My head hurts. And I can’t sleep. And when I lay down, I burp vomit. And people are pissing me off, making me cry and generally upsetting me. And the worst part is that I know some of it is me feeling irrational. I need a deep dark hole. More than that, I need to vent. Hello blog world!
So the illness continues. What else is new with me, huh? DVT blah, blah, blah. Was doing okay, working from home, rolling with it. Then the severe headaches and vomiting began. Next thing I knew, it was 6 days in the hospital and a week at home face down in my pillows trying to just think a coherent thought. Already missed Pumpkinhead’s birthday. Yep, you guessed it, also missed meet-the-teacher and first day of second grade. Mommy FAIL.
After a bunch of different meds, I am back on a lower dose of the anti-seizure meds for my general neuropathic pain (and my leg feels better – hey, a good news item!) and spent the past week on high-level oxygen, steroids and Zofran. The steroids make me sweaty and apparently are what is causing insomnia (well that and the baby that decides it’s time for kickboxing every single time I lay down and the head that aches with tiredness and yet won’t go over that sleepy edge.) The steroids finally took the throbbing/severe vomiting part away but my head still feels like someone has it (and my neck) in a vice grip 24/7. Vicodin helps some. If I try and go anywhere or get up and do much more than say, change the laundry over, I regret it. This is getting really freaking old.
Work? Hah. Well I started to draft this post yesterday when I was heading back (online from home) after two weeks with zero work contact. Bwahahahaha. Of course I completely overdid it and woke up today feeling like someone had pummeled me with a 2×4. That just made me more cranky, depressed and irritated and frustrated. Then I had a meeting set for 1 p.m. with three coworkers. They had flipped out on me yesterday about a project that I had to drop while I was in the hospital so I worked for about 4 hours last night and got them info, revised drafts, charts, etc., at 1 a.m. for a 1 p.m. call today. 1 p.m. comes around. Senior staff member gets on phone. Asks if Paralegal Do-Minimum-Necessary (“P-DMN”) and Temp have joined the call (we’re all phoning in and doing a WebEx). I say no. She goes down the hall to see where they are. Nothing. At 1:15, she calls P-DMN and puts her on speakerphone. Know what she says? “Oh, my work ran late this morning so Temp and I have gone out for lunch and I am running some errands.” 
WTF?!?!?!?!?! Um, we had a meeting? Is my time not important? Are you freaking serious? Do you have any idea why this is so completely wrong? You couldn’t even e-mail and reschedule?!?
And this after we had a 1.5-hour meeting yesterday with IT so I could explain some VERY basic technical concepts to my internal team (they were planning on ripping IT a new one when, in fact, they just didn’t understand the tool). At the end of the 1.5-hour call when they realized that they had no flipping clue what they were talking about and that, in fact, the project is just fine, P-DMN (who Boss has asked to run this project so that she actually has work to do) tells ME to write Boss a summary e-mail. Heh. Okay, P-DMN. Boss gets very detailed, concise, summary e-mail memo at 1 a.m. when I finally finished the work (copied to all) that starts with “Dear Boss, P-DMN asked me to send you a summary of our meeting this afternoon.” 
The worst part is that I had several conference calls after that 1 p.m. call today so I insisted on showing senior person the work I completed last night and now I have to hold an entirely different WebEx tomorrow for the two who bailed on me. F&^%!
As for going back to work, not looking good. I have to see a high-risk maternal/fetal medicine specialist Thursday to check the baby because my vitamin levels are all out of whack and I keep losing weight. And the neurologist now wants me to start physical therapy three days a week here near my house. Shit. And I have to see my OB weekly now!! Boss and Big Boss are telling me “No Big Deal” and encouraging me to just work from home, where I’m more productive and can do work in spurts of 3-4 hours, nap, 3-4 hours, nap, etc. But the driven part of me freaks out by that. Still… I am such a fucking mess. When I try to do anything, I get so sick. Honestly, I’m not sure I could drive in every day even if I wanted to and they let me! So the question is whether I go ahead and continue to work from home. Or take full-on disability and just go off the radar completely so I don’t fuck stuff up. Or try to go into work and risk relapse or worse illness issues or whatever. I think what I may do is try to go in on the day each week that I have my OB appointment for a few hours so I have “face time” if the doctor clears it. The good/bad thing is that work is halfway between home and my OB so it wouldn’t be a big deal to stop there for a couple of hours before/after an OB appt. I’m hoping that’s a compromise we can work out.
I was doing well working from home before the headaches/vomiting started. But that just totally incapacitated me and now I feel like a bumbling freaking idiot. Mind you, it’s only been two days since I’ve “been back” so maybe I’ll get better. I sure hope so.
Any words of wisdom from you seasoned career professionals? Honestly I guess I have no choice but to take it day by day and roll with the punches but, shit, can it stop already?!??!?!?!? And can people stop pissing me off?
(Don’t get me started on my family, ALL of whom completely failed to show for my baby shower on Saturday even though 1) they all live in town, 2) I dragged my sick ass and oxygen tank two blocks to FSIL’s for the damn thing and regretted every minute in terms of how I felt physically, and 3) several of them said yes and then didn’t come, leaving FSIL out money, time and effort (so rude!!). And half of them have RSVP’d “no” to my wedding!!! Including my uncle, whose wife apparently thinks divorce and Protestantism are both sins to be avoided. 
I am really feeling hurt at this point but, again, there is only so much a girl can take and I am spilling over. Got to focus on what is right in front of me today.)
Both Mr. V and I give Pumpkinhead a ton of attention and love, reassure him he will be a great big brother and tell him how much the baby will love him and what a great help he will be. It breaks my heart that he is so anxious!!
Yeah… I was really hoping to have one last month at work after the wedding. That said, I was such an unproductive mess at that point in my pregnancy with Pumpkinhead that perhaps it is a blessing in disguise? Wedding planning is going well. Some RSVP disappointments (you know who you are), some pleasant surprises and some etiquette breaches (like my mother’s friend who is single, not dating, and added a guest to her RSVP – when called on it, said she wanted to invite her daughter as a “special surprise.” Um, we’re having a kids-free wedding and, as much as I’d like to pay for extra guests, we just can’t afford it!!) My MOH and bridesmaids threw me an awesome shower last weekend. Mr. V drove me (and my ottoman and pillow) over to the place (only 5 minutes away) and I had a blast with friends and family. Great food, fun games, awesome gifts, amazing company. 
I am very lucky to have such good friends in my life.
