Until further notice....

Hey friends...
Just wanted to give a brief update and say...until further notice I probably won't be blogging too much due to an illness. I'm hoping that means only another week or two of recuperating and I'll start feeling somewhat back to normal.  Just to give you a little background...

I had surgery on November 18th.  This was planned, not due to an emergency or anything, so I went into it knowing I would have to recuperate for a few weeks and hoped by Christmas...really before that...I would feel back to normal.  The week after surgery was kind of a blur.  I was taking pain meds, and benedryl to counteract my reactions to those pain meds, and eventually kind of started feeling better.  A week and a day post surgery I went for a follow up at my doctor's office and while I was there I suddenly started feeling terrible.  I was lethargic, flushed, and even my doctor was a little stumped as to what was going on.  I hung out at his office for a while, they brought me drinks and something to snack on, and eventually I felt well enough to leave.  But he wanted me to stay in town (my doctor is an hour away from us) and come back the next day.  I did (thankfully my parents live in town) and that night I started running a low grade fever.  The next day I went back, felt worse, but my fever stayed low grade.  My doctor, and us, thought because everything else seemed ok and my fever wasn't going too high that I had probably gotten the fever/virus that my son had the weekend before.  Made sense.  But I felt terrible.  We ended up just staying another night at my parents because the next day was Thanksgiving and we were planning to come to town anyway.  I continued to run a low grade fever off an on, but had times where I felt a little better.  Thanksgiving Day I felt well enough to eat a good lunch and actually thought I was starting to get over it.  By that afternoon, I was assaulted with a round of terrible chills that lasted a couple of hours and my fever, for the first time, rose to 102.

The doctor recommended that we go to the ER.  After some blood work, a chest x-ray, and a CT scan, it was determined that I had a post-surgical infection.  My white blood cell count was very high and I didn't feel well at all.  I was admitted and ended up staying in the hospital for 3 nights, pumped with antibiotics and fluids.  They've gotten me well enough to go home, but I'm still not close to 100 %. I'm on a couple of antibiotics here at home and thankfully friends and family are helping us take care of the kids while my husband goes back to work and I am recuperating.  I never would've expected this to happen, but I can see several ways that God's hand was in the situation.  I also had some great conversations with some of my nurses and saw just how much I like the group of doctors that I go to.  I'm very thankful for them and how much they checked on me.

So....I need to recuperate.  I can't express how hard it's been not to try and do several things I wanted to do this time of year.  Our Christmas tree isn't even up yet : (.  I hope that'll happen soon!  I wanted to do something for advent, but I don't know if it's going to happen.  No black Friday shopping or even Cyber Monday shopping.  I'm learning that I have to let go of some things in order to help myself get better.  That's hard.  I don't know if it's a mom thing, a woman thing, or just a me thing to give up the control.  Even in the struggles, God teaches us!

I hope all of you have a wonderful Christmas and please keep me and my family in your prayers. During this time my grandfather has also been struggling with some serious health issues and this may be our last Christmas with him.  We don't know that for sure, but it's a definite possibility.  My Dad is also having knee replacement surgery on Wednesday of this week, so we need your prayers in that.  It can all seem very overwhelming.  I've found, however, that when life seems overwhelming, I cling to Christ all the more.  I am desperate for Him.  He has never failed.  Thank you for your prayers and God bless!