Checking in.

Can I just say that I am ready for January to be OVER. And for February to be BETTER.

I have been "not myself" this month. First off was the previously mentioned broken toe, then a bout with diverticulitis, which is an infection of the bowel, which required some heavy-duty antibiotics, which made me feel lousy on top of the pain and general lousiness of the infection. And then back pain, which was diagnosed as a problem with my sacroiliac joint, and then more stomach pain, which put me back on antibiotics and then in for a CT scan this week which didn't really help with anything.

I am scheduled for an appointment with a GI doctor in a few weeks, but right now my theory is that it's the antibiotics that are causing this lingering stomach pain. So I am waiting for those to leave my system and then we'll see how the tummy feels. I'm really hoping for an improvement soon.

This has all been very frustrating because I am a naturally anxious person, and being sick and having pain makes me feel even more anxious. Which makes it hard for me to sleep. So throw in a bunch of messed-up sleepless nights and the fact that it's cold and the sun isn't shining and I haven't felt much like doing anything beyond the basics of keeping the household running and my stomach hurts, which makes me feel worried, which makes my stomach hurt even more...urgh. I really, really hate it, and certainly haven't felt like blogging about it. This has been one of my more miserable months of recent memory.

I'm trying right now to get my life back on track, focus on things other than my stomach, eat what I need to be eating, get some fresh air and exercise, and just generally try to work my way out of this web of anxiety and aggravation into a more positive feeling, which will hopefully in turn help my stomach feel better, too. I don't like to whine on my blog, but this month has been really not fun. Any good thoughts you can spare, I could use them!

Normal.

I do love that first "normal" day after the holidays are over, when life settles back down into its routine. We've had a little bit of weirdness to go along with the holiday whirl, too. Our "new" car went into the shop on the 22nd to have some things worked on (nothing unexpected--we'd planned for the maintenance work to be done.) We took the other car home to Ohio on the 23rd and stayed there till the 27th. Had a really, really nice Christmas. Just very laid-back and enjoyable.

We came home to about eight inches of snow that had fallen while we were gone (VERY unusual for this area) so there was some shoveling that had to be done, and Todd got two unexpected days off work as NASA closed for the weather.

Our car still wasn't done, so I hung out on Tuesday and Wednesday, getting Christmas presents put away, cleaning and (insert ominous music here) doing laundry. It was while bringing my last load of laundry downstairs on Wednesday afternoon that I slipped and fell at the bottom of the stairs, jamming my foot under the open front door and re-breaking my left middle toe that I broke on a dresser leg in the wee hours several years ago.

On Thursday morning Todd woke up with a major recurrence of the eye pain that had been bothering him off and on for the past week. He went to the optometrist that afternoon, who sent him straight to the ophthalmologist, informing him that he had a torn cornea in his left eye. The ophthalmologist also informed him that his right cornea was badly abraded and that it would have been just a matter of time before that one was torn, too. She said his corneas looked like knees when you fall and scrape and tear them up on a sidewalk.

We're not quite sure what caused the tearing--the assumption is that it's a combination of dry heat and dry cold weather, plus his contact lenses (which allowed the abrasions to heal and then re-tear when he took them out and went to sleep) and maybe also his blood pressure medicine which is diuretic and may be drying out his poor eyeballs.

So the past few days have been very focused on getting the proper drops into Todd's eyes at frequent intervals. My toe has been buddy-taped to the toe next to it, and I have been alternately limping around and sitting with my foot up on pillows.

My brother and his family came on Friday for New Year's and we had a great time with them, with eye drops and limping mixed in just for fun. Oh, and I finally got my car back on Friday. Saturday and Sunday we hung out, played games, ate garbage, and just relaxed. Well, the grown-ups relaxed...my nieces are very much into playing "kitten and puppy," which is just as energetic and full of scratches and rough-housing (and crying when the scratching and rough-housing reaches its inevitable conclusion) as it sounds.

I'm still not at full walking capacity yet, but Todd's eye is healing beautifully, although his days of wearing contact lenses may be over, at least for a while. Today Todd is back at work, and I'm back into my routine, too, with time taken out for the occasional foot-raising on pillows, with an Advil chaser.