Head to Toe

Some of you might remember that last summer my big toenail was ripped off while playing with the kids- it was horrible!  Well, ever since then the nail has been growing back pretty nicely until a few weeks ago.  Now the nail is ingrown and it got quite bad while I was away at our winter conference.  I waited until I got back to have it taken care of so that I could see my doctor and by that time it was pretty badly infected.  I'll spare you the details, but it's not a pretty picture.  I've been on antibiotics for about 10 days now and the doctor is just waiting until all the swelling is down to determine whether they will have to remove the whole nail to fix the problem (please pray that it doesn't come to this- I have no desire for the pain or the expense)!  So there's that....then a little over a week ago all four of us got sick with a nasty cold/flu/virus like thing. It started with Lily (and apparently a third of the other kids in her class) and spread to the rest of us.  The big bummer was that Joe was in Florida during all of last week while we were all sick.  It's not very common for him to leave us for that long, but he had some important meetings there for our Lifelines ministry (which went incredibly well, by the way)!  While I'm thrilled that the meetings went so well it was really hard being home alone with two sick kids while feeling quite sick myself.  Joe's mom came up to help for two days and that was an incredible blessing (and allowed me a little extra rest) and the rest of the week I just muddled through (and watched a lot of PBS with the kids)!  Thankfully Joe is back and most everyone is on the mend though they are still a bit worn out with coughs and runny noses.  I, on the other hand, am not fairing quite as well.  There was a day or two in there where I thought I was getting a bit better, but now it's worse again.  In fact, about an hour after Joe got home my ear promptly filled up and became very painful- and I woke the next day to a very congested right side of my face.  I was certain I had a sinus infection and while I still think there might be some of that going on the doctor tells me that I actually have a nasty ear infection. Did you know that adults can get ear infections?  Well, they can- and I have a doosy.  So now I'm on a much stronger antibiotic that will hopefully knock out everything.  In the meantime I am quite literally a walking head to toe infection.  Good times.