Casting Call for the Crazies

It has been raining most of the week and I think the rain is flushing out all the crazies. This week I have been insulted by someone who doesn’t even speak English, my neighbor was dethroned, and I accidentally convinced someone he needs a brain scan. And that’s just the beginning of the story.

After a wonderful sabbatical I had from inanely meaningless conversations, I was plagued again by the prematurely white haired, dandelion head shaped, Mandarin only speaking lady.  Even though I look like I just licked a bitter toad every time I see her, she just dashes to me like a moth to a flame.

I was trying to gage the weather from the lobby of our crazy a$$ ghetto fabulous building and I was hunched over due to continued back pain. This disgruntled me so much that I looked like a turtle in need of a heavy dose of psyllium husk. Who waltzes in, but Dandelion Hair herself.

Again she pointed at my belly. Again she rubbed my belly. I’m going to start charging her because I think she thinks it’s good luck. Then instead of gesturing to tell me I need to work out, she mimed being pregnant and started to pat me on my back to congratulate me. I was mortified. I preferred the days when she told me in her own special way to run instead of taking the bus.

I shook my head violently to try to tell her no I was not pregnant, and it’s just probably due to bad posture and my raincoat being baggy. I was devastated especially because I thought not eating due to heartburn had helped me lose weight. Apparently, I was mistaken. She remained undaunted and reverted to her usual hand gestures about power walking. All this was accompanied by a running commentary in Mandarin.  I was relieved when the cranky elevator came and took her away.

Later in the week, I would have another run in with her, this time when I was brining home my four year old, Lanes, from preschool. I had a particularly hard time getting Lanes down the hill and we were both exhausted and the last thing I needed was comments on the breadth of my stomach or hips. Dandelion Hair beamed and rushed over to us as usual. I swear she must be hearing me grumble, but again she remains unfazed.

This time she pointed at Lanes and indicated that she was too thin. With all the wild gesturing my poor child grabbed my thigh and hid behind my ample rear because Dandelion Hair kept trying to pet her head.  I had to quickly nod and extricate ourselves before I was accused of eating Lanes’ food or something. With that she raced up the hill and we batted on with me swearing under my breath.

Later the same day, just when I had five minutes of quiet time before my long suffering spouse, P, got home from his temp job, my geriatric apartment management abhorring neighbor knocks on my door. She never comes in, but loves to have loud conversations outside the door. Meanwhile, I have to stand at attention.

I was tired and my back was sore, so I had to lean on the door and listen to her tirade for about twenty minutes (and our unwitting neighbors, if they were home, no doubt had no choice but to hear our conversation). She was going on about how all the commodes were exploding and that they needed to be cleaned. 

She had me at the word commode, or as she puts it, ‘throne’. She said they just spurt water upwards and she told me in detail how she was jet propelled off the potty one day. I had noticed the random gushes from the loo, but now I resort to solving problems in our unit with the ‘if I ignore it, it will go away’ policy.    I burst out laughing as I conjured up the image of her scowling and being hoisted in the air as she was unceremoniously dethroned by the faulty water pressure in our building.  

She told me that the apartment folks were bugging her to come in and clean her toilet and she had just taken her heart medicine and needed rest. Apparently because she felt harassed and couldn’t lie down her heartbeat went through the roof and the Fire Department had to come. How I missed out on this action was beyond me. And P, who considers me to be his own personal neighborhood watch.

Meanwhile, again in the lobby, I met the good natured yet dim witted maintenance man who always volunteers to help us fix stuff (but he invariably winds up messing something up and doubling our work). He had a gash on his head and claimed that the garage door shut on him!

I asked for details because P and I were having a debate as to whether or not the garage door will close if the front of the car is under it. I said it won’t wait for anything and P claims it has a sensor. Obviously, I was winning this argument (as usual).  Any old how I asked him if he went to a doctor and got a scan. His eyes lit up and he said he didn’t have a scan and what a good idea it was.

I didn’t realize I created a monster. The next time I saw him he said his head ‘it don’t feel so good. It’s going round round’. Now he is all gung ho about going in and is determined to get his cranium checked out. Oops. Oh well. He also thinks his brain is not working as well as it did before, and I just looked sadly at him because sweet as he is, it wasn’t really up to par to begin with.

Meanwhile, my nutty sister keeps calling me several times a day to insist that we get flu shots. She goes on and on like a broken record and she reminds me of the Spanish Inquisition form Monty Python. I can almost visualize her jumping out of the phone line with a metal pasta drainer on her head, pointing a wooden spatula at me accusingly and tauntingly.

She keeps going on about how people die from the flu and that we are doomed if we don’t go in for our shots. I kept growling at her and brushing away her concerns, but I was secretly in a flap over it. P is still coughing up a lung after two failed attempts to see a doctor. Lanes’ BFF has got hand foot mouth and so I’m waiting to see if we all pass the incubation period. I don’t think getting any shot right now is good if we were exposed to the virus, especially since her friend was in school when she had the fever and spots.

Also there is a clinic in mid-November that we are thinking of going to so all three of us can get our shots. I guess I like to harass myself because I have not thought to share this information with my over anxious sister, who is in constant fear of me kicking the bucket. Luckily after today’s post, my nieces will inform her or she can read it for herself (so crazy sister, stop bugging me!).

Asides from being plagued by my bevy of lunatics this week, I finally moved up in the world on one aspect. After one year and one month of not having a cell phone (apparently it is possible to survive without one), I finally got hooked up. I was rather attached to the phone I had back in the motherland and I was rather stubborn about using only that one and not getting a crappy contract bound phone from a service that would charge me for every breath I take.

P, in his meticulous way, researched strange things like band width and frequencies and found me a carrier that my phone was compatible to and before I knew it, I was connected (that was his birthday present to me). Sadly, my service is mostly limited to British Columbia, but at least in an emergency, I can contact P, and now I can have my sister and her one woman Spanish Inquisition when I’m on the go.

Next week the battle begins—Lanes has her swim class. I have to find a swimsuit. I wonder if I have to warn the public about it. Between my fear of water and fear of being caught in anything that reveals my limbs and belly, I don’t know how that’s going to go as P still refuses to set foot in water thanks to that Tibetan monk (see reference On Your Mark, Get Set…Gosh I Stubbed My Toe).

Maybe I should ask Dandelion Hair to go shopping with me. She will have me doing laps around the block in no time. Or I should take her to the pool. If she is out of it, nothing will get me in it faster. Meanwhile, I’m practicing giving P dirty looks, but he is rather good at deflecting them. Any guilt inducing suggestions are welcome. More excitement from BC next week…

Mutiny on the Bounty

I am a year older and none the wiser or wilder. My bones and internal body parts seem to be under the impression that I have aged a couple of decades instead of a single year. I think several vital organs are trying to secede from my body—there is a mutiny on bountiful sized me. I was already a screw loose so what’s a kidney or gall bladder here or there?

Turns out, however, I am not the only one with a rebellious constitution.  My parents-in-law are here, no doubt charmed and concerned by my systematic breakdown. On Tuesday morning my mother-in-law came out of the room looking really shell shocked. I was hunched in two grumbling that I had to take heartburn medicine so early in the day. Due to lack of sleep, I barely registered the look of distress on her face.

She sank into a chair and announced something terrible has happened. As my heart plummeted to the floor, so did my rear to the closest chair, as I was terrified to find out why she looked so upset. Father-in-law snoring in bedroom--check. Daughter in early morning funk on sofa--check. Husband safely packed off to work--check. I'm still apparently breathing--check. A million and one tragedies raced through my overly dramatic and imaginative head.

Turns out she lost her front tooth. It’s terrible to say I was relieved. I thought it was going to be something much worse. It was 8am and she was quite keen to have it seen to immediately.  I remembered seeing a dental office in the mall, but it wouldn’t open till at least 10am. Then I had a brainwave and realized there was a dentist about a five minutes’ walk from our place, and luckily they were indeed willing to take us in asap!

My four year old, Lanes, an ace eavesdropper, was highly concerned that her grandmother had to go to a dentist. She was unceremoniously dispatched off to school, muttering something about teeth and getting a present after her check up, and before we knew it, one pair of in-laws and yours truly were at the dental office before we could say Jack Robinson, whoever Jack is. 

So turns out the entire thing was quite a production! There was nowhere to sit inside where my mother-in-law was, so I stood there because I knew she was petrified.  I got to witness a root canal, endless injections and drilling. Considering dentists make me feel faint, this was rather gruesome for me. I was glad for my mother-in-law that she couldn't see some of those instruments.

I was hungry as I realized that I hadn’t had breakfast in the mad dash to get the first appointment and I was scared my heartburn would flare up. But I just couldn’t leave her alone with all that stuff going on. It was not a good day for her at all! When I saw how much work went into one tooth, I realized why dental bills are so high in North America. I would not have the patience to be dentist (which is good as I don’t have the stomach or brains for it either). And all that spit like particles? No way I’m way too finicky.

P’s father was patiently waiting in the lobby, and in between I would go and give him updates. An hour and a half or hour forty-five minutes later we were done.  The only good thing that came out of it was that my mother-in-law got a lovely new tooth, we found a really kind and affable dentist (more importantly a clean one, as I am so fussy I was watching everything he was touching for future reference).

The dentist was so nice he even called later in the evening to see if P’s mom was in pain and he was surprised to find out she was off gallivanting at the Museum of Anthropology at 7pm instead of resting!  When we went back in on Friday for the final fitting, he was most amused.

Meanwhile our crazy a$$ ghetto-fabulous joint of an apartment has resumed its’ daily dramas. On Thursday night, I was up as usual with a heat pack on my back and everyone was fast asleep. At close to midnight I notice all these flashing red lights and I look out the window to find about five cop cars outside. There were policemen going up and down right outside our building, like ants in a single file line.

I strained my ears to hear what they were saying, but could not make out the words. I was camped out in the living room as my diligent spouse was sharing Lanes’ bed and his parents were on ours (we can accommodate 2 people at a time in our apartment). I knew I could get a better view from the main bedroom, especially since P’s mom likes to sleep with the blinds a little open.

I debated what to do, because I was bored and dying of curiosity but I was scared if I check out the window in the bedroom and my in-laws wake up they might freak out to find someone in their bedroom.  In the end, my nosiness prevailed because I could hear them snoring and sleeping soundly, which is as miracle since the flashing red lights were illuminating the room.

Sadly, I couldn’t make anything out. Everyone slept through the entire drama, which went on for about three hours.  The next day I tried to ask some folks in the building if they knew what happened ,but no one was aware. My mother-in-law was highly disappointed and insisted I must figure it out.  Today I asked a source and he said someone was being disorderly. He didn’t want to comment too much because he is friends with that person’s sister.

I don’t know why so many cops were needed for that. I guess for the moment I will never know. I might have to go with leftover birthday cake to the office and see if they will tell me anything. The things I have to do so that I can make an informed report on my blog: )

All this drama was the night before my birthday and so at midnight, I was snooping, and snooping badly at that.  The rest of the day was washed out with rain and after we went for the grand installation of my mother-in-law’s tooth, I took P's parents and Lanes (who had a holiday on that day of all days) to the mall. It rained all day and Lanes fell asleep in the bus on the way back and I had to lug her up to our apartment. That was very bad news for my back.

After P came home from his temp job we went out to dinner, but my back was really hurting and Lanes was tired, so I was not my usual self and was rather thankful to come home and curl up in my PJs. Not exactly the celebration I was going for. I was lamenting that if I wasn’t feeling so crappy the last two weeks, I could have invited all the friends we made in Canada over for dinner.

The next day, however, we went over to the house of one first folks we met in Canada (two couples—one introduced us to the other), and they surprised me with my favorite chocolate cake and a sing song. While I was there, I got the back pain, but I refused to let it spoil my fun. I was glad the pain didn't creep up before we left the house--I would have missed out on a lot of fun. 

That has been our crazy week. P’s parents went off at 4am, his mother rather disappointed  that I never figured out the mystery as to why there were cops swarming the place. Ironically, I found out soon after she left. Lanes woke up really sad because her grandparents left. She particularly enjoyed manhandling and bossing around her extremely patient grandfather.

At any given time he could be found doing pumpkin themed arts and crafts or donning various ‘monster’ faces in Lanes’ constant Halloween themed games. Several times he was sitting with her while his food was getting cold on the table as he was unable (and I suspect unwilling) to extract himself from the madness that is Lanes.

He didn’t even try to fight it, just laughed and said ‘wonderful, wonderful’. He took the phrase ‘grin and bear it’ literally.  Between my nausea, heartburn and back pain, I just couldn’t always seperate the two.  Lanes is very sad because she said now she has no one to play with. Again, I fall into the chopped liver category.

I must run as there is much to be done. I just realized that I have no recollection of taking my pain medication and as I can’t overdose myself, I’ll have to go without and pay for it later. There is laundry to be done and dinner to be made, so off I go. More adventures from Canada next week…

Torture Chamber Week

You know the movie set in Egypt in which the culturally insensitive hero decides to invade a Pharaoh’s tomb despite the warnings of the locals? Invariably this bright spark and his ill fated sidekicks get trapped in a room only to find that spiked walls are closing in on them and the scene cuts just as they are a millimeter away from being popped like a zit. I’ve been feeling a lot like the sidekicks this week.

I spent most of the week with the flu and it was a concentrated effort to breathe normally.  I was in a flap, lamenting and stressed out because I needed to be healthy to function and enjoy having my in-laws over. Well, come Monday, Thanksgiving day here in Canada, of all days, the flu was looking pretty darn good because my back pain was worse than ever, and I got a crippling pain in my gut and inside my right rib!

When I leaned forward to give my back relief, my esophagus was on fire and aching. When I bent over backwards to appease my gut, my back felt like searing pokers were jabbing me. I was fighting for breath with the flu. I was a hot mess. I was in so much misery and pain, I was wishing I was one of those fainting Victorian dames.  I just wanted to pass out and be done with my misery as no pain killers were helping me and I couldn’t walk, sit or lie down.

After some miserable up-chucking, and lots of grumbling, by the end of it all I was out of commission. Turns out I can't eat kiwis. This is why I don't eat fruit. I try to eat healthier and this is where it gets me! I challenge healthy eating habits to a duel!  My long suffering spouse, P, was at home luckily on account of it being a national holiday. His father was off to Victoria for the week and his mom was here, probably wondering whether she is in her son’s home or the hospital. 

I was most grateful that I had made extra dinner the previous day as all I could manage was to hug heating packs and wait in almost the fetal position on the floor while my mother-in-law rubbed my back and prayed over the wretched mess that was left of me.

The rest of the week was more of the same, minus the throwing up.  Several nights I was in such debilitating pain that I seriously thought I'd kick the bucket and then I panicked because I had no will or anything. I'm such a drama queen. All that was planned was my niece eagerly waiting to ensure that I have the right shade of burgundy on my corpse. At least important details were seen to I guess!


Due to my lack of sleep and bad physical form, all promises of taking my mother-in-law for outings while P was putting on a good face at work were out. The only place she got to go to was the doctor’s office with me to get an x-ray of my right side and back. Poor woman!

For better or for worse, we spent the entire week aside from the day we went to the clinic at home. My mother-in-law regaled me with several stories of unfortunately named individuals that came to untimely and unnecessary deaths.  The tales were so vivid I could picture the scuffs on these people’s shoes and the horror on their faces when they knew their time was near. 

This was not helping me with the nausea and lack of sleep. Several nights when I was crunched up in pain and longing for sleep I wondered if I would wind up like these characters. I seriously felt that if the pain wouldn't kill me, the lack of sleep will. 

I asked her why a story that can be told in three sentences, basically the ridiculous name of the person, age and cause of death, was dragged out to be an entire saga and she laughed and said because otherwise it wouldn’t be an interesting story without all the details. Maybe she needs a blog too—www.longwindedstories.com

Considering I was basically out of it all week, I was grateful that she could keep up the conversations on her own. After the horror stories were done with, I learnt about what brilliant and lovely babies she had (all four, including P who is one of twins). She loves to tell the story about what beautiful babies the twins were.

At this point, I’m sure I am not her favorite daughter-in-law because I always burst out laughing and ask her what happened? This really bugs her to no end. I must say though, she dotes on her kids, and would do anything for them.

When we went to the clinic, we had a little time before we had to pick up my four year old, Lanes, so we had lunch at an Indian place. My mother-in-law was in the mood for rice and I liked the idea of a buffet since I was starving and I wanted to feed the beast (my belly) before it rebelled from hunger.

Well, yes, I know. Only a moron would eat Indian food if they are suffering from heartburn/acid reflux. At the time I really didn’t think that was the problem. I am not the brightest match in the box shall we say. But at least I’m in acceptance about my lack of grey matter. Plus common sense was never a friend of mine.

While we were eating, P’s mom felt sad that P was at work and not with us. She loves to feed her kids and she wanted to take some food home with us. I told her it was not an option to take a doggy bag from a buffet and she was really upset and said that if we paid for his share, then it would be ok.

As I felt my stomach start to hurl again, I begged her to let it go and that I would quickly take her to the mall where she could get any food she wants for her beloved youngest. Mercifully, that appeased her and next thing I knew, P’s mom, my tensed up back and I were on the bus to the mall. In the end, it rained on us and we never got P a fabulous snack. And P didn’t give two hoots. If it was me, I would have cried a river since I live to eat.

P got me some heartburn medicine on Friday and that helped. Sadly, that night after I fell asleep, we were woken up on a Saturday morning by a phone call and super chirpy message on our answering machine at 6:50am. Two days before that I was woken up with a call at 5am. So much for sleeping in. I think this week I just couldn’t catch a break. I have not slept in so long I look like an extra from Thriller.

I must sign off now and find a heat pack. I have taken two heartburn pills so here is hoping for a good night’s sleep (I disconnected the answering machine too).  The good news is that my lungs are better and my head is less heavy.  I guess I’ll figure out this week what’s up with my side and esophagus.  My sister is putting her money on my gall bladder being defective. I think her family is taking bets on various body parts. So loving.

I also learnt that grunting and nodding helps the stories go by, especially when the tales are interspersed with snide comments coming my way. My patience is about as long as the life span of a fruit fly and my mouth is as big as my bum is wide, so I counter comments with sarcasm. I was never patient, but being a patient has made me less so. But as my ex heart throb Canadian super star famously sang…’take me as I am’.  Luckily, P gets it. It makes for an interesting upcoming week…oh and I turn 35 too!!

Did a Back Flip and Flu the Coop

Today I have half an hour to do my blog, and I am handicapped by iron lungs and a four year old trying to put a witch’s mask on me while I am typing. It’s all challenging to say the least. This has not been a wonderful week. I started out with a doctor’s appointment that was scheduled and then ended the week with one that was not.

First off was the bone density test. I read all the fine print. Turns out I didn’t have to bathe in calcium or do the twist before the test. I just had to show up in a track/sweat suit with no metal on my person. Check. I had to lie down on a table and some gadget that warned of radiation was supposed to scan me. I kept scowling at it since it had this menacingly taunting red beam that kept distracting me. Leave it to me to pick a fight with a machine--one that emits radiation at that.

I don’t know why but it made me feel claustrophobic even though I was not enclosed in anything. I felt like a large tomato about to be scanned and bagged at the supermarket.  I thought I was being scanned for the first ten minutes but apparently I wasn’t so I just looked silly when I was trying to stay so still I looked constipated.

The lady administering the test kept asking me nonstop if I was pregnant. I know there were signs all over the place that warned women who might even think they are pregnant to up and run for the hills, but I was surprised that there were twenty-five different ways of asking that question to see if I come up with the same answer.

At the end of it I almost convinced myself I was pregnant! Why do people make these tests so complicated?  Before I freaked out and asked her if I looked pregnant she took my word for it and we did the scan and that was that. I never called in for the results because there is only so much drama I can take.  

The entire week I have been riddled with back pain. On Wednesday night it was so bad, I had taken pain killers and they didn’t work and I was in bed with two heat packs. Since the pain is on my right side, and I was feeling nauseous, I decided I had gall stones. I hurriedly googled the symptoms and confirmed my diagnosis. No wonder my father always says a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Imagine how treacherous it is to have that wealth of information at my fingertips on the internet.

P, my long suffering spouse, all the while still coughing up a lung, rolled his eyes and told me to get a grip because he was sure it’s just a pulled muscle. I was in more pain that after the birth of my daughter, Lanes, and I was not so convinced. So I called my nutty sister, who is in constant fear of me kicking the bucket. If I was going to get any sympathy, it would be from her.

I got her and her husband googling gall stones on the other end of the phone and across the border. P was wondering what he has done to wind up married to this drama queen family. In the end my brother-in-law was finding other maladies for me, my sister was almost in tears and lamenting that I was in so much pain and I had to go to the doctor and she was sad that I had no one to go with. I hung up quickly before she started prescribing medicine to me (after she wholly condemned the pain killer I took). My sister is constantly under the misconception that her PhD is akin to having a MD.

So the next day, after Lanes went to school, I went to the clinic (after having missed four buses).  The doctor prescribed an x-ray and a muscle relaxant. They look like horse pills and I thought no wonder I won’t be in pain, I would have choked to death instead. Well, they didn’t seem to work, but they put me to sleep, so I guess in that sense they did their job.

The next day, my throat was on fire so I never went for the x-ray. And I got the flu. I am still suffering.  I missed a lovely Thanksgiving party with friends last night on account of all this bad health. I thought it best not to go and share my germs. Lanes and her dad went and had a good time.  I thought it might be nice to enjoy the quiet in the apartment and lament about my early 20s when I was living on my own, but I just felt sicker and sicker as the night progressed.

I’m about to cry because as I type this, my in-laws are landing in Vancouver and are on their way for a two week visit with us. How in the world can I razzle dazzle them in this state? I can barely breathe, my throat still hurts, my nose is either runny or stuffed up and I keep feeling really hot and then really cold. This is not good. This only happens to me. I feel so bad for them to see me in this state after such a long flight. P is terrified (as am I) that they might catch the bug from me.

So I thought I’d blog while I can. The only thing I have learnt this week is that it is self-defeating to try to eat a chocolate bar in the middle of a sneezing fit and being sick makes chocolate taste bad. Not that stopped me from plowing through two rows of KitKat. I would have had four, but Lanes decided to enforce my ‘sharing’ policy and that was that. My hips will thank her later. Here’s to a more healthy blog next week…

Stuck in the Middle with Flu

This has been a long week for all of us! It started out on a high note when we had temporary custody of my nutty sister’s kids while she went off with my brother-in-law for a peaceful weekend in Whistler. My four year old, Lanes, looked like she won the lottery when they arrived, although for some reason she was sad her uncle and aunt didn’t hang around. I, on the other hand, was ready to have a good time with my nieces as I consider myself to be the eclectically charming aunt. You know the one they want to put in a home, but keep around for comic relief.

The next day, Lanes came down with a cold, but she didn’t let that stop her when it came to playing and monkeying around with her cousins. I tried my darndest to keep her germs away from my nieces, but Lanes becomes some sort of Labrador puppy around them and she is constantly jumping, crawling, kissing and slobbering all over them and their possessions.

I was rather concerned that my babysitting services might not be solicited again after this, but my sister, rejuvenated and bubbly after her mini holiday, was so happy to have relaxed that she just brushed off my fears that along with their luggage, I might have packed the girls off with some germs and viruses for good measure. Well mostly the germs were packed. 

After they left we found all kinds of things belonging to them around the house--games, shampoos, socks, hair doodads, little pets--but luckily no library books (they had brought half their local library with them). Lanes was horrified everytime she discovered something that belonged to them (she might have inherited my anal retentiveness), and she held my sister responsible for not double checking after her kids. 

Whenever we took the girls out, I really enjoyed pretending that I was the proud mother of three. We took them on the 1912 carousel ride and while I watched from the sidelines, the guy operating it came up to me and with a genuinely pained expression towards my long suffering spouse, P, said ‘that poor man. Three daughters. He is outnumbered in every way’. I nearly burst out laughing.

What was funny was that several people commented on ‘our family’ and I was bemused at what they might have really been thinking considering my nieces don’t look like they could possibly belong to the both of us, on account of their dad being a tall chaotic dirty blonde from the Southern US of A. 

Maybe they were feeling compassionate for P thinking that poor guy has no idea number one and two are not his. As the manager of our rickety building infamously once said, Lanes is the ‘carbon copy’ of her father, so luckily (or not so luckily for Lanes), she at least looked like she was definitely his. Maybe folks at the museum thought we were a lovely blended family.

When we were not out misleading the general public in the greater Burnaby area, we had what seemed like a big old fashioned PJ party together. My older niece was entertaining us claiming she has given herself the Heimlich maneuver twice in her eleven years on this planet. She continued to illustrate this point—at mealtime. While I feared that a huge wedge of broccoli might get stuck on my wall hangings, she immediately complained that her ribs were hurting from the demonstration. Sigh.

We all stayed up late (with the exception of Lanes, who was misled into thinking we were all sleeping by 9pm) playing Clue and hanging out and lamenting that weekends were just not long enough. We were all sad when they left.

Come Monday evening, Lanes and P were both disastrously ill with the flu. It was especially horrible for P, who had to keep up appearances at work and who had just signed up for a class that’s twice a week for the next couple of weeks. He only made it to half of his second class.

 

Lanes and P were on chicken soup diets. P was really out of it. Lanes jet propels herself on what little energy she has, which only makes it worse for herself. Yours truly was in quite a flap between the two of them.

Wednesday night was horrible for all of us. I got that dreaded back pain and was up by 1.30am. I had to take a mega pain killer and I was sitting on the floor of the living room with a sour look on my face and my back arched so much so that I was giving the Hunchback of Notre Dame a run for his money.

Around 2am P starts coughing up a lung, and by 2.15am Lanes had joined in. I had to spring into action and join them in the bedroom (Lanes always migrates from her bed to ours).  In addition to his cough, P got a severe attack of gas (I'm sure he is delighted I'm sharing) and was the poster child for suffering. I felt like Florence Nightingale without the medical knowledge and fancy outfit. It was a long night—understatement of the year. My back was rebelling against the rest of me as I wondered if all three of us should just walk into the hospital.

By the time we settled in, it was 4.30am easily. P, naturally, couldn’t go to work, no matter how much he tried. Lanes was tired, but she had a little pee incident was up by 7am. I was exhausted and my back muscles felt like a miniature person was trying to twist every fiber of my being in an unnatural way.

It is now Sunday. Lanes is better. P is still battling the flu, and my head feels tight. I have to go for a bone density scan tomorrow and I hope I can keep my act together to make it to that!  I have a long bus ride to the clinic and I just realized that my I-pod type gadget is gone. I might have dropped it when picking up lanes from school.

It’s a rather prehistoric gadget, but it had all my music in it. I was super bummed and even Lanes’ valiant attempts at cheering me up couldn’t make me less glum about it. I guess I'll have to entertain myself people watching on the bus. So it has been a rather looooong week for us. As I type this, P is still sniffling. I must sign off as I have a terrible eye ache and I need to get out the heating pack for my back. Seems like we have aged a lot since last week!

Hopefully, next week’s blog will be more chipper. I am sure do have some (mis)adventure of some sort, especially when it comes to doing a bone scan that possibly might require me to stay still. I guess I should read the paperwork on my appointment slip. Who knows if I have to down a tank of water or jump into a vat of yogurt or something before hand? Don't want to be unprepared like the last time! Here’s to more cheerful antics next week…