When Mama's Sick

The past few days have been painful for me - literally. I have a cut on the back of my ear (have no idea how I got it) and it caused my lymph nodes to swell up to do their job. Have you ever read the resume for a lymph node? They get on a conference call and recruit white blood cells (WBC) from all the other companies in one's body and promise them coffee and donuts if they come to work early. So the WBCs all come - and fill up the LNs like a bad office party - you know - karaoke, sitting on copiers, eating all the shrimp, making passes at the boss. The WBCs get themselves into such a frenzy that their pain is then felt by the owner of said body - times 1000.

The entire right side of my face felt like I had a migrane. My ear, my jaw, my cheekbone, down my neck, the top and bottom of my skull. I went to Dr. B and he found the cut, gave me some ointment and told me I could just take Advil for the pain. It would just have to heal. I don't like taking anti-biotics, so I was fine with that.

Except the Advil didn't work. Neither did Aleve. My head was throbbing and I couldn't sleep - which I have a hard enough time doing as it is. I called again, and he prescribed me Vicodin for the pain (I am allergic to codeine). Andy took yesterday morning off to spend the morning with the girls so that I could catch up on all the sleep I wasn't getting. He was a bit stressed out because he had a bunch of meetings he had to prepare for - so I am thankful he was able to do that. (Thank you!)

By yesterday around 11:30am I had three doses of the V in me - and I found out that it affects me the same way the codeine does. It made me stunad ("stoo-nahd") - which is my Italian family's word for dopey. I knew what it was, and I knew all I could do was let it pass. I was basically passed out on the floor - my aunt came over to take care of the girls for me and I just slept (thank you!). My mom comes over after work every day to help me feed the girls and put them to bed, but last night she went solo (thank you)! I felt fine and horrible in waves for the next few hours - I even managed to sit at the computer and do some blogging - and then by night I was fine completely.

The up side is that my pain is gone! It still hurts around the ear itself, but I don't have the pain radiating all over my face anymore. Advice - if you don't want a WBC office party in your head - don't cut yourself behind your ear.