33 is looking a lot like 32 and 31 and 30....

I spent my 33rd birthday getting shot in the ass by a not so attractive, even if I was into female, nurse.  My doctor exclaimed in semi physician humor that this was the "third...oh wait...2007, 2008, 2009...it is 2010 now...huh...well then scratch third and make that fourth year in a row I have seen you on or within days of your birthday?" 

Thanks for the history lesson Rain Man...that was positively shocking.

So I started my day being pronounced as having bronchitis and in need of two...not one...two, because well it's my Birthday and apparently the universe hates me...and it probably isn't nice of a patient to look at their doctor as if they are speaking a foreign language when they are "attempting" doctor patient humor...so I got two shots in the rear.  The trip wasn't all bad though.  My good friend "Plus2" was kind enough to cart my sick ass to the doctors office because sadly I couldn't turn my neck.  What is that you say?  Did you think you may have read that wrong?  Well, you didn't....by now....even if you have only been reading this blog since I started it on here and don't personally know me, you should know this one true and simple fact...IT IS PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE FOR ME TO JUST GET A NORMAL FUCKING ILLNESS!

I'm pretty sure that I had H1N1 before it was actually given a name.  Some people get a cold.  Me I end up with pneumonia, but not just that I end up with a bacterial inflamation that spreads into the joints and muscles in my chest and then begins to attack my heart.  Do you see how this works?

Yep, just a mere 9 hours into my new age and I had become arthritic and contagious.  What a fucking gift?

But my friend...my Driving Mrs. Sick Ass companion...she made me laugh.  Hell, she ALWAYS finds a way to make me laugh.  She offered to get me ice cream since I was a "good patient" but seeing as it was barely 10am I figured ice cream would be hard to come by.  Strangely enough if I had wanted an alcoholic beverage of some sort, like a daquiri per say, I could have gotten that...but ice cream?  Yeah...that wasn't gonna be happening.  I settled instead for a slushy (for my aching throat) and some breakfast so I could choke down the horse pill of an anti-biotic that he prescribed. 

Oh yes...my day was gonna be pure joy...I could just feel it.  I could feel it aching in my ass.  Yep, right there stinging and burning like acid shot into my deriere is where I could feel it.  Man, those shots, while they didn't hurt when she did them, happened to have a delayed release of pain that hit just as we were making our way out of the office and into the car.  I just kept laughing and almost crying saying "God damn....my ass, my ass is killing me".  Then I'd begin to hack because my throat was also in serious pain which would cause some hideous tickle which then led to fits of epileptic coughing. 

I paint such a pretty picture.

After I was able to recompose myself from these fits I would fall into a contstant stream of saying I'm sorry over and over again as I mentally pictured her going home and lysoling the entire interior of her car and possibly giving herself a Silkwood scrub.

Friends will tell you to get better when you are sick.  Good friends will call to check on you.  Great friends will drive you to the doctors and help you get your medicine.  Kick ass friends will do all of the above and smile at you while you hack what is sure to be some kind of bio hazard all over their vehicle.

This friend...she falls squarely in the latter.

I looked and sounded like death warmed over, but with the exception of when I had to breathe deeply, swallow, cough or attempt to move my neck I felt fantastic.


By the time we pulled back into my driveway I was exhausted from the escapade of the morning.  I made my way in to the house, scooped up Penny and then realized what a retarded idea that was seeing as I was holding food and this dog is clearly a fiend of anything that doesn't have the words dog or kibble in it.  It was like a Wimbledon match where I moved food from one hand to the other trying to keep it out of her line of snout grabbing.  Her head would dart from left to right and back in a twisted attempt to get something.  Anything.  Finally when I was down to my last bite I tore off a piece of the toast and fed it to her.  She scarfed it up and then looked at me like, "you bitch...that's ALL...that is ALL I get....oh yeah, yawn...go to sleep.  I am so taking a dump on your head when you reach the REM state".

I mean that might not be a literal translation of what was going on in her little doggy mind but I think it's a pretty good rendering.

I'd like to say that I slept well but truth be told I just kept rolling around opening my eyes every so often to make sure she wasn't positioning her butt just right to take perfect aim.  I mean I know I have been shit on in the past few years, but that was in emotional terms.  This would really stink.  And I meant that pun.

Thankfully she held her bowels.  I think she can sense the cold weather coming and figures she can't be too sure that I won't stick her boney ass out in the cold as punishment for that infraction.  She's shit on me in the past but I let it slide because she was sick or just come off her death bed.  Just deciding to dump on me because I wouldn't share my tots....well that is grounds for emotional torture of the highest degree.

I'm hopeful that with my shots and goody bag full of medicine that I will be back to fighting form in time to go get my belated Birthday drank on with my girlfriends.  I may have hit a hiccup as I turned the page from 32 to 33, but I'm not going to allow it to be a continuing trend. 

Oh and hear me now, if by some cruel twist of fate I end up sick AGAIN next year, at...on...or around my birthday, ummmm, I'm not going to the doctors.  No way.  No how.  The cycle stops here at 33.

~JP

P.S. And to ALL of my wonderful friends, readers and FB friends...thank you sooooo much for the Birthday love and well wishes.  That was one thing that made this year significantly different than the last few.

P.P.S.  To my "T" and my "D"...you are two of the three best friends that anyone could ever have...that anyone could ever have...that anyone could ever have."

And the countdown to 10...continues...Part 3

Part 3: This is where you stop mocking me and start doing WHATEVER IT IS I ASK OF YOU!

I really hate hospitals.  But if you had to be laid up in one for a long period of time...this one was pretty damn good.  They had fabulous ice.  I'm a self professed connoisseur of crushed ice.  On my list of "best ice EVER" this place was towards the top trailing only mildly behind The Great American Cookie Company (back in it's heyday at Clearwater Mall).  Another perk was the fact that they would make me grilled cheese with bacon for like every possible meal and they never frowned at Jon for bringing in Chic-fil-A or Marble Slab ice cream.  Even when it was well after visiting hours.

My secret suspiscion is that he bribed them in the hallway with treats but as long as I got what I was craving in the end I could give a rats ass if he was actually performing sexual favors out there.  When you're pregnant pure rational flies out the window in the face of meeting the demonic voice of satisfying whatever it is that your body wants at that precise moment only to be dissappointed 3 seconds later because now you have what you thought you wanted but your mood has changed, thus perpetuating the vicious hormonal cycle.  

Before having to be whisked off to the hospital for being in a "beautiful contracting pattern...shamefully at the completely wrong time" I was plagued by horrible cravings.  The only thing worse than my cravings was the unbelievable sickness I had.  It wasn't morning sickness.  It was 24/7 sickness.  This was NOT how I was when I was pregnant with Olivia.  I had the textbook first trimester morning sickness that would shut off at exactly 12p on the dot and once I hit the second trimester I never had issue with it again.

Not the case this time.  I would wake up nauseated and start vomitting once my feet hit the floor.  I slept with a bowl by the bed.  It was horrid.  And it didn't let up throughout the day and into the night.  Usually the last thing I did before going to bed at night was throw up.  It was magical.  Jon thought he had impregnated the exorcist.  Minus the spinning head...it was kinda true.

I would be throwing up and crying.  Then 10 seconds later I would be begging him to get me whatever it was that I was demonically craving.  It wasn't ever anything unusual.  The biggest thing was Chic-fil-A nuggets with boat loads of pollynesian sauce.  So much so that the people at our local Chic-fil-A knew him by face and would just put it into a separate bag.  Sheepishly asking, "is this enough" as if for some reason if he returned with an improper amount he may be harmed and it would be ALL their fault.  Let it never be said that those people aren't smart.

Every once in awhile he would get some zit faced punk of a teenager that would try to give him a hard time and he would be forced to say, "my wife is pregnant and if you don't give me a shit load of that sauce she may infact kill me for putting her in this state of utter misery therefore you will have blood on your hands you little fuck"...or at least that is how I imagined the speech going.  He always came home with the sauce.  Thank god.  I was too tired from throwing up to actually have to physically harm him for forgetting it.

As soon as I would start to eat I would begin to feel sick.  Again.  And then I would spend the next 30 minutes negotiating with my body in something reminiscent of the movie "The Negotiator" to just keep the food down.  I was all Kevin Spacey to my body's Samuel L. Jackson.  Finally Jon got so tired of this routine... me crying for something...getting it and taking a few bits...then crying because I was now throwing up the very thing that I had craved and begged for.  His suggestion to end this problem was instead of continuing the madness he should just take money out of his wallet and flush it down the toilet.  He said that way he wouldn't have to leave the house, drive to wherever, pick up the food, bring it home, watch me take a few bites and then have to listen to me throw it all up.  He felt it was only logic.  I did not find this funny.  He however thought it was downright brilliant and somewhat hysterical.  I punished him by making him go and get me ice cream because that is what I wanted right then.  Stupid man.

I was well into my seventh month and "morning" sickness was still a very active participant in my day.  While in the hospital the nurses tried to make me feel better saying that every pregnancy was different.  I took little comfort in that while I was heaving my guts.

Every day spent in the hospital was a roller coaster of emotions.  I felt helpless because I had another child that needed her mother.  You begin to feel torn between doing everything in your power to get the child in your belly to full term and also not neglecting the one that is already here.  I did a lot of crying.

Jon on the other hand...did a lot of juggling.  He was having his first taste of full time parenthood without someone else there to break up the stress.  He was running on all cylinders.  He'd wake up at the crack of dawn get Olivia up and off to pre-school...call and check on me see if there was any news from the night before that had occured since we talked before he had gone to sleep...then head to work...sometimes he'd sneak in to see me before he went to work...if he could break away at lunch he'd come to the hospital usually bringing me whatever I had been craving when he placed the call that he could make a stop by...then back to work...pick Olivia up from school if it wasn't a day that her father picked her up or if my mom couldn't grab her...then swing by the hospital...if Olivia was with him we would try to eat together so at least she had that interaction of family dinner, although it's not the same when monitors are going off every 5 minutes...then home for the bathtime, bedtime routine...he'd get Oliva in bed then do laundry, make lunches and call me to see how things were going since he left the hospital...if it was a night when he didn't have Olivia because whe was with her dad or staying the evening at my parents he would come back up to the hospital and stay with me for as long as the nurses would allow.  Then he'd sleep, get up and do it all over again.

I spent just over two weeks in the hospital.  Everyday I would hope this would be the day I'd get to go home.  I stopped asking after day 5.

I spent most of the time hooked up to what I have now deemed to be the 2nd most heinous drug in the child carrying and bearing experience...magnesium sulfate.  A step down from the horror that is pitocin, is this drug.  While I appreciate how it, combined with the efforts of terbutaline, stopped my contractions and kept our little peanut in the womb it brought with it horrid side effects and I felt worse being released from the hospital than I did going in to it.

The day that they released me I thought they were joking.  My day nurse came in and asked me the same question she did every day.  I had begun to hate her for taunting me.  She'd walk in, take my vitals and say, "wouldn't today be a beautiful day to go home"...I'd be all like..."yeah, that would be great"...to which she would say, "but I bet tomorrow would be even better".  What kind of fucked up mind game are you playing here sister??

But on this day when I solemnly said, "yeah that would be great" she said, "yeah I thought so too so I'll help you pack".  I was like...huh...what???  I thought I had won the lottery.  The doctor came in and declared that I had been contraction free for 3 whole days which I knew just from watching the monitors and said that I was good to be released albeit with strict precautions.  Bedrest.  I could get up to pee and could walk around a total of 30 minutes every 24 hours and no more than 10 minutes at one given time.

On the day I was discharged I was 29 weeks and 1 day.  I had to stay on bedrest until I was at least 35 weeks.  This was gonna be the longest 6 weeks of my life.  And on top of that it wouldn't be like being at the hospital.  I mean who would bring me yummy crushed ice or make me grilled cheese with bacon at the drop of a hat??

Jon tried to assure me that things would be fine.  He could handle it.  He would make sure that everything was taken care of.  There was only one small four legged problem.  And her name was Max (this is what happens when you assume the dog is a boy and let your child name it only to be advised it really is a girl and said child REFUSES to change the dogs name).

We had adopted a puppy for Olivia for her 5th birthday in June.  We had wanted a dog for awhile and now that we were in a bigger place it seemed perfect.  Knowing that a baby would be coming in the next few months we figured get the dog now, get it trained and comfortable in the house and it's surroundings so that there would be no issues when the baby arrived.

No one ever imagined that a little over a month after getting her I would be put on bedrest and although at home, I would not be able to care for her.  When I was in the hospital we had her staying at my parents house.  It was only gonna be a short term thing.  Or so we thought.

After finding out that this was gonna be a long term situation there was no way to expect my parents to keep the dog.  Foolishly I thought, they will stop the contractions and things will go back to normal.  I will go back to work and regular routine.  This was not part of the plan.  None of what was happening was part of how I had imagined things to go.

We attempted to have the dog stay with friends and family.  The only one willing to take her on such short notice was my grandmother who had a huge yard.  After transporting her down to St. Pete, about 30 minutes from us, we were called 2 days later to come and pick her up.  "She's too rowdy" was the chief complaint.  I didn't have it in me to argue that she was a puppy and didn't exactly prescribe to having to go to bed at 7pm.  It was a pointless argument.

I had only been home from the hospital 4 days before Jon declared we would have to find her a new home.  Another 4 days went by with no bites and me sneaking to take her out for pee breaks...Jon caught on and called me out.  It was the baby or the dog.  Olivia was heartbroken. Years later she would tell us that she blamed the baby for the fact that she lost her pet.

I bawled, partly because I felt like I had let the dog down and partly because I was a tightly wound ball of emotions.  A day later we took Max back to the shelter.  The lady who had handled the adoption was a complete bitch and made me feel like a speck of dirt on the sole of her shoe for returning the dog in order to preserve the health of my unborn child.

The baby wasn't here yet and it had already pissed off it's sister and offended the ASPCA.  Great.  Just fuckin great!  What next?

I was too exhausted to think what could possibly happen.  I began to stop planning anything and just looked at my life in a moment by moment turn of events.  My only goal became getting to the 35 week mark.  My only plan was what I would watch on television to pass the time and what list I would make for Jon to stock the fridge for my few precious moments of time moving about to forge for food.

35 became my new favorite number.  I had it locked in my sites and the countdown was anything but exciting...

~JP

I'm hoping the rest of the day turns out more interesting than this post...

It's Sunday....yeah, I know....pointing out the obvious.  Yesterday was...well...it was crap.  Stayed up all night Friday being completely pissed at the husband.  For what I am not completely sure of at this point.

Then I accused him of giving me poisoned ice cream because I had been bitchy.  He say's he didn't.  Turns out he is probably right.  It seems that my body does not like Hagaan Daaz Chocolate Peanut Butter ice cream as much as I'd like it to and so I spent the better part of Friday evening and into the early hours Saturday vomiting and in extreme gutteral pain.  Apparently my body staged a revolt when it read "15 Worst Desserts" and realized that it was consuming #14 on the list.


I spent a good part of the day Saturday feeling guilty for A) being mean to Jon and B) consuming more than a days worth of calories in just under 1 hour the night before with that damn ice cream that then acted as if it were an alien trying to escape from my intestines.  I did manage to pull myself together long enough to go and get Hannah from her sleepover.  She had a blast and this made me realize that I am most likely next up on the list to host the tweens at my house.

It is only 20 days until my little one turns the big 1-0!!  I can't believe it.  I came back to the house and immediately climbed back into my bed and contemplated how I could possibly get out of having a slumber party. That thought train was derailed when I began to have an immense stabbing pain in my left boob.

It wasn't the ungodly chest pain that I had been having a couple months ago that led me to be hospitalized and then diagnosed with costochondritis which left me homebound for over a month.  No this was clearly just in my left breast.

When Jon came home from work I told him that I was having boob pain.  The teenage boy in him shown in his eyes as I could see that he thought he could just "massage" away the pain.  I instead opted for a heating pad and then an ice pack.  I of course turned to my trusty WebMD because I was sure it would tell me that I was dying.

Apparently I was wrong and it turns out this kind of thing is actually common in women between the ages of 30 to 45.  Really??  I swear whoever said that it was a beautiful thing to be a woman was clearly a man.

The more I tried to relax and not think about the increasing stabby pain in my boob the more it hurt.  Finally I gave up and went to sleep.  I woke up twice in the middle of the night thinking that my breast was on fire.  That is how bad the pain was.

This morning it is still pretty bad.  It only hurts REALLY bad when Penny decides to use it as a trampoline which surprisingly is ALOT.  Jon has stopped eyeing it as if he has the "magical" touch that could surely make all it's ailments go away.

We are trying to head to the beach to spend some family time.  Of course this means we have to wait for the teenager to come home.  I'm thinking this detail alone will mean that we will be spending our day here instead of on some beach.  Trying to do anything that requires waiting on Liv's schedule is like planning your day around me waking up at a decent hour.  It ain't gonna happen so just stop waiting for it.

I actually woke up early and was rewarded with Mc Donald's breakfast.  This made Penny very happy.  I am beginning to realize that with my kids getting older I am totally gonna turn into one of those weird woman that thinks her pet is her baby.  This point was driven home while we drove the 1.5 miles to the Mc Donald's and I had a pretty detailed conversation with my dog about what she would like to eat.

When we got to the drive thru I had to stiffle that laughter over the jackleg that they had running the intercom where you order.  You couldn't understand the words that he was saying.  Jon ordered and the guy was supposedly repeating the order back to us and we had to have him repeat it twice.  You couldn't understand a word of what he said.  It was ridiculous.

Then when we pulled around to pay, the guy that took our money could be understood clear as a bell.  Ummmm....hello...why the hell wouldn't you let him be on the intercom??  Very sad Mc Donald's...very, very sad.

Penny of course got everyone's attention.  At least no one called her a chihuahua this time.  Not that she cares mind you.  As long as there is a biscuit in it for her you can call her whatever breed of dog you want.  She spent the short drive home shaking in anticipation of whatever treat was going to be bestowed upon her.

Hannah gave her some pancake and she got biscuit, sausage and egg from me.  Jon gave her nothing...he's so selfish.  After eating all I wanted to do was come and lay back in bed.  I decided to come back and write for a little bit.

Outside of posting "Penny's Thoughts of the Day" I haven't been writing much.  Not feeling very inspired or funny lately.  That worries me a little.  I am usually able to laugh my way through just about anything...but lately it seems harder than usual.

After I post this I think I will check the classifieds.  Still hoping to find a job.  Really needing to go back to work.  It will help me feel a little less useless.  September is a hard, hard month for me.  It's when everything fell apart 3 years ago.  Trying to motivate myself during this time period is almost impossible.

Jon just came in to say that he will be picking up Olivia in a little while so I guess that I will put off the job search until tomorrow or Tuesday and instead go and get stuff ready to get out of the house for a little while.  I'm hoping that getting a little sun and spending the day with Jon and the girls will turn my mood around or at least take my mind off my stabby boob pain.  It's friggin aggrivating!

Hope everyone has a fun and safe Labor Day.

~JP