My Day of Rest

I am a horrible sick person. This is something that I readily admit. I left work early on Tuesday because I was hacking up a lung. When I left, I immediately went to Urgent Care because I was quite certain that I was going to die. I am not sure that anyone has ever died from a simple cough, but I had visions of my head exploding and my eyeballs rolling down the street. The Urgent Care doctor was very sweet and diagnosed me with a severe sinus infection. The drainage from the infection was the cause of my coughing fits. He suggested several home remedies to ease my symptoms, the most egregious of which was a Netty pot. Yes, I know that a Netty pot is a medical miracle-worker. I have heard Dr. Oz expounding on the virtue of the Netty pot ad nauseum. Regardless, there is no way I am pouring salt water up my nose. No way. No how.

Of course, I didn't tell the kind doctor this little factoid. I just smiled and listened. He ended up writing me a prescription for cough syrup with codeine (Yea! Codeine!) and a prescription for an antibiotic that he asked me to hold off on filling until the weekend, after a few days of trying the home remedies. I agreed. Then I immediately drove to Walgreens and filled both prescriptions. Why suffer for an extra four days when I have an antibiotic prescription in hand? I am sick, not stupid.

So yesterday, I took the day off work with the intention of resting. My plan was to sleep upstairs in my bed until Ruanita had to leave for work at 1:00pm. I would then move to the couch, turn on my favorite electronic babysitter (Netflix for the Wii), and lounge in a codeine-induced stupor until time to shuffle the children off to bed. As is often the case in my house, my best-laid plans did not come to fruition.

After a night of barely sleeping a couple of hours due to the intensity of my coughing, Ruanita woke me up at 7:00AM to let me know she was taking Lucas to school. Sophie and Nicholas were downstairs watching TV and she suggested I stay in bed and leave them down there. I knew I would immediately go back to sleep if left in my bed, so I trudged downstairs to sit with the kiddos while Ruanita took Lucas to school. Of course, I poured myself a Diet Pepsi, as is my usual morning routine. By the time Ruanita got back home, I was wide awake.

When she returned, I went upstairs with the intention of going back to sleep but, being wide awake, laying down did nothing but initiate a coughing fit. So I decided to wrap presents instead. I locked myself in my bedroom and asked Ruanita to make sure the kids did not venture upstairs and I began to wrap. It was nice and relaxing. I wrapped for about an hour and half. Unfortunately, I barely made a dent in the large mountain of presents hidden in my bedroom closet. Wow, my children are spoiled! They are going to freak out on Christmas morning.

After wrapping, I once again ventured downstairs. We had discovered the night before that we have a giant ice dam on the front of our house. Not being from Minnesota, we did not understand the potential havoc an ice dam can wreak. We simply thought, "Oohh...look. Pretty icicles." Um....no. Ice dams are not pretty. In actuality, they are quite ugly when they cause water to begin leaking inside your house. We have water dripping from our front door frame covering our pretty red berry Christmas wreath with icicles, and a growing wet spot on the ceiling and wall above our fireplace. Ruanita asked that I call our homeowners insurance company to find out if this would be something covered under our policy. I had to make the call because Ruanita kept inadvertently referring to the ice dam as a dental dam. Ummm....not even remotely the same thing. So I called our insurance company and they wanted to send an adjuster immediately. This meant that I had to wash my greasy hair and get dressed, so I could look semi-presentable to be seen by another human being...one I was not related to. Sure enough, Doug, the adjuster we used on our previous claim this year, was at our house in no time to survey the damage. Yep, we had water damage. Yep, it was going to be expensive to repair our plaster walls and textured coved ceiling. Yep it would be covered under our policy. Yep, we would have to pay another $1000 deductible. And yep, though our previous wind claim was an act of God, this one was not considered as such and will probably end up raising the premium on our homeowners insurance. Nice. So after meeting with the adjuster, I then had to call and schedule someone to come out and remove the ice dam. Our adjuster also had a mitigating company call us to schedule an appointment. I am not even sure what "mitigating" is, but it has to do with high-tech equipment used to assess the actual extent of the water damage. Yea...fun stuff.

After Ruanita went to work, I had kids to feed, baths to give, homework to complete, dishes to wash. My day of rest quickly evaporated into a day of chores. Yes, I realize I am to blame. I could have laid in bed all day. I should have laid in bed all day. However, how is one supposed to do that when there are only 24 hours in a day and at least 26 hours worth of work to be done? Such is my life. And here I am back at work today. Do I feel rested? Ummm....surprisingly, no. But at least I am medicated!