Monday I started a higher dosage of Lyrica: 200 mg twice a day, and I had a subbing job.
Tuesday I was pretty much dead to the world, I slept for most of the day, even somehow managing to answer my father when he told me that my mother was sick and needed to be taken care of because she had a high fever.
But I didn't find this out until much later.
My dad works from 4 until 8, so he came to my room around 3ish to tell me Mom was sick and I'd have to make dinner and whatnot. I don't remember this at all, but he said I answered him.
I woke up around 7:30 to discover my hands and feet, and nose were swollen to the point it was painful the way my skin was stretching to contain the whatever. I was scared, so I went downstairs to get my mother's opinion and found her laid out on the couch with two blankets, shivering. We were quite a pair.
Luckily, as I began to move around, getting food or whatever, it began to dissipate- but I left a message for Dr. S. anyway.
I was going to eat dinner in my room, so I left the phone next to my mother so she wouldn't have to get up to answer it. It rang, then, and it was my brother, Mick. My mother was reassuring him about something, and telling him that sometimes, at school, "these things happen." I knew then it had something to do with Manny, Mick's son, so I waited to find out what it was.
You would think that since the school got the news that Manny was diagnosed as autistic (1 in 110), and that his doctor recommended he have a full-time aide at school, that his teacher would keep an extra eye on him until the paperwork goes through.
Not the case.
When Debra brought Manny home from school she smelled something. She checked Manny out and found it: poop. On his hand. She asked him when he'd gone to the bathroom and he said snack time, which is 10 o'clock in the morning. He had poop on his hand all day.
I can't explain how upsetting this was. Yes, these things do sometimes happen, but in Manny's case there were three teachers in the room that know he needs special attention. If this could get through, what else could?
It's so scary, he's just a little boy. A little boy even more vulnerable than the average kindergartner. Regardless of his place on the autism spectrum, he's supposed to be safe at school. Yes, kids fall and break their arms on the playground, it happens, but this wasn't an injury.
It's been dealt with, though, and Manny's paperwork got an extra push through the system because of it.
Wednesday morning Dr. S.'s office called and told me to go back on the 150 mg dosage of Lyrica until my next appointment with him, which is at the end of this month-- which means yet another month of symptoms. Another month of this discomfort- the aches, the burning in my skin, the exhaustion...
I worked Thursday and Friday and have spent a grand total of 6 hours awake since I got home on Friday...well, plus 4 now, counting this morning. What am I going to do about getting a job? What if lightning strikes and I actually get a job before I see Dr. S. again?
My stomach is still killing me (Mystery Diagnosis and Other Medical Issues, Harry Potter and the Stomachache from Hell)...I just took a Vicodin so I need to wrap this post up before the tasty, tasty drugs start making me goofy. Dr. S. gave me the name of a new gynecologist, so I've got to make an appointment. Dr. S. said she's known for her laparoscopic skills, so we still might get a diagnosis of endometriosis. I'd be happy with any diagnosis, though, as long as the pain stops, with as few side effects as possible...I don't know if I can take any more.
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