Cootie Box Central

My apartment is cootie head quarters. Poor Chris has the flu. I took him to the doctor on Tuesday. Since then, he has gotten worse. He developed a horrid sore throat and a choking cough...plus his fever has gone up from an average of 100 to 102. Not cool. I took the day off from work to keep an eye on him because I've never seen him so sick (scary!) and I took him back to the doctor. Doc put him on anti-biotics because he's afraid Chris might be developing a secondary infection so the anti-biotics are a precaution. Meanwhile, Chris has to sleep on the couch (doctor's orders) and I'm not allowed to spend time with him. And if I go near him, I have to wash my hands (obviously). As a result I have old lady hands. I'm serious. My hands do not look a day under 80 years old. I've been using Gold Bond Foot cream on them. I figure if it can soften crack feet, it'll do a number on my hands. It does work.

So, I've got Chris on the couch, I've got Reuben who wants to be on the couch, but can't because 1) Chris is taking up the entire couch and 2) I'm Reu's primary caretaker, and sole caretaker now that Chris is ill and I can't have influenza cooties on the dog who will be sleeping with me because I'm the best human ever in his eyes.

I hope all these precautions are going to keep me form getting the flu because apparently, there is nothing that pregnant women can take for the flu...except for tylenol. Chris is miserable with alka-seltzer with tylenol taken intermittenly with advil. Can you imagine having an extra horrible flu and all you can take is plain tylenol? Not even Tylenol Pm so you can sleep through most of it? Frightening.

So as a result of all this I canceled all our plans for the weekend. Out for Mexican with my parents? Canceled. UFC at his boss' house? Canceled. SuperBowl at CA and Mikes (with Baby Kyle)? That's a super big CANCELED! Who wants to feel responsible for giving an infant the flu. Not me.

Hope all of you are well...or are on the mend, Marta!

Eating better

Just like when I wasn't pregnant, I'm struggling to eat healthier. Ugh. Today I made Black Bean Quinoa salad that I totally stole from the Zumba Queen herself...Kimberly. It's right up my alley and if you can eat it slow enough so that it's four servings...it's core.

I think I'm going to try to going back to eating core...more of it and ignore the flexies...but I think I need to fill up my dietary day with more fruits and veggies rather than bagels, butter, and candy. Seems to make sense to me.

I'm also not used to this hormonal stuff. I never really had bad PMS (curse at me if it makes you feel better) but I left work "sick" today because I was afraid a library patron would come in and make me cry...I was *that* on edge all day. I just do not feel like myself today and it make me feel yucky. I think it's a combo of stress, looking at houses that Chris and I can't agree on, and the fact that I'm not sleeping so great. To remedy all this, I set up an appointment for a prenatal massage tomorrow. I told the appointment lady that I didn't need the special table, but I needed someone who was certified in prenatal because the rumor is...if you're massaged "wrong" you can have weird stuff happen like dizziness, headaches and in rare cases...contractions. It's an extra $5 but I think it'll be well worth it.

And Marta, I never responded to your comment, so I'm doing it here. We're not going to find out what the baby is (aside from human) before it's born.

Isotonic v Hypertonic

I've been doing a little sinus rinse research (of all things) and discovered that with my rinse kit I can do 2 types of rinses: isotonic or hypertonic. Isotonic has the same salt levels as you body and is good just for a general rinse and stimulation of cilia. Hypertonic is more salt than your body and is recommended if you're having sinus issues or if you want to wash out pollen, dust or mucus from your sinuses. It'll also relieve inflammation. I've done isotonic for 2 days now, and thought to myself, "Hey! If isotonic is doing a good job, think of what hypertonic could do for me and my disgusting snot filled sinuses"

I read the instructions on the box for making the hypertonic solution (easy...3 packets instead of 1). Proceeded to prep the water...waited for it to cool. Jammed the sinus thing in my nose and BURN! Weird,I thought to myself, same temp as last night's isotonic. I told myself I'd wait 5 minutes for the water to cool. So, 1 minutes later (I was reading blogs) I rammed the nasal thing in my nose and BURN! Ummmm, it didn't occur to me that more salt would burn. Duh! I am feeling clear and my nose running like a champ complete with sinus clear out. Yes!

Moral of the story...although hypertonic rinses don't tickle and actually burn like sticking a soldering iron in your nose, it's well worth it when you're suffering anyway.

I woke up with a bit of sinus pressure/pain this morning and I thought to myself, "Crap!". I don't want to be on antibiotics again this early in the pregnancy. I had bronchitis last month and had to take strong antibiotics. Bleh. I decided to try the sinus rinse route after talking to a coworker who is a frequent netti pot user.

I don't usually watch Oprah, but I do love Dr. Oz. On a recent show, Dr. Oz recommended the netti pot, and my coworker swears by it, so I thought I'd give it a shot. Unfortunately, Mrs. Green's was out, so I ran to CVS and got the Ayr sinus system. I ran back to work, and used it right away.

I have to tell you, squirting water up one nostril and having it run through your forehead and out through the other nostril, is an experience to be had. It did not, at all, feel like I was drowning. The running water did tickle, and depending on which nostril I had the bottle up to, the corresponding eye would twitch a little bit, which made me laugh.

So here I am, at school, in the bathroom with the door open, squirting water into one nostril, having it pour out the other, eye twitching and me giggling like a mad woman.

I will say this...my head felt tons better after using it. My nose was running, weird stuff came out. (I know: TMI). I think that this product, if i use it daily from now on, it will probably be a big help once my allergy season sets in...you know March through November.

Changes

I can feel this blog slowly changing into an annoying mommy blog...at least for the time being, the only things I've got going on are the pregnancy and house hunting...so that's what I'm going to be writing about...sorry.

Today I went for a Down Syndrome/chromosome screening. I sent in blood work months ago and today I was scheduled for an ultrasound. Very cool. I was instructed to eat something sugary about an hour before the appointment. I love eating ice cream for breakfast! As a result of the sugary breakfast, the baby was wiggling in the ultrasound. It was the coolest thing I have ever seen. My mom came with me and got to see my wiggly baby and hear the heartbeat. She filmed it on her cell phone. Yeah, I've got that kind of mother.

The cool thing about this screening is that the doctor sees you about 10 minutes after he analyzes the ultrasound and the blood sample. He told me that my screening couldn't go much better. My risk for Down Syndrome at this point is 1 in 6,000 and for other chromosome abnormalities I'm less than 1 in 10,000. Those are much better odds than those associated with my age (1 in 304 for each!). I'm supposed to do another one of these during the second trimester, but it's seriously painless and since you get instant results, it's even better.

Guess What...

Evil coworker is also pregnant and is due two days after me. She has always said that she doesn't want kids, but her husband does...and the deal they have is that she'll have a baby and he'll take care of it. That way she can continue to be focused on her course work (PhD) and career, and he'll leave her alone. Well, she's pregnant with TWINS! Fate has it out for her. The rumor is her pregnancy plan is to only gain 15 pounds....with twins. With a singleton you're expected to gain 25-35 pounds. She's a bit twisted...don't you think?

Confessions

I have to confess to all of you in blogland that I have not been doing WW for ummmm...like two months or so. I have moments of uncontrollable hunger, slight nausea, fatigue...it's unlike anything I've ever experience before.

Yeah, you guessed it. I'm pregnant. I'm due on August 6th. I'm hoping that once the baby is born I'll be back to tri'ing like I get paid by the hour and not turn this into a mommy blog whose title has been changed to Cry Like You Get Paid by the Hour or or something equally obnoxious.

So there you have it...now you all know why I've been mostly absent and evasive when I actually have posted. Sorry for the delay! Now that my big secret is out in the open, I think I'll be around more often as I'll be able to share more freely.

Chris and I are also house hunting, so this is a time of exhaustion and stress! Nothing like making 2 major life changes at the same time, right?

Woah!

I am a really selfish blogger...I read your blogs on a daily basis and I amd totally bummed when ya'll take a day off and here I am posting once a week! I think I've got way too much going on at the moment. My school had a terrible thing happen, which I can't talk about at the moment...but I'll set up a link or something soon, if I can. We're still interviewing for new reading people, but we had a really great interviewee this afternoon and our administrator is trying to get her to come back tomorrow for a second interview. Yay! I've also got some other small things in the works that I can't mention right now, but I promise I will soon!

I am off to make cookies for the reading department baby shower! Woo-hoo!

Happy New Year!

Hey all! I have to go back to work tomorrow...boooo. Don't get me wrong, I love my job, it's just that this has not felt like a vacation to me. I have bronchitis...I've been coughing since the day after Christmas. I can't be too upset. I have a week off in February, so I can relax then...especially since there are no big holidays attached, except for Presidents Day, which is not a high pressure family style holiday...so I'm good.

I have not decided if I'm going to have resolutions for 2008. I'm going to have to ruminate on that a bit longer. No worries...I'll keep ya'll updated.