Week Full of Surprises
I suppose I’ll write about the good surprise first.
I love this time of year. I love going to the mailbox every afternoon to see whose Christmas card has arrived. I love the pictures, stories, and family updates. Of course it’s even more exciting when you open your mailbox and there’s a brown package inside with YOUR name on it! That is what I received today! The package is from my sweet cousin, Liza. She, her hubby, and their cute doggies live in Arkansas (where I was born). Check out the goodies inside:
There were two awesome Christmas towels with our last names embroidered on them, an adorable picture of her dogs, and a note at the bottom of the card, “Starbucks cards don’t expire, so even if ya’ll don’t get there before all ya’lls kids turn 20, it should still be good!” HAHAHA!! Oh, Liza, if you only knew how often we MAKE time to drive thru Starbucks. We should own stock. I also think therapists should prescribe Starbucks for depression, anxiety, exhaustion, oh the list could go on forever. I’m not sure a mental state exsists that Starbucks couldn’t improve upon with a holiday beverage of choice. Works for me every time!
Liza, you made our week!! Thank you so very much! Ashley was so excited when I called and told her. We’ll take pictures of our girls’ day out tomorrow. We’ve got a little Christmas shopping to do and we’re taking Susan along for some girlie time.
Ok, different surprise now. Not so great.
I woke up at 4am, Sunday morning (12/13) to give Joshua some tylenol because he had a fever. When I got up, I realized my arm was itching. There seemed to be a little bug bite on the under side of my forearm. There wasn’t much of a mark on my arm, so I didn’t think anything of it and went back to bed.
By Sunday night, the bite area had grown to about the size of a dime and it burned a little bit.
On Monday I called my mom, who happens to be a wound nurse, and she told me to mark the boundaries of the spot with a sharpie so I could know for sure if it continued to spread and get worse. By Tuesday, it was the size of a half dollar. You can see the picture I took at the doctor’s office.
The doctor said it was either a poisonous insect/spider that bit me, or I’m simply having a bad allergic reaction to whatever bit me. Either way, he gave me some antihistamines and told me to keep an eye on it. He also marked the new boundaries with a black sharpie marker and said to call if it got any bigger.
By Thursday it had doubled in size again so I headed back to the doctor. In this picture, you can see where Tuesday’s boundary was drawn and it had spread about an inch all the way around. GROSS. I know.
This time the doctor really didn’t like the way it looked and insisted upon DRAINING IT and sending the ooze to the lab. What happened next almost made me lose my lunch. The doc reappeared with a needle the size of a screw driver and said those dreaded words, “There’s no sense in numbing you because either way, it’s just one stick.” ARE YOU FREAKIN’ KIDDING ME!? I’ll take one tiny needle containing numbing medicine so I don’t have to FEEL the DRILL BIT as you insert it into my arm…PLEASE!! Nope. No pain meds. She pushed the needle in until I yelled, “THAT’S ENOUGH!” Then, she pulled it out and began mashing around and pushing and squeezing…and that’s all I’ll say about that part so you don’t have to lose your lunch as well. The jury is still out. They sent the ooze off to the lab and we’ll know something on Monday. Until then, I have to ‘drain’ the wound site every three hours during the day and they’re treating me for MRSA with a heavy duty antibiotic until they get the lab results back. Here is what it looks like today:
Tonight, we have a graduation party for my sister-in-law, Erin. Congrats college grad!!!
Happy Friday Everyone!!
~audrey