Thursday, October 22, 2009

Technological Musings

Since returning to work in May it feels as if DH and I have barely had a chance to catch our breath, let alone sit down and have a chat about anything. Life has been on fast forward for the past five months. Today is day three of my work-imposed sick vacation. Yesterday afternoon I signed onto aMSN for the first time since returning to work and had a great chat with DH. And we've been chatting for close to an hour this morning (I'm feeling much better today, and am going to try to not nap the day away!) It's nice to connect with him, even if it isn't in person! Technology is wonderful. Without it, I wouldn't have met DH in the first place!

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

H1N1, Anyone?

On Saturday night I came down with a cold. I could feel it taking a hold of me while I was out to dinner with N & S. I felt yucky on Sunday, but only cold-yucky—nothing to really worry about. Yesterday I went to work, but I took yesterday afternoon off because I had two appointments. I went for my maternal serum screening (cross your fingers for no false positives this time!) and then I took BB for his flu shot.

That’s the background.

So yesterday afternoon, after both of our appointments were over with, I was sitting on the couch reading stories to BB. I had noticed throughout the day that I had a bit of a cough, but nothing too terrible. Suddenly, I’m coughing so hard that it feels like my lungs are going to fly out of my mouth. This went on for about half an hour, then I remembered that all of my office’s H1N1 fear propaganda mentions that one of the symptoms of the flu is sudden onset of acute respiratory illness. At this point, I decided to check my temperature to see if was over 38C. Low and behold it was.

As soon as DH returned home from work I called Telecare to see if I should be panicking. After a lengthy consultation, the nurse told me that I need to see a doctor within three hours as I am exhibiting symptoms of H1N1. What??!! She was supposed to tell me it was all in my head and I was listening to the CBC far too much! The nurse gave me the number of the clinic that is only six minutes from my house, and told me to call ahead in case they have any special protocol for bringing someone with these symptoms into the office so I wouldn’t infect the other patients.

I called the clinic and the lady who answered the phone sounded positively annoyed with me. She told me they don’t have any sort of a protocol for this situation, but asked if I have a face mask. Everything I’ve heard in the media says NOT to run out and buy face masks, because most people use them incorrectly and it gives them a false sense of security. So no, I didn’t have a face mask. After a big sigh, she told me to come in and go directly to the desk and they would find an isolated room to put me in.

When I arrived at the clinic, there was a young girl working at the desk. I didn’t want to come right out and say, “Hi, I’m the person who has the H1N1 symptoms!” That would have caused mass panic in the waiting room full of people! So I just said, “Hi, I’m the person who called a few minutes ago.” Luckily she was in the loop and said, “You’re the lady from The Settlement?” Ahhhhh! She understood my desire to not create panic and was on the same page! Sweet! She summoned the older lady that I had been talking to on the phone by saying, “This is the lady from The Settlement.” Sweet! The older lady acknowledged the fact that I had brought my own pen to sign in with and then whisked me away to my own room.

Once in the room, the nurse informed me with more than a trace of resentment in her voice that Telecare should NOT have sent me to their clinic. They cannot do the H1N1 swab there as it can only be done at the hospital. She also said that she spoke with the doctor to inform him that they needed to come up with some sort of protocol for when people like me do arrive at the clinic. Well, I’m sorry that I inconvenienced you ma’am, I’m just doing what I’ve been told to do in order to make sure that my baby and I will be okay.

After waiting a short while, ten minutes max, the doctor arrived. At first he seemed almost mocking. As if he was thinking, “Foolish lady, thinking you have the swine flu!” But the more we talked the nicer he became. I think he realized that I realize there’s a lot of hype around the whole thing and that I there because Telecare sent me there. After asking a bunch of questions, he told me he didn’t believe that I had H1N1, or even the flu. He told me to get lots of rest and fluids, and gave me a note for work to stay home for a few days, or until I’m feeling better. We had a nice chat and made fun of the media lots. He definitely brought down my anxiety level. Before leaving the house I was convinced I was going to be the next story on the news about a pregnant lady dying with the flu! I worried that it would be my last time seeing BB. My fears took over all of my common sense. And then I returned home about half an hour after I had originally left!

My office’s pandemic rules say that we can’t return to work until we’ve been fever free for over 24 hours. I still have my fever this morning, so I guess I’ll be home tomorrow as well.

The funny thing is that last week, I was totally craving a day off. A day to nap, relax, and just let go of everything. Apparently, I should have listened to my body.

And now for the important lesson you should take away from this story: If you need to see a doctor, tell them you have H1N1 symptoms, and then you can butt an entire waiting room full of people at the after hours clinic!

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Finally an Update!

I'm way past due for an update!  As I recently mentioned to Emilie, I had been feeling guilty about not updating as much now, but I've been busy living my life rather than logging it!  Soon, I'm sure I'll have lots of "down time" again to update on a more regular basis.  (Yeah, yeah, I know what you're thinking… "You're going to have two kids, you think you're going to have "down time"?  But not having 44 hours a week in the office will make a huge difference to my time!)

 

So, here are the odds and sods… updates and what's going through my head at the moment. 

 

  • My ultrasound (almost four weeks ago!) showed that I was 11 weeks + 5 days.  So as of today, I'm 15 weeks + 3 days.  The time is going by so quickly.  I remember it dragging during my first pregnancy, but I'm so busy with BB and work that I blink and another day or week has passed. 
  • My doc is already showing that he has math issues.  We ran into this a lot last time.  My last appointment was exactly two weeks after my ultrasound.  I told him that the u/s showed that I was 11 weeks + 5 days.  So he pulled out his little round, pregnancy calendar thingy, and informs me that I am now 13 weeks + 3 days.  Huh?  11 weeks + 5 days plus 2 weeks equals 13 weeks + 3 days?  I corrected him (because I figured it was an obvious correction), and he said, "Well, these things are never exact."  Ah, nice cover!  I get that they're not exact, but math *is* exact.  Or at least it should be!  Last time I stopped correcting him because I realized there was really no point and it just made me look like a smart ass, and this incident reminded me of that.  So again, I'll just grin and nod at whatever tells me, and count down the weeks until I move on to the OB, who seems to have more of a clue than he does. 
  • I feel like I was put on this planet to be pregnant.  My pregnant state feels much more natural to me than my non-pregnant state.  Is it a female thing?  Is this what makes us keep having babies?  Even putting on my big, warm sweaters… last winter I felt empty in them without my baby belly.  When I started wearing them again this fall, the felt so much more right. 
  • I've been thinking a lot lately about how friendships change and people drift apart.  It's something I'd like to explore more in a post, but I don't know if I can pull my thoughts together on it.  I am still raw from the friendships I'm thinking of in particular, and I feel that I need to take the time to properly write about them.  At this point, the time for a thoughtful post isn't in the cards.
  • For the last year or so I've been a haunted by an incident involving a doctor I had in high school.  It's weird how you can ignore something for years and then suddenly it hits you like a tonne of bricks.  Again, another topic I'd like to try writing about to see if I can bring some closure to the issue, but I need to take the time to do it right. 
  • I'm taking the plunge and getting the flu shot for myself and BB, and the H1N1 when it is available.  I don't know what the right thing to do is, and I worry that whatever decision I make will be the wrong one.  All I know is that I'll never forgive myself if I do the wrong thing.  It feels like I'm playing the lottery, but if I lose the results could be life threatening.  I'm afraid.
  • We had family pictures done last weekend with the same person that did pictures of BB last fall when he was six months old.  I received the CD with the edits yesterday and was amazed with the results.  We have such a beautiful little boy.  He was having a rough day that day, and we all had to work hard to keep his spirits up, but you can't tell in the pictures.  He looks so happy in all of the pictures.  He completely takes my breath away.  (For the couple of you that read this that are friends on Facebook, I'll hopefully have some of the pics uploaded soon!)  I had to laugh at some of the family pictures though.  There are shots of DH and I walking away from the camera with BB in between us and holding our hands.  Oh my, do I look like a wide-load!  I had a hard time finding something to wear for the pictures that fit and didn't show off my newfound weight too badly, but that didn't make me look like Two-Tonne-Tessie as well.  Well, the pics from behind are frightening.  And no, those ones probably won't be uploaded to FB.  Or at least the worst of them won't be!  Ten pounds can make a HUGE difference when you're as short as I am!