going to be doing four or five radiation treatments sometime within the next few weeks, probably before Christmas. There's a small and (very) slowly growing mass in his lung and the doctors all agree that it shouldn't be ignored. His PET scan came back clear, thank goodness, although there was a slight bit of heightened activity around the spot. They can't do a biopsy, since that poses some risks when you only have one lung, so they've decided to treat it as if it's malignant and proceed from there. They're all confident that a few radiation treatments will eliminate any potential future problems. I'm really, really grateful that the doctors are being so proactive in taking care of him.
Radiation will be a new experience. The last time, it was surgery and chemotherapy, chemotherapy that he did not tolerate well at all. The first thing he said about this treatment plan was, "At least I don't have to do chemo this time." It should be over relatively quickly, and fatigue and skin irritation are the only major side effects they expect. But then, get this: the radiology oncologist Gregg met with said that occasionally a broken rib is a side effect of lung radiation.
A BROKEN RIB, Y'ALL.
Hopefully, that won't happen. And the doctor assures him it isn't all that common and they have good pain relief available if it does. But still!
Thank goodness the treatments should be done by January, and we can leave this episode behind as just one more shitty thing that happened in 2024. I'm really hoping for a better 2025.
Last week I got an email from Little P.'s mom that she knew would make me smile. Little P. had created a Google slides presentation (haha) of his Christmas wish list and shared it with her. She forwarded it to me because she knew I'd get a kick out of it.
Little P.'s Christmas List 2024
All pretty normal asks from an 11-year-old boy, but it was the last slide that made me laugh out loud.
It's always good to find a seed catalog waiting in the mailbox! Today I got the first one of 2025. Time to start planning next summer's garden...
