Progress

Today is my birthday. I am 31. Birthdays have been hard for me since I was a teen. I don't particularly like them but this one isn't too bad except that I am really now in my 30s. Last year I refused to agree that I was in my 30s because I was just 30. Some sort of denial I know, but it worked for a whole year.

This week has been hard and I'm sure my yearly birthday depression hasn't helped. I had an 18 hour day the day after I told my doctor I didn't think I do this much longer. Then next day I was the charge nurse at work. I was way too tired. I don't work as the charge nurse very often and it was a difficult schedule to have to run. I was thankful that one of the people that came in on a later shift was someone that works charge much more often than me and she relieved me so I could go home about 1330. I would have really liked to have gone home before that with only 4 hours of sleep the night before, but it wasn't possible. I was a nut the whole rest of the day. I cried for at least two hours that night. I was upset with my husband. I have addressed an issue I have with him a number of times over the past few years. He doesn't get it. It really bothers me that he will stay home with me until after dinner and then go to his parents house or visit a friend for a couple of hours. He does this almost all the evenings he is home. I want to spend time with him. Thursday night is the one night I want to watch TV so it isn't a bad night for him to be gone. I just hate it that he does this. I think he should spend time at home. I know he really is where he says he is, but still. The thing I really don't want is for him to leave all the time when he has his own family. I say that I am his family already and that doesn't hold enough weight, but he is gone so much and I want him to spend time with his child. I don't know but this is something that really bothers me. I try to tell him and he doesn't get it. It wouldn't bother me as much if he went earlier but he doesn't. I am almost always in bed by the time he gets home. I really like to talk to him before I go to bed. Anyway, that had me crying for two hours and I couldn't sleep. He yelled at me about it too.

I wanted to share something with him Thursday night, but he wasn't there. If he had been at work it would have been one thing, but instead I just felt abandoned. I know I am difficult to be around and I know he does need time for himself, but I need him too. He was home by himself all day. Anyway, I was able to move just a bit of my face. I have had a twitch where the dimple in my cheek is for the last week and I was actually able to move that area plus a little bit more around it that night. That was the first progress I have seen. But not only did I have some control there, but I have some muscle tone back in my nose. It isn't completely restored, but breathing is better. Now when I breathe through my nose you can actually see the left side moving. It is greatly diminished compared to the right, but it is better than nothing like it was before. The ENT stopped by to see me at work that morning and told me that I probably wasn't going to get my face back 100%. She talked to me about my visit with the specialist. She was concerned about the lack of change and atrophy to the nerve. That didn't help my day or my mood. She also told me that I needed to avoid all stress. I see that happening about quarter after never! So anyway it was encouraging to see a change after I talked to her.

Friday when I woke up all I had was the twitch in the dimple, but that didn't surprise me at all. I already knew that things would come and go and that it is actually better towards the end of the day than at the beginning. I worked with the ENT yesterday and told her and she was really pleased with that.

I had a little accident yesterday though. The charge nurse yesterday asked me to do this departmental safety check paper work. We know that we will have a visit anytime from Joint Commission and so we are trying to do all the things we need to do to be ready. We are never ready, but generally do pretty well. This is a HUGE deal. So I was going over this check list and I had to make sure that all the outlets within 36" of a sink had the GFI whatever. Well, there was one that was really close to 36". I didn't want to measure it unless until I checked the outlet and if it didn't have the shut off then I would measure the distance. I had to unplug a couple of things to see the outlet. One of the items was a phone charger (that shouldn't have been there) and it covered the outlet enough I couldn't see it. It is exactly like mine and the prongs flip flat. I tried to plug it back in and the prongs flipped in. I tried again and got a little electrocution. The current ran up my arm and down the right side of my body and out my right foot. It hurt. I felt weird, but okay right after it happened but I was worried about Tiger. I called my doctor's office and they wanted me to come over right away and they would see me. Right away, turned into about an hour wait. I was in the waiting room and I did have a nurse check on me about every fifteen minutes but I was still concerned. I didn't feel him move that entire time.

She looked me over and listened to Tiger's heartbeat. It was a little slower than it usually is but it was still normal. I kind of thought she would do an ultrasound to make sure the placenta and everything else were fine too, but she didn't. I hadn't had any contractions or bleeding and she didn't think it was necessary, but she was worried about me and sent me over to ER to be check out. I certainly was off. I don't know how to explain it. My thoughts were behind and kind of foggy. I felt twitchy all over and only felt better if I could pace around. I couldn't do that in the ER of course because they wanted me hooked up to a heart monitor. They drew a ton of blood and wanted to make sure my muscles weren't breaking down a lot, and that my kidneys were functioning alright because I would have some release of myoglobin from my muscles. The extremely handsome doctor kept assuring me that because of my age and that I'm pretty healthy 110 electricity probably wouldn't hurt me much, except that I would be sore for a couple of days. He is right my hand is still tingling today and very heavy and sore. Only I could do this. My husband flipped out. I didn't get him called until I was in the ER and they had done an initial work up on me. He had been helping one of his friends get set up for his son's graduation from high school today. They had finished and where having a couple of beers. Great! My giant husband doesn't drink often and "a couple" of beers is about all he can handle. He didn't tell me that he had been drinking when I talked to him on the phone and I could see it in his eyes immediately when he got there. It turns out that "a couple" was in fact four in about two hours and that is way too much for him to drive. I was just horrified. Now here I am in the ER all wired up and my husband is drunk. Great. A drunk in the ER is never a good thing. We were there quite awhile still and he managed to behave himself. My blood pressure went up after he got there. I was now worried about what stupid thing he might do. He managed to sober up a bit and most people probably wouldn't have known, I hope, since they are trained to notice these things. I was so embarrassed and worried.

Lets hope today goes better. However, my mother will be showing up at some point...