Hot, Cold. Repeat.

Dustin Wright — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 23:55:46 +0000

Hey guys, sorry it’s been awhile since my last post. I do have a good excuse though. A week ago Saturday I was working on a project outside, on a day that reached 104 degrees, and did not hydrate myself properly. I say properly because I did have some water, although I didn’t drink nearly enough, and my solution to me getting tires was to drink an energy drink. Stupid move. The caffeine and sugars from that drink along with the caffeine from a couple of BC powders did more bad for me than the water did good. I didn’t think much of it, although I did say it out loud, but at the end of the work I began to get a little dizzy. Nothing a cool shower can’t fix right? Wrong.

I continued to be miserable to the point that I slept (or more accurately writhed and moaned in pain in my bed) through church on Sunday. And instead of feeling better I continued to get worse. My fever would fluctuate all day, it seemed like just when it was going to stabilize that it would shoot up again. But I had to work. I didn’t want to, but like most families we need the money. So Monday morning although I shouldn’t have, I dragged myself to work and did the same on Tuesday, only to make myself feel even worse. Tuesday afternoon, after my friend Jon scared me enough about my fever lasting as long as it had, I had Alina take me to the ER.

It seemed like it was going to be a good experience, everything seemed to move super fast and efficient at first. I had a few X-Rays and a CT scan as well as all the other normal tests they do on you. But they really couldn’t identify why my fever was still so high. My temperature was helped greatly by some IV they gave me, but when I was just sitting in the bed, waiting, having finished the IV my fever went back up, higher than it was when I came in. And then they got slow. No new IV. No doctors or nurses. No word of why I was sick, just waiting, trying to drown out the sound of Rachael’s own frustration for what seemed like forever. All in all we where there about 6 hours, and did not yet have a reason why I was sick, just some prescriptions to take and hopefully I would get better. We finally got a call on Thursday from the hospital telling us that I had pneumonia which somehow was related, or not, to the heat stroke that I had experienced on Saturday.

The rest of the week I was just out. I couldn’t do anything. Not work, not play, no eating or drinking. It seemed like everything made me miserable. But the drugs did start to help. And I was able to drag myself out of bed and get into the car (for the first time since Tuesday) to go to church on Sunday. I didn’t help with set up or tear down as I usually do because I knew that doing something like that as I was just starting to heal would put me back down. I need to take it slow.

So, I’m back at work, before I should be (I am still very week) and trying to take life as slow as I can so that I can heal. And I promise to get back to posting more regularly. Oh, and by the way I think I’ve learned a huge lesson by all of this as to how to take care of my body in the extreme heat. And I just might have had my last energy drink.

Please pray for me.

No, I’m Not High

Dustin Wright — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 22:27:30 +0000

This having a child in day care thing can be a bit annoying. First of all, the daycare teachers (or as I like to think of them, the teenage girls that are more focused on their latest crush than on my child) let her eat staples. They don’t change her diaper very often. They poke her in the eye and then claim it’s an infection. They let the 2 year olds run around pointing their fingers at the other children as if it’s a gun and yelling “pow, pow.” They let the kinds listen to “Shake your booty.” And the daycare is a breeding ground for diseases.

Well, I guess the last one isn’t their fault really, but those others are. I used to be healthy all of the time, never getting colds or really anything throughout the year, but not anymore. Since Rachael has been attending daycare it seems that my body has become a place for diseases to come and hang out for a while, and it seems that every couple of months Rachael and I come down with some illness that makes life miserable for a couple of weeks. Somehow though, Alina manages to avoid most of these sick times, which is good, because we would all be a hungry pathetic mess for those couple of weeks. But, she caught this one. For some reason Alina always gets and then passes on (thanks for sharing) here pink eye, or eyes. And thanks to her generosity, I have it again. So for the second time in the last 3 months (and the second time in my life) I have pink eyes.

I feel like all day long as people see me they are thinking that I am just another stoner who is looking for another hit. It’s not true. Unless of course you catch me going back again and again for eye drops. I know it’s pathetic, but at the moment I have three different kinds of eye drops in my pocket for an immediate fix. But I’m not like those other guys with blood shot eyes, because I promise, I can quit at any time. So anyway, if you see me, feel free to point and laugh, but please don’t give me that “that poor guy needs freedom from his habit, he needs Jesus” look, it’s starting to drive me crazy. So, no, I’m not high, it’s just pink eye. (Wow, look at that: a bit of poetic mastery.)

Oh yeah, and be grateful that I didn’t put a picture of my pink eyes up here for you.

theWrightLife.com » Sickness

Hot, Cold. Repeat.

No, I’m Not High