Tuesday, I went to the retirement party of my boss at the hospital – Anthony. He might be the best boss I’ve ever had in my life in the toughest job I’ve ever had. He’s been at the hospital 25 years and many people have followed him from department to department to keep reporting to him. His unit has always had the lowest turnover of nursing staff (even though it’s still brisk). Med surg is the New Jersey of the hospital, unglamorous and a little nondescript, but the backbone of the Turnpike – ykwim? Anyways, it was lovely to go – there was SO MUCH FOOD. I saw so many old friends and coworkers. And it’s incredible how you can work with someone for four years and not see them for two and totally forget their name (and it’s weird which ones, some popped into my head immediately, others I still can’t manage even though it’s been days). Congrats Anthony!
OK, on Wed, things started to fall apart. Not in a catastrophic way, just in the regular way. I had gone gardening in our front lawn on Monday and gotten (again!) into some poison ivy. So my reaction started blooming on Wed morning on my arms and on my face again. Edda’s caregiver was coming down with some wicked viral puking thing, so she called out that morning (and would call out the rest of the week) and Jeremy left for a business trip in a corn field and would not be back until Saturday night. So I dropped Jeremy off at the Metro, dropped Edda at camp, went to my desk to work and found I couldn’t concentrate with poison ivy pustules erupting up my arm and took a sick day and took a Benadryl and then napped. At two pm I woke up and thought to myself, I should go for a run and then I looked at my crusting over face and decided – no, I need to go to urgent care to get some steroids. So I saw a very nice NP who gave me the same course of steroids I used only a month ago and took the first dose as I was walking out of the clinic on my way to pick up Edda from camp. Anyways, the last time I took the steroids, my reaction was waning (it had already gone on for more than 2 weeks) and the poison ivy was gone in less than 24 hours, this time, my reaction was just starting and surging, so I could tell that the steroids and my histamines were waging a terrible, drawn out battle on my arm. Impasse. Stalemate. Who was going to win? Well we are on day 4 of steroids and my arm still looks terrible, but the med are winning. And I’m glad I went early to get them. But I still felt very worn out and with Jeremy gone and Edda’s caregiver also gone, I took the rest of the week off as sick days when I didn’t have meetings and besides doing the regular Edda-care, I stayed in bed and read books (I’m reading Hawaii my James Michener to prep for our trip) and tried to go to bed early as my meds would allow.
Jeremy, had, as far as I could tell, a nice trip which involved doing a long bike ride on a bike borrowed from the hotel through corn fields. We texted each other a lot about Pokemon.
In my weird poison-ivy filled steroid/benadryl moodiness, I saw that there was a Taylor Swift merch drop of her og cardigan from the folklore album and in that moment, I dearly wanted this acrylic shapeless article of clothing. So I bought it and here it is. Let’s see if I wear it outside the house and if anyone notices it.
