My day with the swine flu

This past Sunday morning I woke up with a sore throat, which developed into coughing and sneezing, a.k.a. your common (miserable) cold. By Monday I was full on miserable and by the time Tuesday rolled around I was in serious sick mode.

On that very same Tuesday I went to my previously scheduled pregnancy appointment to check on the baby. I told the nurse that I had been feeling sick with a sore throat, coughing, and sneezing with a very low grade fever.

She backed her chair up from me and said "Did they give you a mask at the front desk?" I clearly had no mask on my face, and said, "No." She said, "I'll be right back" and almost ran out of the room. Only to return with a mask for me. She kind of threw the mask at me from a distance and said, "You need to wear this since you have the symptoms of swine flu. I would help you put it on but I don't want to mess up your hair."

What? Really? I saw the swine flu fear in her eyes.

Then my doctor came in to tell me that my primary clinic was totally booked checking people for the swine flu so I needed to go straight to the ER. What? Seriously? No, I just came in to hear the baby's heart beat. I asked her if I really had to go to the ER and she said I did. I asked her again just to make sure she wasn't confused.

Fine. Lilly and I walked over to the ER only to be taken to a special room for suspicious swine flu victims. Then over the next three hours I talked to various medical professionals who all had the same question. "Why are you here? Did someone tell you to come here?" I explained that my OB made me come and that I would NEVER go to the ER in the middle of the day because I had a cold. As I got crankier and hungrier waiting for the stupid swine flu test, Lilly asked more and more questions. "Why is there a bed in here? Why are the outlets red? Why does that man have to come here? Why do you have to wear that mask? Why do you take the mask off every time they shut the door? Why do they have a sink in here? Is this a kitchen?" You get the point.

They finally did the horrible swine flu culture tube-down-the-nose and released me home with a discharge summary for the common cold and a promise of lab results in 24 hours. Even they knew it wasn't swine flu. Although they could have had the decency to print out information on the swine flu since I had just wasted the last three hours of my life wearing a mask to keep my filthy swine germs to myself.

We had to wait all day today for the test results to come in. All of us had to stay home so we didn't infect anyone with our possible swine flu virus.

In the end, shocking to all, I tested negative for any flu virus whatsoever (even swine). I am still sick with my common cold, Jim and Lilly are sick, and we are a house full of germs. However, we no longer need to worry that we infected our entire church congregation and the shoppers at Babies R Us with our swine flu last weekend.

After all was said and done, I would have preferred to have the swine flu. Would have made for a much better ending to my story.

Knit

Jim told me I had to take down his birthday post; so I will just put a new post up that pushes the birthday post down the page.

When I was 12 I learned how to crochet, and ever since then I have dabbled with it here and there. I have made blankets and some hats, and even some teddy bear clothes (when I was 13). The truth is I have never been that crazy about crocheted items (I love baby blankets and baby accessories, but that is kind of it). What I really want to do is knit. Why you ask? Because, from my view, all the cool patterns involve knitting. You know, the patterns that don't involve a granny square afghan, or a tea cozie, or a hot pad.

Then a few weeks ago a friend loaned me "The Friday Night Knitting Club."

I am really enjoying this book and it made me want to knit even more. I have asked a lot of friends and neighbors near by to teach me, but no luck. So today I took the plunge and bought a pair of knitting needles. I am determined to learn via the library and youtube.

I just thought it would be the perfect new project/procrastination tool to avoid housework, house maintenance, responsibilities, etc. I'll let you know how it goes.

Happy 30th Birthday Jim

It's Jim's birthday today! He's a great dad and husband, I love you Jim!

Hurry and check out this picture of him doing his last sporting event in his 20's

(before he makes me take it down).

House update by Jessamyn

Ok here are a few photos I snapped really fast this morning before the batteries in my camera died. This is just so you can all see Jessamyn's handi-work. This first picture is in our living room. You can see the pillows she made and the lamp shade she made. She also hung our family pictures, which you can't really see from the glare.

This next picture is the other side of the living room, or the music room/library. Jessamyn also made that lamp shade and the curtains, and organized my books by color.

This is the other side of the music room/library/fancy corner.

This is the wall along the entry way, we put up a shelf since we're short on a console table.

That's all the pictures for now.

Update

It always seems like we're trying to get back to normal around here; maybe that's our normal. Johnny and Jessamyn left last week and now we have to get on with life and get back to normal. Pretty soon a new baby will come into the picture and then it will take a really long time to get back to normal. Maybe we don't have a normal anymore.

Jessamyn did wonders to our house and as soon as I remember I am going to take fabulous pictures to post here so you can see what she did. I might even start extending invitations for visitors sometime soon.

I left my stroller on the screened in porch, thinking that the porch worked like a garage, but it doesn't. The stroller has been taken over by mold and I now sadly have to replace it. On another note, I am now to the point in my pregnancy where anemia takes over and I just want to eat ice all day long. There are very specific types of ice that I crave and ice from my freezer simply wont do. I know other women who go through this, so I am not totally crazy.

Summer is winding down, at least that's the way the weather looks around here. The kids go back to school tomorrow and I want to buy some new shoes and school clothes (even though none of us are in school).

I'll still be searching for my normal this week, hope you found yours.

One more quick post

Amusement Park Fun

Dress up

My mom is very distressed that my sister and I are neglecting our blogs during her stay here. What can I say? One slightly crazy pregnant woman and her sister, two children, and one poor husband make for an insane house. For the first time in a few weeks J and the kids are sleeping and I am awake, so I thought I would steal a few minutes for a blog update.

Johnny has discovered that girls like to dress up, and he kind of likes it too. We came home with some free giant candy cane decorations for Christmas from an antique shop and Lilly knew just what to do. She would be Mary and Johnny would be Joseph.

Although I don't think Mary and Joseph fought over the shepherds hook.