Still Not Pneumonia

We went back to the doctor with John today, because even without any of the narcotic meds, he is too loopy to drive while sick. We have the "Not Pneumonia" diagnosis, and at the moment it's looking as if what he's got is a viscous sinus infection with bronchitis. He's on leviathan, er, some antibiotic that starts with an "L". And on nine days of steroids to cut down the assorted inflammation. And still on albuterol and heavy duty cough syrup.

He's been told not to go back to work this week. Work has also been told. And to do as little as possible at home, and rest. John's definition of this and the doctor's probably don't match, but he is at least doing less than he normally would.

If this antibiotic doesn't kick the whole thing, the next step is a cat scan of his sinuses and hospital for IV antibiotics. NOTE he is not in the hospital currently, nor is any one planning to hospitalize him at this point.

Wash, rinse, repeat: WTF

So it's Monday, John's better, back to work...

Oops, once he's at work he discovers he's not so much better. Work kept an eye on him, and eventually, after 12 (when I was finally free to go get him) he felt up to driving, stopped off for a second chest X-ray, (no word yet on the continued chance of pneumonia), and is now sacked out sleeping on the couch with a cat keeping his knees warm.

I still don't know what's up with the whole illness. Pneumonia is on the top of my list, but as a non-medical person, I don't know all the other fun choices. I did learn this week that Wilma appears to think we'd have John hospitalized and simply not bother to tell her. Ah well. I'll keep that in mind, but since she never wants it know when she's hospitalized, I guess she figures everyone else is the same.

We heard that John's sister is staying in the hospital extra time after her triple bypass. At the rate we're crawling along here we might manage to send a "thinking of you get well soon" sort of card by the time she's finally home. Maybe. If the three of us can manage to get healthy in the first place.

I need to put a note up on his Chocolate Alchemy page saying that he's sick and his order shipping is slow, or delayed or something.

For today I am functional -- cooking, putting things away, speculating on sorting some more wool. The exhaustion catches up unexpectedly though. Logan is napping, and was very agreeable about coming straight home to pick up or check on Papa, and even helped me unload the car. Which makes me suspect she's feeling a little extra tired too. She finished her antibiotics yesterday, John and I continue ours for a few more days.

In addition to only having worked (in theory) a half day today, John has doctors orders to stay home three days, resting. And work has gotten the hint, I think from having him there and still of no use, and encouraged him to stay home for a change. After today's stuff, I'm really thinking that if Logan's going to go to school in Eugene, John should be looking for work in Eugene, so at least we could all be in one car and one city - since there appears to be no option of us having outside support when someone gets sick. It's around 100 miles from Logan's school to John's work, which he drove each way, more than one day when I was sick. And which I expected to drive today after my morning of checking in on him by phone, talking to the doctor's office, talking to his co workers, etc. I'm still not thrilled that he drove himself home. As friendly as the folks at his current job are, this lack of support for anyone in the family being sick is for the birds.

Not Pneumonia, yet

We hauled John back to the doctor today. Logan and I are both doing better on antibiotics - we'll try her back to school tomorrow, if she and I can get up and get out of the house decently. I'm an only exhausted, while she is *bounce, bounce, bounce, nap* unpredictably tired. John's fever and chills continued through the weekend, despite antibiotics. His cough didn't change with the narcotic cough syrup. So back we went, I was expecting them to say "pneumonia".

Evidently, he's just still skating on the edge of it. They went as far as a chest x-ray today, because he couldn't breathe deeply enough for the doctor to listen to all of his lungs. One had "a little cloudiness", but no discernable signs of pneumonia. So we left with a change of his antibiotics, the addition of vicodin pills to his vicodin cough syrup, and an albuterol puffer, similar to what Logan and I have for extreme coughing.

One thing is every four hours. Another is ever six. Two of them are every 12. And then there's Tylenol and ibuprofen too. At the moment I'm keeping track on the little electronic brain, cause there are too many details to manage otherwise.

And, just in case John wasn't sick enough, we found a message on our voice mail from his work - which knew as of this morning that I thought he might have pneumonia, and then heard from him later that he couldn't manage to get in -- he was dizzy and nauseated and shaky just walking from the doctors back to the car for petes sake, -- that work really needs him in to do things tomorrow. Well, if he could drive. And if he could be there without puking or passing out. Somehow, I'm thinking the doctor's direction to rest for the next few days at home doesn't extend to going to work. I'm relieved John's not in the hospital, so far. He can't walk across the room with out feeling miserable.


We also had a message from John's mom that one of his sisters is having a triple bypass tomorrow. Think a good thought for Gloria folks, she could use it.

Sick Kid, part two

Not posting try two. Logan's had one day officially healthy, and is home sick again today. I don't think it's the back to school too soon problem. She and I stayed home Monday, and she felt fine, ran no fever, ate decently, etc. So we went to school Tuesday. Then last night she woke up coughing with an ear ache. Cough medicine took care of that enough that she could sleep. This morning she woke up for school, announced she was dizzy and her ear still hurt, and that she wanted to go back to bed, not to school.

Since then, she's slept. Had a little Gatorade. Slept some more. Ran a low fever. Slept. I sort of dreading getting her to bed tonight, but if a day of sleep will knock out an ear infection, I'll be thrilled. Otherwise we'll go see her doctor tomorrow.

In some ways its been a quiet few days at home. And by being at school yesterday I got to go to my usual Tuesday second grade knitting class, which I hugely enjoy. All the grades have handwork classes a couple of days a week, and I volunteer for the second grade one, going two days a week with the teachers. I know, maybe half the class, by name, and the others by sight even when I can't remember their names. And I get to be cool by carrying a pocket knife (gotta sharpen my knife) instead of scissors or a yarn cutter to trim threads.

Now if my quiet days at home didn't just come with my own cough and exhaustion and disrupted sleep!

And for Twelfth Night...

Logan is sick. Which may help to explain the extra grumpy factor that showed up Thursday and Friday. At about half past twelve last night, she woke up throwing up. Since then we've proceeded to sleeping, coughing, sleeping, running a solid fever, sleeping and throwing up. John is the parent on duty for the moment, since I was from 4:something until about noon. Logan's preference is to have company when she's feeling this bad. So she slept snuggled up to or on top of me. I managed to doze from 6 to 12 this morning, again, off and on, in between hearing vague updates from John on the rest of the house.

So far, we're missing a birthday part for someone in Logan's class that we'd planned to go to today. We were going to celebrate Twelfth Night with Andrea and Bob, kids and dog tomorrow, and that's still up in the air. Eventually we'll make connections with Andrea and see how she wants to handle it.

Yes we're pushing fluids, as we can. 2/3 of the time they stay down. No I haven't checked her temperature with a thermometer. There wasn't one in reach of where Logan was sleeping on me. I'll get to that eventually today I think. So far John and I don't have this, although I am still fighting off, or not, round two of the upper respiratory thing I've already had one round of antibiotics for since christmas.

2006

Following John's mom's advice about doing on new years day what you hope to do the rest of the year, I am dutifully posting here in hopes that I'll remember to do so more regularly. We have black eyed peas cooked and corn bread started thanks to John, plus a pumpkin pie to eat.

Everyone's talked to their mother today. Some of us more non-stop than others, although thankfully Logan is back to amusing herself in a bath now. John started the work of digging and replanting some of the many bulbs and flowering plants that have been close to the house, where foundation or at least fencing to keep critters out should go. We folded laundry. John cooked good food. I managed to make Logan her own pot of tea without setting myself on fire (really, it's not always a problem, it just seems like it sometimes,) all in all it's been a reasonably normal day.

We had impressive flooding down at the creek on Friday, but the water hasn't gone beyond the banks again when I can get a picture of it. We all walked out yesterday and worked a little more on the water flow paths on our newly corrected driveway, and packed some of the new rock on the bottom third of it better in to place. With some close attention over the next few rainy days, we hope to have water paths firmly established to run beside the driveway instead of down the center of it. Four loads of rock only repaired the bottom part, but that was where the worse erosion and pot holes were. Logan participated in the driveway work, and also enlarged or re-dug some ground squirrel holes.

I've taken almost a week's worth of antibiotics trying to get rid of my holiday sinus infection - it's backed off some, but I'm not really sure whether it's gone or just hiding out. We'll see how things go over the next week or so. John is also still at a low energy level without the antibiotics, although Logan, as always, bounced back just fine.