Deployment Log: How We #America (Week #22)

Deployment Log, Day 151:

1. I am confident that before this deployment is over, I will have a week when I can write, “Hey friends! It was kind of a chill week. Nothing profound or semi ridiculous happened. The end.”

2. But this week was not that week.

3. Things were off to a great start. I got my final paper submitted for this class 5 days early on Monday. Which meant I get five extra days of spring break.

4. Yes, it was 32 pages long. Yes, the minimum required was 10 page. And for those folks who say less is more, I get it. But my prof for this class isn’t in that school of thought. More is more, apparently, because I got 249 out of 250 points on the final. Somehow, amid all the chaos of the last 8 weeks, I only dropped EIGHT points out of 1010 for this class. Which means I finished with a 99.2%. THANK YOU LORD! (ItsAllJesusYo)

5. So Wednesday was a great day. Everyone was healthy, I had a great boxing class (although I think our boxing coach was trying to break us… It’s a “fun” class, but we were too chatty, so he made us do burpees. WHAT?!?!)

6. My Dad (Paw-Paw) arrived on Wednesday afternoon! I was so happy I *almost* cried.

7. THEN Thursday showed up. (Ready for this?) I hadn’t made any “plans” with Dad since the events of the last two months have forced me to be super flexible and live by the no-plan-plan more than I ever have in my life (completely not by my choice!) Wednesday morning when I woke up, the left side under my tongue was a bit swollen. Annoying, but didn’t think much of it.

8. I woke up Thursday and my face had started to swell. Neat. Underneath the left side of my chin was a swollen lump that was pretty dang sore. My gut (Jesus?) said I needed to be an adult and get it checked out sooner than later. My gut (Jesus?) also said that it was a clogged salivary gland that had quickly gotten infected (Never happened before and really random, so why I thought that is beyond me). I was hoping for antibiotics and moving on with life.

9. Thus began the chaos. We went to urgent care because when I first called my primary doc, they couldn’t see me till Tuesday. The urgent care clinician on duty was not a very nice or compassionate woman. (Can I call her a heifer??) She came in the room, looked at it for about 2.5 seconds and said she wasn’t “even going to touch it” (Literally or figuratively). I tried to talk to her and she kept shutting me down. I was hoping that we could try the antibiotic route then panic later if it didn’t work in a day or two, but no dice.

10. She immediately got all dramatic and said I needed to get a STAT CT Scan that day. Then she started writing paperwork (that she handed back to me, printed out) with words on it like “large mass,” and “suspicious mass.” Which of course flared up my anxiety (happy pills can only work to a point!) I feel like her bedside manner could have been MUCH better and helped the whole process, maybe saying something like, “It is likely that is a clogged gland, not the C-word. Let’s get you started on antibiotics but also get a CT scan just to be safe.” Oh well I guess.

11. So for the rest of the day, Dad and I ran around like crazy (stressed out) people doing all the doctor things. God’s hand was all over that day, in spite of how I was feeling (stressed, scared, tired). Here’s how I know:

*I was able to get a CT scan at 1pm that afternoon, on this side of town, just 7 min from the kids school.

*We started out the day with Malick in tow but when we learned we would be spending our day in docs offices and the sweet boy is impossible to control in tight spaces, we dropped him off at his school- it was a miracle they had on-the-spot space.

*The fact that dad was here to help/support was a true miracle and blessing.

*When I first made the call to the CT place, I forgot to tell them it was “stat” order, so when I called them back, they moved the appt to the closer-to-our-house location, saving us a good hour of driving that we didn’t really have to spare (since I still had to pick Charis up from kindergarden at 3:25pm).

*The CT nurse/doc was super nice and funny. She was very kind and kept checking on me to ask if I was ok because I was “breathing so deep.” (I was really trying to keep my wits about me. When I started to cry (from stress and feeling so rotten) on the CT table, she handed me Kleenexes and comforted me.

*When I stopped by the office of my primary care doc, they were able to squeeze me in towards the end of the day. And the CT results were sent to them right in the middle of my appt time.

*Dad and I were able to divide and conquer, so Charis could still go to ballet and I could go to my primary doc appt that afternoon.

*For some reason, God had prompted me to go THAT DAY and not wait. And that was a miracle because I usually want to “wait and see” hoping things get better. If I wouldn’t have gone through all that hoopla that day, I truly believe I would have ended up in the ER that night. Because when we finally got home (with meds) after almost 10 hrs of doctor stuff, the fever hit me like a freight train. Apparently, I was heading towards being one very sick mama.

*This all didn’t happen last week when I was by myself with the kids and trying to do finals week homework. Because I would have also been in serious trouble.

*IT WAS NOT CANCER.

*They also blood-tested me for mumps (!?!?) I haven’t gotten the results yet, but good grief. I have been vaccinated, but apparently that is making a comeback regardless.

See? God’s hand. All. Over. It. (But it still wasn’t enjoyable!)

12. End of the day, primary doc got my CT scan results and boom– yes, clogged submandibular (fun word) salivary gland. He put me on heavy duty antibiotics and gave me a narcotic pain killer.

13. It’s now been two days later, and the swelling is going down significantly. I could also see where it was clogged under my tongue yesterday… which finally started to, um, “release.” Let’s just say it is gross and leave it at that, eh?

14. Super grateful I’m not a cow (or horse, dog, cat, etc). And that I didn’t have to go to the vet. Because they probably would have lanced it. YIKES.

15. If you don’t know what lancing is, don’t google it (or maybe google it, but I wouldn’t recommend you-tubing it unless you have a strong stomach).

16. Dad was worried why I wasn’t eating much, but I told him in rancher terms, I was like a sick cow… Whenever there is a major infection anywhere in her body, she goes off feed (which is usually how you know they are sick). I did manage to choke down some W30 chicken soup so I could take my meds and not yak.

17. So yes, I am now hopefully on the mend, and Dad and I are able to slowly adventure. We explored Fort Bliss yesterday and took the kids to the Farmer’s Market today. We also just took a two-hour nap. AWESOME! Also, we have now entered into the stage that eating out with Malick is about as much fun as having a blocked salivary gland.

18. Prayer requests: For real, HEALTH ON THIS HOUSEHOLD, that this infection permanently leaves my body in Jesus name, and Dad and I can still have fun in spite of these unpredictable circumstances.

19. Parting thought: “I will refresh the weary and satisfy the faint.” ~Jeremiah 31:25

***

GUYS. GUYS! LOOK WHO I FOUND TODAY!!!#PawPawMeetsElPaso #ImNotCryingYoureCrying #IDidntReallyCryButItWouldHaveBeenOkIfIDid

Oh this girl! Wednesday was her golden birthday (turning 6-years-old on the 6th of March) and she brings such joy to our hearts and entertainment to our home… In honor of her special day, here’s a couple of the most recent Charis-isms that made me chuckle.

“Mama, why doesn’t celery start with an S? That letter C is so tricky. It needs to back off and just give the letter K a chance!”

“Mama, are those statues that look like people made out of dead people?”