She hadn’t felt very good yesterday but we thought it was just a cold. But then she called mom (who called me) and told her she needed to go to the ER. The doctors say that it’s full blown pneumonia again and it sucks just as bad, if not worse than last time since this time she’s in the ICU. Also, her white blood cell count is at 55,000 (a normal white blood cell count is 5,000 – 10,000) so they know that she has infection somewhere but they aren’t sure if the pneumonia is what’s causing it.

So.

Yea.

So far she’s put up one hell of a battle, pulling things off of her face, trying to rip her IV out, taking off chest patches and telling us to get her out of there. They gave her something for the pain and she was finally able to sleep (she wiggled all the way down to the foot of her bed and laid across it width-wise before she’d rest. How she sleeps like that, I will never know).

The nurse asked, “is she always this feisty?”. We all just nodded and told her she had no idea.

At one point she woke up and said, “let’s go to Wendover!”. Here’s to Grams, eh? May you rest up and be back home with me in no time. We have many more movies to watch, children to yell at, people to gossip about and seasons to enjoy.

Love you.

In the past I have had:

Double kidney infections.

Stomach ulcers.

Migraines and chronic sinus infections.

And the grand-daddy of them all, Acute Tonsillitis, resulting in a Tonsillectomy – a special brand of hell that I wouldn’t wish on anyone.

But I lived and I’m here and I’m fine.

And I know there are hundreds of people that have worse health than I do, so I avoided blogging about my crappy implant experience from two weeks ago, where they pulled my baby tooth (I have two of them, and they both need implants), used a cadaver bone for a bone graft and then screwed a steel pin into my jaw bone.

That was all fine and dandy since they knocked me out.

The parts that sucked were when I WOKE UP DURING SURGERY. Or how the medicine made me so ill on Saturday that I missed Kamie’s sealing. Or when I look in my mouth and see someone else’s bone showing through the open, bleeding, gaping wound.

But that’s fine. It’s doable.

So when I woke up on Monday with what I thought was a bug bite, I let it slide. I’ve seen hundreds of those eight-legged creeps sneaking around down here. I figured it had to be one of them and I didn’t give it another thought until the next morning when the bug bite had, well, multiplied. And what initially looked like one bite was now twenty small pin pricks all in the same location.

I passed it off as a rash and figured it would go away in a day or two.

It’s been four. It continues to grow. It itches and burns and my entire stomach is on fire because of it.

It’s not a bite though.

IT’S SHINGLES. Or to be technical, herpes zoster. HERPES, people! On my stomach!

Not that I know this for sure though, the only diagnosis I’ve had is from Dr. Google (with sympathetic, confirmational nods from Ashley and her sister-in-law Brenda) since we don’t have health insurance until January 1st. Kevin recently changed jobs – which we are so grateful for and so happy about, but when you know you have two more cavities and two more crowns that need fixing, it kind of stresses you out to know that you can’t do anything until next year, and it leaves you hoping nothing else happens.

And then the SHINGLES show up! Like hey, I heard your stressed so I thought lets just make it a party! Because that’s what causes SHINGLES. Stress, which I’ve had more than I can handle lately between the wedding, and adjusting to marriage, and my work moving, and Grams being sick, and Ollie suddenly sprouting a tumor on his leg that will cost at least $300 to remove.

The bright side is that if it is SHINGLES, at least explains the blinding headaches, ear aches, nausea and dizziness that makes me keep missing work – goodbye Christmas PTO! And goodbye hanging out with Evonne and Kamie on Saturday. They both have tiny, cute, adorable little boys (and Evonne has a beautiful six year old girl) who I would love to love on, but can’t because although shingles-to-shingles transfers aren’t possible, shingles are caused by the same strain that causes chicken pox. So if they or their kids haven’t had chicken pox, they could potentially get it from me.

On top of everything, I’m really starting to feel like a hypochondriac.

So now I’m stuck with either just living with it, or going to a doctor that we will pay an outrageous amount for, to get pills that will be full priced, to fix a glorified version of stomach herpes.

Awesome.

Today is also day five of the worst migraine of my life.

And as if both of those aren’t awesome enough on their own, life threw in another monkey wrench. The plans were to wake up, go chill in Gram’s room and read a book or something.

The plans changed when I woke up half blinded by the stabbing pain in my head, so I played it cool at home for a few hours. Kevin decided to go on a bike ride (poor guy only has a few weeks left before the winter takes away all his fun), so while he was gone I hopped in the shower. And I’ve told you this before, but I normally think of earthquakes when I’m in the shower. As in, EVERY DAY I’M IN THE SHOWER, I’M TERRIFIED THAT THERE WILL BE AN EARTHQUAKE AND I’LL HAVE TO RUN OUT OF THE HOUSE NAKED. You know, that kind of fear.

So I’m showering.

And I’m thinking of earthquakes.

And I’m thinking of that one time I was in the shower when I’d first moved in, and I was shaving my legs and all (because you totally needed that for context), and I heard an awful knocking noise coming from somewhere and I thought it was an earthquake, but it turned out to be the washing machine, hitting the dryer and the concrete wall behind it.

So great. Now I fear earthquakes AND washers.

So today, I’m reminiscing. Shaving (again, context). And I keep having to turn the shower off because I’m afraid that the washer might start knocking again, I don’t know, Kevin is gone and Grams is gone and I’d be the only one to hear it, but I probably wouldn’t hear it because of the shower.

Shower on.

Was that the washer?!

Shower off.

I think it’s spin cycle. Nothing sounds out of the ordinary.

Shower on.

Repeat.

But then.

THEN! I hear a bubble, and it’s not the drain. It’s the toilet. See?! You can’t say I fear things for nothing. So I open the curtain and lift the toilet lid, and sure enough, water is sloshing everywhere and huge bubbles are coming up out of it. I thought about flushing it but my head goes back to thinking it’s either an earthquake or the washer.

So not wanting to waste time, I dive out of the shower and streak naked into the laundry room. And can I just say, I’m glad Kevin wasn’t home because “Who the Bleep Did I Marry?” was on and he totally would have been thinking that.

And sure enough, there is the washer, and it’s doing something yes, but it’s much worse than just knocking.

It’s backing up all over the floor in a huge, bubbly mess.

And now I fear flooding.

While we’re on the topic, can I just point out (since she doesn’t read my blog, and I will kill you – or more likely she will kill me if you mention this) Gram’s laundry room is scary. There are dangling cords and loose wires and random hoses and jars with wolf spiders in there, man.

It’s freaky.

So being the idiot that I am, I jump feet first into the puddle and yank open the washing machine lid. And then I called my dad to fix it.

And I topped off the moment by washing the conditioner out of my hair in the kitchen sink.

Dad arrived, fixed it and told me, “Next time stay out of here. If you were to get your feet wet and touch something metal that has a charge and your feet are grounded, ZAP. Gone. It’s not worth it over a little water. And It’s not enough to flood your house. Next time just leave it”.

And I nodded and told Kevin that I almost died today, because my feet were totally wet, and the ground was wet, and I was probably two inches from touching something I shouldn’t have trying to shut the washer off.

(Aren’t these “what I did today” posts so much more fun than the other posts I keep doing about my wedding? I may even start telling you what we ate today, just to mix it up.)

(Pasta.)

(Okay okay, that was just in case you were really curious, because I hate when people allude to things and don’t ever tell you what they were talking about.)

In other news. Grams is doing better. They are testing her for diabetes, but her breathing is much better and they finally found a sleeping pill that allowed her “six hours of blissful sleep”. She misses home and home misses her. Ollie has gone upstairs no less than five times today to look for her. I’d sneak him in to see her but they don’t allow pets and he refuses to be stuffed into a backpack. Wuss.

I think Grams will get better. She told me earlier, “I’m scared they’re going to use two dirty words, ‘rest home’ on me. If they do, you have to break me out of here”.

I told her if they did I’d steal a pair of scrubs, pretend to walk her around, and once we hit the elevators we’d make our escape. Kevin would have the getaway car ready.

As much as we joke, I can’t tell you how much I HATE that she’s sick, and how bad I HATE having no control and no way to help. It’s been hitting me pretty hard lately that I won’t have her around forever. I just hope we’ll have many more good years to come, living here together, eating Fritos on her couch and watching the Jazz games.

Because you know, complaining about the fact that a four hour nap in the afternoon completely threw off my sleep at night and that’s the reason I was so tired today is soooo cool.

(That other noise you just heard is all the mothers that have EVER had to wake up with a sick, crying, or hungry baby unfollowing this blog. How dare I complain about spare sleep?! I know. I hate me too.)

So anyway. I tell you this not to complain, but for context.

Root canal on Tuesday. Pain and migraine ever since. Last night I had a four hour nap. Bed at 1:30AM. Not falling asleep. 2:30, still awake. 3:00, grumbling at Kevin to shush. 3:30, grumbling at myself to hold still.

At 4:00, I finally got fed up and took a sleeping pill.

At 7:00 I got the call from Grams telling me she didn’t feel well and was going to the ER. She’s been sick for two weeks. An ambulance came and picked her up. They didn’t use sirens.

I guess she’d woken up at 3:00AM and couldn’t breathe well enough to go back to sleep, but she waited until 7:00 to call my parents.

The ironic part is, both Kevin and I were awake at 3:00.

All three of us were awake and suffering at the same time, although I do have to say, I feel completely horrible for even thinking about complaining from my lack of sleep when Grams had that and so much more troubling her.

Grams, it turns out, has Pneumonia.

We don’t know much more other than she’s miserable if she lays down, and she’s staying the night at the hospital.

However.

She still has every ounce of her sass. So much so that when I asked her why she didn’t pass down her thick hair to me, she said, “I have no control over what gets passed down! If I did, you’d have bigger boobs!” So yea.

Pneumonia.

Boob comments.

I miss Grams.

I will keep you posted as we learn more. For now I’m going to go to bed and make up those lost hours of sleep so I can wake up bright and early to go pester her.