Salmon and Souvlaki

Please note that yesterday, I said, “It’s 10:20 so I’d better get in the shower so I can get to the doctor.”  Ha ha.  I didn’t actually get in to see the doctor until 5:00.  But anyway, when I got there, I had a strep culture (negative!), the doctor gave me amoxicyllin for a sinus infection and also told me to take Claritin.  She also wrote me a note to say that I was excused from school from the 13th onward and didn’t have to go back until Tuesday, the 19th.  Bless her!  So I’m at home today, yet again and feeling much better already.  I’ve taken three doses of the antibiotics and I’m definitely feeling like I’m getting better.  Dan Gerding had the same thing and he said he didn’t start getting better until he had antibiotics either.  So, although I feel a little bit guilty having them (you know – the whole super bug thing), I am glad to be on them and promise to take them for the whole 10 days, even after I’m feeling really well.  In the meantime, I’m also eating yogurt and drinking cranberry juice, in an attempt to keep the good bacteria surviving in my body.

When I actually get back to school, I will have been gone for over a week – I taught last Monday and then I’ll teach next Tuesday.  It feels very weird to have been gone from my kids for so long.  But Laura (my student teacher) is great so at least their education hasn’t been completely nil for two days.  And Praise the Lord that school was closed from Tuesday and Wednesday.  Being out for four days would have been really bad.

Tonight, we’re going over to Tina’s house for dinner and for me to help her make the little pins that everyone will wear on Sunday after baby Alexander’s baptism into the Greek Orthodox church.   Nik is the godfather (phonetically spelled noh-noh) so although I’m not GO and therefore unable to be official, Tina says that I will be the noh-nah to Alex.  Andreas and Nikki have asked me to have a little part in the ceremony – after Alex is baptized, Nikki’s friend and I are the ones to wrap him up in towels and dry off the oily water.  I’m told that he will be screaming so it should be an interesting job!  I’ll keep you posted as to my success in keeping hold of a yelling, wet, oily baby!

Well, I’m off to try to keep myself from organizing the whole house, now that I feel a bit better.  I know I should just keep resting but I am TIRED of sitting on this couch!

We have a laptop – actually, it’s my father-in-law’s but he’s letting us store it at our house.  It occasionally decides to hit random buttons and erase blog entries or e-mails.  That happened last night when I was attempting to type this blog entry (while under the influence of a 100 degree fever).  Normally, I just get a little upset when that happens.  Last night, I wanted to cry.  So the complaining last night would probably have been worse than this morning’s complaining will be, because my fever broke and I’m feeling a little bit better.  But I still feel like complaining a little bit.

I’ve been sick since Monday afternoon.  It started with a sore throat and achy body and turned into severe aches and a 100 degree fever on Tuesday.  Luckily, Tuesday was Primary Election day and yesterday was a snow (really freezing rain) day so today is the first day of school that I’ve actually had to miss.  On both Tuesday and Wednesday, I woke up feeling OK, got progressively worse through the day and felt miserable by evening.  I had the flu shot in December but Nik’s dad said that it sounds like I have flu-like symptoms, possibly just a mild case because I have the shot.  So I’m going to the doctor today and hopefully, they will at least be able to rule out strep throat and give me a note that says it’s OK for me to miss school.

As far as missing school goes, because my student teacher is teaching 3/5th’s of my classes right now, it’s a pretty ideal time to be out.  My kids will still be learning, not doing a silly busywork assignment and that makes me feel less guilty for not being there.  I’m hoping to be able to go into work tomorrow and then we have a 3-day weekend so I should be able to really get healed at that point.  However, at this time of day yesterday, I would have sworn that I would have been at school today because I felt like I was getting better.  Then my fever came back.  And here I am at home today.  So I’m not making any definite plans about tomorrow.

Nik has been amazing, kind and helpful to me through all of this – acting out his “in sickness and in health” vows perfectly!  He never gets sick (I’ve never know him when he was sick) so I told him that I’m probably getting the easy end of the deal – he does “in sickness” and I get “in heath”!   But anyway, he even went out at 9:45 last night to get some Tylenol and chicken noodle soup for me.  I have a great husband!

I was talking to Lisa last night.  She has endured about 8 months of what has essentially been rheumatoid arthritis symptoms – extreme pain in varying joints along with severe exhaustion.  It’s been a scary journey with her but a couple weeks ago, the rheumatologist told her that the tests all came back negatively for rheumatoid arthritis.  Praise the Lord!  They think she has had a virus called Fifth’s Disease, which is basically harmless in kids, just a little rash, the “slapped-cheek” rash.  But if you don’t get it when you’re a kid and then contract it as an adult, it can wreak havoc with your body and can take up to a year or more to work its way through your system.   She is finally feeling better and is trying hard not to cause a relapse by attempting to put her house back in shape after 8 months of just barely surviving!  She is having fun, finally being able to do everything that she’s wanted to do for months.  Anyway, I told her that just these two days of forced resting have helped me understand her struggles over the past few months.  When we’re too busy, we all long to rest.  But when we can’t work, when we can’t be productive, it’s just as hard to sit and rest.  I think I’m learning that God’s design for us – to work for 6 days and rest for one, is very deeply ingrained in us.  We were designed to work, to be productive – but also to rest.  When we have too much of either, we are set off-kilter.   It’s hard to find the balance.

Well, it’s 10:20 and I’d better get in the shower so I can get over to the doctor.  And if you made it to the end of this long post, then you will get the most important message of all: