On Nursing

Shhhh... Listen... Do you hear that?

Listen closely. What do you hear??

Nothing?? Well, then you're hearing the same thing as I am!

Nothing but quiet. Know why? THEY'RE GONE. My neighbour downstairs and her twerpy boyfriend have left the building.

And now, a moment of silence. NO WAY! *jumping up and down on the floors*

And not a moment too soon either. Because things would have just gone further downhill from here on, if that's at all possible. See. It turns out that there will be a Junior McBickerson some time early in the 2010. Yup. To be honest, if she's on her own, I don't doubt she'd be a good mother. However Twerp-Boy? Less than stellar. Much, much less. The plan now is to save up for a place together. She's living at her mother's, and he's...wherever. Eventually, they'll move back in together. I can see the COPS footage now. Nice.

I'm just happy I now have her apartment!

But. Let me tell you, I got precious little done this past week. Not a thing, as a matter of a fact.

See, what I *thought* was buildup in my right ear turned out to be something worse. Much worse. So bad in fact I landed in the hospital, with IV antibiotics; and not the least bit ashamed of crying and blubbering in front of total strangers. Seems the "blockage" was an infection that perforated my ear drum, and found a nice, sore spot to eat away at my eustachian tube, and enter the surrounding tissue, infecting the right side of my face, and getting into my bloodstream.

With the right side of my face swollen to the point you could not tell where my cheek ended and my outer ear started (and the ear swollen shut), I went to the ER, and was admitted. I was hooked up to some heavy duty antibiotics, and given some pain medication.

Anyway - all that to say, it was a rough week. I have another check up with the specialist on Tuesday (the 3rd since I was released), and more bloodwork to check the level of infection in my bloodstream, but things are sooo much better now. The swelling is gone from my face and ear, and the ear infection is on the mend, although it's still "there". I still have a few more days of oral antibiotics, and a week + of the drops.

Once home though, I was lucky to have some Home Care.

Nurse Atticus followed me around until I was either in bed, or on the couch. He then proceeded to plop down next to me, making sure I couldn't move without him knowing about it.

"I don't do bed pans or clean up barf. Just so you know."

Head Nurse Mae made sure that I took my medications, and drank my Ensure drink. My jaw was too sore to chew.

"Don't make me come up there."

And "Wants-To-Be-A-Therapy-Dog" Gandalf made sure that I smiled as often as I could.

"Hee hee! I really think I'd rock the hospital."

What more could you ask for?

And don't think I haven't been knitting through all of this. OK, maybe not so much last week, but I have been concentrating on getting some long suffering WIP's done.

Not that you can tell, but this is my Birdsfoot Scarf, from Virtual Yarns (Red Rattle doesn't photograph particularly well). If you enlarge the picture, you'll get a better idea of the stitch repeat. Really very soothing to work on - which I can appreciate these days.

I really don't have the attention span to work on much more than that. For one, the medication I'm taking for my ear makes me soooooo...tired... Plus, there's the little thing I'm doing called MOVING. Of which I've done precious little packing to prepare. Good thing I have a few weeks to move in...

Soon we'll be downstairs in the bigger apartment, with a huge, bright kitchen that I'm pretty sure will please the sun worshippers that are the Little Dudes.

"What do you mean, I won't be able to sit on the bannister post and harass squirrels any longer??"

Have a great week everyone!