May 10, 2015

Zombified

PBHLLLT. I am pooped. And not quite rocking the solo parenting gig.

Thaddeus and Daniel are FINALLY on the mend. And last week was extra rough for Mr. Danny Mac. He's in the midst of a growth spurt, and his clothes weren't quit fitting... tight clothes = friction = chafing. And thanks to his terrible toe problem that coincided oh so nicely with this, he ended up with a horrible skin infection on top of everything else. He was a trooper, but man alive, I don't even know how he could walk.

Anyways, Taylor is the only child taking medication at this point, and I have my fingers crossed that we will all remain healthy for the foreseeable future.

Of course, *I* am having stupid medication problems. Thanks to the insurance change, I have to be reauthorized to receive all my specialty meds. Which means that I have NOT been functioning properly, and I have been in zombie mode.  I do not have my fabulous nerve pain pill. Nor do I have my glorious cymbalta, which helps me to be a nice person, sleep, not have an itchy spider brain, and helps with pain management. I only have three injections left, and I won't be getting those until the insurance gets a nice note from my neuro confirming that I do indeed have Multiple Sclerosis.

My children have been ever so helpful in dealing with my zombie self. The nerve pain in my upper back and neck is so severe that I haven't been able to turn my head. I also have started slurring in my speech, because my tongue doesn't work as fast as my brain. At church today, I also noticed that when I was talking to people I wasn't making sense. I could SEE that my friends were confused by me and our conversation, but I couldn't make the proper connections to have a successful interaction. It's very much an out of body experience that I can't quite explain. It's like the real me is floating above, watching me struggle, and trying to help, but the physical me can't follow the directions. So then floaty me gets frustrated, and anchored me gives up, and whoever I was trying to talk to looks at me with sad eyes and asks, "Are you okay?" and "How you holding up?" and all I can say is, "I'm here."

Also, zombified Caroline is not a very good employee. I missed two days of work last week. It's hard to explain the difference between carpetbaggers and scalawags when my brain is turned off. The only thing I really have going for me at work is that we're doing INSECTS for science. I've been doing zoology, and our last unit is bugs, and I am SO a bug person. True story: when I was younger, I wanted to be an entomologist, and I LOVED searching for insects and learning all about them. So, science is easy peasy. And we just finished learning about the Civil War and we're getting in to the reconstruction era, so that's fun.

Oh! And today is Mother's Day! The kids totally killed it, and took great care of me today. When I woke up, Daniel was sitting next to me in bed. He patted my arm and told me to go back to sleep. (His job was to distract me and to not let me out of my bed.) A short while later, four happy faces presented me with a fabulous breakfast of waffles, scrambled eggs, fruit salad, chocolate milk, and four Tylenol. I tell you what, I have some awesome kiddos.

They also did the dishes today, switched a few loads of laundry, made me dinner, and let me pick out a movie to watch. (I chose First Kid, starring Sinbad.... my kids thought it was an awesome choice.) I also received a neck rub, which was made all the better with a splash of some pain-relief cream.  Have you ever tried the pain-creams they have? My favorite doctor suggested it to me, and I was having a hard time with it, because a lot of the creams and oils they have are pretty pricey. (Also: did you know that frankincense and myrrh are like, MAGIC for pain relief? I used to like the shepherds the best in the Christmas stories, but now the Wise Men are my favorite. Forever and ever amen.) Anways, these oils and whatnot are CRAZY expensive, and since I didn't know if they would for sure work, I didn't want to spend lots of money on anything. At any rate, I ended up with a generic "ultra strength" pain creaam, and I am in LOVE. Also, it is fabulous for growing pains! People's joints are hurting at night, and I rub a dollop of magical cream on their legs, and POOF! Back to bed.

Meanwhile, the countdown is ON. 19 more days, and we are headed back west. However, I swears to you, if I don't get my pills back in my system soon, it will be the most miserable drive ever. Fingers crossed I get a happy phone call from the pharmacy tomorrow.