Confessions of a Hypochondriac

Well, the pain in my side has finally started to ease up. For those of you who don't know, I'm sort of a closet hypochondriac. I hate going to the doctor because it's such a massive inconvenience, but I'm generally in fear that I have cancer or heart disease or some other thing that is going to cause me to die young. It doesn't hinder my lifestyle (I haven't become a germaphobic hermit or anything), it's just one of those things that always crosses my mind. So, when I went to the doctor about my side again, they did all these x-rays and blood work to check for infection, and everything looked clear, except that I was still in terrible pain that just wouldn't go away and my lovely Indian doctor wasn't exactly sure what it was and started making guesses about ligaments and tendons and cartilage. I knew, though, that all the tests had been run and everything was clear, so I wasn't too worried about it. My mother tends to be the opposite of me. She doesn't worry too much about life threatening illnesses, and always assumes the best until she's told otherwise. But, then, a couple of nights ago she asked me for the millionth time about my side and I replied with, "I don't want to talk about it," because I was so annoyed with the whole thing. Then she said she was worried because I shouldn't be in pain this long. Well, that's all it took for me to start mourning the death of my children's mother and get all stressed out about it. That was late at night, and the ER is not even a consideration for me unless I have bones sticking out or something because it's the most uncomfortable, repulsive place in the world covered with people suffering from the pitiful condition of ignorance and bad genetics, which leads to terrible health and no insurance and the use of the ER as a general physician, making it totally miserable for people with a legitimate emergency (No, I have no problem expressing my honest opinion). So, I went to bed and prayed and coughed myself to sleep. Today, it feels so much better. It's still there, but it's bearable. I can wash my hair without feeling it, and I can lay on my back without feeling like my lung is going to split open (I've been restricted to the fetal position every night), and I can even sit up with full use of my stomach muscles. I'm still coughing, which my doctor gave me an asthma inhaler for, and which I never remember to use, and it's still lingering in the back of my mind that there could be some underlying problem, but I've always been a perpetual worrier, so my mother used to frequently remind me of the words of Scarlett O'Hara to help me sleep at night: "Fiddle, dee, dee. I'll worry about that tomorrow." So, that's what I'm trying to do. A couple more years blogging and you'll all know the full extent of what a nut I really am. Oh, and here are Evan and Alli caught in a rare moment. They've gotten in the terrible habit of fighting all the time these days, which I'm finding is typical.

It Snowed!

Last night it snowed! It's actually kind of a slushy, wimpy snow that's good for making nasty orange mud, but it was enough to cancel school, and that's what's important, right? Andy still had to work because linemen work hardest in the weather that most of us don't leave the house for. It's actually a little bit sad because he's never gotten to play with the kids in the snow. Well, not never. There was that time we were driving home from Gatlinburg that we stopped and played in the snow for a little bit. I remember when Drew was a baby and it snowed one time and he mentioned that there was this old guy that he worked with who was close to retirement who said he'd never played in the snow with his kids. Anyways, since he had to get up so early, and I'm used to getting up even earlier, I couldn't go back to sleep, so me and the kids were out in the snow before 8:00. Plus, it was melting pretty quickly, so I knew our time was limited. The kids didn't care that snow around here is always the consistency of a snow cone, because that's all they know, so they loved it. Evan and Alli got cold after about 30 minutes, so we were back in before 8:30. But, it's almost 9:00 now and Drew's still out. She said she was going to the neighbor's house (her teacher) to see if they could play. Both parents over there are teachers, so I hope they were awake! Oh, and while I'm posting (because we all know it'll be a while before it happens again), we've been pushed back another month for our move date. Andy's cousin has run into some more delays with the house they're moving into, so they asked for another month. It's a good thing we haven't sold our house yet, but I'm starting to feel a little silly because people keep asking, "Have you moved yet?" and for 2 months now we've been saying, "not yet." People are going to start thinking we're dillusional liars or something, but I promise, some day we will be moving! Check out the cute little videos below, and me being the cynical mom that I am discouraging everyone from eating snow and making snowmen. It's not my intention to be the party-pooper. I'm just too realistic for my own good I guess.

My Baby and His Dirtbike

Andy has been talking about getting Evan a dirtbike since the day he was born. In fact, if I would've encouraged it, he probably would've bought one when I was still pregnant. But, now that Evan is getting close to 5 years old, I couldn't hold him back any longer. Andy and Evan have been riding around the neighborhood together for a couple of weeks, with Andy gradually doing less and less, until they got to the point where Evan was driving and Andy was just riding along. Today he decided it was time to let Evan go on his own, so we went out behind our house where they've cleared out everything to start a new phase in our subdivision. He actually did really well. It's kind of impressive how quickly he picks this kind of stuff up. With his bicycle, Andy took the training wheels off mainly because he's so rough on things that the training wheels were all busted up, and Evan took off with no problems. He pretty much did the same thing today. This is his first time alone and he did great. He fell a couple of times, which made him a little skiddish, but he was fine. In the shortest video clip (the last one that just appears black but still works) I cut it off so quick because I was supposed to catch him, which I did pretty well almost every time. One of the times he forgot to hit the breaks and flew past me. I even learned to start it up all by myself, which is really nothing to brag about. It was a lot of fun, though, and pretty exhausting for us all.

A Vacation From Vacation

I have officially decided that pleuracy is an illness spawned directly from Satan himself. I don't know what that says about me seeing as it's infiltrated my body, but I'm soooo incredibly over it and ready to not have to brace myself to cough. And sneezing is a luxury I never fully appreciated before. I went back to the doctor because my side was hurting much worse, and she decided to do an x-ray on my ribs to see if one was cracked or broken and said she'd give me a prescription for Loritabs if it was. Well, it's not, but I still asked about the pain killers. She explained that Loritab is a narcotic and I need an anti-inflammatory, so ibuprofen should be good enough. I didn't say that if I get enough narcotics in my system the pain would eventually go away, but that's what I was thinking. Anyways, I went back to work today with no kids, which I think is a good way to start out -- gradually. As much as I was dreading it last night, it was kind of nice to be back in my old routine. I've always thought that Andy's life was much easier with getting to go to work all day, and now that I go to work all day, my thought has been confirmed. Being a stay-at-home mom is the hardest job in the world. So, before we went back to school, we went to a birthday party for a kid at church at this place called INK (Interactive Neighborhood for Kids), and it was pretty neat. It's set up like a little town with a grocery store, bank, doctor's office, dentist, hair salon, restaurant, etc. Evan spent the majority of his time at the grocery store while Drew and Alli visited the hair salon, and then decided that they liked the playground best, which I guess is what they prefer in a real town, so why not in a pretend town? Here's Evan shopping: And here are Drew and Alli at the hair salon: