Maybe it was the lack of Vikings that sealed my fate....

My life is one big ongoing reality show that no one is watching and that I'm not getting paid for.

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 begins...

In just 7 days my youngest will breach double digits.  So exciting for her!!  So...sorta...heartbreaking for me.  I still remember life before she arrived.  I still remember every moment that brought us to welcoming her into the world and as I count down the days that lead us to welcoming her 10th birthday I would like to share those memories with you...

I remember talking to my mom when I was younger and I would ask her about before I was born and she would say, "those things happened back before you were even a glimmer in my eye" or "back before you were even a blip on my radar".  I say that to my kids now, so here's the story of Hannah...ya, know...back before she was even a glimmer on my radar or some shit like that.

Part 1 - What do you mean I'm pregnant??

When Jon and I met I was already a mom to a pretty great little girl.  Finding Jon and seeing that without ever really being around kids he seemed to posess a great instinct towards being a dad was more than just a little sexy.  Then I realized the qualities that he was exhibiting were that of being an overgrown kid...the sexiness wore off just a bit.

Right off the bat we had a discussion about more kids.  He said he wouldn't mind having one of his own....some day....but he was fine just being a stepdad to Olivia.  We decided that we would focus on our relationship, making Olivia happy, getting married and give it about 3 years before we would discuss baby. 

My body had other plans and before we were even married it began to alert us on how it thought this whole procreation thing would go.  First off came the unplanned pregnancy which at 10 weeks ended in a miscarriage.  I was heartbroken.  Jon felt unable to comfort me and I began being OVERLY careful to keep this type of thing from happening again.

It was difficult because from the start of our relationship up until about a month into our engagement I was plagued with horrible cramps and extremely irregular menstrual cycles, sometimes not having any break between periods even with birth control.  I finally went to the doctor to find out what was wrong.  It was deemed after many test and procedures that I had a lame ovary, broke down cervix and my uterus was crap!  They found that I had endometriosis.  My left ovary was covered in scar tissue and kept adhering to whatever it came close too, my pelvis was tilted and there was a small tumor that needed to be removed from my cervix and biopsied.  No biggie.

I was shocked because I was only 21.  I had a friggin broke down palace of a femal reproductive system.  Yippee for me.  Thanks genetic makeup of my family...you fuckin rock!

The doctor did the biopsy and began handling the cervical issues.  I was advised that plenty of women can conceive with only 1 cooperating ovary and that changing birth control  would help with the pains of the endometriosis and hopefully get the periods under control.

July 12, 1998 brought our wedding day.  Life as a family of three continued pretty smoothly and seamlessly until October 13, 1998 when while driving home from picking up dinner my car was hit by a jackleg that ran thru a stop sign because he was trying to swat at a bee and smacked into my car while going 45 mph.  Olivia thankfully walked away unscathed.  I was not as lucky.  After being released from the hospital I began a grueling regimen of physical therapy.  Every month I was still following up with my doctors about keeping the pain of the endometriosis in check.  I would have my good months and my really bad ones. 

In November 1998, after a particularly disheartening appointment with my doctor, he advised that having a child sooner than later would be best for us.  My endometriosis was getting worse and not better and there were other issues.  I was having increasing amounts of ovarian cysts and my cycles were bordering on hemorrhages and not just bleeding.  He told Jon and I to discuss a time frame that we would like to get pregnant and then we could all sit down to discuss when it would be a good idea to stop the birth control. 

Jon and I talked.  We hadn't even been married 6 months yet.  Most of which had been spent with me in therapy for the accident or at the doctors for my female issues.  We hadn't even had our honeymoon phase because I threatened to kill Jon if he tried to touch me.  The pain from the injuries from my accident squashed any desires I had to have sex with Jon. It had been a long, long, LONG frustrating month for us.  Now we had the added stress of thinking about a baby.  Or at least trying to get pregnant.  This was too soon.  It was too much to think about.

Deep in our hearts, however, we knew we wanted to have a child together.  Olivia was almost 4 1/2...we figured if we could get pregnant in the next year that would be a good time frame.  What if it was truly now or never?  We decided to go for it.   

The following month's appointment fell on December 11th and it was decided that I should stop the pill immdiately.  With the amount of problems I was having on it the doctor really thought that the "probability of you conceiving in the next 6 months is highly unlikely" he suggested that I would most likely be pregnant by "spring...summer at the earliest".  We should have asked him to be a bit more specific.

I took my last pill on Saturday, December 12, 1998 out of pure habit.  I started a brand new job on Monday, December 14 and on that following Saturday, December 19, Jon and I attended his company Christmas party at a 5 star hotel with open bar.  It was a good week. 

We rung in the New Year of 1999 in the ER with Olivia battling pneumonia.  On January 5, 1999 I was rushed to th hospital in dire abdominal pain and burning up with a fever.  We were only 5 days in at this point, but we deemed that 1999 sucked monkey butt!

Upon being admitted the nurse asked me if there was any chance I could be pregnant.  I wanted to spit at her.  Finally I found my voice and said, "in order to be pregnant you have to have sex".  She didn't find that humorous. 

I, however was dead serious and referring to the fact that since my accident in October the grueling hours of physical therapy in order for me to regain full use of my left arm due to nerve damage and torn rotator cuff I was in so much fucking pain that if Jon even attempted to look at me sexually I would kill him in my mind.  NO we were NOT having sex...thank you very much for bringing that up while I am sure I am dying from god only knows what this is.

They called my gynecologist since he was the only doctor I ever saw.  Sad...very, very sad when you are NOT pregnant but are on a first name basis with your gyno!  Jon tried muttering something in my ear about sex and an open bar but I told him to shut the fuck up unless he was injecting pain meds via osmosis through my ear lobe.  He retreated to the corner of the ER cubicle and attempted to sleep through my crying.

They wheeled me away to ultrasound.  Finally they declared that I was in need of an emergency appendectomy.  They took blood and urine to declare in fact that I was NOT pregnant...surprise...and whisked me away to surgery.  I woke to the joys of a morphine pump and left many a funny drugged up message for my husband who got to sleep unbothered in our bed.  I didn't care because I got to spend my 22nd birthday hooked up to my new best friend and the nurses brought me cake.  Super score!

I returned home to recouperate from surgery but found that every time I tooked the prescribed medication I would vomit.  At first I thought I was having an allergic reaction to them.  I called the nurse at the surgeons office and was advised that if I wasn't itching or breaking out in a rash that it was most likely not an allergic reaction.  She advised me to cut the pills in half and try that.

Two days later I was in a world of pain and puking my guts out.  I called the surgeons office again.  By now I had myself convinced that I was one of those individuals that had a surgical tool or gause sewn up inside me and this was my bodys way of alerting me.  In hindsight I am truly thankful that we didn't have a computer in our house at this time because I would have been googling the shit out of this type of thing.  Instead I was calling the surgeons office every 30 minutes until  I drove the nurse insane and she finally agreed to give me an appointment.

I went in to see my surgeon.  He checked the incision.  Clean.  He felt my belly.  Not swollen.  He asked me my symptoms.  I told him I was exhausted and vomitting.  He looked first perplexed and then concerned.  I thought...ahhh haa...see I'm not crazy...he thinks he may have left something inside me.

He orders an ultrasound.  Immediately.  I'm thinking okay they are gonna send me over to the hospital to have it done...la la la laaa...and then boom next thing I know there is a monitor in the room and they are squirting gel on my belly. 

I was more than just a little freaked out at this point.  I'm thinking oh my god...I'm gonna end up on one of those medical mystery shows.  

Ten minutes later he has me to go and take a urine test.  I mentally get offended thinking...I am NOT crazy or on drugs (hello, did you not hear how I've been puking them up)...but alas I pee into the cup.

His nurse walks in looking confused.  He follows directly behind her and shuts the door.  He sits down solemnly in front of me and says the words you NEVER want to hear from someone who has cut you open, "I don't know how we missed this..." dun dun duunnnnn.

Oh god...oh fuck me god...I'm dying.  I brace myself for what is about to come next.  "Jessica, you're pregnant."

Gulp. 

"I don't know how we missed it but you are pregnant."  Double gulp. 

My mind is racing....ummmm....not possible....I've had NO sex....since, oh...hmmm...god, when exactly WAS the last time....oh was it October...like the 11th maybe...oh god...oh god...this is horrible..I am a married...newly married woman...I am sexy..why am I not having sex. 

This thought reel is interupted by another one.  Nope...he has to be wrong...very, very wrong...I'm not pregnant...the hospital said I wasn't pregnant...I remember....I was in pain they were witholding medication saying that first they had to make sure I wasn't pregnant...I remember wanting to kill the nurse, kill Jon....kill anyone that might refuse me pain meds....they jammed a friggin sonogram rod up into my vajayjay then catherized me because CLEARLY I was NOT in enought gut wrenching pain to take the cleanest of clean urine samples...after which they deemed they would need to draw blood to make "triple" sure that I was indeed NOT pregnant....then finally they gave me the news that yes all test were in fact negative and I could have my reward...pain killers.

Nope, nope, nope...I bet he found surgical scissors or a clamp in there.  Yep, that is what it is...he's trying to save his ass...oh, he's talking again...I guess I should listen and figure out how to sue him later.

Surgeon:  Are you okay?  Should I call your husband??

Me:  Umm...no.  No.  I.  Umm...I.  Are you sure?

Surgeon:  Well I'd like you to follow up with your gynocologist, since it's his specialty...but I'm pretty sure.

Me:  (mind made up that he is obviously smoking crack) Ok...well I will call the office to make an appointment.  Am I ok to go??

Surgeon:  Yes, we will just need to see you in about a week to remove the sutures.  And really, please make sure you make an appointment with the other doctor.  Soon.  Like before your next appointment with me.

I leave the surgeons office and go directly to the drug store.  I purchase a 2 pack of EPT.  I need to see this shit for myself.  I mean...clearly this fool has no idea what he is talking about.  He should stick to removing appendixes and gall bladders.  Unless I have achieved immaculate conception (twice...because my mom still hasn't wrapped her head around the idea that I actually had sex to conceive my first child) there is no way I am pregnant.


I pass a billboard for Jon's work.  And then like a ton of bricks it hits me.  OH MY GOD...the Christmas party.  We had sex after the Christmas party while we were staying the night in that plush, overly expensive, hotel suite.  Oh shit...ohhh, shit, shit, shit!  This guy could be right.

3 hours and 2 pee sticks later I am locked in our 1/2 bathroom.  Jon has come home from work and is standing on the other side of the door trying to negotiate with me to come out.  I yell through the door to run to the store across the street and buy some pregancy test.  He is not aware the I am already holed up with 2 positive reads and the info from the surgeon's office.  About 20 minutes later he returns.  I try to get him to slide them under the door.  I can tell his patience with me is wanning so I shove the two test I've already taken in a drawer.  Open the door.  Snatch the next 2 test from him.  Force a smile and slam the door.  I can hear him shuffle away to the couch in defeat and then television clicks on.  I spend the next few minutes chugging down a cup of juice that I snuck while he was a the store and finally am able to take the final two test. 

I emerge from the bathroom crying.  Jon is clearly distressed and unsure what to make of me.  I hold up all 4 test and declare that he is gonna be a dad.  Joy turns to fear and then worry.  He is thinking the same thing I am.  If I AM pregnant like the multiple pee soaked test have announced, then that means they did surgery and I spent 2 days on a morphine drip all while growing a human.  FUCK!

I called to make an appointment with my gynocologist and was surprised when the office was all "yeah, we've been waiting for your call...your surgeon sent down your file and told us you would be calling...figured we would give you until tomorrow and then we would call you to schedule an appointment".  Double FUCK! 

We went in and I peed in another cup.  Positive.  What a shocker!?!  Didn't really think I'd end up with 4 false positives...5 if you count the one I took the day prior at the surgeons office.

Then they ordered an ultrasound so we could hopefully view the little tadpole.  You could barely see that there was anything there but there was a flutter.  They said it was a heartbeat.  The doctor asked over and over again when the date of my last period was.  It was hard to calculate since I never stopped bleeding.  But I knew for a downright fact the only sex we had since before October 13 had been on the night of the Christmas party.  I knew that was FOR SURE the night this little squiggly dot was conceived.

The doctor tried to be all nonchalant about the fact that it seemed surgery was performed while I was just shy of 2 1/2 weeks pregnant.  He said we would just have to take a "wait and see" attitude and he would want me back in a month or "sooner if there is any signs of distress".  I felt like asking do you mean signs of distress in my womb or just generally with me?  It seemed too broad a question so I kept it to myself.

The journey to motherhood (the second time) was just beginning and I kept thinking...man I had always wanted the next go around to be a bit less dramatic.  I bet this means the pregnancy will be smooooooth sailing....

~JP

Stabby boob pain...(part deux) & Penny's Thought of the Day...

It's baaaaaacccck! 

I was mid laundry folding (so I'm totally blaming domestic servitude for this mishap) when I literally was taken breathless by immense pain.  I thought maybe I had moved in some bizarre way but as time went on...folding shirt after boxers after bra after socks after underwear after pants after bathing suit and placing in owner specific piles...it became increasingly worse.  It finally got to the point where I couldn't move without feeling like not only my left boob but the whole upper left side of my chest was engulfed in this hot seering pain. 

It feels more like the return of the stabby boob pain than it does the costochondritis that cost me my last job and possibly my grasp on mental stability.  I am literally willing myself to believe that it cannot possibly be a reinfection of that. 

I think my boobs are striking back against the 27 months of life sustaining breast feeding I did when the girls were babies.  I wonder if I take all the money saved from buying formula during that time and put it towards reconstructive surgery for these puppies if that would make them stop acting like under arm rest and go back to being the fun bags that they once used to be.

The pain is too severe to really contemplate cutting on them at this moment but the idea of anesthesia is appealing to me at this very painful moment. 

It came on so sudden but is getting progressively worse as the minutes turn to hours. 

I thought Penny would remain supportive of how crappy I began to feel as the day came to a close yesterday but as I sit here writing this and trying to switch from cold to heat on the afflicted area I can see she is more and more turned off by my constant whimpering.

What happened to solidarity between women??  Oh, wait..I think she's trying to tell me something....

Ahhhh...crap.  She has a point.  If Jon's mom comes over and there's "Mount Laundry" prominently displayed on our sofa then I'm sure it will just scream, "my daughter-in-law is a FAILURE".  It's one thing to drain your family financially by eliminating one entire income and being sick all the time...then there is the whole deficiency in the motherhood department...but putting everyone's knickers on display because your having stabby boob pain is pretty much the final straw in the eyes of the extended family. 

Or at least I think it's written somewhere like that.  Maybe in the Bible after "don't covet thy neighbor" and "never allow someone to sleep past 8a on a Sunday so that they can worship" but before the chapter about "spare the rod, spoil the child".  It's been awhile since I read the Bible but I am pretty sure I saw it in there once.

It's now been 6 full hours of excruciating, non stop pain.  I am down to typing with just my right hand and Penny has gone from sitting faithfully by my side to just getting comfy and leaving me to cry while Jon snores and HGTV plays in the background.  It's the symphany of my life.

I've now consumed enough Sleepy Time tea and a fair amount of ibuprofen in order to allow me to try and get a bit of rest.  Sun up will bring more laundry and hopefully less pain. 

~JP

He just called me the smelly kid...pretty lame as terms of endearment go.

So I'm sick.  Yeah, big whoop di do.  The "illness" has been going on for over a week now.  Add that crappy feeling on top of the lingering depression and you find yourself with a pretty stinky sticky situation.

Okay...I'll just put it out there.  I haven't showered.  There I said it.  Go ahead with the thunderous, in unision, mock disbelief/disgust...WHAT??  EW??  SERIOUSLY??  No shower??  AT ALL??

In all my snotted up nose and Vicks crusted ailment I really, honestly, didn't think anyone noticed my failure to remain hygienic.  I have brushed teeth, hair...washed hands and face, but when it came to showering per say...ummm, yeah...it's been a few couple days.  Okay...fine...it's been exactly 3 1/2 days since my ass has met with a shower on an intimate one on one basis.

I've just been so sick.  All I've wanted to do is sleep.  Drink water.  Pee.  Sleep.  Eat.  Sleep.  Drink hot tea.  Pee.  Pee.  Pee.  Sleep.  Ok...I'm pretty sure you get the point.

Today has honestly been the first day where I have been in the right frame of mind and not all looped out on cold medicine to trust myself alone in a shower and not require one of those bathing chairs that old people use.  I was going to venture out to soccer tonight for Han's practice.  But as the time edged closer I could feel the fever coming back, my chest was hurting and the cough.  UGH...that fucking cough!

So I took a pass and decided to stay at home.  As it is we got an email from one of the coaches that her kid (that she brought to the last practice on Monday and that a bunch of people held) has been diagnosed with hand, foot and mouth disease.  Thank god I didn't hold the child or seriously I would be in an ER with that on top of this flu-y cold'ish thingy that I've managed to catch while sequestered in my house.

As Jon was getting ready to leave with Hannah I made mention that maybe I will take a bath or shower.  Jon was ALL over that.  Of course instead of just brushing it off and walking away I have to know why it is that Jon seems so happy over the fact that I am going to bath.

His response?

"Well babe...your kind of like the smelly kid", he says with a mild chuckle.

What?  The smelly kid?? Me???

I tried to be hurt about it and then I got a whiff of myself.  DAMN...how the hell did I miss that??

Apparently having a barrier of snot between your sense of smell and the odor that is well...yourself...can really gloss over the stench that one can create just from sleeping and being sick.

I had to concede that for once Jon was correct and now I am off to delouse myself.

~JP

You have your version of sexy...and clearly we have ours.

We are now entering day #5 of "the illness". 

It has been mainly uneventful.  No doctor's visits or hospitalization (mainly because we can't afford health care).

I didn't really start feeling the full effects of the germies until Thursday when my ability to swallow and breath magically disappeared.  Jon is in the same hellish boat as me so it's basically a free for all for the kids.  The last time Jon and I were both sick like this at the same time our kids were 10 & 5 and we allowed them to eat whatever they wanted for dinner one night. 

It was one of those moments when we were both burning up with fevers and so delirious with illness that we felt sure that our 10 year old would make a completely logical choice for dinner.  She chose brownie sundae's.  We were ill equipped to disagree or even care.  The next day when they came home from school they both asked if they could have a "real dinner".  Honestly the two of them were acting as if we hadn't fed them in days instead of the one missed meal that they had actually suffered.  And in truth it wasn't even that because they had eaten.

I was was like what the hell is that supposed to mean.  They seriously were acting as if we had tortured them and forced them to eat dessert for dinner. 

I think that was one of the moments when I realized my children were definitely one of a kind.

But back to this current sick fest. 

Hannah was the carrier monkey that exposed us to the illness.  Damn kid. 

How many times do I have to tell her to wash her hands, use sanitizer, don't share drinks, stay away from that one boy who's been in her class since Pre-k that ALWAYS seems to have strep throat and who infected her 7 times in one year???  Seriously people, if your kid is burning up with a fever and can't swallow without crying DO NOT...I REPEAT...DO NOT SEND HIM TO SCHOOL!

Pisses me off.  I may be lax on ALOT of stuff, but when it comes to illness...I believe that is something you should keep at home. 

The year of the "7 times of strep throat" I was pretty sure that our family physician was contemplating profiling me for Munchausen Syndrome.  I swear it was the illness that wouldn't go away. 

But this time around we are not in strep hell.  No we are in flu hell.  Or at least that is what I have self diagnosed us with.  Thank you WebMD.

By Thursday I was overly tired (more so than usual), chilled, unable to breath and hacking up a storm.  I was hitting the NyQuil like it was hard liquor.  If I could have put a straw in that bottle and carried it around like a juice box I would have.  At one point in a foggy haze of exhaustion and...well...NyQuil, I actually contemplated if I could make it into a cocktail.  Turns out it was the 1/2% alchohol by volume talking and when I finally came to my senses, kind of, I figured it not to be such a great idea. 

I mean, truth be told, we refer to the cherry NyQuil as "red death" in our house.  Jon will gather the kids to come and watch me take it because I have a severe aversion to liquid medication.  I'm a consistency girl...and liquid medicine is not something I can handle.  I will throw tantrums that could rival a 2 yr olds when it is deemed that I am sick enough to choke down that crap.

I will flail around stomping my feet on the ground with fist balled up at my sides and lips pursed tightly shut.  I know that this isn't a good example for my children, but so far all it has done is send them into hysteric fits of laughter to the point of almost peeing themselves.  Even at a younger age they would put up less of a fight then I would when it was time for them to take any medication in liquid form.  I am still baffled by the fact that Hannah, who can swallow a piece of candy whole, while opt for liquid over pill form medication any day of the week.

My mom says by 7 she forced me to take pills over liquid because she was tired of the sheer madness that ensued from trying to pin me to the floor and get me to swallow and not spit up the medicine that she was cramming down my unwilling throat.

When I turn to the Nyquil, my family knows that I AM SICK!

With all the coughing, snorting, achiness and chills it seemed the only thing that I couldn't seem to do was sneeze.  I have the tingle in my nose constantly though but alas...no sneeze.  I finally got one out on Friday after 2 days of waiting for it to happen. 

One. 

Singular. 

Pathetic. 

Sneeze.

Even now I NEED to sneeze. 

God, I really do need to sneeze.  My nose is being a sneeze tease.

As I sit writing this Jon is out in the living room sneezing 1..2..3..4..5..wait for it...6 times!  His norm is anywhere from 2 to 4 sneezes at one time.  In the 12 years we have been together he has never sneezed just once. 

Right now...I hate him.  That lucky able to sneeze bastard!

God he is such a show off.  I would yell that over the t.v., through the closed door in hopes of it traveling down the hallway to make it to his semi-deaf (even when he's not sick) ears...but alas I am too tired and that would hurt the hell out of my throat and then I'd be pissed and still unable to sneeze.

Kind of off the subject, but kind of related too..Thank God Jon got lasik surgery because now we almost make one normal human being.  Me, with supersonic ears but so-so sight and him partially deaf (he says from repeated ear infections as a child, which he blames on the fact that he was NOT breastfed as a baby...let it go man it's been 33 years) but with superior store bought sight.

We are both so fucking miserable.  The only highlights so far have been the delicious soup (Mmmmmm....baked potato) that he brought me and being rubbed down with Vick's vapo rub. 

The rub down with Vick's was actually pretty funny because if you would have thrown in some cheesy instrumental music in the background it could have been mistaken for one of those low budget adult movies.  I was moaning and Jon was totally getting turned on.  Then I snorted back the snot that was starting to dribble out of my nose and shabam...the moment was lost.

Not that we would have acted on any of the sexual rumblings that began to well up during the rub down because A) both of us are to fucking tired from being sick and B) ok..well there is no B.

Apparently it doesn't matter how sick we are because Jon, like any man, is always in "please I want nookey" mode. 

Perfect example: This morning I made my way from the bedroom out to the kitchen bleary eyed.  I had barely slept between hacking and snorting.  I had tried to wear ear plugs so that I would only have to listen to my bodily fluids being sucked back up into my head and not Jon's futile attempt to achieve air passage through both nostrils but the arrival of an ear infection (or what I have self diagnosed as an ear infection due to extreme pain and a red inner ear) made using those completely impossible. 

So it sounded like a lame version of dueling banjo's only with our coughs and snorts as the instrumentals.  How either of us slept more than 15 minutes at a time is COMPLETELY beyond me.

Anyways, I make my way into the kitchen and immediately set to making some tea.  I ask Jon if he would like some tea.  He agrees which is a sure fire sign that he is feeling just as shitty as I am.  Or so he would have me believe. 

I set about rubbing the sleep out of my eyes and trying to brush down my unruly and unshowered (for 2 days) hair.  Then I pick a wedge...I know...HOT!  I try to clear my throat and curse the pain that arises. 

I turn to whine to Jon and say, "I feel miserable.  I can't even swallow". 

"Great, there goes our evening", he retorts smiling.

I stand there for a second trying to compute the meaning in my foggy head.  And then it hits me...even with all this hot mess of a sicko wife who has become a mouth breather due to the overwhelming surplus of snot in her nasal passages he is making a sexual innuendo.  Gotta love that man of mine.

I smile.  He smiles.  We both hack and then snort back the flem.  If that isn't romantic and sexy...well I just don't know what is.

~JP

Is this Plan B?? Oh god...

When it became increasingly apparent, as I hacked up a lung while sitting on the toilet...because alas motherhood makes you have a leaky bladder when your coughing hard enough to dislodge an organ...that Jon was going to TOTALLY shirk his parental responsibility of taking the kids to school in lieu of going to work in order to make money to support the kids he was unwilling to take to school I felt it best to hatch a back-up plan.  

First thought was to let the teenager who has had 3 (count them 1...2...3) driving lessons and doesn't even possess a learners permit to drive her younger sister to school and then drive herself.  Of course she would be supervised.  I'm not totally irresponsible.  I would be in the car...hopped up on NyQuil and no sleep.

I realized that was a TOTALLY ridiculous idea.

See, I'm not a total loon here.  I figured letting Penny (yes, the dog) drive was a MUCH better idea.

 

Penny is very responsible.  Looking both ways before nearly running over the jackleg students that walk in front of us in the carpool line.  

Hello...you obviously aren't that smart if you are willing to walk in front of a woman under the influence of cold meds who has determined that it is safer to let her dog drive.  Thank god for your sorry asses that my dog is super smart and cares that you live.

After dropping off both the kids Penny had one thing on her mind.......

Of course she really didn't think McDonald's would be this damn busy at 8:45 a.m. on a Wednesday!  Come on...is the economy so bad that NO ONE has a job!  Seriously it can't be that bad because They have the money to get their grub on!  I just want a sweet tea....I'm dying here...I'm coughing up other organs that I am pretty sure I may need later.  Oh, yeah...and Penny wants a biscuit!

Finally...I got my tea...Penny got her biscuit (seen above licking her snout) and we can head home and go to bed like NyQuil intends us to do.  

Thankfully neither of us has to be responsible again until 2:45 p.m.

~JP