Update on life...

So the past 2 weeks have been truly interesting for me... In my last post I wrote about how I was going to get to see my twin from my sorority for her birthday - which I got to do - yay! The next day we had a Monavie meeting at our house, and then went out downtown with a group of friends. Earlier that day, I had some mysterious bumps appear on my face. I had a scratch on my chin from my oversized lab, so I had the bright idea to put Neosporin on it and cover it with a Band-Aid because it just didn't seem to want to heal. (That, and I can be extremely impatient!!) Well, these bumps appeared pretty quickly afterward - so of course I freaked and decided I was having an allergic reaction to either the Band-Aid or the Neosporin. They kept spreading and my skin was really sore... but I tried not to freak out. Sunday rolled around, and they definitely were not getting better as they should have been if I'd had an allergic reaction.

Now, I have no idea what kind of shows y'all watch, but here in the Brasher household we LOVE House. Love it! However, when you have something mysterious show up on your face that you can't get rid of... paranoia sets in and you begin to think of all these horrible things that could be wrong with you. Which is exactly what I did! Monday came around and I was just plain mortified at how my chin looked, while also extremely worried that I had something seriously wrong. Did anybody see the America's Next Top Model with the girl that had the flesh eating bacteria on her face??? Yeah, that's totally where my mind went. So I called the doctor and asked to be seen. I had also developed a cough, but I was way more concerned with my face. When I went in, the doc told me I had a upper respitory infection (at least it wasn't pneumonia!) and I had contracted some kind of staph infection from my absolutely disgusting 8-year olds. Lovely.

I continue on through the week, really hoping that between the 2 meds I had now been prescribed, I'd see some results. By Thursday, nothing was better and I now had pink-eye. I only wish I was making this up - yes, this is a true story!!! So, beause my lovely doctor is closed on Thursday I went to Care-Now. The doc there confirmed that yes, I definitely had pink-eye but she wasn't so sure about my chin being staph and put me on a new (very strong) anti-biotic to help clear whatever it was up. I also was lucky enough to develop my very first cold sore in the smack dab middle of my bottom lip... so at this point I had decided my immune system had gone and abandoned me. So I'm prescribed 3 more meds between my chin, my lip, and my poor eye. Keep in mind this is all occuring on my right side of my body. Nice, huh?

Luckily, nothing got worse over the weekend except that I developed a second cold sore on the same lip (who knew that could happen???) and I just generally felt like crap from taking all the meds, drinking tons of water and eating every few hours because I had to space out the meds and eat with every dang one of them. Ugh!!! So I survive until the following Wednesday when I wake up to discover the same mysterious bumps on my right thumb. At this point, I'm in utter disbelief because I can't believe it's possible for me to still have things wrong with me being on so many meds!!! So I go back to the doctor, and they put me on ANOTHER med (well 2 actually) so now I'm officially up to 7 meds. One is to keep from scratching my thumb (because it really really itches!!) and it completely knocks me out... and they other is to hopefully clear up whatever viral/bacterial infection I have been blessed with.

As of today (knock on wood) everything has cleared up but my thumb... I can finally wear my contacts again... and while I'm still on a ton of medicine, I finally feel somewhat human. My doctors never gave me a clear diagnosis of what exactly I had, but all I can say is that it was nasty and I hope I never get it again. He was kind enough to tell me that stress probably played a part in most of it, and that I need to figure out a way to alleviate some of mine. Yes, because that's so easy to do!! So, I'm going to make myself take time out of everyday for myself - doctor's orders. He also told me I was displaying classic symptoms of a completely overworked teacher (or person) and that I needed to do something quickly because being so completely overworked is not good for you. CLEARLY! So, I'm also starting ADD meds... those of you who know me should not be at all surprised that I've been officially diagnosed as ADD, especially if you read this blog and know how my life has worked out over the past year!! Haha! I'm hoping this will help alleviate some of the stress... and the rest will have to be taken care of my end.

If anything, the past 2 weeks has taught me following things:
- Stress can do terrible, horrible things to your body!
- I have an amazing husband I managed to not drive completely insane, and managed to keep calm when I totally was NOT.
- I think I might need a new job. HA!
- Just when you think you're getting on top of things, the Devil has no problem sweeping in and knocking your feet out from under you.
- If I wasn't taking care of myself by taking multivitamins and drinking Monavie... I'm scared to think of how sick I could have been.
- While it is important to think of others, it's more important to take care of yourself. I'm not saying be selfish and say "screw everybody else"... I'm just saying not putting everybody in the world in front of your own needs. I'm apparently really bad about that.
- You can't please everybody, so just do your best. That's a hard lesson I will probably continue to learn for the rest of my life!
- Be thankful for your health... it's really scary when you don't have it.

I'm definitely glad that I'm feeling better and thankful that it wasn't much, much worse. I know it could have been. This week I'm going to make it a point to do something for myself everyday... and learn to say no when my plate is already full. Please help me work on that!! My skills of being consistant (especially when it comes to myself) are not exactly great - which is something I'm hoping that these new meds will help with. I get distracted super easily! Working out has always been a great outlet for me, so I'm really hoping I can stick to my plan of doing something every day, even if it is only 15-20 minutes. You've got to start somewhere, right??

Love y'all, and stay healthy!!
Monique