February Funk

Oh boy this last month has not been an easy one. Once again, the sickness has made it's way around again. First shortly after I got my tooth implant I ended up with a strep/respiratory type thing. Then, my son got a stomach flu with throwing up, which is never fun. My daughter picked up a mild congestion-y thing. Then over the past week I got a non-throw up stomach bug packed with serious stomach cramping and other fun stuff. I felt like it was going to last forever. I'm convinced I got it from our neighbor who invited us over for evening pancakes (and had just recovered from this wretched thing) and the very next day I have stomach issues. Coincidence? I don't think so.  In addition,  I think I've spent about $300 in delivery and take out food for us/the kids because I had no desire or energy to cook a thing.  Nothing.  We are out of everything also, as I haven't been to the store in over a week. Cooking is hard for me when I feel good, let alone when I can only move from the recliner to the couch. But life still went on, I drug myself to the kids' basketball games and practices.  The season just ended last week for both kids, and we just had my son's end of season party at the pizza place.

I'm so proud of the kids this season...my son was the all time high score-er, however he spent a lot of the season miserable because the team won their first game and lost all the rest. It was so discouraging every Saturday to get beat...and sometimes very badly.  He doesn't take to losing too well, so he's not a fan of basketball right now. Says he's not playing again, but I'll try to nudge him along. I just want an inside sport! He's also going to have height so it just makes sense.  And my daughter was most improved on the whole team. She went many games without scoring, however all of a sudden she just blossomed and scored 2 baskets in one game...then scored in the rest of the games.  I could see her confidence building over the season and it was so neat to watch. The two coaches told me how great she had done over the season and were amazed at how well she did for this being the first time she played in this league.  Overall I was happy with how the kids did, the league, and the coaches. I hope we play this upcoming Fall again.  As an aside, I'm learning very quickly that parents here are nuts for sports and have their kids playing sports leagues as soon as they can. My son's basketball coach said they have a basketball league for kids as young as first grade that is a traveling team.  What in the world. That won't be us.

I got a job offer. I had decided randomly to apply on a job that looked really interesting. It was outside of my industry, but still within HR. I really really liked the head of HR at the company. It all came down to the offer--if I was going to return to work it had to financially make sense. I'm a bit spoiled with my current industry with the bonuses, retirement, 401k match, etc. that it's hard to compete outside of the industry. So, I had a mental battle with it all (of course also when I was sick as could be), and ultimately decided to turn it down. I think after going through this process I may just not be ready to go back to work yet. I think what I'd like (need) to do is focus on my health.

There's nothing like a health scare to put things into perspective. Since January I had been having some new abdominal issues that just haven't gone away. I ended up finally seeing my gastroenterologist beginning of Feb (because you can't get in anywhere quickly) and he recommended a CT scan and lab work. It took a few weeks to get all of it scheduled, done, and then wait for the results.  I turned to Dr. google in the meantime and worked myself up into a panic that I had cancer or something very dire.  It's never a good idea to do that, but I just couldn't help myself...I spent hours researching and I felt like all roads were leading to bad outcomes. The wait was horrendous. I even started online accounts with the lab and hospital so I could see my results as soon as they were posted. All I could do was hole up in my house and wait for my email to show I had a new lab result. Then finally I saw my initial CT scan results and was waiting for my lab work. My Dr. finally called this past Friday and read the CT (which I already had seen) and it was normal. Lab work--which I hadn't seen--was normal. UGH. And Exhale.  One one hand the 'we didn't find anything dire' is good, but on the otherhand, why am I having such trouble? What is the problem?  The Dr. said they did see in my scan that I have severe degeneration of my L5-S1. Ok, they saw that back in 2019 scans too. That's not new. He said sometimes you can get pain, etc from pinched nerves and your back not hurt. I'm a bit skeptical of the whole thing. Basically I think it's an 'I don't know', here let's give you some steroids to see if helps. 

So between actually being sick with viruses and dealing w/ the abdominal stuff, it's been a very rough month. I truly feel like I didn't leave the house much unless I had to in February and spent a lot of time on the couch and my recliner. That is not necessarily a good thing because I can start to sleep too much and that's a slippery slope for me. It's always good to reflect and just summarizing the events of the last month makes me realize that I was processing through a lot....and when you are trying to take care of other humans, get better from sicknesses, and the worry....I kind of understand now why I felt like doing nothing most of the time.

But, I don't want to stay that way....now that I know we aren't sure what my issue is, I need to jump back into making plans and just doing stuff. I learned that when I'm ready, I can go back to work. If I'm going to take time off still, then I need to put it to good use. My focus will be Health and home projects. I've already reached out to my contractors because I want to change up some things in my house....and oh by the way still haven't purchased new furniture even though we came up w/ a plan and design.

And, I think we are getting that puppy--help me now. The lady reached out to say it was our turn to choose a few days ago on Saturday. Turns out we got to choose sooner than we thought and the one pup (we call her little  yellow girl) that my girl has had her eye on since the litter was born, was available! When I got the news I told my girl and she literally started crying with emotion. Then she ran and got papers so we could all write down our favorite girl names and we could vote. We could have selected her and been done w/ it, but I felt it was best to actually go in person and make sure all was good so we took a road trip yesterday there and back to meet her.  It was about 3 hours out and we went from like 18 lanes, down to 10, to 6, to 4.....then to 2 lanes.....then to a dirt road single lane into the depths of a forest. The drive was something in and of itself because it was so hilly, so many trees, and just simply beautiful. I had no idea we had terrain like this and I also had no idea my girl would connect w/ the nature of it all....she kept exclaiming ' this is amazing!'....'this is the best day of my life'...she even wanted to take pictures of the scenery. It was surprising and touching to say the least. Who knew my kid could actually be a country girl? I have to admit even I felt more at peace out there...you don't realize how much chaos we live in w/ the traffic, etc. until you aren't in it.

AND the visit....it was really pretty great-short and sweet. It was like the pup chose us, she came right up to my girl, me, my son...she was licking us, crawling in our laps...more than any of the others. She seemed very sweet natured and calm compared to some of the others that didn't stop jumping around most of the time. So, we will be planning to pick up little yellow girl in a few weeks right when spring break starts. I've been researching in earnest what to do and how to train a puppy. I've never done it, so it will be an adventure. What I thought was touching as well was that my son, who's really not that much into animals, told us he could love another girl as well. awwwwww.

I'm hoping March things turn around a bit for us.  However, with my son starting soccer practice tonight and having a complete allergy meltdown afterwards- I'm going to have to put lots of good vibes up. PS I didn't end up getting that eyebrow consultation as one of the kids was home sick that day, I also didn't do the microderma whatever because I was sick that day. Looks like I need to get on rescheduling some things as well.