Sunday, November 2, 2008

Halloween 2008

This Halloween was nothing I would have ever expected.
I have been sick on and off for two whole weeks. I thought I was on the healing route this past week, but boy, was I wrong.

I went in to the doctors office for a cold I had for a week and it just wasn't getting any better. He gave me an antibiotic and it helped a lot. but the minute I was done taking the dosage, all of my symptoms were back. I tried to just take it easy but on Wednesday the following week I felt like I had the flu. I called a sub and went to the doctor where he gave a stronger antibiotic. It was called Factive. I started to take it and I was feeling a little bit better. Last Tuesday I took my last pill. I wouldn't say I felt like a million bucks but I was feeling better then usual.
That night I had to go to my new teacher cohort meeting in Pleasant Grove and then I had to hurry back and for my visiting teachers to stop by. As I was leaving the Elementary school I noticed my legs were a little itchy. I lifted my pant leg and noticed a few red bumps. I didn't think much of it and carried on with my schedule. Later that evening after the visiting teachers left I went into the back room to talk to Mark. The whole time I was just scratching away at my leg. Mark called my attention to it and I lifted up my pant legs and my legs had more red bumps. I pulled up my shirt sleeves and my arms had a few red bumps too. This was when I began to think that I had hives. I called mom to ask if it was common to get hives after taking the full dosage of medicine. She said that it can happen but its not as common. I decided to take some Benadryl and go to bed. I knew I would be okay in the morning.

When Mark woke me up the next morning I was a little surprised to find I was covered from head to toe with red bumps. I quickly got ready for work and headed to the school. I was supposed to go to a new teacher math conference that morning so I had arranged for a half day sub already. I decided I would just extend my lesson plan for a whole day and call my sub and just make arrangements for her to stay the whole day. I didn't even think twice that maybe my sub could not sub the entire day for me. Thanks goodness my fellow first grade team members helped me find a sub for the second half. I headed home to rest and take a heaping dosage of Benadryl.

I slept the day away and it seamed that the hives were just getting worse. By that evening Mark came home and was preparing to go to Young Mens. I decide to get up and walk around for a minute. The minute I got up I became faint and I blacked out. Luckily Mark was there to catch me. Mark helped me to the bed so I could lay down and relax. We decide right then I needed to get to a hospital. Mark called for our Home teacher to come help give me a blessing. Mom and Dad came over to help get me in the car and get me dressed to go outside.

Mark took me over the the Orem Community Hospital at 6:45, and just our luck they were busy. We got registered at the desk and then we had to wait for the 3 people in front of us. When they finally called my name they whisked off into a room and started to check my vitals. My blood pressure was very low, I had a temperature of 102.8 and I was dehydrated. They hooked me up to an IV and then I waited. They ran some more test on me and found that my white blood count was very high. Mark was a little upset with the doctor that came in and told us that from what he could see I had an allergic reaction to something and that was why I was covered with a rash, and I had some kind of infection for my white blood count to be so high. We kinda already knew all that. So he wrote me a prescription for something to help with the itching and told me to stay home for the rest of the week unless i started to feel better. Needless to say the ER doctor was very helpful. We finally left the hospital at 11:30pm.

We went home where I slept for a few hours but was up with uncontrollable itching and coughing. I went into the bathroom to find my face swollen. I couldn't get back to sleep after that, and I was keeping Mark up. I stayed up for the rest of the evening on the couch watching Ocean's 12. When Mark's alarm went off for him to go to work, I called mom to see if she could come over and get me so I could get my prescription filled and to stay with me because with the swelling in my face, the doctor was worried that my throat might swell up and cut off my air supply. Mom came and got me and found me looking like this.

I was just lucky enough, once again to have my team help me find a substitute and prepare my classroom with sub plans.

I ended up at the doctor later that day where they ran more tests on me. They decided to give my body some time to rest and they wanted to see me again in the morning.

The next day was Halloween. I was going to have to miss my very first Halloween as a teacher. I didn't have to worry about finding a sub thank goodness because my team had already arranged one. As much as I wanted to go I knew I couldn't go looking like this. This is what my body looked like as of Friday evening.

This is my leg.






















My back.



My arm.













Thank goodness the swelling in my face finally went down too.

So I guess the moral of this story is... I won't be taking Factive anytime soon.
I'm so sad that i missed my first Halloween. On a funnier note I did have mom take me up to the school so I could see all the kids dressed up. I was able to walk in my room and it in the back and watch my kids for 15 minutes with out any of them noticing me. I also was able to poke my head into my mentor teacher's classroom and say hello and she had to ask who I was.
As of today my arms and face are starting to look like normal and the red spots that cover the rest of my body are starting to look lighter. I am going to attempt teaching school tomorrow in slippers.