Catching Up

So, despite yesterday's inability to walk or move my legs without intense pain, I managed to get around a little better today. I also decided that I needed to cook something decent for myself for dinner tonight while Tom was out with Colden, so I chopped up a zucchini and a tomato and made a baked zucchini boat with some brown rice. It was the first "real" food that I've been able to eat all week without pain and nausea, and it tasted so good! (We're hoping that we can determine on Monday if this is either one heck of a nasty stomach virus or a real honest-to-goodness gallbladder attack. Yuck.)

When I went out to the herb garden, I saw that my beloved thyme plant has been completely overrun with garlic chives and oregano. I'll have to do something about that. My first thought was that I wanted to buy a thyme plant and keep it in the house all year, the way we do with the parsley and the rosemary. There's just something I love about fresh thyme - it seems so exotic and comforting, all at once. I love fresh leaves of rosemary and thyme when they've been chopped up and thrown in with a pot of chickpea soup in the fall. It's just a taste that I can wrap around myself when it gets cold like a big, thick wooly blanket.

And yesterday, in desperation for something to do, I decided to try out the Kindle app for PC. Wow. I'm starting to become addicted to downloading books now. And here I am, the person who swore she would never get any kind of eReader. (We won't talk about my new iPad that is due to arrive on Tuesday or Wednesday next week.) I've been adding Kindle books to my Amazon wishlist, and I've got about 60 of them on there now. Being able to download a book in about three seconds to my laptop or my iPad is going to be as close to instant gratification as I can get! Oy, this could get expensive...

I went to the doctor Thursday morning to get checked out, since it was going on four days since I had been able to eat without feeling overwhelmingly nauseous. It was an odd visit. First of all, I couldn't see my regular doctor because I didn't have an appointment. So I got to see the owner of the practice who, while he is a very good doctor, is somewhat socially dysfunctional. While I was waiting in the exam room, I realized that they had left the door wide open. I didn't bother to close it, but while I was waiting, I heard him talking to one of the nurses about another patient who had just been given an i.v. infusion of something. Suddenly, I heard him say, "Oh, shit!" That just couldn't be good.

Then he comes in and starts to talk to me, and when he listens to my heart, he looks down at my toes and says, "Oh, wow, nice toe nails. I love purple nail polish." So, okay, what would YOU have said to that? I was like, um, okay, dude, just don't tell me you're wearing a thong or anything and we'll be okay. Then when we were discussing my symptoms and talking about what lab tests he wanted to run, he asked if there was any chance I could be pregnant. No, I told him, there is no chance that I am pregnant. "Well, we're going to do a pregnancy test anyway, just because I don't trust women." Okay. Now, I must have given him the hairy eyeball and but good, because a few seconds later he stammers, "Oh, well, I don't trust men, either." So, okay, dude, is there anyone that you DO trust?

Like I said, this is the reason that this guy is not my regular doctor. He's actually a brilliant physician in his specialty, but he's a social moron. No bedside manner. If he had been required to take one of those human-interaction classes that they now require of med students, he would have flunked out for sure.

But the good news is that he's not terribly worried about anything, he thinks this might just be one of those things that my body needs to kick off all by itself, so I'm just trying to humor it and take it easy. (Which isn't so easy when Colden pretty much relies on me for EVERYTHING from potty training to diaper changing to pajama time and meals.)

I can hear Tom and Colden in Colden's room right now, eating ice cream cones and watching "How to Train Your Dragon". Last night they did bedtime without me while I tried to stay comfortable in bed and get some rest, and when Tom cuddled up with Colden, the two of them started giggling like it was a slumber party. It made me a little sad that I couldn't be in there reading to Colden.

Truthfully, I have no idea what happened to my back. The only thing I can think is that it has something to do with me picking up Colden (who now weighs around 44 lbs and is about the size of your average 5 or 6 year old) and giving him piggyback rides. All I know is that after I got home from the chiropractor yesterday, I had to lie on the floor for a few hours with the ice pack on my back and that walking was so painful that it made me want to laugh. ('Cause I'd never had back pain like this before, and I didn't know what else to do.)

So. Tomorrow is Sunday. I hope to have a few pictures up of some of the work I've been doing the last few weeks. And I hope that I will be able to get outside (or at least onto the back porch) and enjoy some more of the summer while it lasts...