Shingles.

I’m recovering. Slowly. I’ve not felt so poorly in a long time. My lesions have mostly healed and gone away, leaving just scars, but the pain remains pretty intense. I’ve taken more ibuprofen in the last week and a half than I think I did for the entire year prior. I’m working and functioning but man. I’m over it. The nerve pain is intense. Really intense. My poor little boys go to hug me and freeze. They’re getting good and not wrapping their arms around my right side.

Monday afternoon I noticed my left eye was squinting and my right eye wasn’t. By the evening, my smile was uneven and eating was difficult. My face wasn’t responding normally. I called my doctor the next morning, but they didn’t have any doctors working. They suggested urgent care. Urgent care asked me a couple questions and sent me to the emergency room. The emergency room clearly didn’t see the urgency, because I sat in the waiting room for hours and hours. I finally saw a doctor about six hours later. They did a ct scan, a mri, and said they wanted me to stay overnight and have a lumbar puncture done in the morning. I started to ask a lot of questions. Blood work and all scans showed no issues whatsoever. Why are we digging? I just had shingles. Ramsay Hunt is precisely this. I got a lot of scare tactics thrown at me and I ended up staying. The next morning I asked more questions, having been on heart monitors all night. Why??? It felt like a train, picking up speed and taking me along whether I liked it or not. Finally, the neurologist listened. He agreed with me. Asked a few incredulous questions of his own. Told the overseeing doc to discharge me, skip the lumbar puncture, and let me be. I think there were a few upset people over that. He overruled everyone in that moment. Ramsay Hunt was my official diagnosis.

So I went home. I got two days off, but the hospital was anything but restful. I am still struggling to feel well. I came home with new meds for the nerve pain, and I do think they help. It’s not great though.

I requested to go to just Mondays at dispatch, and was granted that. I start that tomorrow 12 hours 5am-5pm. I’m dreading the 12 hour days again, but looking forward to only having to do that one day a week. Getting up at 3:30am to get ready and drive half an hour to work day after day is for the birds.

I don’t know what’s next. We’ve had a lot of conversations and come to no conclusions. Figuring out how to make it on less money right now isn’t working, so me not working isn’t possible. I’ll be driving bus morning and afternoon Tuesday-Friday except getting off one afternoon a week for co-op. That’s a lot less stress and less hours – 6:30-8am and 3-5 pm. I can take a couple of my kids with me for my routes. I like driving the bus a lot.

Thursday was our 21st anniversary, and Eden and Kevin kept all the kids save Lachlan for a sleepover at his apartment Friday so we could celebrate. We got to go out alone and then went and got Lach and took him home. I had a cross country meet to drive the bus for Saturday morning and had planned to take Lach with me. He and I hung out waiting for the meet to finish. It was good one on one time with the baby.

The wedding is two weeks from yesterday. I have sewing projects to finish and haven’t wrapped my head around what else. It kind of all feels like drowning.