man, i've been very delinquent in my blogging... it's been a brutal week here at the yim household, so i thought i'd share. thanks to all the well-wishes from my facebook friends. seriously, what did we do without facebook? lived much more isolated lives, that's for sure.
last week bella picked up a virus. not just any old virus. hand-foot-mouth disease virus. not a pretty name for an illness... and let me tell you, when i had to explain to people what she had, it was always with a little embarrassment. she must have gotten it from some kid at the hawthorne mall play area, because it has a 3-4 day incubation period, which was when we were there. she spiked a fever saturday night, and once the fever went down on sunday afternoon, little red sores started popping up. first around her mouth, then on her hands... and finally the next day on her feet. at first, i assumed she had had some sort of allergic reaction to food and i blamed it on the bananas, because dan is allergic to bananas, so i just figured. but when the little rash spread to her feet the next day, i thought that was odd.
needless to say, she was a little cranky pants. her usual mealtimes were exhausting because she LOVES to eat, so she's cry to eat something, but once she had it in her mouth, she'd cry from the pain... then she'd cry because she was hungry and still wanted to eat something... it was a vicious cycle. her mouth sores, internal and external, lasted for about 3-4 days, so it was a draining beginning of the week. thankfully the rash on her hands and feet really didn't seem to bother her at all.
so, once bella started feeling better, i began to feel a little off, myself. i rarely ever get sick, and in fact like to rub it into dan, who seems to feel "ill" like clockwork about every 7-8 weeks. anyways, i thought it was just your old run-of-the mill sore throat with a little bit of sinus infection mixed in... but by thursday, i was feeling totally rotten. i came home from work, stripped off my jacket, kissed bella, and headed straight for the bed. i slept for 2 hours, then woke up for a bit, then took another 2 hour nap, then woke up to nurse bella and put her to bed, then just hung out in my own bed for the rest of the night. i thought for sure i'd be better the next day.
friday i woke up and my sore throat was even worse... but it was off to work, because hey if i was getting the flu, i'd rather go to work and infect all my coworkers, rather than stay home and infect bella... hahaha.
i was feeling tired still and lightheaded, but other than the sore throat, not too terrible. man, by midmorning, my throat was on fire. any attempt to eat my lunch was met by stabbing pains. excrutiating. i made it through the day on just water. i did check my throat in the mirror a few times, but frankly the bathroom at work is a dungeon and you can't really see anything.
friday night we went to my parents for dinner - talk about rubbing salt into the wound, because i could barely eat any of my mom's korean food... *sigh* so, when we got there, i got my dad's ENT flashlight and looked into the mirror to find... *g
asp!!!* two huge yellow-white sacs of weird pus on the left side of my throat and weird fleshy red masses protruding out from both sides of the back of my throat. um, it looked like a creature was dwelling in my mouth. as soon as my dad got home, i told him i probably had tonsillitis... he took the flashlight, took a 2 second look, and said i was right.
good thing my dad's a doctor.
good thing he could write me a prescription for amoxicillin right then and there.
anyways, i've been consisting on very small meals - soup, almond milk, smoothies. you'd think that 4 days of eating virtually nothing would maybe take some weight off, but no... still the same. i was actually able to eat some pasta for lunch at church today, which was a huge meal for me, considering. i'm existing on cepacol lozenges maximum strength. tastes SO nasty, leaves my whole tongue and mouth numb, but it's the only way i can swallow anything without wanting to rip out my throat. it's been 2 days of antibiotics, so i'm hoping by tomorrow maybe i won't have to take anymore tylenol. i think i've gone through a whole bottle almost - i've taken more tylenol and aleve in the past 4 days than i did when i was recovering from labor. that's just wrong.
i find it interesting that talking doesn't cause any pain. just swallowing. actually, i was able to sing this morning on worship team with no problems, just some coughing.
