{"id":3236,"date":"2015-07-21T14:55:22","date_gmt":"2015-07-21T19:55:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hectic-dad.com\/hectic-dad\/?p=3236"},"modified":"2015-07-21T14:55:22","modified_gmt":"2015-07-21T19:55:22","slug":"an-update-on-my-sick-girl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hectic-dad.com\/hectic-dad\/an-update-on-my-sick-girl\/","title":{"rendered":"An update on my sick girl"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s been a week since I wrote Kiss it and make it better, please<\/a> and I’m humbled by the outpouring of concern over social media. Folks that I only know through the ether reached out and gave me a ton of support that I never expected. I didn’t write the post for that purpose, I really wrote it because I had to\u00a0do something<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, over the past week I haven’t been able to do much. Most of the time, she’s been laying on the couch, curtains drawn, in as dark an environment as possible. We’ve had a trip to the ER (again) for a lumbar puncture. The goal was to rule out an infection of her spinal fluid. The secondary goal was to try and get the week-old persistent, debilitating headache stopped.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_5664\"After several hours in the ER, she was a little better, and reported that her pain that she’d been rating a 10 since I got here was down to a four. Remember, this is the young lady \u00a0who doesn’t really acknowledge pain. It’s hard to get that across to medical folks who are inundated with overinflated claims of pain. When she said she was at a four, I commented to the med folks that her four translated to an eight for normal folks. They asked if I was being serious, and when I said yes they stepped things up a bit.<\/p>\n

Quite honestly, I’m still very frustrated. I’m used to the pace of medical care. Being married to a doctor for 29 years (!) helps you understand all the things that physicians do outside the tiny bit that patients see in the office or at the hospital. That aside, it took us four days to get the go-ahead for the lumbar puncture that was indicated, in stark relief, on Monday. Even I knew that was going to be necessary. We are now waiting for calls back from three different doctor’s offices. We have an appointment with one, the infectious disease doctor, but it’s not until Friday. That means\u00a0four more<\/em> days<\/em> of waiting. And the waiting is not being accompanied by any significant change in her status.<\/p>\n

She still has serious headaches, her back is spasming frequently, she’s nauseous, and any activity wears her down. When I say “any activity”, a trip across her tiny town home requires a moment of rest. A trip to Wal-Mart almost did her in yesterday. We only went on her insistence that she needed to…you guessed it…do something<\/em>. The nut doesn’t fall far from the tree!<\/p>\n

\"DriveI had hoped that she would be on the mend and I would be headed back to Kansas today. On Monday she went in to work for the annual sales kickoff meeting where she works. It’s a 20 minute drive away, and rather than risk her not being able to drive home later, I drove her to work. She wasn’t joking when she said it was hard not to love the views!<\/p>\n

After dropping her off, I drove back to her town home and showered. Then I sat on the couch, phone in hand, expecting the worst. At 10:15 she called and said she couldn’t make it through the day, not even through midday. So I jumped in the car and drove over to get her. She looked bad, really bad, when I picked her up. Since then she’s been on the couch sleeping and medicating, except for the disastrous trip to Wal-Mart.<\/p>\n

So, rather than driving back to Kansas today, I’m staying with her until at least Friday. At that point we’ll make a decision as to whether I’m leaving or staying. Coupled with that decision is whether she’s going to go back to Kansas to recuperate for a while. The advantage is that she would have a lot more care-givers and the temptation to go into work wouldn’t be there. On the other hand, Hectic Manor is, well,\u00a0hectic<\/em>. We simply don’t know if the additional activity would help her healing or string things out.<\/p>\n

Thus, two days short of two weeks from the onset of this illness, we’re really not a whole lot better off. We know a tiny bit more about what made her sick, but we’re completely unclear as to how long healing will take. We’re asking questions of the infectious disease folks, the neurology folks, and the primary care folks. No one seems to really have a handle on whether we’re looking at a few days of recovery (unlikely, based on her progress or lack thereof) or whether we’re looking at months.<\/p>\n

As you can imagine, talking to a 23 year-old about\u00a0months of recovery<\/em> is a tough thing to do. Talking to\u00a0my 23 year-old<\/em> about months of recovery is devastating, emotionally draining, and terrifying.<\/p>\n

That’s where we stand…in limbo between a once-healthy girl and a future healthy girl with\u00a0no idea<\/em> how long the process will take.<\/p>\n

I wish I could just kiss and make it better. I wish that I could take all the pain into my already old and broken body and let her get back to her active, healthy, fun-filled life. But neither avenue is open to me. I’m stuck here, still wanting to\u00a0do something<\/em> everyday, and having to assuage those desires with making meals, washing & folding laundry, and watching over my sick baby.<\/p>\n

I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating. It’s hard being a parent, and it\u00a0certainly<\/em> doesn’t end when they grow\u00a0up and move out of the house!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s been a week since I wrote Kiss it and make it better, please and I’m humbled by the outpouring of concern over social media. Folks that I only know through the ether reached out and gave me a ton of support that I never expected. I didn’t write the post for that purpose, I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3243,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[50,86],"class_list":["post-3236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-parenting","tag-kids","tag-travel"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\nAn update on my sick girl -<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hectic-dad.com\/hectic-dad\/an-update-on-my-sick-girl\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"An update on my sick girl -\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It’s been a week since I wrote Kiss it and make it better, please and I’m humbled by the outpouring of concern over social media. Folks that I only know through the ether reached out and gave me a ton of support that I never expected. I didn’t write the post for that purpose, I […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.hectic-dad.com\/hectic-dad\/an-update-on-my-sick-girl\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-07-21T19:55:22+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/www.hectic-dad.com\/hectic-dad\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/Drive-View.png?fit=716%2C135&ssl=1\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"716\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"135\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"HecticDad\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"HecticDad\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.hectic-dad.com\/hectic-dad\/an-update-on-my-sick-girl\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.hectic-dad.com\/hectic-dad\/an-update-on-my-sick-girl\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"HecticDad\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.hectic-dad.com\/hectic-dad\/#\/schema\/person\/9363b57936e239608f889fc72fe9fc3b\"},\"headline\":\"An update on my sick girl\",\"datePublished\":\"2015-07-21T19:55:22+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.hectic-dad.com\/hectic-dad\/an-update-on-my-sick-girl\/\"},\"wordCount\":922,\"commentCount\":3,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.hectic-dad.com\/hectic-dad\/an-update-on-my-sick-girl\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hectic-dad.com\/hectic-dad\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/Drive-View.png?fit=716%2C135&ssl=1\",\"keywords\":[\"Kids\",\"Travel\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Parenting\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.hectic-dad.com\/hectic-dad\/an-update-on-my-sick-girl\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.hectic-dad.com\/hectic-dad\/an-update-on-my-sick-girl\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.hectic-dad.com\/hectic-dad\/an-update-on-my-sick-girl\/\",\"name\":\"An update on my sick girl -\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.hectic-dad.com\/hectic-dad\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.hectic-dad.com\/hectic-dad\/an-update-on-my-sick-girl\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.hectic-dad.com\/hectic-dad\/an-update-on-my-sick-girl\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hectic-dad.com\/hectic-dad\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/Drive-View.png?fit=716%2C135&ssl=1\",\"datePublished\":\"2015-07-21T19:55:22+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.hectic-dad.com\/hectic-dad\/#\/schema\/person\/9363b57936e239608f889fc72fe9fc3b\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.hectic-dad.com\/hectic-dad\/an-update-on-my-sick-girl\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.hectic-dad.com\/hectic-dad\/an-update-on-my-sick-girl\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.hectic-dad.com\/hectic-dad\/an-update-on-my-sick-girl\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hectic-dad.com\/hectic-dad\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/Drive-View.png?fit=716%2C135&ssl=1\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hectic-dad.com\/hectic-dad\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/Drive-View.png?fit=716%2C135&ssl=1\",\"width\":716,\"height\":135},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.hectic-dad.com\/hectic-dad\/an-update-on-my-sick-girl\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.hectic-dad.com\/hectic-dad\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"An update on my sick girl\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.hectic-dad.com\/hectic-dad\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.hectic-dad.com\/hectic-dad\/\",\"name\":\"\",\"description\":\"It's a hectic life, but somebody has to blog about it.\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.hectic-dad.com\/hectic-dad\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.hectic-dad.com\/hectic-dad\/#\/schema\/person\/9363b57936e239608f889fc72fe9fc3b\",\"name\":\"HecticDad\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.hectic-dad.com\/hectic-dad\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/451d329704a0194a98f84b0d783a6073fdac032fe1397b2dd17d56208274b0ab?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/451d329704a0194a98f84b0d783a6073fdac032fe1397b2dd17d56208274b0ab?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"HecticDad\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.hectic-dad.com\/hectic-dad\/author\/hecticdad\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"An update on my sick girl -","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.hectic-dad.com\/hectic-dad\/an-update-on-my-sick-girl\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"An update on my sick girl -","og_description":"It’s been a week since I wrote Kiss it and make it better, please and I’m humbled by the outpouring of concern over social media. Folks that I only know through the ether reached out and gave me a ton of support that I never expected. I didn’t write the post for that purpose, I […]","og_url":"https:\/\/www.hectic-dad.com\/hectic-dad\/an-update-on-my-sick-girl\/","article_published_time":"2015-07-21T19:55:22+00:00","og_image":[{"width":716,"height":135,"url":"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/www.hectic-dad.com\/hectic-dad\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/Drive-View.png?fit=716%2C135&ssl=1","type":"image\/png"}],"author":"HecticDad","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"HecticDad","Est. reading time":"5 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.hectic-dad.com\/hectic-dad\/an-update-on-my-sick-girl\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.hectic-dad.com\/hectic-dad\/an-update-on-my-sick-girl\/"},"author":{"name":"HecticDad","@id":"https:\/\/www.hectic-dad.com\/hectic-dad\/#\/schema\/person\/9363b57936e239608f889fc72fe9fc3b"},"headline":"An update on my sick girl","datePublished":"2015-07-21T19:55:22+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.hectic-dad.com\/hectic-dad\/an-update-on-my-sick-girl\/"},"wordCount":922,"commentCount":3,"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.hectic-dad.com\/hectic-dad\/an-update-on-my-sick-girl\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hectic-dad.com\/hectic-dad\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/Drive-View.png?fit=716%2C135&ssl=1","keywords":["Kids","Travel"],"articleSection":["Parenting"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/www.hectic-dad.com\/hectic-dad\/an-update-on-my-sick-girl\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.hectic-dad.com\/hectic-dad\/an-update-on-my-sick-girl\/","url":"https:\/\/www.hectic-dad.com\/hectic-dad\/an-update-on-my-sick-girl\/","name":"An update on my sick girl -","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.hectic-dad.com\/hectic-dad\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.hectic-dad.com\/hectic-dad\/an-update-on-my-sick-girl\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.hectic-dad.com\/hectic-dad\/an-update-on-my-sick-girl\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hectic-dad.com\/hectic-dad\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/Drive-View.png?fit=716%2C135&ssl=1","datePublished":"2015-07-21T19:55:22+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.hectic-dad.com\/hectic-dad\/#\/schema\/person\/9363b57936e239608f889fc72fe9fc3b"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.hectic-dad.com\/hectic-dad\/an-update-on-my-sick-girl\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.hectic-dad.com\/hectic-dad\/an-update-on-my-sick-girl\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.hectic-dad.com\/hectic-dad\/an-update-on-my-sick-girl\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hectic-dad.com\/hectic-dad\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/Drive-View.png?fit=716%2C135&ssl=1","contentUrl":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hectic-dad.com\/hectic-dad\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/Drive-View.png?fit=716%2C135&ssl=1","width":716,"height":135},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.hectic-dad.com\/hectic-dad\/an-update-on-my-sick-girl\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.hectic-dad.com\/hectic-dad\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"An update on my sick girl"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.hectic-dad.com\/hectic-dad\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.hectic-dad.com\/hectic-dad\/","name":"","description":"It's a hectic life, but somebody has to blog about it.","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.hectic-dad.com\/hectic-dad\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.hectic-dad.com\/hectic-dad\/#\/schema\/person\/9363b57936e239608f889fc72fe9fc3b","name":"HecticDad","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.hectic-dad.com\/hectic-dad\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/451d329704a0194a98f84b0d783a6073fdac032fe1397b2dd17d56208274b0ab?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/451d329704a0194a98f84b0d783a6073fdac032fe1397b2dd17d56208274b0ab?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"HecticDad"},"url":"https:\/\/www.hectic-dad.com\/hectic-dad\/author\/hecticdad\/"}]}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hectic-dad.com\/hectic-dad\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/Drive-View.png?fit=716%2C135&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5mM9z-Qc","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hectic-dad.com\/hectic-dad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hectic-dad.com\/hectic-dad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hectic-dad.com\/hectic-dad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hectic-dad.com\/hectic-dad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hectic-dad.com\/hectic-dad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3236"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.hectic-dad.com\/hectic-dad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3236\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3246,"href":"https:\/\/www.hectic-dad.com\/hectic-dad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3236\/revisions\/3246"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hectic-dad.com\/hectic-dad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hectic-dad.com\/hectic-dad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hectic-dad.com\/hectic-dad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hectic-dad.com\/hectic-dad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}