Hello! I was out of it for few week as I was pretty sick. Here is the story.
For those who do not know for the past three years occupationally I have been a Wholesale Mortgage Banker. I help Loan Officers and Mortgage Brokers get home loans for their clients. I work for a large company that in 2008 bought the company I had been working for since 2007 and they became a mortgage lender. I very much enjoy the mortgage business and I do like my job!
On Tuesday December 15th I started feeling ill and i went home around 11 AM and crashed. On my way home I checked in with my office and talked to Catherine my inside sales asst or CSR (Customer Service Representative ) and she told me that I needed sleep.
Catherine thinks that because I struggle with being a workaholic that I sometimes work too much and end up needing rest. (In most matters Catherine is usually correct)
I was too sick to go work on Wed and same on Thursday. I was showing some of the symptoms of the flu (Chills and Sweating). On Thursday the doctor said that I had the flu and that I needed rest.
I did not think that I had the flu as I was not at all congested. However I was weak and tired and had the chills pretty bad.
Friday morning I woke up at 3 am with my neck really hurting and the lymph nodes in my glands aching really bad. I got up and put some hot towels on neck and that was comforting. I ended up putting a heating pad across my neck and that felt great. Friday I stayed home from work as well.
I kept hoping that I would get better as I had bought my family tickets to the Mt. Hood Railroad Holiday Brunch train on Sunday dec 13th. However, due to the inclement weather we were having in Portland (and in the Columbia Gorge) on Friday the 11th I got a call letting us know that they were canceling all train excusrions for the weekend. On Friday the 11th I was able to get our family’s reservations moved from Sunday the 13th to Sunday the 20th.
Sunday the 20th was fast approaching and I was not getting better. I had wanted to take my family on this Chrsitmas time adventure for a few years now and this was the first year we could afford it.
So thanks to the magic of Theraflu (the Warming Relief liquid) and Advil I went with my family on Sunday the 20th to Hood River and we had a great time! (well mostly – by about 4:00 when we got off the train I was feeling pretty bad)
I will blog about our Mt. Hood Railroad trip soon as it was pretty cool.
On Saturday night the 19th I had developed a small blister on my tongue, since I already felt bad I did think much about it.
By 4:00 PM Sunday the 20th my tongue was very swollen and about half of it was all white like it had been burned and it hurt something fierce.
We had taken two vehicles to Hood River and I had my older daughter Chelsea (she is 18) and her boyfriend with me. He had come down from Seattle to join us.
Oh Yeah – Chelsea and her 19 month old son moved in with us on December 8th that is another cool story I will tell soon as well.
I was to drive Chelsea’s boyfriend to the Amtrak station in Portland as he was going back to Seattle on the train at 7:00 PM sunday night.
We made it to the Amtrak station and by then I could not really talk very well as my tongue was twice as big as normal.
We left the train station and I headed right for Urgent Care.
When we got there I ended up seeing the same Nurse Practitioner who had helped me with my broken foot in October.
She had had a couple of people come in and look at me and they decided that I needed to go to the hospital to see a ear nose and throat specialist that night -right away! So off I went to the hospital. They had called ahead and got me all sent up.
While there it was discovered that I had an infection in body and my tongue was swelled up and messed up due to the infection. They said it was good that my tongue had the problems it did as the infection had been getting bad and theraflu as good as it is -does not actually fight infection.
I was given some wonderful pain pills and an IV.
Once the pain pills took affect I called my Sales Manager and let him know that I might not make the sales meeting in the morning.
He thought I was drunk or stoned – as I could not talk very well due to my swollen tongue and the pain pills made me kind of loopy.
When he finally figured out I was calling him from the hospital he said something about wokaholism and told me to get off the phone and get better.
They decided to do a cat scan to check for more infection in the deep tissue in my neck and to see if they were going to need to consider surgery.
While waiting for the cat scan I sent some crazy texts to my friend Ken about stuff I had learned in English PACEs in High School – Indirect Objects and when to use A or An and I told him to read the Articles of Determiners. (If you do not know what a PACE then you can be assured that you did not attend an ACE school)
I do not know where that stuff came from I hated English in school and I am not fond of grammar.
I also told Chelsea (who was still with me) how her and I will help the people in the hospital treating me get mortgages. I told Chelsea about the Patriot Act and the KYC (Know Your Customer) portion of the Patriot Act that tells us that we need to put “Homemaker” on these people’s mortgage applications.
Exasperated, Chelsea said wisely “What in the hell are you talking about!!!”
I told her that I did not know for sure however the KYC portion of the Partoit Act it had something to do with Kentucky Fried Chicken.
At that point I could tell that I was really out of it I decided to not call anyone else, not send any more texts and just sit quietly. I may be insane I just did not want the doctors and nurses to find out about it.
The cat scan went well and they decided that they could treat me with heavy antibiotics and steroids (to reduce the swelling in my tongue). My IV got a heavy workout!
I was able to go home from the hospital the next day and by Wednesday the 23rd I could talk more normally and by Christmas I was well enough to make a wonderful Christmas dinner.
I was able to go to the office on Monday the 28th and that was a good thing as I was suffering from terrible work withdrawals!
By New Yers Eve I felt fully recovered.
I have alot of blogging to catch up on and a few adventures I had in the beginning of December 2009 to tell you about.
I hope that you had a great New Years Eve! Below are some pics related to this story.
