Daily Adventures

Yesterday it was 60° outside, today there's 10" of snow and the fluffy white stuff is still falling down. DIA is flailing, so folks flying through Colorado are having lots of problems. Jet's school didn't close this morning, but he's still on the mend, so we decided not to let him go to school. He's still got a little fever, and it's better to be safe than to infect a lot of other kids, too; though, given that he succumbed to it after the Kids Night Out, he may well have exposed dozens of other kids that night. Oops.

I'm sick. I definitely have Jet's thing, and it went right for my lungs. I'm now very, very grateful for my asthma medications as I'm breathing with very little trouble. Jet's better. His temperature went down from 102 to about 99, now, and it seems to be stable. He's doing homework and getting things out of the way and really, really, really wants to go out in the snow. I think that would have been unthinkable just a day or so ago, so I think he's definitely on the mend.

So I'm mostly doing the hot liquids and lying down a lot. The last season of Avatar was really, really, really good. Both Jet and I really enjoyed it all at once, really, and it kept our minds off of being sick, so that was really fun.

( Cut for spoilers, but the series is so old.... )

My cold is just... gah. I haven't been able to sleep for the last three nights from between 3 and 6 am, but John let me sleep in late during the day. I was getting up at noon and today I finally forced myself to get up at my usual time just so that I might have a chance of sleeping tonight. I wish my brain would stop.

And the cold is just hitting my whole head, sinuses, eyes, nose, throat, and it's at that thick horrible stage where I just can't seem to breathe. My massage appointment seems to be rushing it along, too. Gah... And best yet, because of my breathing medications, I can't take any aspirin related painkillers and the Tylenol just isn't working on this sinus headache.

Just shoot me.

Does anyone else find it funny or odd that I still managed to write a 3600 word fic because I'd told someone I'd have it to them to beta? I think it's actually not too bad, either.

I tried the expectorant. I tried the drops. I tried the nasal stuff. In desperation I finally tried the asthma emergency inhaler, and that seemed to do something, but then I realized something else was going on.

Since the cold started with an eye infection I hadn't really been thinking of it as an upper respiratory tract infection. Plus, my nose was completely clear, so I never thought to use a decongestant, but I thought a bit around midnight when I was Still Awake and John had been snoring steadily for the last two hours, that I was getting some pretty severe post-nasal drip, so somewhere in there was generating something that was causing the coughs.

So I took two Pseudoephedrine HCL and felt the buzz and then, nearly instantaneously, was able to go to sleep because I stopped coughing, completely. Yeesh. Yay for really studying the cause and effect.

So I feel much better today. It didn't hurt to have the whole staff of senior directors (i.e. the peers of my boss) tell me and the team I'd worked with on this Really Huge Project tell us that we'd done an excellent, active job of managing the thing. Wow. I'm still flying and it's not just the Sudafed.

I have a really sleek bike jersey and spandex shorts for Bike to Work day today. *grin* Jet saw it this morning and said, "Wow, Mom, you look great! The pants are coool, Mom."

Definitely a better day. Thanks for all the support, I appreciated it, folks. Thanks.

At 3:30, while I was in a meeting Seven Oaks left me two messages on my work phone and my celphone that Jet had woken up from his nap with a 103.9 degree temp. Luckily, they then called John and he got Jet from school and took him home and then made a quick appointment with Dr. Turner, our pediatrician. They had space for him, and John took him in. I followed when I got out of my meeting.

Jet was feverish again, John gave him a shot of ibuprofen and by the time they took his temp, it was just 102. Whew.

So Jet has his fever again. The doctor took a thorough look at him, and without any symptom other than the fever, she wasn't quite sure what it was, but it was likely to be Fifth Disease. But the high fever seems unusual in the description... and the doc said that there was likely to be two to three more days of fever. So we treat the symptom, i.e. the fever, by using plenty of ibuprofen on a regular basis (Jet got the fever back after his 6am dose wore out during his nap) for the next few days, and to get ready for the rash.

Hm. This last summer, Jet had that mysterious rash we never quite got a handle on...

Sometimes I think having a child involves so many mysterious illnesses just to make one practice balance of sort... or something...

Anyway. Both John and I stayed home for the evening, and we'll be trading off kid duties tomorrow. My brain is discombobulated because I got a new, very, very fast laptop at work, but it's a clean slate and nearly all the things that I'm used to working with aren't on it, yet, so I'm rebuilding my system, install by install. Bah...

Poor Jet. He has a really high fever. He had one last night, and woke up an hour after he went to sleep, and he came out to see us watching TV downstairs and he grinned at us sheepishly, "I thought the Light was Up."

But then the fever and headache caught up to him and he was whimpering, even after John gave him his ibuprofen and decongestant and cuddling, and John got him back into bed and then cuddled with him and Jet mumbled something at John and it turned out to be "Thank you." between whimpers. When Jet was finally warm, he quieted down, and the drugs kicked in and he was better.

Then he said, "SAVE THAT!" started and said, "That was a dream. Heh." and went back to sleep.

He was up once with me at 2 and then was up, for good, at 5. He went to school to do the Valentine's Day party, with a dose of ibuprofen, and I went and picked him up at 11:30, before the party.

We got a few things at the grocery store for John as he and Jet had bought me a nice card and a sack full of Reese' peanut butter cup hearts. I like it when they just get me something little, so no guilt but still remembered. We bought John a card and some yellow roses with red edges. Pretty and they smell nice and we'll all enjoy them.

By the time we got home Jet was shaking. I dosed him, put warmer clothes on him, and then tucked him into the couch with a thick, heavy blanket on him, and he gradually warmed up and watched The Incredibles simply to watch it. Then he sat in my lap and ate a big lunch, which also smoothed him out some and then he wanted to go to a friends' to play; but he's really sick, so I just tempted him with Tom and Jerry and he's content again, to just rest and drink a lot of strawberry milk. He gets comfort from that and the vitamins aren't bad, either.

He seems to be doing okay, and I'm now going to just dose him with the ibuprofen BEFORE he gets "a headache" that should help keep it in check. Doc says not to worry unless he has the fever for three days, so I won't. Work is crazy, but I can actually get a ton more done at home, which is a very good thing. I made my home station a bit more ergonomic so my forearms through my hands aren't killing me anymore, and I have a corporate massage setup for Thursday, so I'll at least last the week. I found out, though, that I have to be at a meeting that'll collide with my usual maintenance massage, so I'm going to have to get that rescheduled. Grumph.

We've all made it to Sandy Eggo in relatively one piece. Jet's sick. I'm sick. John's fine. The flight was fine, Jet's a trooper on the shuttle and plane and over to the flight. He got a lot of amused looks as he dragged his rolling luggage through the airport.

One point of pride for Jet was that he packed nearly 90% of his stuff. He did a great job of it, getting the right number of nearly everything, and putting it all in his suitcase. He even stashed toys, games, and drawing material in "secret compartments" all over his bag. We were very proud of him.

I spent today with John and we went to Pacific Beach and hit the Zanzibar Cafe on a friend's recommendation, and it was very good. The espresso mochas were silky and spicy Mexican chocolate based instead of cocoa syrup based and were hot and excellent. It's amazing how hot drinks can be and be kept at sea level rather than at altitude. We walked the beach, breathing the ocean air. Wow.

I miss the Pacific, badly. The big waves, the feeling of the ocean feeding the land, bringing on the weather, and air. The sunsets over the water. I miss the scent and the motion and just sitting for minute at a time and watching the waves roll in. Since I was sick, John was very nice about letting me just sit on the concrete benches and watch the water roll in. Dad said that merely weeks ago the rollers were 20 feet tall. My.

Anyway... we then heard much cheering from several sports bars at one intersection. It was funny to hear a concerted noise from so mnay seperate establishments, but it's playoffs, and the Colts made the last five minutes of the game something to remember. Yeesh.

We hit In and Out after the game was over, and then toddled over to La Jolla for coffee at the Pannikin. I also got paper tea bags as Mom and Dad don't have anything to actually stain tea, and I've gotten used to drinking it without the leaves. The stick was a bonus, as I had bags with holes in them at home, free from the Tea House, and hadn't quite known how to use them. I was used to the foldover top.

Home again and I went down for a two hour nap, and when I got up, Jet was napping on John, they'd played for a while, and were watching the second game. So Jet fell asleep on a sleeping John, and they had their nap as well. Jet's still coughing, and he had a rough night, so we were all short on sleep. Ugh...

It's good to be on vacation. It sucks to be sick. But so it is, I'll enjoy being able to recover quietly.