Being Really Sick

Well, since my last posting I had another decline in health. After a week of solid invalidism, virus and infection, John took me to the clinic to get a prescription for some antibiotics. Now I've been blessed with a life free of major accidents or illnesses, plus mom being a nurse, so I'm fairly sure I haven't been to a doctor since I was five. It was interesting and felt slightly defeatist. 

The nurse established that I am five feet tall and currently weighing 97.5 lbs(don't be jealous, I just hadn't been eating) and my blood pressure was 110/72. I also signed fifty million papers allowing them to disclose my information, to someone, somewhere, for some reason. I thought I would beat them to it and just post it here.

My plants on our back step.

We got the antibiotics. But, long story short, it wasn't a bacterial infection after all, just a really long-lived virus; possibly the measles. So all in all I've had a rough two weeks, and I'm very happy to finally be feeling better, and finally catching up on everything that got dropped for those two weeks.

The First Quilt Block.

One of my projects is making up some examples of early quilting styles, to be used as conversation points back at Ft. Atkinson. I'll be making a few simple pieced blocks appropriate for the era, and then hopefully some plain wholecloth blocks, and maybe I'll try trapunto. This is the first pieced quilt block I've ever made, and it's not perfect- but it will do. I think when they all get done it will be a nice little collection!

Poisoned

Urushiol: God created it; it must have a purpose. Maybe humans weren't susceptible to it before the fall.

Poison ivy, oak, and sumac: "It's sap is of an extremely poisonous character, and in many persons the slightest contact with the leaves causes a rash of a most distressing character, the hands and arms and sometimes the whole body becoming greatly swollen from simply touching or carrying a branch of the plant, the swelling being accompanied with intolerable pain and inflammation, ending in ulceration."

Somehow, even with all her running around in the woods and her propensity for getting poisoned, Snow White never gets poison ivy. I'm almost as jealous of that as I am of her lovely costumes.

Due to some yard work earlier this week, my brother and I now have such a rash of that most distressing character, all over my face and all over his body. It's been so long since I've had poison ivy, mostly due to my very real fear of the plant. I had an extreme case of poison ivy when I was younger. I was painfully sick for weeks with blisters that almost scarred. Now, with two weeks to the S.E.W., bring on the medications.

Happy thoughts, happy thoughts, happy thoughts.

 Hook: I do love his coat.

How Beautiful are the Feet...

(I wrote this last week and am finally somewhere where I am able to post it)

...of those who bring good news, but since we're all still sick I guess I don't really have any good news. Now I know why people die of influenza. Now I understand why the influenza outbreaks were so dreaded: I guess one plus to this is that I can now better understand that part of history. After twelve days of a fever, Mom to the clinic and they immediately hospitalized her for pneumonia. Dad is well enough to go back to work now, and the rest of us are all in various stages of coughing and weakness. This will be a three-week illness, at least.
I bought some new sandals last week, before we were taken ill, and they are unlike anything I have ever bought before. I really needed some nice sandals to wear to church, and so I broke down and spent $8 at Goodwill(I generally set my price limit for shoes at $3, so understand how painful this was for me). I could have bought some of those fancied-up flip-flops, which Mom with her lingering 1970's vocabulary calls "thongs", to Jen's everlasting embarrassment; but deep in my soul there is a moral standard for church wear, and it will not permit flip-flops. So I bought these:
I have long resisted wearing heels. Maybe it's because I(along with 95% of all home-schooled girls) read the Elsie Dinsmore series in my youth, where one character fell down the stairs because of her heels and was permanently crippled; but I prefer to think it is because of my own common sense and practical nature. I don't want anyone to think I am at all endorsing heels: heels are dangerous and kids, do not try this at home. You may end up permanently crippled. I pray I will not.

Anyway, I had a short time to make a decision and Goodwill had a limited selection, I rarely get to town to go shopping and these happened to be in my size, so I bought them. There was a point yesterday when a few of us had hopes to get out and go to church, so I specially prepared my feet with a chocolate-scented sugar scrub because goodness, my feet SHOW in those things! The pedicure companies and the sandal companies must be in league. We ended up being still to tired to attend church, so if it were not for this post I would have sugared feet for nothing. Feel honored I am sharing with you.

On a different note, we just watched the new "Star Trek" movie, and action scenes aside it made me laugh, which was refreshing after living like the undead for a week, but do you know how hard it is to laugh when you have a cough? It's hard. I have to admit the movie made me a bit queasy during all the spinning through space scenes- but "Up" does the same thing; I can't stand the thought of people floating in space.

This post may seem a little wordy or unusually flippant; please don't take it badly; after two weeks of confinement the (hopefully humorous)sarcasm is flowing free.

Ill: unhealthy, ailing, diseased, afflicted.

My whole family has been miserably, horribly, terribly sick all this past week. There's no point to this post other than to bemoan our situation, so don't feel like you need to read it.

Thesaurus.com:

Main Entry:	ill
Part of Speech:	adjective
Definition:	sick
Synonyms:	a wreck, afflicted, ailing, below par, bummed, diseased, down, down with, feeling awful, feeling rotten, feeling terrible, got the bug, indisposed, infirm, laid low, off one's feet, on sick list, out of sorts, peaked, poorly, queasy, rotten, run-down, running temperature, sick as a dog, under the weather, unhealthy, unwell, woozy

Pretty much all of those apply to my family. Symptoms include splitting headaches, extreme weakness, a cough, and achy muscles. The coughing is almost constant when you get the eight of us together. Mom and Dad got it the worst: Dad actually had a headache for three days straight, and Mom was so weak that she couldn't even sit up for long. Parents aren't supposed to get sick, so I don't know what they were thinking. We certainly aren't strong enough to nurse them. We haven't been this sick for a long time. Illness certainly makes heaven look even more appealing.