Life around here.

I still need to do the 2012 in review post, but every time I start thinking about what all happened in 2012 I just want to crawl under a rock with my snuggly blanket and not come out until I've drunk enough hot chocolate to replace my entire blood supply. Long year. Crazy year. Exhausting year. So reviewing it keeps getting put off.

Of course, putting off things is not that difficult to do these days.

As I have previously mentioned, I got suddenly and severely hit with The Stick of Sickness (is that a thing? I know there's an Ugly Stick, which I'm moderately sure I've managed to avoid entangling myself with, so a sickness stick seems logical, so.... yeah. I'm calling it. It's a thing now) on the evening of January 12, and since that time the shadow of illness has pretty much not left our house for more than 24 hours at a time.

Lemme 'splain. Or maybe I'll just go down the roster.

The Cats. Actually, they've been fine for the most part, other than that one time Tobey vomited at the top of the stairs. But, you know, that's to be expected every now and then from cats. Hairballs, etc. So never mind the cats. They don't count.

The Little Guy. He decided to be an overachiever and took as his New Year's resolution "Get sick early and get sick often." He was battling a nasty cold over the New Year's holiday which meant we celebrated midnight alone in our living room in our pajamas with Back to the Future and a bottle of Martinelli's. (Southern New Year with the family was, fortunately, able to proceed as planned the next day, although the Little Guy took a loooooooong nap afterwards.) Since that time, he has run through two more bouts of the sniffles, an ear infection, an impressive case of full-body dry skin and eczema, food poisoning, and, for the last few days, some really extensive diaper blowouts. (Come on, I'm a mom; you know poop is going to show up on the blog at some point.)

Me. The nasty cold on Jan. 12th lingered and lasted and basically kept me in bed miserable, exhausted, unable to move, and ultimately weeping in pain over the headache and tension that finally clued us into the fact that we were not dealing, as thought, with a nasty cold, but with a super-nasty sinus infection. In addition to that loveliness, I have also had food poisoning, something fever-y and ache-y and flu-like, horrible cramps, mild nausea, and straight-up must-lie-down-now exhaustion.

Shallow Man. He decided to go with quality over quantity and has only really had two (although an argument can be made for three) illnesses. But those were actual flu and then a lung infection, so. He also was dealing with major nausea and stomach illness, but that was due to some of the meds he was on, so may not count as an actual full illness for accounting purposes.

So here's the timeline:

Jan. 12: I go do my unanticipatedly hipster thing in Salt Lake, getting home around 4:30. By 6:00 I am sniffling (assume it's just from standing in the cold waiting for the train). By 8:00 am definitely sick and fully miserable and know I'm not going to make it to church in the morning.

Jan. 12-13: The Little Guy wakes up in the middle of the night with a bad dream (we think). Takes much effort and about an hour to get him back to sleep. He is awake again at 4:00 and comes into the bed with us for comfort and snuggling but is still crying and upset and not sleeping for more than a few minutes' doze and pretty obviously not well.

Jan. 13: None of us make it to church. I am still quite sick and need to just rest in bed all day. Sadly, this is not to be, as we end up having to head over to the Instacare to figure out what is wrong with the Little Guy. (Eczema flaring up very badly plus bonus ear infection!)

Jan. 14-17: I'm basically a lump in bed all week. No energy, lots of cold-type misery.

Jan. 18: Wake up with a searing pain all over the right side of my face (tooth pain included) from sinus pressure. Feel like my face is going to melt off. Ask, for the first time I can remember, for Shallow Man to stay home from work and take care of Little Guy because I cannot handle it. End up going to doctor and discover it is a sinus infection. Get magical antibiotics that start helping me feel human-ish by later that evening.

Jan. 19: Feeling enough better that I am able to go on our long-planned date to celebrate the anniversary of our engagement. Probably overdo it because am wilting again by the time we get home.

Jan. 20: Relapse in the morning. Make it to Relief Society to teach my lesson (probably should have found a substitute but not thinking clearly enough to do something that smart) then come home and basically crash for a few hours. Wake up feeling some better.

Jan. 21: For the first time wake up feeling like an actual person, which is good, because have hard-won tickets to see Austenland that evening with my mom and sisters. Go to movie. Meet Shannon Hale. Life is beautiful and lovely.

Jan. 22: Probably overdid it a bit the day before; much napping during the day; better by the evening.

Jan. 23-25: Slowly getting back to normal but now the Little Guy has the sniffles.

Jan. 26: We're all actually pretty much okay today. Use the day to go car shopping in Salt Lake and have dinner with my brother and sister-in-law and their kids. Purchase a car and get home very late after finishing a few repairs on our other car.

Jan. 27: Alarms fail to go off and we wake up half an hour before church is scheduled to end. Two hours after that, Shallow Man is in bed with the flu.

Jan. 28: Just after midnight I wake up vomiting. Have just gotten back to bed when Little Guy wakes up at 1:00 in a puddle of vomit. Shallow Man's flu symptoms not including vomit, he stays up with the Little Guy and a bucket while I do my own thing for the rest of the night. Most likely food poisoning. Little Guy is better by about 10:00 a.m. but I continue with vomiting, aches, chills and mild fever for rest of day. Shallow Man definitely still has flu.

Jan. 29: I'm still mildly sick but improving. Shallow Man getting worse.

Jan. 30-31: Shallow Man still has flu but gradually improving. I discover I'm definitely not pregnant this month and am relegated to bed with a hot rice pack and mild nausea. Major grumbling.

Feb. 1: Shallow Man goes back to the office. I'm still not comfortable but we're all able to go to SLC for a family birthday party.

Feb. 2: I mostly just want to stay in bed but we end up going to the dinosaur museum because Shallow Man can't stand being cooped up in the house another day after being stuck there for almost all of the previous week. We're even feeling adventurous enough to go see Warm Bodies that evening (side note: Yes. I highly recommend you see this movie) but by the end of the evening it becomes apparent that Shallow Man has over-exerted himself too quickly and is relapsing. In point of fact, his lungs are hurting a little bit. Not enough to be scary, but still. Little Guy has the sniffles. Again.

Feb. 3: We miss church yet again because, yet again, we are going to the Instacare, where it is determined that Shallow Man's hurting-more-than-last-night lungs are infected. Yep. Get prescriptions and put him back to bed. Get the home teachers to come over and give him a blessing. He basically can't go up the stairs without getting winded, so we watch a bunch of Downton Abbey.

Feb. 4: More of the same, except now the Little Guy wakes up in a pile of ... well, major diaper blowout. I was finally able to register the car we purchased a week and two days earlier.

Feb. 5: The day begins when I wake up to the sound of the Little Guy's bedroom door opening. This sound is shortly followed by the arrival of said little guy in our bedroom. He has finally learned how to climb out of his crib. Ah, crap. (Not literally this time.) Shallow Man has been having major nausea and gas, probably as a side effect from his meds, so we go to see our regular nurse practictioner. She gives a few more prescriptions. We head home to have some lunch and put the Little Guy down for his nap (a slightly more involved process now that he's no longer a captive audience) and I'm getting ready to take a much-needed nap before heading out to pick up the extra prescriptions when Shallow Man tells me that he needs to go to the ER (both the Instacare doc and our NP had said if things get really bad, head to the ER) because his chest pain from breathing (probably impacted by the side-effect gas) is so severe that he can't lay down, move, etc. So I frantically call around to find someone who can watch the Little Guy until my mom can get here from Salt Lake to take over, and then we head to the ER. I have never seen Shallow Man so sick in my entire life; he can barely make it from the car to the door and at points is just this side of delusional with the pain. They run a bunch of tests on him but can't find anything obviously wrong (gall bladder is fine, EKG is fine, no pneumonia, etc.) except for the fact that he is experiencing severe nausea and pain, so they give him Zofran and morphine and a few other things. These are able to help him relax enough to rest. We get home just before 7 and he goes to bed for the rest of the night. I pick up prescriptions and get dinner for me and my wonderful mom, who's been taking care of the Little Guy during this adventure. I manage to get to bed just before 11, which is pretty early for me.

Feb. 6-7: The next morning is night and day difference with Shallow Man. Getting a night's sleep has made all the difference. He's still got some tightness in the lungs, but it's getting better, and he's still having the side-effect stomach sickness, but it's also improved. He can't do much without getting tired because being that sick really wipes you out, but he's definitely recovering. Last night I succumbed to what I'm going to assume is some kind of PTSD exhaustion and was in bed by nine with a headache and barely able to move my limbs from exhaustion, but this morning was back to normal. Shallow Man improving and Little Guy is still climbing out of his crib, which makes naptime, well, interesting. But we manage.

All I can say is, this had better have used up our quota of sickness for the year. We're not quite done with it yet, but the end is visible now, at least. *knocks on all sorts of wood*

So if you are sick AT ALL, please, please, please stay the heck away from me and my family. It's not that we don't love you. But if you get us sick again it will be. Plus, I'd really like to get to church on Sunday.



And that, friends, is why I haven't blogged or worked or really anything-other-than-Downton-Abbey'd for the last almost-month.