Monday, March 26, 2012

The Odyessey of Un-Wellness

A little over a week ago I had the joy of welcoming six wonderful girls into my home and showing them around my lovely city. Kinda.

These World Racers were looking to experience a little Belgrade during their month long stay in Serbia. They showed up on Friday and we immediately went fortressing and did bus passes and had an authentic Serbian meal with a ton of meat. We had plans to get up the next morning and explore more of the city. Except my body took a bit of an exception to said plan. I figured I'd let you in on the events of that week. Actually over a week now, they came two fridays ago. Its gross and long, so if you don't want to hear it you should skip this post. I won't be offended.

Friday night: After eating copious amounts of meat, we return to my flat. The girls camp out in the living room and Nina and I spend some time talking in my room. She was here maybe an hour and during that time my congestion flared up (I had been experiencing cold symptoms since the previous week) and my ear started to hurt. So in the midst of our serious conversation, I got a little whiny. Nina headed home about 11 or so. I made sure to corral the cats and headed off to bed myself. Not twenty minutes into this "going to bed" my ear starts to hurt. Like super bad. It was like having a migraine in your inner ear. Those of you that get migraines know what I'm saying. The rest of you: I totally understood why Van Gogh cut off his own ear.
   After a few hours of this, I begin to get a little desperate. I've taken tylenol and I've held heat to it. Nothing is working. My astute mother decides its an ear infection and that "you just have to wait these things out". Not happening. I could be dead. I tell her that. She tells me to call a doctor.
   So here I am at 4:30 in the morning, in Serbia, in need of a doctor I obviously can't get. So I lay down to wait. I decide that 7-8 is a good range before I start making desperate calls to the wives on my team. About 6 or so, things change. The pain lets up and before I can get too excited my ear starts leaking. Now I'm in panic mode. My ear is leaking/draining yellowish fluid, I'm starting to lose my hearing and I'm still in pain. I shoot off a quick text asking Jen to call me when she gets up and then I wallow with a napkin attached to my ear.

Saturday: Jen calls somewhat in a panic. I'm not known for being awake at 6, much less sending lucid texts. She gives me the number for the doctor and tells me to call stat. Fluid leaking isn't a good thing. I call the doctor. At this point I can barely hold the phone to my ear because the sound is so painful. They have an appointment at 1:30. Super. How many more hours to go?
    At this point its pretty obvious that I'm going to be unable to sight see. The dripping ear kinda sealed that deal. So I go out to tell the girls. I'm sure I looked a mess. They were concerned, but being the intrepid adventurers they are they headed out on their own. I waited till about 1 and then decided to get ready. As I was standing in the bathroom attempting to brush my teeth I was hit with a wave of nausea. Ten minutes later I was sitting on the bathroom floor making the decision that the doctor would just have to forgive my bad breath because no way was I going to manage to clean myself up that much. Randi came by to give me a ride to the hospital.
     At this point I'm running on adrenaline. I haven't slept in at least 24 hours and I'm leaking fluid and I can't hear anything out of my left side. We headed off to the "fit for a tea party" hospital to see what was wrong. The doctor visit took all of ten minutes, maybe. She basically asked for my symptoms and then looked in my ear. OH and then she's all like, "Do you mind if I take a swab of your nose and ear?" And I'm all like, "Sure kind doctor. I totally trust you." AND WHAT DOES SHE DO? She shoves the longest q tip I have ever seen straight up my nose and into my brain. She had to hold my head with quite a bit of force because I tried to get away from the thing jammed into my nose. This is not what I imagined. AND THEN she stuck it in the other nostril. I'm still reeling from the shock of the first nasal intrusion and she just jams it up the second nostril. I almost threw up on her right there. Anyway, I man up and walk out with a handful of prescriptions.
 On the way to the Apoteka, we sit next to a lovely young man at the intersection with the loudest bone shaking bass I have ever heard in Serbia. Yes, it was painful. Almost as painful as when I went inside to get my prescriptions and they cut the power. This not only delayed my transaction but it also set off the screeching alarm system. It just wasn't my day obviously. That afternoon the ear continued to drain. I would lay on my side and I could actually hear and feel it gurgling around and then I could feel the liquid drip out of my ear. Somewhere around late afternoon it began to drain blood. Which is obviously more distressing than pus, but still a normal symptom of a ruptured ear drum. Oh and that pain? Intense. Still.


What you really need to know at this point is that I'm draining blood, the girls are camped in my living room, I'm now partially deaf and still sensitive to sound, oh and I tested positive for pneumonia. The pneumonia was/still is apparently building a little bacteria colony in my sinus cavity. Super.

The entire weekend I am a dripping, mostly bed ridden mess. They were such troopers though. They went out and saw the city, put up with my nastiness, and were incredibly sweet and accommodating. I, on the other hand, was unable to troop. I was on copious drugs and under orders (from the doctors and my Serbian moms) to stay at home.
  
 So I did. All week. I didn't stop draining blood until tuesday. I didn't eat until wednesday. I mostly slept when I could and watched tv on mute the rest of the time. The pain didn't subside until today really and I'm still sick. I'm going on three weeks now. One of general cold symptoms, one of oozing ear and sinus issues, and now I'm pushing on in to week three of congestion and healing. I'm slowly getting my hearing back after being deaf all last week. I'm slowly getting back out into the world, first for Africa night and then for a work meeting this morning.

I went to the doctor this morning too.  Not only was she 45 minutes late to an 8:30 appointment, but I almost threw up on her again. The antibiotic regimen makes me sickly in the mornings. This was compounded by the fact that she was slightly panicked over the fact I was still mostly deaf in my ear. Not a good sign when your doctor is panicked. After digging around in it for 20 minutes, she couldn't really say anything other than "be patient" and "I think it'll be fine". Super. She was also incredibly concerned over the bacteria lurking in my nose. I walked out with a handful of brand new prescriptions (including nose drops) that should combat the bacteria and orders to come back in 7-10 days. 

So here we are. I'm alive, which is pretty darn good considering the alternative. I have some hearing in my left ear. I'm not longer draining yellow pus and blood from my ear. I have drugs to put in my nose and kill my little bacteria friends. Oh and the doctor "thinks" it'll all be alright. Super.

Sunday, March 25, 2012

I love girl scouts and africa and green things

I should know better than to write a post saying I will be blogging more frequently. Its like asking for something to happen in order to prevent that. What happened you ask? Ruptured eardrum and pneumonia. More on that disgusting week later. This post is just a little treat to get me used to blogging again. I'm a bit out of practice.


Cole has decided that he likes the boxes much more than their contents. He also likes to chew pieces of cardboard off and spit them on the floor. All night long.

So I made a green cake for bible study because of St.Patrick's Day. Doesn't matter that we were four days early, we had cake!

The box of loveliness that my wonderful momma sent. It would be a shame to miss out on girl scout cookies just because I live on the other side of the world. Especially since I have two girl scouts in the family.

The number 65 likes its money dirty. Days like this make me miss Jacktown.


Oh! It was also Africa night. And Randi's birthday. Once a month we get together as a team and celebrate the end of the Awana unit the kids are currently studying. This month was Africa. I walked in to the girls dancing on the wii in their African garb and then got to enjoy some Serbian/African food...with my hands of course. Check out some of these action shots at dinner.


Connor and Brooke enjoying...African food. Sorry guys, with only half my hearing I can't be sure what it was called. There is corn and cabbage though...and some meat...and other stuff.

Kyleigh showing how its done, total boss. Kyle was trying to get away with ignoring the cabbage on his plate. Didn't work.

Michaela showing off how delicious she thought it all was. Notice her untouched plate. Her verdict: Delicious!

Really what all the kids were waiting for: the birthday cupcakes. Chocolate, white frosting, with some of the first strawberries of the season to place on top. Wonderfulness.

Monday, March 12, 2012

A little this and that for your monday

The blogging has been incredibly slow lately, my apologies. Belgrade pretty much shut down for a few months there. We continued daily life, but everything was covered in snow and I couldn't take pictures because my metal camera was liable to give me frost bite. Now the streets are clear and its as if nothing ever happened. Insanity. Expect to see more blogging now that I can actually show you things, not just things shrouded in whiteness. If you've seen some of these already, oh well. I was looking back through and trying to think of the photos I had yet to share.

The view of New Belgrade from the Fortress.

Sauce with chocolate taste. I was surprised because most brands don't seem to care about false advertising. Good thing the chocolate industry is so regulated.

This little dog was so fat it didn't even fit in its little snow suit. Look at the little rolled up legs. This dog was owned by the most shrunken little lady ever. She was so old and wonderful. She was also letting him get dangerously close to traffic on one of the most insane crossings in Old Belgrade. Poor guy.

This is from the Sunday explosion of costume characters. I can always depend on the mall to have something or other parading around. Before you start thinking I don't work and only chill at the mall, this was taken during a slight pause in my english conversational class. Hows that for multi tasking?

Cole is the perfect height to sit on his butt on the laundry basket and keep watch on the parking lot. This is how he likes his Serbia, four floors down.

The best pizza ever. Might also be the biggest, this is their small size. I'll have to remember to take a photo of the huge one.

Yes, that is a mexican man on my pizza box.

Cole tends to think of himself as a small child.

Lola is all, "whatevs".

Serbian Harry Potter, they even transliterated her name.

This was the weirdest thing. This is my drying wrack for laundry. It has no flat space, just these wire like things to hang your clothes on. Cole managed to jump up without knocking the precarious thing over and then he balanced and took a nap on my laundry and the tight ropes.

Twice.


My not so wonderful cheesecake from McDonald's.

Kyleigh's homeschool project: Zeus.

and Athena.

The convenient hostess gift display at Maxi. Coke, cookies, wine in a carton, etc.

Monday, March 5, 2012

Here we go a fortressing...

Nina and I were wandering around on the other side of the river the other day. We were meandering, talking girl talk and buying souvenirs...mindlessly making our way over to the fortress. The fortress is one of those places that you may go to a million times or almost never, depends on how often you act as tour guide. I never fail to notice something new on each trip though. I took some photos of those things, especially since we hiked our way around the back side...which I had never done. Also, I might have mentioned that McDonald's is the hotspot for making out with you honey. Let me clarify that if you want to accomplish that after dark in a totally sketchy place you should head to the fortress for your mackin.

So here are some photos along with Nina's helpful advice. Without her I would probably fall to my death or be stolen by occultists. 

The crumbling walls. Nina says that you don't want to walk on walls like that because they could all of a sudden crumble and you could die.

The fortress also houses a military museum and all these nifty cannons and things.

Walking towards the river side.

These are the men that guard the tiny Orthodox church on the fortress grounds.

Church Ruzica (Rose church) is dedicated to soldiers and has chandeliers made from bullets and old weapons.

More of the Rose Church.

Right down the hill is another notable Orthodox church that is built around a holy spring.

The church is dedicated to Saint Petka and the miraculous waters of the spring are said to be especially beneficial to women.

Walking along the back side of the fortress.


There is a now defunt observatory along this path, as well as a very pretty park with a river view.

Nina said that this sign was missing the "may". As in, "walking in this area you may risk your life". Pssh, there is no possibility of death in Serbia...only certainty!

The risk of life area...also known as Roman ruins and occultist caves.

Running underneath the fortress is an intense labyrinth of caves. Just by entering you are guaranteeing that you will eventually become lost and wither away. Urban legend also claims that this is where the truly scary people hang out after dark. i.e. you don't want to hang around after the sun goes down. I don't know how true that is, but it gets mighty creepy as night falls.


Belgrade at night.

Looking towards our side of the river from the fortress grounds. 


I hope you enjoyed our fortress jaunt as much as we did. I'm sure you'll see plenty more of it as I get the opportunity to show it off to more people.

Friday, March 2, 2012

Foto Friday: No Snow

Its only been a few days, but the snow is almost entirely gone. In the spirit of warm temps and clear streets, here are some river front shots that I'm sure look wonderful in the summer. I got to spend a few hours with some friends seeing parts of my immediate neighborhood that I had somehow failed to see up until this point. Check it:

Some wonderful graffiti on these vent thing a ma bobs.

The infamous barges.

They're restaurants and bars, quite the place to hang out after dark.

Although, I feel like if anyone were to go on the back of this one then everyone would end up underwater.

The walls along the river front.

Very stalkerish, but I was legit just taking a photo of the whole scene...right as this guy and his dog took off running.

Lies.


Sprucing things up for much warmer weather and bigger crowds.