Long Week!

The first week back after the holidays is always hard on us teachers. The kids don't want to come back to school any more than we do! It's tough getting back on schedule. No more sleeping in! This week seemed harder than ever!

One of the problems was that I have had a stick neck since New Year's Eve. I turned my head to cough and tweaked something in my neck. Yes, I had a coughing accident. Normally these types of things clear themselves up, but I'm still dealing with it 9 days later. At any rate, I have discovered that teaching when you can't turn your head is really hard! Plus it's painful. At home I can rest with my head on the back of the couch or lay down in bed, but at school? Yeah, I think the principal would not be too happy if she came in the find me with my head down on my desk.

I made it through Monday okay but I found out the assistant principal wanted a copy of my semester exam on her desk like yesterday. Only one problem. . . I hadn't written mine yet. Oops. The end of the semester isn't until Jan 22 and I had planned on doing it over the holidays, but it didn't happen. So I was up until 11:30 Monday night writing the final. fun. not.

Tuesday I would have loved to stay home but I was scheduled to go around the middle school reading classrooms with the principal, asst principal and the reading coach on a fidelity check. It's one of those little things I do as chair of Literacy council. I didn't want to bail out on the principal and I was really curious to see what everyone was doing in their classrooms, so I took a bunch of Advil and gritted my teeth and got through it. After school the girls went for a check-up at the doctor. We arrived at 3:40 for a 3:45 appointment. We waited until 5:10 to see the doctor. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! (me screaming) Part of it was they were busy, part was that our insurance changed Jan. 1. An hour and a half in a pediatrician's waiting room during flu season after a long day at work was the last thing I needed. My head and my neck and my shoulders and my back were killing me. The checkup itself was okay. Becca's ears, sinuses and chest sounded fine. She got the plantar's wart frozen off her toe and we found out that she is in the 90th percentile for height and the 75th for weight. (54 inches, 62 pounds). McKenzie is blind and needs to have her eyes checked and was seriously behind on shots. She got a Chicken Pox booster (Becca got out of that one since she had the Chicken Pox), hepatitis booster, tetanis, meningitis, and gardisil. Poor poor Kenzie, but I'd rather just get it all done and out of the way. we stopped at Wendy's for grub and ice cream for two very well behaved little girls. Except McKenzie is not so little anymore: 5'2" and 93 lbs. Yikes. That's the same size I was when I went to college. Double Yikes. She is in the 95th percentile for height and the 75th percentile for weight. I'm still a little stunned. I'm not ready for her to be all grown up. Soon I will have to look UP at her.

Wednesday morning I decided enough is enough. I need to go the doctor. so I drove into school, called for a sub, left lesson plans, came back home to get the girls, drove to Claudia's to get her girls and dropped everyone off at school at 8:30. Went home, ate breakfast and called my doctor. No appointments. WHHHHHAAT?? I took the day off. . . please?? Pretty please?? Okay. We'll squeeze you in at two (Sometimes it pays to whine!). I spent the day doing laundry and light cleaning and playing on Facebook. I got to the doctor who had no issues with the new insurance, thank God, and saw the doctor at 2:40. Ugh. I REALLY hate waiting around doctor's offices. Like so much that I wanted to cry. Seriously, there were tears in my eyes. I should have brought a book. So Dr Hunter tells me that I will need pain pills and an anti-inflammatory. At this point she hadn't done a physical exam. Um. . . couldn't she have just prescribed that over the phone? She did feel around a little after that and said that it might help to see a chiropractor if the meds didn't help. Couldn't she have just told me that on the phone?? She then gave me a shot in the butt of an anti-inflammatory (that wouldn't have worked on the phone) and sent me home. Sorry no photos of that. The shot helped a bit because I had more movement in my neck a couple of hours later. Claudia dropped the girls off at 5:00, Mike got home at 6:30 and went to get my Rx for me. I took one of each and then stayed up to watch the Gonzaga game. The GU game went into overtime so I was up until 11:30. Yeah! Gonzaga won!! at Tennessee! Hip, hip Hooray! I would have been pissed to stay up that late and have them lose.

Thursday. . .I took all my meds and felt pretty good, a little dizzy maybe in first period, really dizzy and nauseous in second period and just plain loopy in 3rd and 4th. But I was feeling very little pain! The afternoon was better, feeling more lucid and still pain-free. Unfortunately Becca was having a bad time. She was coughing in the morning so I gave her some cough/expectorant stuff, but her teacher called around 11 to ask if she could give her some cough drops. Uh. oh. Mrs. Z called back around 2 to say Becca was still coughing, couldn't stop and was turning red in the face. Poor baby. So Becca came to my room and took some dayQuil (all I had in my purse) drank some water and rested on the beanbags in my room until the end of the day. I have a really fabulous 6th period and planning during 7th period so it didn't really disrupt my schedule at all. We went home right after school taking Claudia's girls with us. Becca was still cough, cough, cough when Claudia came to get her girls so I sent Becca with them so she could use their nebulizer to see if that would calm the cough. It helped a little bit, but it was still bad. Mike gave her some codeine to see if that would help. Kind of worked. But then Becca's temp started to climb and around 10 (not sure because I fell asleep at 9) she threw up.

Friday: Becca and Mike stay home. Kenzie and I go to school. I had to go in to run the Design team meeting, and it was Mike's turn to stay home anyway. This time I took the anti-inflammatory but not the pain killers (valium, vicodin). Not loopy today but OWWWW. Very sore. My students have been very understanding. Good group of kids this year (mostly!). Mike came after school to get Kenzie to take to her art class and I went straight home to watch Becca. Becca doesn't seem too bad. She is not coughing much, hasn't thrown up again and her fever is like 99.5. Hopefully it was just a quick bug and she will be all better tomorrow. I came home, took my pain pills and promptly fell asleep for an hour. Good nurse, aren't I? Becca was busy watching Hannah Montana. I'm not sure she even noticed.

So now you are all caught up on our very dreary, very dull, first week back at school. That is, if you made it all the way to the end of my post, which you probably didn't, cause you are probably asleep. Hey Wake up! We'll try to do something fun this weekend so that I can write about something more exciting than I'm sick. Becca is sick. we went to school. we came home. the end. Tomorrow we plan on cleaning!! That should be much more fun and exciting. Perhaps I will include photos of my vacuum and my mop. Plus I am planning a trip to the grocery store! Woohoo!