Baby steps to recovery

After the chaos of my Thursday, I was very relieved that Friday turned out to be a relatively normal day. Kailyn was acting MUCH better...if Thursday wasn't so recent in my memory, you'd never know she'd been sick...well, she does have a lingering cough, but she's running around a playing like any 3-year-old who's happy to not feel sick anymore. I want to run and around and play, too, now that my own illness seems to be disappearing.

Still, Zachary is running a fever (lasting through today), but he's pretty easy-going about it so far. Stacey's also still fighting this off. All along, they've only been a couple of days behind Kailyn and me, so maybe they're almost out of the woods, too.

But, good grief. I haven't felt that sick since I was in college over 10 years ago. Usually, I can fight the cold off after 2-3 days, but not this time. I really hope we've seen the last of the tough colds this season.

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Spent most of the day yesterday over-dubbing a scene from Braveheart for church. Though I sound nothing like Mel Gibson as William Wallace, I did my best to substitute some dialogue we got from Granger Community Church over the existing audio track. Turned out to be a pretty fun task, especially as I got to tinkering with the video to try to preserve background 'ambient sounds' and the moving soundtrack. In the end, I had one layer of video, and 4 separate layers of audio underneath it...combining the original track with our own voice recordings, a separate .mp3 soundtrack, and a tediously created track of ambient noises (the crowd, the sound of horses, etc...). That was a lot of work for just 3 minutes of video.

Though the video itself is designed to be goofy and humorous, the task of putting it together is really helping me get more and more familiarized using Vegas 6.0 video editing software. Maybe I'll find some time soon to get creative with home movies/pictures we've shot of our kids over the past few years.

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Today's been spent doing what I like best: Nothing. After this week, though, can you blame me?

I'm probably functioning around 80% right now. I'm still short of breath, still coughing, and still tiring easily, but I will hopefully be at least 90% tomorrow morning for church...which would be a good thing, since I - foolishly - picked a lot of songs this week that fall into a high vocal range.

Nothing like singing "Open Up Your Eyes" by Tonic and having phlegm cause your voice to crack on the word 'eyes.' Yikes...

Here's hoping that won't happen...heh.

Never say, "It could be worse..."

Wow.

What a day.

10:00. In spite of my progressive health improvement over the past few days, I woke up this morning feeling as bad as I did last Saturday. Not good. My throat hurt, my cough was back in full force, and my ears were throbbing in the pain that comes with incredible sinus congestion and pressure.

"What the...," I thought.

So I get up, hoping some movement would make me feel better. But I also discover that I'm dehydrated. My skin's drying out, my kidneys hurt, and I had that weird joint/nerve pain that only happens when you're dehydrated. So I drink some water and some apple juice and take the necessary medications, hoping that maybe I'm in the whole "it's got to get worse before it gets better"-phase of my illness.

10:30. The house is quiet until Kailyn wakes up. So I handle some calls, etc. I learn J-mo's come down with the crud. So I put a backup plan into motion for Sunday.

While I'm doing this, Kailyn wakes up crying. She's coughing non-stop, and she's complaining that her ear hurts. I check her temperature, and the 103 degree temp from the night before is gone. So I decide not to worry too much, get her some juice...and I'll come back to that in a sec...

The longer I'm up, the more I realize that my sinuses/ears are hurting worse than they have since I came down with this a week ago. So, I resolve to go the doctor. Stacey had already set up an appointment for Kailyn/Zachary with their doc at 2:15, so I called my doc to see if they had any open time slots. "1:30 you say? I think I can make that." The receptionist assures me that I will be seen quickly since I'd be the first appointment after lunch.

11:00. So, while I'm lining all this up, Kailyn comes to me and says her stomach hurts. With as much drainage is going down her gullet, I didn't question why. I told her I'd get her some medicine if it didn't get better.

-sigh-

Next thing I know, Kailyn is screaming in the other room, and I go in there to find that she's standing over a puddle of vomit on the carpet. Oh, joy.

Now Zachary starts crying from his room (Kailyn's screaming woke him up). So I go in there to find that he's been laying in his own puddle of snot/saliva/spit-up 'goo.' Being more used to the various fluids that spew out of kids than I was before I was a parent, I get him up, clean him off, and call Stacey to rant about the chaos in the household. So, she comes home for lunch to help us get all ready for our doctor visits.

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1:20. I arrive 10 minutes early for my appointment. I'm the only one in the waiting room. Zachary's sucking on his bottle. Kailyn's just sitting there looking and feeling pitiful. 2 more patients walk in around 1:30. As I sit there, a nurse comes out and calls the name of one of the other patients who walked in. 1:45. The same nurse comes out and calls another name...again, not me. I go to the desk, inquire what happened, and the receptionist says, "Oops. We messed up. You were supposed to be seen first." I said, "I know", and proceed to explain that I'm about to be late for my kids' appointment. She says, "I'll tell them to hurry."

2:05. I finally get moved to one of the exam rooms. "Finally," I thought. I soon discovered that exam rooms are really just waiting rooms, Phase 2.

2:15. Kailyn throws up. Again. In the exam room. Fortunately, I'd made her bring a small towel with her when we left the house, so she threw up into that. Kept the mess off the floor and her clothes and off me, but...let's just say there's no 'clean' way to deal with vomit. Ewwww....

2:35. Doctor finally comes in. Quick exam....biff-bam-boom...with antibiotic prescription in hand, I'm paid up and out the door at 2:45.

3:00. I arrive 45 minutes late for my kids' appointment. Fortunately, the wait is relatively short, and I'm in the exam room at 3:10, then seen by the doctor around 3:20. Unfortunately, Zachary's had enough at this point, and he starts his crying-thing, which will continue off/on for the next hour.

I learn that Zachary's just got a cold, but Kailyn has both an ear infection AND bronchitis. No wonder she's felt so bad. The doc speculates that the vomiting is probably just a reaction to the infection and the 'crud' seeping down into her stomach from her chest and sinuses. So now I get a prescription for an antibiotic and some phenargen (for nausea/vomiting).

3:45ish. We leave the Decatur General complex to swing by Personal Touch to pick up prescriptions from Stacey. This was the most uneventful part of the day, except that the 15-minute wait in the drive-thru was aggravated by Zachary's incessant crying from the backseat.

4:10. Go to Hardee's. Mmm...Mushroom swiss burger. Good. Must...eat...haven't eaten all day...

4:30. I'm finally back at home, kids are unloaded. I give Kailyn her phenargen and her antibiotic shortly thereafter. I sit down, eat my burger, and thank God the days is winding down. Oh, am I an idiot or what?

5:10. Kailyn's been asleep on the sofa since we got home. She suddenly wakes up, bursts into tears, and proceeds to throw up again all over herself, her towel, and the carpet. Bye, bye, antibiotic. Looks like all of it came back up.

I strip her down, clean up the mess, and get her into the bathtub. At least Zachary's asleep in his crib.

6:00. Stacey comes home later than usual. And I do a 'hand-off' of all this crap to her. "Here," I say. Well, not like that. I update her on what's been happening. She gives Kailyn more phenargen.

Now it's midnight. Kailyn hasn't thrown up again (yet), and she's now got an antibiotic in her system, which will hopefully help her fight off this crud quickly. I managed to meet with Dave tonight and record some stuff for church, which is a good thing. So my productivity was not completely shot today.

Since Stacey and I keep each other awake when we're both sick, she opted to sleep on the couch tonight. Kailyn is asleep on the loveseat across from her. So far, all is quiet, and I'm sitting here waiting on my own antibiotic/medication to kick in and help my sinuses/chest feel better so I can get better, too.

In short, I hate days like today. Who doesn't? There's nothing worse than feeling terrible while also having to take care of kids who also feel terrible... I felt so sorry for Kailyn today. Here's hoping tomorrow will be a much happier day...

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At least our subwoofer for church should arrive this week. Oh, wait. We weren't aware that it drop-shipped via freight instead of the usual UPS route. We might get it tomorrow. We might get it next week. Who knows. All we know is that it shipped on Tuesday and it will get here when it gets here.

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I suppose now would be a good time to blog about the things I'm thankful for and get off this negative kick.

But it's now 12:25, and the pillow is beckoning me to put this day behind me.

Woohoo! Sleep!

Funk: Day 5

Lately, I've had nothing to write about except the chronicles of my sick household. The short version: We're all still sick. I felt better today, but my cough is probably lingering a while. Kailyn's still running a fever (went up to 103 tonight, then fell quickly after a dose of ibuprofen). Zachary now has a fever, too (101). Oh, much fun in my household these days.

I'll tell you this...there's nothing more depressing than a 3-year-old with a fever. Instead of being a happy-bounce-off-the-walls kid, all Kailyn wants to do (until the medicine kicks in) is sleep on the couch and moan. I really hate it for her when she feels like that. Zachary isn't much better. He can't tell us what's wrong, so he just sits there and cries softly while staring at you as if pleading for help.

If they're still this way tomorrow, it looks like I'll be making a trip to their doctor. More fun. Nothing like sitting in a waiting room full of sick kids.

But enough sick talk.

On the culinary side of life, we now are the proud owners of a nice set of pots and pans. Yes, this is big news for a family like mine who has been using various pieces of stained and burned pots and pans ever since we got married in 1998. We've been talking about correcting this situation for about 8 years now, so it's nice that it's finally happened (thanks to a great sale on Amazon.com). The new set (a 13-piece hard anodized, non-stick set by Cuisinart) is much nicer than the no-name, garage-sale junk we've used so far. It's like upgrading from Emerson to Sony...from Yugo to Mercedes...from DOS to Windows XP... from Atari to XBOX... from Sam's Choice to Coca-Cola...

Is such news blog-worthy? Probably not. But I'll take whatever good news I can get this week.

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In other news, the subwoofer for the church was supposed to arrive today, I think, but nada. I guess it will get here tomorrow. 900 watts pumping through 18" of Mackie goodness. (Insert Homer Simpson drooling noise here). Hopefully, this subwoofer will correct the 'factory stereo' sound we've been living with for the past 3 years. I think the whole band is pretty excited about this development. I just hope we can get it set up by Sunday a.m.

And the Funk Goes On

Still funky. (sick, that is)

Only now, we're ALL sick...Me, Stacey, Kailyn, and Zachary, though Kailyn and I are definitely the worst. I've just now got this ultra-persistent cough now that the cold has moved full force into my lungs. I guess I pushed myself on Sunday when it probably would've been wise to have rested. Still, it needed to be done. I've got no fever, the doc's got me on some good medications, so it's now just a matter of waiting it out. Downside is that I'm having to take care of 2 sick kids in the meantime, so productivity is way down. Yipee.

At least I have a laptop with a wireless connection. Woohoo!

Down with the Funk

In short, I feel terrible this morning. Though my throat is not sore at the moment (thankfully), I feel like there's this huge glob of gunk setting camp between my ear canals and my trachea. Oh, joy. I managed to make it through rehearsal last night, but it was exhausting to try to sing with all this stuff going on. Looks like a day of as much rest as possible (which ain't easy with 2 kids and some errands I need to run)

Oh, well...

Life has gotten so busy lately, and the demands of work are going up (which is a good thing, actually...the more I have to do, generally the more productive I become...weird). In addition to the Sunday morning music, I'm trying to help Kenny get the youth music program off to a start, too. He's got some teens interested in singing, playing guitar, etc... To me, it's not a 'separate' ministry from the Sunday morning program. After all, these teenagers will be the guys who one day will fill the room during the Sunday morning program (a lot of them already do). Why not invest in them now? It's good for them, and it's good for me as I strive to remain relevant in my worship as I lead across generations...

On a related note: Glad I read Kyle's blog this a.m. Now I know that I need Jack to play again next week on guitar...heh.

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I have to replace my glasses ASAP (hopefully today, if I can feel well enough to go out and about). They're a little beat up, but the lenses have gotten ridiculously scratched in the past month or so. Don't quite know how that happened...it seemed to happen overnight. In any case, it's been like having a permanent smudge on both lenses that won't wipe off. I've been trying to wear contacts again, but I can still need glasses as I can't keep my contacts in ALL day (my eyes just dry out too bad).

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This weekend, I hopefuly will get the carburetor back in the Mustang. It's been soaking in cleaner all week, so it ought to be good as new when I put it back in the car. Then it's on to ball joints, etc.

If I can get the wheels/tires taken care of, I'll drive it a bit here and there but I really want to yank the engine out and get it rebuilt. Sure, I could risk driving it (and it may go forever...or 100 feet...I just don't know), but I'd like to not do permanent damage to the J-code 302 engine block that's in the car.

I've got dreams of making that car into a great daily driver that I could throw the kids in the back and cruise around in. Money is obviously an obstacle, patience is a necessity, and help from people who know what they're doing has been a 'must-have' in this endeavor.

One day...

Sunbathing in Snow Flurries

Man, the weather's been wacked lately. It gets to like 60 degrees, then plummets to below-freezing temps in a matter of hours. No wonder my throat's sore again this morning. Yipee. The temperature roller-coaster is hell on the sinuses.

Still, the snow flurries were kinda cool last night. I just want it to either be cold or warm, but not both. But I am still hoping for getting that long-overdue snowstorm sometime. On a meteorological note, February is shaping up to be cold enough...so who knows. Heh.

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On a parental note, Zachary has seemingly developed more in the past 2 weeks than in the past 6 months. Suddenly, he's got like 4 teeth coming in, started babbling (funny syllable sounds), and has even just started crawling (the crawling thing developed over the course of just a couple of days, it seems). Wow. That also means he's interacting with us more and smiling more. It's no longer a pattern of feeding him, watching him cry, then putting him down to nap (I hate that phase in children). Now he's more like a part of the familiy...I mean, an interactive part. And that's pretty cool.

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Been scoping out vacation options for this summer. Assuming hurricanes don't wipe the gulf coast off the map, it looks like we're going to try to go back to Gulf Shores. Hey, it's convenient...and actually pretty nice. Only this time, we want to stay a bit longer (granted, I stayed almost a week last year, but only 3 of those days were spent with Stacey and the young-uns).

Now I just need about $1000 to make it happen.

Wachen Sie Auf!

("Wake up!" said Fritz...)

Well, nature's alarm clock woke me up a few moments ago. (Thunder, that is....not some other bodily waste management function...heh). Fortunately, Kailyn seemed to be in too deep asleep in her bed to notice, so the drama that's normally associated with a thunderstorm has - for the moment - failed to materialize. Now, the loud cracks of thunder that woke me up have been replaced by...soothing... sounds of heavy rain and a rumble of thunder...

Well, I take that back... Since I'm blogging in 'real time', apparently a second wave of lightning is starting to move through....

Okay, enough weather-talk (unless something exciting happens, anyway).
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Slept terribly last night. Maybe it's stress. Due to a communication snafu (most likely my fault in some way), band practice turned into a scramble to come up with a guitar player. Fortunately, everything worked out. The boat rocked a bit (kinda like that boat in "The Perfect Storm" facing a 100-foot wave), but I think we'll live through it...

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'Tis the season for returning defective goods. Not wanting to be left out of the defective-purchase party started by Eli and her TWO defective TVs, I wound up having to return a portable DVD player to Wal-mart that worked beautifully until you got halfway through the movie...then it froze up.

That said, there's nothing more dangerous than roaming Wal-mart with $175 in cash in your pocket...not because of some threat of getting mugged, but because cash-in-pocket is usually cash spent on something. Fortunately, though, I resisted the urge to buy something PC or XBOX360-related, and wound up mainly buying some things we needed around the house and some post-Christmas stuff for Kailyn (she'd received some money from grandparents for X-mas anyway...so I was just following through on that)...

And for some reason, I felt she was ready for a shiny, new bicycle. Her first bike. A tiny, orange, 10-inch bike. (Heh...it's amazing what's exciting for me nowadays). She loves it, though it will take a little while for her to build some confidence in riding it.

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Well, back to bed. At 7:00 a.m. Yes. I've got to recover some sleep somewhere, or I'll be useless today.

The 16 Days of Christmas

Okay, Christmas is over. Or...it should be. We've been so busy in the past couple of weeks, we still haven't gotten all our Christmas decorations down. Sadly, it doesn't bother us that much, though. Maybe it's because this season was so wacked with busy schedules and hectic family visits that it wasn't until AFTER Christmas that we felt we could actually sit back and enjoy all our decorating efforts.

Or maybe we're just lazy. Either way, it's time to get all that crap down.

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In other news, the saga of bringing my '68 Mustang back to life took another turn for the worse. After repairing the fuel line AND replacing a bad fuel filter, a new leak erupted around the carburetor itself - indicating a carburetor rebuild is in order. So...crap. At least that's not supposed to be all that complicated. If I can get that done, I'm going to finally get the front ball joints replaced so I don't have to fear losing a wheel or something driving down the road. Then wheels/tires...as soon as I can afford them.

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Stacey and I helped Eli move out of her house (finally) this weekend. Call helping her additional penance for the hell I put the people through who helped me move up here in '02...heh. Really, she needed the help, so it wasn't a problem. But...ow...my muscles are pretty sore. Moving all her furniture made for a pretty good workout, though. Add a couple of extra days of helping her purchase and return 2 defective TVs from Best Buy, and I've had more of a workout in the past couple of days than I have in the past year.

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Anyway, the busy-ness continues...

Gaming Goodness

Ah...there's me getting shell-shocked by Nazis. Either that or the photo was taken in the middle of a desperate turn to find out who was shooting at me.

Stupid Nazis.

"Take that, Fritz...and you too, Jerry"

I think I yelled that a lot as I tossed a lot of grenades into houses where Nazi soldiers were bunkered down in Call of Duty 2. Yes, I'm enjoying the new 360. A lot. Maybe it was not such a good idea for a game addict like me to purchase yet another device that robs me of valuable time that could be spent elsewhere. On the bright side, I usually just lose TV time to game time. It's not like I lock myself in the house and play games while my kids don't get fed and I don't do my job. I just have to decide whether I want to play games or watch TV. Decisions, decisions...

Fortunately, Stacey politely "insists" that we not spend all the free time playing games. Heh.

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All my family is finally out of my house. As always, the visits with my parents and then with my bro and his girlfriend were good...but it's also good to have the house to ourselves again after a busy holiday like this one. Now all I have to do is tear down all the Christmas bling we put up all over the house. If the weather tomorrow allows it, that is...big storms and metal ladders on the side of my house don't make good bedfellows...

Bedfellows? Who talks like that? I guess it's late and I'm too tired to write normal English.

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The Mazda is still in the shop. Though I'm bummed that the car has a problem at all, I'm happy that this particular problem revealed its ugly head while the vehicle was under warranty...rather than a month out of it down the road.

Also, the service dept. and Enterprise Rent-a-car hooked me up with a convertible to drive around in. Yes, it's January. But today, the temp was in the high 60s, so it actually was very nice to drive around with the top down. Still, I'd rather have a Jeep. Or a Mustang. Or one of those BMW 645i convertibles we saw outside Kyoto the other night. Wow...4 seats, sharp design...can someone loan me $70,000?

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It was a lot of fun having my bro play in the band with us this morning. Everything came together pretty smoothly...he knew the songs very well, and playing with him just seemed natural. I seriously wish he lived a bit closer than Charlotte, NC... I'd love to play music with him more often.

Anyone know of any good printing-management-related jobs in the Huntsville area? If he could find a job here in his field, who knows...

Heh. Off to bed...