Wounded Warriors Battalion

So, as some of you know, my husband is a Wounded Warrior in the Marine Corps. His isn't exactly a "normal" Wounded Warrior story... because his "wounds" came from stateside. I know that sounds kind of strange to say that a man that has a Bachelors degree in Biology and can remember just about every single major muscle in the human body but can hardly remember if he changed his underwear that morning "isn't a normal injury." ANY injury like that isn't normal, and shouldn't be considered normal in any way shape or form. But, we're military. There are lots of guys that have it much worse than my husband. I know of a blogger who's husband has TBI (like Sam) and he can't even remember his favorite foods. I'm blessed, but I'm also saddened.

Today Sam sent me a text message telling me that his CWO is checking to see if they can get his 90 Day TAD orders. Meaning he might be going to the Wounded Warriors Battalion. When I seen this, I had tears streaming down my face. Partly happy, partly terrified! I'm happy because this is what we've been fighting for for the last almost 3 years! This is what we wanted! To get out, to start leading "regular" lives, to not have to worry about LCpl Soandso calling in the middle of the night because he's drunk and can't drive home, to not have to worry about duty nights, and standing in formation, and being "too fat." This is what we wanted! Right?

The other side of me is so terrified about what is going to happen in the future. What is going to happen with everything? Will he be able to work and still collect his "pension" from the VA? Is he going to be medically retired? Are we still going to have base privileges? What's going to happen with our insurance? So many questions about so many things. I'm scared to death!! I know that the public majority think that military members "have it made," but we're far from it!! I could go into so many things right now, but I won't. I'm not going there. Not today. I'm too stressed right now.

Sick Lil Bug

So, on Thursday I woke up to Bug throwing up. She got sick a few times, rolling around, writhing in pain. "Mom! I don't feel good! My tummy hurts! I feel like I'm going to throw up!" I did a lot of hair stroking and holding until she fell asleep. At that point in time she had a tiny spot on her cheek. Nothing to really worry about, it was just a small red spot on her cheek. I thought it was something from her getting sick. She took a nap for about an hour and a half and I noticed the spot was getting bigger. I was trying to look at it without waking her up, unsuccessfully. She started complaining that it itched, so I put some calamine lotion on her face and then she started crying, saying that it burned and she wanted it off. During that time, the rash was spreading more. A trip to the doctors office was in order. We get to the office and they're closed for lunch, so, we went to get some ourselves. When we came back we were seen right away. Our favorite Doctor was on duty, he also reminds me of Dr. Burke from Season 1 of Greys Anatomy as well. He thought that she was having some sort of allergic reaction. She had a shot of cortisone and a script. He said that if she wasn't dramatically better by Saturday, that he wanted to see her back on Saturday. With that I made an appointment for my physical, grabbed Bugs scripts and headed to the pharmacy. For the remainder of the day, I dealt with "Mom it itcheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesssssssssss!!" and trying to keep cool compresses on it because the Calamine lotion just made her face burn. The more time passed, the more that the rash spread. It was just a small spot on her face, and then it was almost her entire face, then it started to spread to her neck, arms, trunk, and legs.

The next day, Friday, it was MUCH worse, and so I took her back to the doctors office. That Dr wanted to give her a shot of Augmentin, and she's allergic to Penicillin!! So, needless to say, I didn't trust anything that he had to say, and decided that I was going to take the nurses advice, and go to the Emergency Room. While sitting there, she developed a spontaneous nose bleed, and it was bad! We finally get in and from there we wait for about 4 hours for the Doctor to come in and see us. I'm not blaming the Doctor for not being able to see us faster, but, if the hospital had more Doctors in the ER, we might not have had to wait that long. I know that it wasn't a true emergency, but, she was listed as a level 3 emergency, not a 4! I could only imagine how long we would have waited if she was a 4! (For those that don't know, Emergency rooms have "levels" and depending on the Emergency room, you might have to go somewhere else! A level 1 emergency is pretty much you're hanging on to life by a thread, and a level 4 is them saying "You should have went to a regular doctor.") The Doctor did give us a script for a medication that would help her stop itching, and it worked better than just regular Benadryl. We figured out that it works better than Benadryl because she would fall asleep about 30-40 minutes after she took it! How's that for itch relief?!

Saturday began at 6AM with Bug waking me up (she slept with us) saying "I have a headache, and I'm really itchy!" and she woke up with the entire side of her face being swollen and puffy! Alrighty! She's going to see the Dr again with me. I get up and get ready to go about 8:45, pulling Bug out of bed. I asked her if she wanted to put on some clothes and she said no. So, off to the Doctors office we go, with her in her jammies and unbrushed hair. (She has a very sensitive head and all the writhing in pain had left her with a knot in her hair that took me 25 minutes to brush out) Our favorite Dr was there again, and he was very concerned about Bug. He ordered some blood tests for her (and for me to check my cholesterol) to see if anything would show up in her blood. When we got to the hospital (again) for our blood tests, Bug decided that she had to pee, so, I let her, not thinking about the urine sample that they might need! (They did need one) From there we had to bribe her with "hospital dollars" and cake to let the nurse take her blood. She watched the Phlebotimist draw my blood, and of course she had trouble finding the vein, so it was a lot of hunting and rooting around in my arm with the needle! Then it was her turn. She did a fantastic job! Then, "Here's a cup, we need a sample" YIKES! It took an hour to get the urine sample. After we came home, we had lunch and took meds. It was a good thing, because she was starting to get itchy again. We watched some "old skool" cartoons (Aahh!!! Real Monsters, Rocko's Modern Life, and Rugrats... ahhh the memories!) for a while, and then a movie. Bug started getting itchy again around 6:15, which was time for her meds again anyways. She started saying that her head hurt, and so we went to go lay down in our bedroom. I had a massive headache as well, so we finally fell asleep around 7, and woke up this morning around 8. What a weekend!

Today, we're making a banner for my best friends husband! He will be home late Monday night and she's decorating their home fence like you see all the fence in front of Camp LeJeune decorated. We're all making one to say "Welcome Home!" I'm so glad that we're making these. I know some people that won't be able to make these. It breaks my heart. I think that we'll make a big one, and paint "Welcome home!" And then all put our hand prints on it, and sign it as well. I think that's all for today. I'm going to go into the office tomorrow and hopefully have some test results for Bug!

Day 3: Your favorite television program

Hands down

Sam got me started on this show when we started dating. Sam always wanted to be a doctor, and even went to pre-med school! (He has a BS in Biology) So, Grey's Anatomy, Scrubs, ER, he watched them all. I watched ER way back when before Dr. Green kicked the bucket. (I BAWLED that episode btw...) I don't know what it is about Grey's Anatomy. I absolutely LOVE this show! I know that it's not exactly accurate (tho they try to be), and that, basically, it's a prime time soap opera (but who cares!), but I love it! If they ever get rid of this show, I will never watch TV again! (Okay, maybe that's a bit of a stretch, but you know what I mean!)
I think that they have some pretty good plot lines, really hot men (C'mon Dr Averys' eyes!! YOW!), and I get a tear going at least every 3 episodes, if not more! And if Shondra Rhimes happens to read this, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE let Lexie and Mark get back together, and keep Owen and Christina together! Bring in someone new for Jackson! And why can't Izzie and Alex be together?! Okay... sorry... back to why I love Grey's!
Grey's for me is just a great release! To be able to watch this show is relaxing, tho the season finale this year had me on the edge of my seat the ENTIRE 2 hours! My friend Keona and I would text during the breaks and I think almost all of mine consisted of : "OMG!!" and "HOLY SH*T!" Yes, I love it that much.
Sam gets really mad at me when I "go Meredith" and get all "dark and twisty." I use "Seriously?!" A LOT! and it drives Sam crazy sometimes. He created a monster, and now he's paying for it. :-)

My Poor Little Bug!

So, a couple of weeks ago, Bug came down with a case of poison ivy, right before her Father-Daughter dance. We decided that the best course of action would be to go to our Doctors office and get her a Cortisone shot, just like she had right before her fall school pictures. (Yes, it seems like any time something "fancy" is going to happen she gets some sort of skin condition!)Well, it seemed a little better the next day, and we could easily cover it up with some make-up and off to the dance she went! By that Monday, her rash was worse, so we took her back to the Doctors. Well, he decided that she had some sort of mild skin infection, and gave her some antibiotics, telling me that if it hadn't gotten any better by Wednesday, that she would need to go to a Pediatrician. (They're a General Practitioner.) All seemed well, and she took her last dose of the antibiotics Monday morning. Yesterday morning she gets up, goes to school, everything is normal. I get a call from the Boys & Girls Club saying that she's itching like crazy. I just so happened to have a conference with Bugs teacher yesterday afternoon and I told her that I would drop some cream off before I went to her teachers room and I would be back soon after that to pick them both up and take them home. Not a terrible thing, and I knew she could wait just a little bit with the cream. Well, we get home and Bug has a HORRIBLE rash all over her body. I call the Doctors office to see if they had any appointments and they told me to bring her as a walk-in at 6. No big deal.

Now this is the part of the story where it starts to get a little bit hairy. We walk into the Doctors office just after 6pm yesterday afternoon and they take all of her vitals. Blood pressure is just *slightly* up, but she was in a bit of pain, so not terrible. Her temp was right under 99 degrees, so still normal. Everything is looking normal so far, except for the horrible looking rash covering a little over half of her body. The Doctor comes in and looks at her, and determines that it is, in fact, a skin infection because her skin was warm to the touch, and that because the antibiotics cleared it up the first time, that she would refill the prescription and hopefully we could get her into the Dermatologist before the antibiotic was done. (I knew that this would probably NOT happen!) Of course, I ask her 4 or 5 times if it could be an allergic reaction to the medications, and she assures me it's not, but it could be to the Poison Ivy. Well, we fill her prescription, get her some oatmeal bath, and a bar of Aveeno soap with oatmeal in it and go home for a nice warm bath and bed.

This morning Bug wakes up and her skin looks like someone dumped really hot water all over her and she's saying that it doesn't itch, it hurts! Of course, this was right after I give her the morning dose of antibiotics. I'm not a Doctor, they're supposed to know what's wrong with her, so I give her the prescription that she was given. I decide that not only am I going to keep her home from school, that I'm also going to take her to the Emergency Room. If it is in fact a skin infection, and it looks WORSE than it did 10 hours ago, there is something seriously wrong, and I don't want to take a chance! I get Sam up and dressed and Monkey off to school (Who wants to go along so he can play his DSi!), we head in to the ER. They take her right from the door to triage, to a bed. We skipped the admission paperwork and everything. Bug was happy because the triage nurse showed her how to work the bed, and she got to watch cartoons!

We finally get to see a Doctor and she says that she wants to get a CBC on her and check to make sure she doesn't have an infection going on and SHE thinks it's an allergic reaction to something. She gets he blood drawn, after some convincing, and they send that off to be tested. Of course, she didn't want to eat any breakfast this morning because she didn't want to move off the couch, so they bring her some Sierra Mist and her new rounds of medication (Steroids and Benadryl). The CBC comes back clean. She does not, in fact, have any sort of infection, and it shows that she is having some sort of allergic reaction. The ER Doc takes her off of the antibiotic that she was on and asks us if anything new had come into the home. The only things were the antibiotic and new fabric softner. She advised us to switch back to our old fabric softner and discontinue the antibiotic. *sigh*

So, the whole time I was giving her the 2nd course of antibiotic, I was pumping her body full of something that it was trying to fight off. I'm a bit upset by this. I'm not sure if I should request TriCare to change her Doctor, or, give them another chance. This was her life we are talking about!! Who knows how bad this could have gotten if I would have just kept giving her those antibiotics! Who's to say that her poor little body wouldn't have just stopped trying to fight it off and gave in?! What would have happened then?! What would have happened if she would have had a seizure last night in her sleep or gone into anaphylactic shock?! UGH! I'm so upset!!

The worst is over for now, I think. I will just have to add the new antibiotic to the list of medications that she can no longer have. Last year she had a bad reaction to Amoxicillin and she's had that since she was a teeny baby!! Lord... this cuts down on the antibiotics that she CAN have by a lot!! She does look a lot better than she did this morning. The redness and swelling has decreased considerably, and she almost looks back to normal.

I didn't get ANYTHING done today on the house. It's not Bugs fault. I'm just going to work harder tomorrow. I know everything will be okay. It's my mom. It's not like she's coming to do a white glove inspection of my house. It's not like the house is a disaster area, I would just like it to be spotless for my parents visit!! Is that so much to ask?! LOL