to blog! Yes, the new year has been busy. We've had our ups and our downs. Life still isn't quite where it should be, but hopefully in the next week or two, I can get my head back to where it belongs. So what's been going on? Well.....

My baby boy turned 10 on January 18th (yes, that magical night was special for me too!). On the 19th, we boarded a plane bound for Orlando for a week of fun in the warmer weather visiting my parents and a big mouse! Sadly, due to my health, I had to ask my doctor for some help in the pain management department. It helped for the vacation and we had a great, but exhausting time! I had joked before we left that I may very well need a 12-step program by the time I got home, but I was going to do whatever I could to keep up with my family. While I didn't enter a program, I did abruptly stop the pain medicine my doctor had prescribed. As the hours turned into days, I realized very quickly that I was suffering from withdrawl symptoms from Vicodin overuse. Yes, apparently even a mother of 2, a seemingly NORMAL woman can fall into the trap. It took a week to finally feel almost normal again....just in time for my daughter to come down with the worst virus she has ever had. I thought for a couple of days there, she wasn't going to make it (that's how scary it was!) Between the high temp, the body weakness, the fact that she was scared out of her mind, and just the look in her eyes, it was a tough few days. She wound up being out of school for 5 days and sick for a week! Well, by Superbowl Sunday, I was feeling under the weather too! Sure enough, it started on me too. I was fortunate enough to not get hit quite the same way she did. No sooner did she get back to school that my son popped up with a fever and was down for the count for 4 days. All the while, I was trying to get myself back where I needed to be to function.

Then 9 days ago, the unthinkable happened. I went to lay down in the afternoon. When I woke up, I couldn't hear. I freaked out to say the least. The pain in my ears was unbearable. The only noises I could hear were the beating of my heart and an incessant ringing that would not stop. I've never been so scared and nothing was helping to get my hearing back. Saturday I wound up in the ER, with the doctor giving me an antibiotic (which he also told me NOT to take for a day or two...yeah right!) and some cough medicine (non-narcotic, thank you!). By Monday, I was no better. Worse in fact. I'd say I had at least a 70% hearing loss at that point and I was scared. I begged my hubby to stay home and help me fight with the doctor to be seen.

In the end, he wasn't much help. Simply said there is a bunch of wax in my ears and that is causing the hearing loss. He told me to try Debrox twice a day (that stuff is just all kinds of nasty!) and said to keep taking a decongestant...blah blah blah....these things take time....blah blah blah. In the meanwhile, I can't ride in a car without getting dizzy and nauseas from the pressure changes and white noise. It's really not fun. My right ear is doing a little better today, but the left is miserable. I imagine when I wake up in the morning, I won't be able to hear again until I can clear one side or the other. Oh the joy! A couple of nights ago, I even turned on the closed captioning on the tv to make everything easier on my family. I've been blowing the speakers out trying to hear what I'm watching. At least with CC, I can read it without blasting it. Those captioning people though.....two words....spell check!!!

Well that's it in my world. I'm really looking forward to FINALLY getting to see Spamalot on March 5th! I only hope and pray my hearing will be back to normal by then. I see the ENT specialist on the 26th, so hopefully he can give me a solution. If he can't, I may just have to take an ice pick to my head.

With that lovely thought, I bid you all a good night. I'm off to hack up a piece of lung or two and blow my nose until the cat comes home!