11/22/10: Back to work...again...

I went back to work on Thursday and thought I was over my last hurdle.

I also went to see my Dermatologist on Thursday and thought I was literally clearing that hurdle...although still dealing with it, too.

You know this, assuming you read last Thursday's blog.

What you don't know is that the antibiotic my Dermatologist gave me...was the antibiotic from hell!

I took my first pill Thursday night.  I was supposed to take 14 days of these pills, twice a day.  Thursday night, about half an hour after I took the pill, I wasn't feeling good, a bit queasy, to be specific, but nothing insurmountable.  And about half an hour after that, during which time I had been sitting and relaxing, I was fine and back up to my ping-pong self as we were packing and working on a potluck dish for Friday and fixing the oven and and and....

Yeah, I'll come back to that, don't worry.

So, fast forward to Friday morning and I take my morning pill.  And half an hour later, maybe twenty minutes, I'm queasy.  But this time, it continues to get worse.  And I went over to my bed and laid down.  In my work clothes with my hair done and my shoes on and me all ready to go.  And it continued to to get worse.  And my hubby comes to check on me, because at this time, we should be hitting the road.  And before I knew it, I was praying to the porcelain God.  And I continued to heave and hurl for about thirty minutes.  And it was painful heaving, too.  And it was the scary kind of 'OMG, what if my band slips?' kind of hurling and heaving, too.

Eventually the heaving and hurling stopped and I went back to bed and to sleep.  And three hours later I was still queasy and feeling like I'd been beat up by a big rig.  So, after calling to say I'd be late, I called again to say I wasn't going to make it.

I'm so sick of missing work!  In each of the previous two weeks I made it to work one day only.  That's not like me.  I know I've got a lot going on right now, a lot to deal with, a lot that's been thrown at me and us and we are dealing with it.  But my coworkers and boss depend on me and it's not like me to not be the dependable person they know me to be.  I'm so tired of it. 

I can say, with not taking the antibiotics from hell, with the painful cramps of the miscarriage mostly in my past, with the sinusitis beat and with life feeling like it's moving forward again, the absence from work is a thing of the past.

So.  To add to all of this...Thursday, at work, our secretary told me we were having our Thanksgiving luncheon on Friday.  Our company supplies the turkey and basics and we bring the veggies and deserts and whatnots.  So I signed up for broccoli rice casserole.  On the way home from work Thursday we bought all the stuff and went home and I went to work.  And with the rice steamed and the broccoli steamed and the onions and celery sauteed and the sauce mixed and all the above tossed together, it was ready to go in my already pre-heated oven.  Or so I thought.  Until I opened what should have been the hot oven door to discover a very room temperature oven.  I put my hand in there and felt nothing.  To be safe, grabbed a hot pad and pulled out the racks that were situated too high, anyway.  And then realized, I didn't need the hot pats, the oven really wasn't hot.  And then, to test the waters (stupid), I put my hand directly on the heating element.  And not a lick of heat to be felt.

So I pushed buttons and turned on the broiler...and nothing.

Yep.  The oven is.  DEAD.

And we are hosting Thanksgiving.  For a small group of 15 which, as of today, is growing by the hour.

I'm not entirely worried....yet.  We cook our turkey on the barbeque.  We just need the oven for all the side dishes.  And a couple of my neighbors are on the guest list so if we need to use neighborhood ovens, that's an option.

We bought a replacement fuse/thermostat on Friday in hopes that it was burnt out since I just ran a self-clean two weeks ago.  Yep.  Not the fuse.  The parts store we were working with convinced us that another fuse was likely to be a problem so we bought that next.  Turns out, our oven doesn't even have that fuse.  So hubby is taking the two heating elements in at lunch to have them tested for continuity.  And if it's not the elements, then we are just going to replace the oven.  If it's not the elements, it's probably the computer/control panel and that replacement cost puts us in new oven cost territory.  Then the question becomes, can we get the oven by Thanksgiving.  We would pick it up and install it ourselves.  And luckily, my hubby's step-dad, one of our Thanksgiving guests, is also on the invite list, so he can help us put the oven in on Weds when he arrives.  Assuming we can physically get an oven from a store in time.

I have to say, my house is 4.5 years old and all of the appliances that came with the house are therefore, 4.5 years old.  They were all the same brand (W*&%^Hirl^*&)%pool) and they have all been crap.  Our dishwasher doesn't drain during the normal cycle leaving us to hit the drain button three or four times after we've run a load.  Our oven shouldn't be shot this fast - and apparently it's a known problem that the fuse we replaced first burns out just about every other time the self-clean function is used.  Our microwave and our range are fine, so far, but two major appliances not right within four years of ordinary usage...just makes me say I will never buy another appliance of this brand ever again.  And this brand includes A LOT of other brands that are also supposed to be reasonable quality.  It's crap!

And that's what I know.

So, let's recap.

The cramps are mostly gone and I mostly feel like a human being again.  I'm very curious when I'll get back to "normal" as that will tell us when we can start trying again.  I have my follow-up appt with my Ob tomorrow morning and we have a few questions for him about why he wants us to wait for two complete cycles before we start trying again.  A lot of what I'm reading says that's primarily because that gives us time to heal emotionally.  It's not the physical they are worried about so much.  And if that's the case, "phooey on that" is what we say.  We had two weeks to "get used" to the idea that a miscarriage was happening and we can both pinpoint our stages of grief occurring over those two weeks and since the actual D&C.  I'm not saying "we are healed", but we have accepted, and that is huge.  To us.

The incision infection is not healing, at present.  Although my Dermatologist's resident just called me back (I called them Friday afternoon to tell them that particular antibiotic was not going to happen) and she told me what she thought they'd replace the antibiotic from hell with and told me to ignore the "take on empty stomach" labels.  I am not worried that this hurdle isn't being cleared, just a minor delay.  The resident will call me back again after she's actually talked to my Dermatologist, is what she said.

Our oven is busted and we are hosting Thanksgiving for 15 people.

I'm back at work and am appreciative that this is a short week and that traffic is negligible - all the kids are off school and a lot of people take the week off work, as well.  No brakes on the way to work is wonderful!

And that's what I know.

We went to Austin this weekend to visit my grandmother.  It is always so wonderful to get to spend some time with her.  I have the most amazing grandmother and love that we share our birthday (both born Aug 8 exactly 50 years apart).  It's always also wonderful to see my aunt and uncle.  It's crazy to us that Austin is so close and yet it's not easy to make the four hour drive to get to their house (or for them to get to us).  It's "just far enough away" that we don't do it as much as we'd like.

Anywho, have a great week, y'all!

*******EDITED at 12:04pm*******
It's official, the oven is dead.  The fuse we replaced - it really was dead.  So it wasn't bad to replace the fuse...however, the control panel is also shot.  And the price of a replacement control panel opens the door to a replacement oven.  Grr....