Calamity Jane

(Michelle, you should maybe skip this post in light of our conversation re: passing out during an episode of ER.)

Yesterday, as I was shuffling, shoeless about the house (as usual) I stabbed my foot on a splinter. Crap, I thought, that hurts; but I was in the middle of preparing supper for the girls so I carried on, and in a lull in the cooking I got my tweezers and tried to pull the splinter out so I could get on with my evening.

The splinter didn't come out; I couldn't get a good grip on it with my shiny red Tweezerman slanted tweezers while I was hopping around on one foot, so I brought a dining room chair into the kitchen (where the light is best) and sat down.

Once, twice, three times I pulled and somehow always lost my grip on the splinter before I got it out. Finally I really dug those pointy Tweezerman corners into my foot, pinched the splinter as tight as I could and pulled hard.

To my horror what I had thought was a little sliver turned out to be an inch-long spear of hardwood floor. I immediately started bleeding all over the floor, great big bright red drops, so I grabbed a tea towel off the stove (there's a good reason to make sure you get a fresh tea towel out every day; if you injure yourself at least you know there's at most a day worth of crap on the first towel that comes to hand) and applied pressure with one hand while calling for backup with the other. Fortunately Zaida was only a couple of minutes away so he came right over to help with the girls' supper while I bandaged myself up and cleaned the kitchen floor.

That was yesterday.

Last Tuesday, I woke up in the middle of the night with the most excruciating pain I had ever had (although bear in mind I didn't go through labour, so this could be nothing compared to that). It felt like someone was punching me all over my chest and back. It went on for ten or fifteen minutes and was gone as soon as it had come. It came again on Thursday morning (there's just something especially cool about lying on the floor in agony while your three-year-old tries to figure out what to do with herself -- Mummies aren't supposed to get sick!) so on Friday I went to the doctor. She thinks I might have gallstones, so I am getting an ultrasound this Friday to check it out.

While I was at the doctor she informed me that those red bumps on my belly which I thought were maybe bites or something are actually shingles, for which she gave me a prescription for a week's worth of blue horse pills, anti-virals, and an exhortation to rest. (I laughed, and offered to let her come over and look after Cordelia and pack while I rested.)

So to recap: gallstones, shingles, and a bloody great hole in the bottom of my foot. It made yesterday's application for life insurance a barrel of fun, for sure. Well, Blake laughed a lot anyway.