Getting back in the swing

It sure is good to start a new week. Last week was not a good one around here. My last post about vomit was meant to put some humor to something that is not humorous. Unfortunately, the vomit was just the beginning. Abbie was sick all week with fever, vomiting, and diarrhea. She just could not shake it. A couple of times during the week she seemed to have turned the corner, only to throw up again later. Amber came down with the vomiting in a big way on Wednesday night. She could not keep anything down through Thursday. It got bad enough that we went to the emergency room on Thursday afternoon. Amber was given 2 bags of IV fluids and some anti-nausea medication. Abbie took some medication but would not drink anything, so she had to have an IV, too. She did much better than you would think a 2 1/2 year old would do getting an IV in the arm. Abbie sat in between my legs and rested her head on my stomach while she got the IV. It was amazing to see the change in her after the fluid got into her system. She started talking and even singing some, too. It was good to hear. Amber said it was surprising how good the fluids made her feel. After the ER visit, Abbie really made a quick recovery. Momma still had a day or so of recovery, but seemed to be closer to 100% today. Abbie has really taken to playing with her swingset, as you can see in the pictures. We took over 30 pictures this evening while she was playing. She seems to be a daredevil. She climbs the rope ladder by herself and slides down the slide (especially if she has an audience). Ralph and Janice brought some sand for the sandbox and Abbie loves that, too. She kept trying to feed the sand to Al. After such a tough week, it was great to have our family healthy, happy, and home to play outside and enjoy the beautiful weather today.

Why are hospital emesis basins so small?

emesis
noun
the reflex act of ejecting the contents of the stomach through the mouth [syn: vomit, upchuck, barf, ralph, spew, hurl, heave, puke, blow chunks, call Ralph on the big white phone, air out your gastric contents, barf up a lung, be a food fountain, burp for the hearing impaired, decorate the porcelain, make an alimentary u-turn]

Abbie has been sick the past couple of days. If you could not guess, she was throwing up. For some strange reason, I have been thinking about emesis lately. I can not remember seeing Abbie vomit like she did on Saturday. It was like her mouth was the end of the faucet and the valve was all the way open. I started thinking, that takes some violence to get the fluids flying up like that. When the body does not want something in the stomach, it has a stout mechanism to get rid of it. Seinfeld had an episode where Jerry talked about his vomit streak. He had not puked in 13 years. The streak came to an end near the end of the episode. I am sure Mom has been shaking her head and muttering, "Where did I go wrong?" while she reads this. Sorry Mom, but seeing Abbie spew gave me a new perspective on reverse peristalsis. I felt it was a relevant and worthwhile topic to chew on (pardon the pun). If anyone is interested, I found a website with a huge number of vomit synonyms (you know, for parties and such): http://www.geocities.com/mbordt/chunder2.htm .

Mornin'

I have been a little under the weather the past couple of days. Some kind of cold or something that has really taken it out of me. I felt much better today. Especially when I was awakened by this little face saying, "Mornin', mornin'." I took this picture last Sunday. Abbie had a matching dress with her little doll and she just looked beautiful. Amber and I have commented on how much more fun it is with Abbie the more she speaks. I used to feel like we carried on conversations without her speaking, but now I can not get a word in edgewise. Anyway, I am feeling better and I hope to be 100% by the weekend. I think I will need it since Mom has lots of work planned for me. I am so excited!

"That don't make no sense"

Sometimes when I start a new post, I look at the blank square and I draw a blank. But, there are times when I have a blog that just seems to grow and fester inside my head. I often have all the words and phrases that I want to say in my mind, but when I type the blog it often does not turn out how I had thought it would. I wish I could connect my thoughts to the computer the way I do with the digital camera. Just download the thoughts and trim them up on the computer. Anyway, this is a blog that I have been thinking about for awhile, I hope it comes out the way I have pictured.
My mother is an English teacher. I say IS even though she is retired, because you do not stop teaching English even though you are not in the classroom. Growing up with a mother who taught English was good and bad. It was good when I had papers to write because she could help me correct them and could give me a feel for what was a good paper and a bad paper. It was bad when she corrected my speech (many, many, many, many times) because I was speaking incorrectly. As I have grown, I have learned (surprisingly enough), and I try to speak and write correctly. Every time I write a post, I worry over the grammar because I do not want to make a mistake. I am by no means an English teacher, but Mom taught me well. So now I have the curse of noticing grammar mistakes around me. It is like fingernails on the chalkboard to hear how some people butcher the English language (again, I am not an English teacher, nor do I claim to be one). I am not talking about dangling participles or ending sentences with prepositions. I am talking about blatant, brutal, and egregious mistakes that non-English teachers' sons would catch. I have a co-worker (yes here is the reason for this whole diatribe) who speaks very little in terms of correct grammar, but speaks great volumes in terms of sheer words. One of her favorite exclamations is "that don't make no sense." IT IS NOT SAID FOR EFFECT, SHE MEANS IT! Now, I know this all sounds petty and it probably is, but imagine hearing phrases like that all day, every day at work. Can you see where I am coming from? I realize that "they don't know no better," but when that kind of language is used in dealing with the public, I think it makes the rest of us look bad, too. I am serious, sometimes I just think to myself, "You did not just say that, did you?" Maybe I notice her speech because she is abrasive and rubs me the wrong way, but I think I would notice even if a good friend talked like that.

I do not want to think higher of myself than others, but that is pretty much what I have done, isn't it? I just wanted to get something out that bugs me. I am definitely NOT saying I am perfect in my grammar, but it does bother me when things don't make no sense.

"I've got the genetics for it"

There are a number of ways to say it. "The apple does not fall far from the tree," or "she is her mother's daughter." The way we always said it in my family was, "He has the genetics for it." Things that our parents have given to us, and often their parents gave to them. I am grateful for many of the traits that I have from my parents, but migraine headaches are not one of them. I have always been thankful that I did not have headaches like Dad has had. This morning, I had a migraine. It is strange to think of a headache making you sick to your stomach, but it sure can. I generally would not be so sure of calling it a migraine, but when migraine medication gets rid of it, it is probably a migraine. Amber had a sample of Relpax left over from her battle with migraines a couple of years ago. I had to try it because I would not have been much good at work in that condition. After a couple of hours, I felt OK. As migraines go, it probably was not the worst in the world, but it was one of the worst headaches I have had. Amber thinks I should see a doctor because my headaches have been increasing in number and (unfortunately) severity. After the one this morning, I am inclined to agree with her. I talked with Dad tonight about his headaches and the similarities with mine. He said he had had a migraine this morning, too. It just makes me think that I had better get some more medication before the next one. Because I have a bad feeling that there WILL be a next one. Thanks, Dad, I really appreciate it!