Apologies for the delayed blog post. But things have settled down and everyone is okay.
If you missed the earlier message, the blog was delayed because I was sitting in a walk-in clinic with Cami who was suffering from a 103° fever that she’s been battling on and off for the last three days.
Why didn’t I prepare the blog last night? Good question. Basically, it was the culmination of a handful of frustrations over the last few days.
As I mentioned, Cami has been sick since Monday. Fever, chills, exhaustion — the whole ball of wax. She went to the doctor on Monday, but they couldn’t diagnose her. It wasn’t strep, it wasn’t mono. It was something that was just passing through her system.
Cami being sick puts me on Henry Duty full time. I don’t mind it, but managing a 2 year-old is much easier when you have someone you can tag-team with. Monday night wasn’t bad, actually. I made him dinner, we played with toys, I gave him a bath and read him bedtime stories. Once he was settled down, I recorded our weekly broadcast of The Triple Feature. All routine.
Tuesday was… worse. The novelty of hanging out with Daddy wore off. Henry wanted his Mommy and couldn’t understand why she couldn’t be around him. Reminder: The is no reasoning with a 2 year-old. They want what they want and if they can’t have it, they wail.
That really makes you feel like a hero — When your chasing your child around the house trying to keep his shoes on his feet while he’s crying for his Mommy. At that point, you basically have to become a hard ass and say “Well, you’re already crying for no good reason, so we might as well continue doing things you hate and you can deal with it once I’ve buckled you into the car seat.”
I had a doctor’s appointment myself on Tuesday to have someone take a look at a head-to-toe rash I’ve been suffering from. Which, as it turns out, was an alergic reaction to an antibiotic I was taking to clear up a different skin condition!
That’s probably too much sharing. I’m sure your not interested in my rash. I’m just building a case for why Tuesday sucked.
So, I come back from the doctor’s appointment I took during my lunch break putting me behind on today’s comic which I had hoped to draw and ink over that hour. I put in my remaining four hours for the day and head out to the parking lot.
I try to start my car — nothing. The battery has died. Meanwhile, Cami is still at home sick and can’t drive to pick Henry up from day care. I call my inlaws who were planning on coming over to our house yesterday evening anyway to help Cami with Henry while I was at my night class and they swing by to pick him up on their way over (thank goodness they have a car seat in their car already!)
Meanwhile, I sit in the freezing cold waiting for a tow truck service that I’ve called to find me in the parking lot for a half hour. He gives the car a jump and charges me $50 for the trouble. Talk about highway robbery! But what can you do?
At this point I only have a half hour to make it to my night class before it starts. So my dinner comes from a vending machine. The class itself was fine and luckily my car started up again afterwords. By the time I got home, took a hot shower and had a proper dinner, it was 10:30 and I hadn’t started on the comic yet.
Some penciling, inking, scanning, coloring, shading, and lettering later and it was 3:00 in the morning. Blogging was out of the picture.
I went to bed anticipating about 3 hours of sleep before having to get up and go back to work. Of course Truman decides he wants to go out at 4:00 in the morning, so that kind of shot that idea down.
Went back to bed, got up again at 6:00 and Cami said she needed to go to the doctor again after waking up in a cold sweat. We put Henry in the car and took him to daycare before Cami and I turned around and went to the walk-in clinic.
Again, the doctors couldn’t find anything wrong with her. They did a battery of tests, even took a blood sample. Basically the only thing they learned is that her white blood cell count was a little low and that typicall means your body is fighting a virus of some kind. There are no antibiotics to fight it. You’re body just has to work it out.
And that brings us to the present!
I’m glad Cami doesn’t have anything serious like mono or… goodness knows what. And I’m sure things will get back to normal soon. But the last 24 hours have been a challenge and that’s pretty much all that’s on my mind at the moment. Truthfully, I’m still kind of cheesed about the $50 charge for a battery jump! But today is a new day.
Now, if you excuse me, I’m going to pass out.
At least, not since the "incident."
But if I don't go in there women's restroom, I could lose my job!
I'll get someone else to do it for me!
One for Paul Blart, please
TOM! I need you to do something for me!
Aww! I was gonna see Paul Blart again!
I need you to go into the women's restroom.
Dear Penthouse, I never thought it would happen to me, but...
Geeze Tom! Sorry you’ve had such a rough week! Hope you all get back to normal soon!
Bro, next time take care of yourself and your fams. we’ll all understand if the comic is a day or two late.
Get well soon People! Are you from the midwest? I think they love giving antibiotics there even when it wont help. Antivirals are available now but you have to take them on the inset of symptoms. Feel better; being sick sucks.
And BTW congrats on the new site with RSS; I’m a big fan but need reminders 🙂 Love your work; keep it up.
Jason,
Yeah, we’re from the Midwest. Actually, it concerns me how readily antibiotics are prescribed. But sometimes you need some – anything – even if it’s a placebo.
Glad you like the RSS! Expect some formatting changes there in the future to align the feed more closely with the visuals found on the site!
Nathan,
I was planning on posting a picture of Henry around his second birthday in a couple of weeks. I did exactly that last year and I think it would be a nice tradition to let readers know how he’s doing and how he’s growing up!
Hope she gets well soon. But onto my bigger thought, has it really been 2 years since Henry was born !?!?!?! :O Where has the time went here was me thinking he was just almost a year old. I apparently pay no attention to anything :O
Was the antibiotic a sulfa drug? I’ve had that reaction before – apparently it’s quite common. I don’t know why they still make the stuff.
Take care and get well soon!
Actually, yes. It was a sulfa drug. My dermatologist suggested I wait one week or maybe two for the rash to clear up before turning in my the prescription for tetracycline that she gave me.
I’ve been on tetracycline before and it’s worked for me. I should have asked for it to begin with.
First off I hope Cami gets over the bug soon. I also hope you & Henry don’t catch whatever it is. I just had to get some antibiotics today from my Dr. due to a nasty sinus infection I have. I’ve been stuffed up for nearly two weeks now. It’s so hard for me to tell when I’m really sick since I have allergies and they’re widening the main highway we live off of. The construction is kicking up alot of dust and since it’s been dry it blows over into our subdivision all day. We really need the rain.
I really sympathize about your rash. One of the first times I had a really bad infection I was given a penicillin derivative and found out the hard way I’m allergic to it. I broke out in head-to-toe hives as well as feeling kinda nauseated.
Can’t believe the dog wanted out at 4am. We always take our gal out just before bed, sometime between 10 & 11pm normally, and she has rarely ever bothered us to go out before my hubby has to get up for work at 6. Some weekends we’ve even gotten her to let us sleep in as late 8:30am! Wow! Dogs must have little bladders at times. hehehe
Anyways I hope things start to look up for you. You can send some of your cold weather down to FL. We almost got snow even the other week but it’s 80 today and my car’s A/C seems to not be working again. 🙁 I got a good laugh though at Tom writing a Penthouse Forum letter. Too funny! 🙂
Dude, AAA – it’s worth it. If nothing else, for all the free maps and guidebooks you can get. But the occasional free roadside rescue is a definite plus.
I immediately thought of AAA when I needed the jump, but too little, too late.
I think I’m going to go to Sear’s and buy a battery that will last as long as a Ghostbusters proton pack.
I swear by AAA. if they have that where you live (do they exist cross country?). we were driving up from FL to TN on a Sunday and the tire blew out. without AAA we would never have known where on a Sunday one could go for a new tire!
First – I hope Cami gets well soon.
Second – The world NEEDS more fathers and husbands like you. Men who understand that a comic(or other such hobby/talent), however good, is NOTHING when compared to the health and well being of your family.
Third – Do you have a tip jar? I’d like to give you a little something when I get paid on the third.
Thanks for the compliments.
I don’t have a tip jar, but that’s not a bad idea! I might look into that this afternoon.
If it’s in scope for you, a pre-order for Theater Hopper – Year Three would be excellent. But if not, continuing to visit the site is fine by me!
sounds like a pretty tough day indeed.
BTW: Just a thought, isn’t it a sign of a infection when the white blood count goes *up*? So it’s also bad when it goes down?
I guess I’m not sure how that works? I mean, that makes sense if it’s high that you might be fighting something off. But if it’s low, maybe you’ve burned a bunch of them off fighting a fever and your body hasn’t replenished them yet?