Out with the crappy, in with the hopefully a HELL of a lot better
So I'm FINALLY done with the stomach death blarg. Worst way to lose 10 lbs ever. Two whole weeks of fever, and nothing staying in my body, if you catch my drift. Thank the Good Lord for Tamiflu. Seriously, that stuff is magic. Even though I stopped with the actual sickness on, like, Thursday, it was only yesterday that I finally had enough energy to take a shower. You know you're sick when just the thought of standing in a warm shower is fatiguing. Clean hair is so fantastic.
However, I'm seriously afraid that I might have caught something else today. I absolutely had to go up to the clinic to get my meds at the pharmacy (missing psych meds is no bueno). Naturally, it seemed like EVERYONE was coughing and/or sneezing. And, of course, no one, was wearing a mask like they're supposed to. I had waited in the ridiculously long pharmacy line for 45 minutes being coughed near when I decided that I needed to go get a face mask for myself, if no one else would wear one. I asked the lady behind me to keep my place for the minute I thought it was going to take to go down the hallway and grab one. Because it's my luck, there weren't any in the place they're supposed to be so I had to walk down to one of the nurses' stations. And then I was ignored by the gossiping techs for five minutes before they finally acknowledged my presence and another several before they got me a mask. By the time I got back to the line, the lady behind me was at the window. I asked the woman standing at the front of the line--who was behind the lady behind me--if I could get back in line since I had been held up getting a mask. She may not have understood me (my Spanish is so rusty there was no way I could explain what I wanted in her language), but she didn't appear to have a problem with it. However, a woman at the very END of the line decided that she had a problem with it. So she came up and started yelling in my face. Like, I could smell her breath close. "You left and so now YOU gotta go the back of the LINE. I has to go to the back, and I's been waitin' for three hours! YOU left, you lose." etc. I knew that arguing with her wouldn't go anywhere, so I just said, "I'm sorry you feel that way, ma'am." Thankfully, the tech at the window heard the ruckus the lady was making and called security. Two guards came to sort out the situation. I explained that I had been waiting for almost an hour, didn't want to get sick, left the line when I figured there'd be still at least 10 minutes to wait, asked the woman behind me--who was now at the window--to hold my place. It took much longer than I thought to get a mask, and I just wanted to get my pills and go home. One forced the yelling lady back to her place at the end of the line (she hadn't been waiting in line when I left, otherwise her argument would have had a leg to stand on) where she loudly grumbled to everyone about me being a line cutter, and the other decided to stick next to me in case someone else kicked up in my direction. It was thrilling. *obvioussarcasm* *eyeroll*
Speaking of being sick, poor Leo got an eye infection on Christmas Day. We started treating him with the antibiotic/steroid drops we had from the last time one of the kitties had an eye infection (in a house with so many kitties, this happens not infrequently). We took him to the vet for the first time on Wednesday, and he saw the female vet there. She prescribed a different antibiotic drop without steroids and sent him home in a Cone of Shame. After only a few hours, his eye had turned red and swollen completely shut. This was horrible, and he was in obvious pain, so we called Thursday morning and asked her to switch the drops to something with a steroid. She said she wouldn't because the steroid would cause a corneal ulcer, but she'd change the antibiotic. After all that happened with Cole just a couple of weeks ago, that didn't seem like a good enough answer to us, so we made an appointment for that day with the other vet in the practice, who is also the feline specialist. He seconded most of what she said, but with more explanation that made sense. Since then, we've been having to force a pain pill down Leo's throat once a day, and rinse out his eyes and put in ointment twice per day. He was really droopy and un-Leo-like until night before last, when he finally perked up and started talking and playing again (he's one of those cats that talks when you say something to him). Now we're concerned that he'll spread the infection to the other kitties here. Because all we need is ANOTHER $90 vet bill.
It's going to be cold and rainy tonight, so we're staying indoors for New Year's. The neighborhood kids usually set off hundreds of dollars of fireworks on the several hours before and after midnight. Since it's been raining most of the day, and will be most of tonight, they're taking this tiny dry spell to shoot off what they can, even though it's still light out.
I'm going to rest, maybe sleep, and just chillax. I hope all of y'all have a great new year. I know I hope mine is filled with better health (no more stupid injuries would be awesome), less stress (of the crisis-management kind, I can deal with the productive school kind, I think), and more happiness (if possible). I'm not making any resolutions, per se, because they never really last past January, and I hate feeling like I've failed. Someone suggested that, instead of making resolutions, you write down the good things that happen during the year and put them in a jar. At the end of the year, read all of the good things that happened, instead of dwelling on the bad. I might just do that.
Goodbye, really kinda shitty 2012; hello, 2013. You better be a much better year, because otherwise I'll start wishing the world had ended like the people misreading the Mayan calendar thought.
However, I'm seriously afraid that I might have caught something else today. I absolutely had to go up to the clinic to get my meds at the pharmacy (missing psych meds is no bueno). Naturally, it seemed like EVERYONE was coughing and/or sneezing. And, of course, no one, was wearing a mask like they're supposed to. I had waited in the ridiculously long pharmacy line for 45 minutes being coughed near when I decided that I needed to go get a face mask for myself, if no one else would wear one. I asked the lady behind me to keep my place for the minute I thought it was going to take to go down the hallway and grab one. Because it's my luck, there weren't any in the place they're supposed to be so I had to walk down to one of the nurses' stations. And then I was ignored by the gossiping techs for five minutes before they finally acknowledged my presence and another several before they got me a mask. By the time I got back to the line, the lady behind me was at the window. I asked the woman standing at the front of the line--who was behind the lady behind me--if I could get back in line since I had been held up getting a mask. She may not have understood me (my Spanish is so rusty there was no way I could explain what I wanted in her language), but she didn't appear to have a problem with it. However, a woman at the very END of the line decided that she had a problem with it. So she came up and started yelling in my face. Like, I could smell her breath close. "You left and so now YOU gotta go the back of the LINE. I has to go to the back, and I's been waitin' for three hours! YOU left, you lose." etc. I knew that arguing with her wouldn't go anywhere, so I just said, "I'm sorry you feel that way, ma'am." Thankfully, the tech at the window heard the ruckus the lady was making and called security. Two guards came to sort out the situation. I explained that I had been waiting for almost an hour, didn't want to get sick, left the line when I figured there'd be still at least 10 minutes to wait, asked the woman behind me--who was now at the window--to hold my place. It took much longer than I thought to get a mask, and I just wanted to get my pills and go home. One forced the yelling lady back to her place at the end of the line (she hadn't been waiting in line when I left, otherwise her argument would have had a leg to stand on) where she loudly grumbled to everyone about me being a line cutter, and the other decided to stick next to me in case someone else kicked up in my direction. It was thrilling. *obvioussarcasm* *eyeroll*
Speaking of being sick, poor Leo got an eye infection on Christmas Day. We started treating him with the antibiotic/steroid drops we had from the last time one of the kitties had an eye infection (in a house with so many kitties, this happens not infrequently). We took him to the vet for the first time on Wednesday, and he saw the female vet there. She prescribed a different antibiotic drop without steroids and sent him home in a Cone of Shame. After only a few hours, his eye had turned red and swollen completely shut. This was horrible, and he was in obvious pain, so we called Thursday morning and asked her to switch the drops to something with a steroid. She said she wouldn't because the steroid would cause a corneal ulcer, but she'd change the antibiotic. After all that happened with Cole just a couple of weeks ago, that didn't seem like a good enough answer to us, so we made an appointment for that day with the other vet in the practice, who is also the feline specialist. He seconded most of what she said, but with more explanation that made sense. Since then, we've been having to force a pain pill down Leo's throat once a day, and rinse out his eyes and put in ointment twice per day. He was really droopy and un-Leo-like until night before last, when he finally perked up and started talking and playing again (he's one of those cats that talks when you say something to him). Now we're concerned that he'll spread the infection to the other kitties here. Because all we need is ANOTHER $90 vet bill.
It's going to be cold and rainy tonight, so we're staying indoors for New Year's. The neighborhood kids usually set off hundreds of dollars of fireworks on the several hours before and after midnight. Since it's been raining most of the day, and will be most of tonight, they're taking this tiny dry spell to shoot off what they can, even though it's still light out.
I'm going to rest, maybe sleep, and just chillax. I hope all of y'all have a great new year. I know I hope mine is filled with better health (no more stupid injuries would be awesome), less stress (of the crisis-management kind, I can deal with the productive school kind, I think), and more happiness (if possible). I'm not making any resolutions, per se, because they never really last past January, and I hate feeling like I've failed. Someone suggested that, instead of making resolutions, you write down the good things that happen during the year and put them in a jar. At the end of the year, read all of the good things that happened, instead of dwelling on the bad. I might just do that.
Goodbye, really kinda shitty 2012; hello, 2013. You better be a much better year, because otherwise I'll start wishing the world had ended like the people misreading the Mayan calendar thought.