Sick As A Dog

Well, not quite. But I am sick with some kind of cold. I think it's the first time in about a year. I remember having the same kind of thing last year when it was cold out and purchasing some elderberry syrup and zinc lozengers, but I'm not sure when that was. Whatever though. What I have is due to my coworkers. Alice had been sick for over a week and had even used some of her sick time she felt so terrible. Then Elisha, the girl I'm orienting to the unit, started saying her throat was bothering her. Nirmala and Paula complained of feeling tired and worn down... and the next thing I knew, I had the sniffles and a raw throat, and now I can't breathe too well and I keep sneezing and my nose is full of terrible mucus that I continue to inadvertently hurl all over the front of my shirt time and time again.

But it's really not too bad. Especially considering the fact that my mom had to be hospitalized last week. I don't really know what happened, but over the course of a day and a half her right eyelid started to swell until that eye was almost swollen shut. And she'd been complaining about skin and ear pain and swollen glands for a couple of days. Her forehead was red and swollen and her chin was beginning to turn red as well. I told her to go to the emergency room and she ended up getting admitted to my floor Tuesday afternoon. Then all the swelling on the right started to go down a bit, but it all began on the left. Sigh. A couple of CT scans, some hemodialysis, one more day and a lot of consultations later and she was discharged to home, but really nobody had any answers except that it was probably some kind of allergic reaction and that she should go for allergy testing as soon as possible.

Sigh again. The swelling is coming down slowly, but we can't figure out what she'd eaten or been exposed to that could have caused a reaction like that. So today she called for an appointment with an allergist for a follow up but they were booked for a month so I guess we'll all have to wait to see what's going on with her. In the meantime I'm crossing my fingers that she won't have to make another trip to the emergency room anytime soon.