Lanning on sleeping tonight

Sure I am - it’s already almost 1am! But, thanks to Margi - Chris went out to the drugstore and got some Melatonin to see if that wouldn’t make a dent in my current state of insomnia. I sure hope so! Margi - I’ll let ya know!

All Along The WatchtowerGreg, over at All Along The Watchtower contacted me for some skin! He is currently stationed in Afghanistan and is keeping the blog as a way to keep in touch with family and friends back home while he is deployed. Go on over and give him a big heap of thanks - to him and his family, as well!

As I See ItVicki, over at As I See It, provided me with some GREAT images to work with for her two new skins. She had some really great ideas that we put to work this week and got her a brand new look.

As I See ItShe is brand spanking new to blogging, and to the use of WordPress - so she could use some visits and comments over there to fuel her creative fires! We set her up with the WP Weather plugin, a Shoutbox, PHP skinning, WP Usersonline, WP stats and the Recent Comments plugin - - she is all set to go.

Distracted

Three more days to go on the meds. Really, this shit makes me edgy as all get out. Am I whining? Hell yes I am! Still unknowing of what caused this creeping crud to begin with, I’m worried that when I’m done with the meds in 3 days - it will come back - and it will be all pissed off.

My own family has been avoiding me because of the edginess. Not that I can blame them - - poor folk. However, the man and went shopping yesterday and brought home a beautiful bouquet of tulips. I adore tulips! Pink, red, white and purple ones. They are beautiful. And they did put a slight dent in the edginess I’ve been experiencing.

So, I redesigned. Keeping myself busy on www.jasminelive.online with something that I didn’t really need to concentrate on. Really, my clients did not want me designing for them this weekend - - honest! I’ll restart client work on Monday. I decided to go simple with this design. Got rid of all the other noise (read: the skins and all the superfluous garbage I stuck on my blog over the past year). I apologize up front for retiring the ‘Blue Girl’ skin - and may resurrect her in a different form one of these days. I know of at least three guys who will give me hell about it. Just think of it this way: She’s not gone - - she’s on an extended vacation. :D

Still Kickin'

Well, it’s been over 24 hours and I haven’t required a trip to the ER yet. Looks like the meds they have me on are working - - but they are making me incredibly dopey and edgy as all heck. I’m not a med taker - - never have been. Before this I was on . . . oh, ZERO medications per day. Now I’m on 5 different pills 3 times a day and I’m not liking the side effects one bit.

But! At least I’m not puffy, itching, red and swollen - - so I guess that’s a trade off.

I’m laying low - - trying to get some work done .. . just thought I’d pop in here to let ya know I’m still alive. :)

Creeping Crud

Hives. I have hives. LOTS of hives - - - the head to toe sort.

They came on the night before last - starting on my upper arms and quickly spreading to my whole arm, abdomen, back, ass, legs . . . and lastly to my neck and face. Since we all know what horrible patients nurses are - I decided to forgo a doctor appointment, opting to self-treat, instead.

I spent the better part of the day in bed, sleeping. In between naps, I took oatmeal baths and slathered myself down with Triamcinalone ointment followed by Cedaphil lotion. Nothing was helping. I was miserable. But still held the plan to see my doctor the following day if the hives continued to persist.

Around 8:30 last night - my eyes started to itch and swell . . . and I finally made the decision to head to the ER when my throat started to swell and I was having difficulty swallowing and breathing. It takes a lot to get me into the doctors office, much less the ER - - but when Chris looked at me and said “Get your shoes on, we’re going” - - I didn’t put up a fight. “Ok", I said.

By the time we got there, I wasn’t breathing very well at all - my throat felt like I had a huge bale of cotton stuck in it. A quick shot of Epi took care of that - - they put me on oxygen and on a heart monitor - started the IV and one vial of Pepcid, one vial of Benadryl and one vial of Solu-Medrol later . . . I was doing ok. The hives and itching still remained – but the breathing problems and light feeling of choking stopped.

They sent me home with a 5-day course of Prednisone (a corticosteroid) to help with the inflammation of the hives over the next week, and will instructions to see my regular MD in 7 days.

I have absolutely no clue what brought this on. The ER doc feels that it is an allergic reaction of some sort. Something I ate, took, touched, inhaled or came in contact with. For the life of me I cannot recall anything different over the past 2-3 days that would cause something like this. And I’ve never experienced this ever before.

Of course, my mind naturally went to my Dad who has a diagnosis of Cutaneous Lymphoma. His symptoms started out as a persistent rash that would not subside, even with medications. These days, he’s being treated once a month with UV Light treatment, via IV to “wash” his blood clear of the malignant white blood cells. The ER doc assured me that this case of hives I have is not related to what my dad has, however Cutaneous Lymphoma is genetic - - but from what I read, men get it mostly - and it skips a few generations.

Being a nurse brings along with it a certain amount of hypochondria - - a little knowledge can bring a lot of worry.

It’s better today. The hives are now only covering about 50% of my body, as opposed to the 90% from last night. It actually went away completely about an hour after the IV Solu-Medrol - - but the hives started rearing their ugly heads again at around 2am last night. So, up I was, taking an oatmeal bath at 3am and sitting up almost all night watching chaturbate stream and trying not to itch.

It’s enough to drive a person nuts!

You’re happy

Imagine running a relatively low-key service on the web. You’re small. You’re humble.

Along comes super big, well-known, huge corporation who wants to contract your services and in order to do so, you must go through a pretty tedious, long and involved audit that could take a few months, JUST to be able to do business with them.

Pros:

Super big, well-known, huge corporation is a great contact.

Above named corporation is a nice little name to add to the client list.

The financial arrangement doesn’t stink.

Cons:

Time consuming audit process.

If you don’t pass the audit - - time consuming time was wasted.

Audit process could take up to 2 months.

As a small, humble business that tends to fly a bit under the radar - - do you? Or don’t you? Even if your business doesn’t pass the audit - - do you consider it time well-spent in terms of experience, learning and growing? Inquiring minds want to know.

Life gets in the way of blogging

Milk CartonI guess I forgot to update this blog I'm writing on jasminlive.mobi over the last few days. It wasn’t until I received an email telling me that they were going to put my face on the back of a milk carton: “Have you seen this blogger?”

Life just gets in the way, ya know? I’m running 3 businesses and contracting part time for another. Plus - I have to ski, ya know. Skiing is right up there on the list of priorities. With all the snow that fell recently, the skiing has been excellent - - we’re going out again tonight. Right after the get home from school - - we fill up three Thermos’s of hot cocoa - and off we go for a few hours.

My daughter is learning to snowboard. She is a good skier - and wanted to try snowboarding - so the last couple of times we went, she spent most of the night on her bum. Now, I’m the only one in the family who doesn’t snowboard. I love to ski. However, I suppose the time will come that I’m going to have to strap one of those boards on my feet and give it a go.

I had the greatest fall the other night - I wish it would have been recorded on video. I decided to give the double blacks a try again - and ended up rolling head over ass down 3/4 of the hill . . lost both my skis and poles in the process, requiring a walk back up the hill to retrieve them. Good thing this was right after the latest snowfall and the hill was a soft, billowy cloud of powder, instead of hard, sharp ice!

Vroom!

A few weeks ago, Chris had an auto-starter installed on the truck. It’s a nice little gadget/toy. When I press a button on the keychain - the truck starts and stays running for 20 minutes before auto-shut off. Really nice in these below zero temperatures we’ve been having lately.

What’s especially nice is that the truck has heated seats. . . so those are nice and heated up, too. When skiing the other day - we got on the ski lift and Chris says, “Is this the last one for the night, babe?” I said, “Yea - I think so.” - so he pulled the keys out of his ski jacket and started the truck. It was nice and warm on our frozen butts when we got in.

The other day, I took my son to a dermatology appointment (for his chronic acne problem). It was cold that day and snowing like crazy. On our way out to the parking lot, he says “You should have started the truck when the Doctor told us that we were almost done, Mom. Then it would be all warm by now.”

True. I should have.

It really makes me wonder what on earth we did before the auto-truck starter? Good grief - did we REALLY have to deal with cold seats??

And to think my father had to walk to school. In 10 feet of snow. Barefoot.