Health Updates

Well, Heather and I have both improved, and Tommy remains ailment-free. Heather and I spent our Fourth of July wishing pharmacies and clinics didn’t observe holidays like Independence Day, but in the end we all survived. She picked up some medicine to help the terrible cough she had, and I grabbed some medicated poison ivy scrub. Her medicine seems to have helped a lot, since by Sunday her non-voice had graduated to a louder whisper and her cough did not sound anywhere near as deathly as it did on Saturday. My poison ivy scrub was not quite as effective, and I spent Saturday night rubbing hydrocortisone (to mask the itch) all over my face every 20 minutes and listening to fireworks pop somewhere outside. Woo! The poison ivy (I’m just assuming that’s what it is, by the way) was spreading rapidly, and by the time I woke up Sunday morning, my face was even more swollen than the previous morning. My right eye was close to swollen shut, and besides being everywhere else on my face, some new bumps had spread to my lips. That just doesn’t seem healthy. So after making sure my house was ready for the incoming group, I left a spare key with Heather and went to Randy, who very graciously allowed me to go to the hospital in Princeton (because no clinics are open on Sunday) and get my semi-balloon face taken care of without worrying about being back in Northfork in time for the arrival of the team and the nightly meeting.

The hospital is only 30 minutes away, and I was gone for nearly 4 hours, so there was a lot of waiting involved, but I made it out just fine. They gave me a shot of a steroid (I’m on the ‘roids now! Don’t mess with me, people. Hahaha) called Decadron, if any medical people wanted to know, and tomorrow I have to fill a prescription for Prednisone pills. I have to start off taking 6 pills a day, and the nurse told me they will make me feel “anxious, nervous, and worried.” So it sounds like I am in for a really fun week! :D She also told me the steroid shot might cause trouble sleeping because it makes people feel hyper and jittery. I didn’t believe her at the time, but when I woke up at 1:50 after 3 hours of sleep, I changed my mind. That was 1 hour and 30 minutes ago, and I’ll tell you what, I have definitely got some energy coursing through me right now. I don’t see sleep in the foreseeable future. Which is great, it’s made for some really awesome prayer time! But I wouldn’t be averse to getting more than 3 hours of sleep to start the work week off with. At least I’m having fun. She wasn’t lying about the hyper part.

The group that was going to stay in my house this week is actually staying with Tommy after all, because he doesn’t have a potentially contagious rash taking over his face. I am fine with this, as I don’t want to have everyone avoiding me like a leper in my own house.

I will be taking a group of 10 back to Ms. Taylor’s house this week. What a blessing it has been to spend so much time working at her house! For 3 weeks now I have been able to get to know her, and there’s still probably another week or two of work to be done. Heather is running a roofing and painting site for a man named Donald Bonds, and Tommy is heading up a group reroofing our own warehouse facility. Aside from the lack of sleep and the anxiety that is apparently awaiting me at the Black Diamond Pharmacy, I feel very excited and optimistic about this week.