I Will Not Suffer In Silence

I had a date with friends for dinner and dancing tonight, but two out of the four of us were feeling shitty, so we just had dinner and cancelled the dancing. Ah well, there’s always July and August to go to the monthly club event I like so much. September through November won’t work because it lines up with george again (grrrrr).

So to catch up from last night…I lost my voice last night, and woke up this morning still without a voice.

I flushed my nasal cavaties with the neti pot, or at least tried - the left nostril was too blocked to flush. I gargled sea salt water, too. As a result, I spent the first hour of my morning hocking up dark yellow/green/brown gunk, nearly filling the base of the sink. Oh and because of all the choking up of the thick nasty gunk, I puked bile a couple times, too.

I didn’t have breakfast. I didn’t eat for the first three hours after waking, and for me that is NOT normal. I usually have to eat first thing in the morning or I get all sugar-crashy.

I scored an appointment with the doctor again, after only having been there four days ago. I went in at noon and saw a different doctor, who told me actually, YES, in fact I HAVE been contagious for the entire time I’ve been sick, and YES I DO have a virus. I was SO mad. I went to work with a virus, which got worse because I wasn’t resting and I was talking all day with children. I hung out with friends after work, who might now be infected because I am contagious. UGH. So mad.

This doctor was also resistant to give me any antibiotics, giving me the line again that antibiotics don’t do shit for virii, only for bacterial infections, and he’s sure I don’t have a bacterial infection because my lungs are clear and my ears and nose and throat look good, etc.

I asked him in a whisper, “aren’t you going to order a throat culture then to be sure?”

He shrugged and said it’s not necessary, and that if I do have a bacterial infection, it’s so far lodged up into my sinuses that a Q-tip swab for the culture test isn’t going to be able to find it.

He also said that the laryngitis is a virus too but completely separate from the fact that I have a sinus infection.

I gave him the hairy eyeball and whispered, “okay so the green phlegm coating my vocal cords has nothing to do with the fact that I’ve lost my voice?”

He HAD to concede. He said, “Yeah well okay in some cases sinus infection can lead to laryngitis, sure…”

I rolled my eyes. I reminded him that I’ve had the sinus infection for seven full days, now, and that it is getting worse, not better. Then I explained my history with sinus infections; I had chronic sinus infections throughout my childhood and annually as an adult when I lived with my mom, who is a pack-a-day smoker.
These infections continued when I worked with children. My first year on the job as a childcare provider, I had a sinus infection every single month. And nearly every month, the doctors gave me a strong antibiotic called Cipro to fight the infection. At the end of that year, on New Year’s Eve, my pancreas became inflamed, and I spent four days in hospital with acute pancreatitis.
The sinus infections stopped a couple years after moving to California and I was away from children (started working dotcom jobs) and away from cigarette-smoke (anti-smoking laws).
Now that I’ve started working with kids again, I knew I’d be sick within the first 30 days of being back to work. Add to this the fact that I have allergies and Endometriosis, which as I’ve mentioned before, are related to a weakened immune system (but doctors are still debating this obvious fact for some reason).

Anyway, after that historical argument, the doctor relented and gave me antibiotics.

I wasn’t hungry this morning, but I did get a monster headache, which I think was from not eating first thing and also from my sinuses in my forehead. Today those sinuses hurt all day. I had to close my eyes whenever I was in the car (my fiancé was driving) today because the sunlight was too bright, even with sunglasses on. I massaged my eyebrows a lot today, trying to relieve the pain.

I didn’t have a voice again until dinnertime, when I had a whole lot of Thai spicy food, soup and tea. Thai coconut soup is the bomb, I love it. My voice came back pretty good for a few hours, and then the cough came back, and with it the mucous, and now my voice is nearly gone again, my throat is sore again, and the headache is back.

I’ve taken a Tylenol 3 to ease the discomfort of everything, and because the codeine quells coughing a bit. I should do a second flush of the day with the neti pot/gargling, too.

Ahhh, the Tylenol 3 finally kicked in. Took nearly half an hour. Relief hopefully comes soon. And healing hopefully soon as well with the antibiotic.

Also, I’d like to state for the record again… fecking doctors.

I went in to work today after having missed the past two weeks (first because of girl do0m, then because I got a horrifying sinus infection). The children remembered me and came up to me all smiling. :)

Got home from work and the agency called me - they’d just gotten a call from the director of the daycare - I am not to report there again.

Oooooookay…..

Part of me wants to scream HOOOORAAAAYYYYY!!!!

and the other part of me wants to choke a bitch.

So now I really don’t have a job again. The agency doesn’t have a gig for me until Friday June 27 and it’s only a one-day subbing at the other daycare I went to last Friday.

So yeah, I’m truly officially a babysitter/nanny for hire now. :)

Oh yeah, and I completely lost my voice at work today because I’m still a sinus-infected, coughing mess. Wheeee

Edit: I found out the reason I was not asked back is because the church, who runs the daycare, shut it down after Social Services came in and fined the place for how badly it was being run!

I was out running errands when the director of the Evil Daycare From Hell finally called me back… at quarter after one.

She asked if I’d like to come in to work tomorrow. I said I would (not that I’d like to, mind you, but I do need the money. Badly).

I then called up my agency to ask if she’d called there, first. She hadn’t. So I asked them to call her back and make sure it’s all legit. They did and it is and I go in tomorrow.

The agency called me back just a bit ago, asking if she wanted me to work JUST tomorrow, or STARTING tomorrow and continuing through next week? I told them JUST tomorrow is all she’d mentioned. They didn’t sound too happy about that.

You know what, I’m tired of being in the middle, here. Aren’t THEY supposed to play middleman FOR ME? Geez.

Let’s hope I surive the day tomorrow…

And on the sickie front, my ears, nose, throat and head have all plugged up again. I’ve been doing the neti pot, nasal sprays, Life Shield mushroom spray (it’s $30 of useless, I say), and cough drops, but the only thing that helps are the things that make me loopy: Sudafed PE and Tylenol 3.
I’m only taking the Tylenol 3 at night because codeine is also a cough suppressant. Then again, had I lost more sleep by hacking up all the gunk last night, perhaps I’d not be back to square one with the stuffed head again today. But I thought I’d be at a job today and thusly needed my beauty sleep.
Feh.

Today I’m feeling well enough to finally report back to work, so I call up the agency and ask if I’m still to report back to the Evil Daycare From Hell. The lady at the agency hesitates, and says she’s been trying to get ahold of the director at the daycare all week, to tell her I was sick, and to ask if a replacement should be sent out to the daycare, but the director was never there…

Let me repeat that. The agency tried to get ahold of the director but the director was never there for the agency to speak to directly this week.

I remember back in May when I tried to tell the director that she’s never there, and she flipped her shit at me.

…yeahhhhh….

So I asked the agency if I should call the daycare directly and see if I should report to work. The agency was thankful for this assistance and encouraged me to call. So I did. I got ahold of the full-time staffer who’s been there for 8 years. She said she’s been stripped of any right to make any decisions because the director has been getting in a lot of trouble lately.

Hmmm, I wonder what kind of trouble? I’m dying to know! >:)

The staffperson told me she’d love for me to come in but she can’t authorise it, and I just have to wait for the director to come in.

I asked if she knew when the director would be in today.

She laughed.

heh

…yeahhhhh….that’s how it goes, there.

So we decided that I’m “on call” today, and that I should keep calling back until 9:30am to see if I can get ahold of the director to see if I’m needed today and tomorrow.

I called the agency back and told them what transpired. They’re okay with the “on call” status for today, and cautioned me not to go in to work until the director calls the agency to confirm that I’m needed. Otherwise, they won’t know I’m on the schedule and can’t pay me.

So to sum up what today will be like:
I have to play phone tag with the director, and if I reach the director, have her play phone tag with the agency, and then have the agency call me, and THEN I can report to work today.

…yeahhhhh….

I told the agency again that I would love to be placed elsewhere ASAP. They still don’t have anything for me. I told the agency again that if the daycare I was sent to last Friday has another opening, I’d love to be placed there. The agency told me they need someone on Friday the 27th. So I penciled it in.

And now, I’m off to scour craigslist and the Berkeley Parents Network for full time work, and update my resume and my linkedin profile.

Wheeeee.

And lastly, on the sickie front, my ears are still plugged. I’m still coughing, so much so that I had to take codeine to get to sleep last night (it’s a natural cough suppressant). I still have a sore throat. But the headache, neckache and upper backache has gone away as of yesterday after an acupuncture appointment.

No long-term relief yet from the Life Shield Throat Defend; it only provides immediate, temporary pain relief.

No long-term pain relief from the Tylenol 3 I took around noon - as soon as the meds wore off around 4pm, the pain returned in my head, neck, shoulders, back and throat.

No relief from the salty nasal spray.

I caved in around 5pm and took a Sudafed PE - no relief detected. On the plus side, so far no adverse side effects reported.

brought home some regular Tylenol per doctor’s request, and a neti pot as recommended by a friend. Couple friends, actually. Months ago, the same friend who recommended the Mucinex had also recommended a neti pot, now that I recall. So now I have one.

I’ll give the neti pot a go after I have some Amy’s brand Thai Coconut soup. I’ve already popped a 500mg Tylenol.

I just want the head poundy and neck pain to go away first, and then I can say any progress has been made.

I took the day off work and went to the doctor this morning. She explained that my sinuses - above and below my eyes, in my nose, throat and ears, are all red and inflamed, “but not angry”…
She said that my mistake was using the Mucinex - that’s what caused my head and face to swell up with all the pressure, because the Mucinex was adding moisture to the sinuses to push the goop out, but the ducts are already blocked. Hence the feeling of head and eye explodey that’s still with me now.

She told me to get some Tylenol, some Sudafed and some Afrin spray. I protested the Sudafed, saying that anything with Pseudoephedrine in it gives me a racing heart and brings on panic attacks. Her reply was to basically just deal with it, because that’s her best recommendation on the market!!!!
My doctor then said if I want to, I can try Sudafed PE, because it contains Phenylephrine instead of the Pseudoephedrine.

Buh.

So I went to the natural grocery up the street and was sold some Life Shield Throat Defend, instead. No pseudephrine. It’s made from mushrooms! And it’s damned expensive, but at this stage of my life, I’m fed up with doctors telling me that horrible side effects to dangerous pharmaceuticals must be tolerated.

I got some Afrin and I already have some saline nose spray in the house, so I’ll use those along with the Life Shield stuff and see how the next couple of days go. I also got a doctor’s note in case I need it.

And now, Tylenol and sleep - hopefully I can get rid of the head splodey feeling by the end of today. Ugh.

Girl do0m went away by Friday evening, and just in time for a cold to settle in. I woke up in the middle of the night with phlegm and a very sore throat.
I began taking 1,000mg vitamin C and popping the Cold-Eze cough drops again (this cold tried to settle in a week or two ago and I thought I’d fought it off).

I felt better on Saturday, and so I attended both a birthday party and a wedding.

On Sunday the sore throat, which I thought had gone away again… came BACK again, and then turned into a cough. Great. And then I lost my voice.
Sunday night, I took some leftover codeine cough syrup from a year or so ago when I was sick.

I spent my day off on Monday just taking it easy, drinking rose hip tea, eating cough drops, and napping. I barely ate anything all day Monday.
By 4:30pm Monday, the cough and sore throat worsened, so I took a second dose of cough medicine.

By Monday night, I my head and neck started to feel very swollen, and my sore throat worsened. I bought some Mucinex and more cough drops. I forced down some Palak Paneer for dinner, and went to bed.

I had repeated dreams of choking to death on all the phlegm.

Woke up at 3am feeling like my head might explode. Not sure if my eyes would explode from pain and pressure first or not. My left ear was plugged and my neck and upper back felt like it was about to go out from all the pressure. The sore throat was epic at that point. My jaw felt like it would lock shut, adding to the pain and pressure.

And that is where it’s at right this moment as I type.

There is no friggin way I’m returning to the evil daycare of do0m today. I know I fully expected to get sick from the kids as soon as I started working with them again. I’m just sad that it follows up a week I’ve already had to take off of work because of the girl do0m. But I have to take care of myself. I have to see a doctor.

I didn’t have pain on Friday morning, though I was still bleeding. So I had really bad pain and bleeding for three days - on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday - this time around. That for me is about right. A five-day cycle overall, with three really bad days.

I did go in to work at the new assignment on Friday. This place is a government-run facility, I’m told. There was order, stability, curriculum, and professional staff. I asked if they’d need me again soon. By lunchtime, they asked me if I really did want to come back, because they saw how well the kids responded to me, and said they liked my work.
Even though I have social phobia with other adults, and even though I felt extremely awkward, I really liked that center so much better than the first one I was assigned to.

By the end of the workday on Friday, I’d had a child plop down in my lap during story time, and another child drew me a card with flowers on it, and yet another child grabbed hold of the back of my shirt and decided to be my shadow during recess. Mad giggling ensued when I turned around and asked who was behind me - she moved with me every time I twisted and turned - obscuring her identity. I figured the only way to get her to let go of my shirt was to climb the monkey bars and go down the slide. It worked - and I “ran” to get away from her again, but she’d catch me every time and we’d have to repeat the scenario. ;) After the second time around, I had upwards of six or seven children playing this game, running after me, giggling like crazy. :)

George went away by Friday evening, and just in time for a cold to settle in. I woke up in the middle of the night with phlegm and a very sore throat. Ugh. I began taking 1,000mg vitamin C and popping the Cold-Eze cough drops again (this cold tried to settle in a week or two ago and I thought I’d fought it off).
I’ve had this sore throat on and off since Friday, and today it turned into a cough. Great. Good thing I have leftover codeine cough syrup from a year or so ago when I was sick. Hopefully I can fend the cold off again.

That’s the risk you take when working with children. Their germs are evil little mutating bastards. I have this saying - “children will kill ya!”

Friday night, my man took me out to dinner at our favourite Thai restaurant, and afterwards, we walked around town a bit.

On Saturday, I attended a friend’s birthday party *and* another friend’s wedding.
Today, we gathered at the bride and groom’s house for brunch, and watched them do the official signing of all the documents. I got to hear funny stories about the groom - I always like to hear families tell such stories. I’m a huge genealogy fan, so hearing anyone’s history, no matter how embarrassing or not, holds a lot of interest for me. I am fond of seeing families together, chatting, hanging out - doing what our family used to do before gramma and grampa moved back to Kentucky and the family fell apart without their parents as a solid rock and anchor nearby.

Bah, but I digress.

It was when we were on our way home from our friends’ house that my cough set in. And now I’m back home again, and I’m depressed all over again. I have our own wedding to continue planning. I feel alone in this planning.

Bleh. I’m so glad I don’t work tomorrow. I’m so glad I insisted on a 32-hour work week. I need tomorrow as a mental health day, and actually, I wonder how much sicker I’ll get with this cold. It’s definitely not helping with my depression. I’ve been depressed since the beginning of June - at least, that’s what my diary says.

I don’t know what else to say. Journaling got a lot off my chest, but I’ve not solved anything and I don’t feel any better emotionally like I usually do through journaling. I don’t know what else I can say or rant about in an attempt to make myself feel better.

Hmmm.

Maybe drinking a lot of alcohol socially over the past two weeks hasn’t helped my depression, either. :p

I know what would make me feel better. Winning the friggin’ lottery would make me feel better. I don’t want to work anymore. I don’t want to worry about rent and bills anymore. I don’t want to stress over wedding finances anymore.

One last thing, just so I have it preserved here - my thumb is doing much better. Ever since yesterday morning, or was it Friday night?… I’ve been constantly applying Curel lotion to my thumb. It’s healing up nicely, and much faster than applying that stupid steroidal ointment I was given from my doctor. I wonder if I’m also allergic to that. Wouldn’t surprise me. My ma is allergic to cortisone, and only found out when she had it injected for back pain. She can’t even have it topically - it makes her rash out and also look like some kind of leper.

Righto, that’s all I got.

The agency assures me that I’ll get paid going back to my first day of work on May 16th - by June 9th.

Meanwhile, I’ve missed four days of work due to my illness.

The agency told me not to report back to the evil daycare tomorrow, but to instead try out a new place tomorrow in Hayward.

Then I’m to report back to the evil daycare again on June 10th - 20th.

I really really hope they have a replacement for me before then.

As to my illness, I’m not sure if I’ll be well tomorrow or not. I’m doing okay at the moment, save for the fact that my lower back is still killing me. My lower back only kills me when the Endometriosis is flared up. So I’m not convinced the do0m is over this month.

All I can do is take it hour by hour. If I have to call the agency first thing in the morning and call in sick, I have to call in sick. They will have to deal with it. And if they don’t deal with it, well, you know that the Labor Board is my best friend.

Speaking of whom, I’ve not heard back from them yet - they always tell me that if I don’t hear anything, it’s all good - they’re still working on my case. I always get to the point of impatience, ready to call them, and then I hear an update from ‘em.
Hopefully an update comes soon.

It’s almost too much to ask to be awake for any length of time today, whether drugged on pain meds or not.