On The Mend...Slowly

It has been a long week of feeling like a sack of wet mice, but I am slowly regaining my energy. Yesterday, I spent the day doing STORYFEST, a literacy enrichment activity for some of the kids in School District 2. It was great fun, but being “perky and bouncy” for 6 hours with groups of kids as I taught them to use their imagination and draw Petitcodiac Muck Monsters took a lot out of me. Staying up until midnight to stitch didn’t help either, but at least I was sitting down!

My walking buddy and I went for our walk this morning and then I came home and napped for a 1/2 hour! I just don’t have the strength and energy that I did before this round of flu and don’t seem to be bouncing back as quickly as my kids. I am sure that the age difference has nothing to do with it... right??

I have a lot to look at this weekend. I am starting to think that there is just no way I will have Santa’s Dragon ready for to ship to Kreinik for the Columbus show without it costing a huge amount for overnight shipping. I got the deadlines for product from Hoffman for that show and the leaflets would have to be in their warehouse by the 28th of May.

Santa’s Dragon WILL come out this summer, but I am honestly looking at how much it would take to get everything wrapped up, proofed, framed etc. in 3 weeks or less and having a slight panic attack. Especially since we discovered yesterday that we lost our digital camera during the trip home from Montreal. I couldn't find it before the event yesterday and when I got home we tore the house apart. We remember having it out at the Royal Montreal Golf Club, but whether it got left there as we changed into street clothes and raced to the airport or in the rental car itself... we just don't know. I could have cried!!! I called the rental company and the club to leave all of the information for them to check, but since it has almost been 2 weeks, I'm afraid someone may not have read our address inside the case but just helped themselves! Getting ready for a show with a borrowed camera would have been a real challenge. I feel so weak that I am almost happy it didn’t work out to attend the show in person this year because I just don’t know where I would find the physical strength. The dragon’s will is strong... but I feel as if all my scales are falling off and I am trying to hold them back in place with both hands!

A Picture Says It All...

The dragon did not manage to stay healthy after all. I started feeling rotten late Saturday night and by 4 am Sunday, I took a cab to the hospital. Nick was too groggy from his Tylenol 3s to drive anyway, so I snuck out of the house by cab.

It turned out to be quite possibly one of my worst experiences with the health care system in Moncton. I arrived at the Emergency department around 4:15 am with only one other person in the waiting room. I checked in and had to rush to the washroom to hurl before they could get the bracelet on my arm. I saw the triage nurse a few minutes later and explained that I needed the shot of Maxeran to shut down the nerve that controls vomiting. Mine has been so badly damaged from gallbladder attacks during my 1st pregnancy and 8 month of morning sickness with my 2nd that once I am sick more than once, my body just keeps hurling... whether there is anything to hurl or not.

For whatever reason... I sat out in the general waiting area hurling for 3.5 hours until the shift changed at 7:30 am and I stumbled over to the new triage nurse to explain that I was going to faint soon. Perhaps the prospect of a weaving 6’5” female towering over her was enough to tip the balance because within 5 minutes three names were finally called and mine was among them. After donning the obligatorily humiliating johnny shirt, I curled up on the stretcher and hoobed in private until the doctor saw me.

Because I had been sick so many times, the first shot of Maxeran didn’t do the trick this time. After 45 minutes, I was still having dry heaves so they decided to try an IV and a further dose. Unfortunately, by this time I was so dehydrated that the nurse had to make several attempts to find a vein... this dragon really does NOT like being a pincushion!!

Just before noon on Sunday, I was able to grab a cab home and collapse into bed for a sleep until everyone else got home from church. The girls immediately went into Florence Nightingale mode and brought me crackers or ginger ale (with the bubbles stirred out) to see what I could keep down. This morning, I am dizzy and weak, but at least able to get up and move about a bit. So I did what any stitcher would in recovery mode. I sat in bed and stitched!

The girls keep asking me what is for supper tonight. I think that it will be a “must go” meal of leftovers so that I can just have some dry toast and not stand over the stove cooking anything just yet!