Suddenly Sandy

when suffering from endometrial nodule pain

*Bend over with my head almost on the ground to cough, blow my nose, sneeze, etc. I don't know why, but I'm convinced this helps the pain. Scotty thinks it's hilarious.

*Wear my pants BELOW my c-section scar. This is also why I tend to stick around the house during this time of the month

*Wander aimlessly trying to remember what I was going to do...I have trouble sitting still, it's ridiculous.

*Get up and down like a pregnant lady. I seriously lower myself while bending as little as possible. Same with getting up. Again, Scotty thinks this looks pretty ridiculous.

*I eat...a lot. You know the whole comfort food thing? I inhale chocolate...then I weigh myself because I like to make myself cry.

*Drink lots of coffee and tea. Again, the comfort thing.

*Whine. A lot. And then I explain "it doesn't hurt THAT bad...it just really hurts". You know, I make a lot of sense

The best part? I'm training this little boy to be awesome when he meets his future female friends and they are feeling crummy during that time of the month. He helps me out quite a bit, reminds me what I was doing when I stand in the middle of the kitchen muttering to myself...the best? He helps me find the heating pad. I may scar him for life, but I'm leaning towards I'm helping out my future daughter in law

I highly recommend Allstate! We've been with them for almost a year now and I LOVE them. Who do I absolutely hate? Metlife Auto & Home. My husband had been with them for over 13 years. We had our house, the family cabin, all the cars and he had some stocks with Metlife. When push came to shove though? They threw us under the bus. The incident I'm speaking of is my car accident a year ago. It was obviously not my fault (how can I have damage to the whole side of my car and nothing in the front if I was the one that hit HIM?) Instead of fighting for us, Metlife pretty much threw us under the bus. Due to this, my car sat in our driveway unfixed for months, I had to go to court and in the end nobody fixed my car. *sigh*

After the car accident was taken care of we switched car insurance to Allstate. They were so helpful. They were quick to get back to us when we had any questions. My SIL recommended them, and our specific agent, she's been with them since highschool. We switched my husband's car (we sold mine) and the cabin. It was more of a hassle than he felt like dealing with to switch the investment stuff, so we left it. Well, now we'd like to cash it out. Hubby called Metlife on Monday and they said "Sure, we'll throw these papers in the mail for you today". It's Friday. The mail has come and gone and NOTHING. This is the kind of service we received when we were dealing with the accident too. I absolutely hate Metlife and am looking forward to getting this portion done so we never have to say the word in this house again!

On the brightside? We're very happy with Allstate and our service there. See, something good DID come out of the accident! Yes, we're a car short, I have an accident on my record and we had to deal with all that...but we are almost done with Metlife forever. Yay!

All that rambling to say...Allstate is the best, Metlife is evil. The end.

I meant to call earlier in the week. After talking to the surgery scheduler shortly after my last appointment, I had to wait until she got back from vacation. Surgery is going to cost quite a bit more than we can afford due to our insane deductible. SO we're not doing it yet. The scheduler got back from vacation on the 25th. I finally remembered to call her this morning so I could ask some questions. After leaving a message for her to call me, she called within 20 minutes. LOVE HER!

My questions were: can we leave it for now? Could we leave it through a pregnancy and take care of it after?

My doctor isn't in today, so she's leaving a note on his desk and either he or she will call me back Monday. So glad that they take the time to listen to me though. AND I'm getting better at interrupting and making sure they understand what I want to know. Hopefully it's something that I can leave until after we have another one, I don't want surgery any more than I have to! Also? The pain isn't as bad as I remember this month! Given, I'm only on day one, but still. Yay!

It's been 2 weeks since Scotty started getting sick. He's just about over it, all that's left is a cough. The hubby and I are also almost well. We are so relieved that Scotty is feeling so much better! He's back to his normal self and saying all kinds of stuff that makes me laugh. Example? A conversation between us yesterday:

Scotty: Mom, I need huggles. (climbs on my lap and looks down)

Me: Scotty, are you looking at my boobs?

Scotty: Nope, I'm looking at your red shirt in there (my bra)

Me: That's my bra.

Scotty: Well, it's pretty neat. (He then tried to pull my shirt so he could see it better!)

Me: Do we touch boobs?

Scotty: But mom, they're like balls! They're so cool!

Ha ha ha. At this point I had to walk away I was trying so hard not to laugh. This kid keeps me on my toes. I love him.

We're trying to find ways to cut bills...again. I had a bright idea. Why not get rid of cable, and watch our shows on Netflix, Hulu, etc? We have our TV hooked up to our computer and watch Netflix instantly on there already. Why not watch our tv shows and save quite a bit of money each month? Well, Scott was on board at first. Then we stalled. We all got sick, we haven't gotten around to actually discussing this option in depth. We're already down to the bare bones everywhere else.

My question is this...do you have cable? Do you use Hulu? Do you miss having real cable, a DVR, etc? I'm afraid I'll miss the DVR. Okay, I KNOW I'll miss the DVR. The thing is, I won't miss the insane bill from Comcast. Why pay for cable when you can get the shows for free online? Should I just bite the bullet?

While on that subject, does anyone use MagicJack? My dad swears by it and is trying to convince me to dump the phone line through Comcast and get MagicJack if we're trying to cut bills. I just don't know anything about it. If we'd be saving even more money, I'm tempted to try it after some more research though. That way all we'd be paying is our internet through Comcast.

How do you save money and cut bills? I'm always looking for a deal

We had a horrible cold...and here are some things I will remember for the next time that seemed to help us!

*Setup the steamer ASAP! Add some Vicks, it always helps me!

*Vicks is wonderful! Scotty hates it when I rub it on his chest, but I'm convinced it helps

*Popsicles, gatorade and juice...yum!

*Grandma's tea. Scotty fought me on any other drink, but kept asking for this or the apple cider vinegar drink.

*Apple cider vinegar drink. 5 tsp honey, 5 tsp apple cider vinegar and 1 cup boiling water. Cool till you can drink. It's supposed to  help with your cough. Scotty loved it.

*Chicken noodle soup! We had three versions...Campbells, Safeway deli picked up by my FIL and homemade from my sister...all delicious. It may just be a comfort thing, but it was pretty much all I ate.

*Disney movies!

*Puffs! We had regular old Costco kleenex and my poor nose is killing me. This is something I will stop being cheap on.

*A comfy chair in the front room. We had all the "patients" (Scotty and I) setup in the front room. Made it more convenient when Scotty needed me in the middle of the night (or in the middle of my nap!)

*Patience! I'm a horrible patient...Scotty inherited this. I'm still working on the patience,  we're both suffering from cabin fever.

*Doctor's number! Don't be afraid to call, even if it's a common cold. We ended up going in because Scotty sounded horrible and like he was having trouble breathing. It turned out to be something called bronchiolitis. It's a virus, I've never heard of it, but so glad we went in and had him checked out!

*My number one thing when sick? Family and friends! We had so many people asking if we needed anything, if they could drop anything off. I hate asking for help and rarely do, but our family was so wonderful while we were sick. I'll be baking as soon as we're completely healthy to say thank you!

I've been a busy bee. Sunday night I got a bug up my bum to clean...our house looked like a tornado had hit or something. I've been trying to keep on top of dishes and laundry, but it's impossible when you have a house full of sick people!

Last night I managed to scrub the kitchen, tidy the front room and get a load of laundry going. Monday? Balance the checkbook, cleaned kitchen and vacuumed. THEN to run some errands.

Tuesday? I have my rescheduled tour of a preschool for Scotty...hopefully I like it, otherwise it's back to the drawing board. I want to find one in a specific area, nice and close to Grams and my sister, where I run all my errands and our doctors are. In theory, the area we'll end up in permanently when we're ready to buy a house again.

I feel bright eyed and bushy tailed and ready to get everything back in shape...by Wednesday? I predict I'll be on the couch with the heating pad due to my endometriosis. I've been feeling twinges, so I know it's coming. I'm like clock work since having Scotty. Know what else Wednesday is? The 1 year anniversary of our car accident...so I won't be out in a car, that's for sure!

Scotty's doctor just called to check on him...we were in last Tuesday and they wanted to see how he was doing. I love her. So glad we switched when we did! AND so glad that he's doing so much better already. Now if I could just kick the runny nose, cough and inability to taste...and hopefully Scotty kicks his cough soon too. Today will be the first day in a week we've left the house (not counting the run to the doctor!). We've got a long list of errands, I predict we make it to the grocery store and that's it. Good enough for me

I caved yesterday and called Scotty's doctor around 11...they called back an hour or so later and we went in at 3:50. The hubby was really concerned about how Scotty's cough sounded. When he was little, the hubby had pneumonia, bronchitis, etc. all the time on top of his asthma. SO to be on the safe side we went in to have them look at him.

I told Scotty when I got off the phone we were going to see Doctor. He fell asleep about 20 minutes before I wanted to leave, so it was interesting getting him out the door. We got there and she listened to his chest and was concerned about crackling she heard on one side. SO we had to go downstairs and do an x-ray. Scotty did GREAT. Much better than the x-ray he had on his finger at around 18 months! We went back upstairs and Doctor told us it wasn't pneumonia, it was bronchiolitis. I've never heard of it before. It's a virus and there's nothing we can do but wait it out. Crap. SO we trekked back to our car and drove home in work traffic. Scotty was exhausted and just dozing the whole way home.

Last night he actually slept longer than 15 minutes at a time. I think. Apparently I slept like a rock. Scott tried to wake me up a few times and I don't remember it at all. Since I'm catching this cold, Scotty and I are sleeping in the front room. Scott's in bed, hopefully he doesn't catch this as it seems to linger quite a bit longer when he gets sick! Scotty woke me up around 6:30 or so asking to watch his show. I turned it on and when it was over he asked me to make him some food. What? He hasn't asked for food since Friday. I've been shoving things in his face and he'll take a bite or two, but this morning he asked specifically for oatmeal and ate it all! He actually picked up some toys and played.

Fastforward a few hours. We've turned off the TV (it's been on almost constantly since Saturday!) and he's been playing legos and being a goof. I love it. I feel so much better just knowing he doesn't feel like crud. He's still got a horrible cough, but his fever is gone and he's being his normal goofy self. Yay!

Thank you for all the suggestions and advice! I'm out of my element when he gets sick, he rarely does! Then the hubby brought up pneumonia and I just panicked. In the future? I'm going with my gut. To think if we'd just put off the doctors appointment until today we would have been able to cancel...

Okay, SCOTTY is sick. I'm going to get it though, I know it. With how many times he's coughed right in my face? It's going to happen...He was feeling a little icky on Friday, I just assumed it was a growth spurt. He was tired and told me his ankles hurt, otherwise he was fine. No fever, cough, runny nose, nothing. Same thing Saturday morning. Then I left to go wedding dress shopping with my sisters...and I got a phone call a few hours later saying "he's throwing up and screaming for you". Poor kid. He's only been throwing up sick one other time, so it scared the crap out of him.

He's still feeling icky today. He's got a fever. He's got a horrible cough. He can't sleep. He's miserable...and so am I. I've been up since 4 am with him sleeping for about 15 minutes at a time whenever he would quiet down. This is after going to bed at midnight...I'm a little tired.

So, on to the point. Here's what I've been doing for him so far:

*Hot/warm tea

*Steamer with vicks

*Vicks vapo rub on his little chest

*Tylenol when his fever spikes

*I have him in the chair in the front room so he's not laying down, my mom always did this for us when we had colds or horrible allergies and it seemed to help.

My question is...what else can I do? I feel so bad for the poor guy, but I'm starting to lose my patience with the constant whining and yelling! So please, please, please send some suggestions my way! I'm headed out to the store in another hour or two to pickup popsicles and gatorade...hopefully he'll eat and drink, up til now it's been a battle to get anything in him!