The Week in Review 1-26-2008

Sorry this is late getting out but I have been a bit under the weather this week with my ritual bronchitis attack and unfortunately hot baths have taken up my blog time. So here it is a day late.

Medically - Well, not sure where to start here. I guess I start with how I currently feel... one word... crappy. The bronchitis kicked in full swing this week, gradually getting worse as the week went on. I finally went to the doctor on Friday. The verdict is... bronchitis, sinus infection either ending or beginning, and the start of an inner ear infection. Oh boy, what a bunch of good news. So anyway, I'm now on an antibiotic, a steroid inhaler, and have been told to up my intake of my other inhalers. I feel like a walking medicine factory. The good news is that with my new toy (iPhone) I can set nice little alerts to remind me to take my meds. So far it is doing a very good job of it.

Also medically is the testing that I will be doing next week. I don't really have a lot of information on them but it is my understanding that I will get the results next week as well. I'm interested to see what all it says.

Beyond that, I am having to contact the insurance company AGAIN about my MRI. For some reason they keep putting it on 80/20 instead of 100%. There was something else but I'll be danged if I can remember what it was. I'm sure I'll think of it as soon as I post this.

(Actually, I just remembered.)

I've got a tooth that I believe I cracked the filling in.... I called my dentist on Tuesday to get in and they can't get me in until Monday. Talk about screwed up. Unfortunately, there are not many choices in dentists with my dental plan. UGH. Only a few more days and I'll be out of pain with any luck.

Emotionally - All is well. Nothing majorly new going on. Just taking things as they come and dealing with this nightmare bronchitis. I'm even on the verge of being moved back to seeing my therapist every two weeks instead of weekly. This is a good sign.

Mentally - No progress this week but took some steps backwards. I had to rebuild my laptop this week and guess what I forgot to save off of it? I lost my outlook .pst that had my list of everything yet to be done. Now I need to search my memory for the past five months and try to recreate it. Fun... just fun.

Physically - There isn't an inch of my body that doesn't hurt from coughing. My chest feels like it has a 50 pound weight sitting on it (yes I know what a 50 pound weight feels like). My throat is sore from the sinus drainage and coughing, my head hurts from the coughs ringing in my ears, my nose is starting to feel stuffy again, and my stomach hurts from squeezing it so much. Oh and my face is doing a lot of tingling the past few days because of all the irritation and inflammation I'm causing and my tooth is killing me!!!!

How's that for the honest truth of how I feel? Actually, there is one more thing physically that has caused me a dilemma tonight. When I am down with bronchitis I take a hot bath every night before bed to loosen up the mucus so I can sleep. After literally sweating all day today, I finally decided to take my temp. Guess what? It's 100 degrees F which is low grade fever. This can mean a number of things but I'm guessing it's either the ear infection rearing its head or I'm trying to get pneumonia. I'll keep my fingers crossed for ear infection right now. Anyway, I ended up taking a bath that was on the very warm side but not as hot as usual. So far so good.

Family - My son is doing much better in school this week and I am very proud of him. I'm also proud of John because he has been a lot better at talking to me about his feelings this week. It helps when we both talk about what's going on instead of a one sided conversation.

Play - Really, there wasn't much play going on this week. Last Sunday I did play Guitar Hero and was proud to complete 9 perfects on easy but the memory card corrupted it so now I get to start all over. :(

Test - This is the start of a new section. As I mentioned, I will be keeping careful records of my test scores on my "brain" games. Well, here is the first report:

Big Brain Academy DS: Test = 1335
Big Brain Academy WII: Test = 1473
Brain Age: Test = 30, 27
Brain Age II: Test = 32

Eventually I will have things graphed out and I can show them that way but we'll give it a few weeks worth of data first.

Well, off to go take my final medicines for the night and go to bed. Huggles