No-Good-Very-Bad Month

Hey Humble Readers...

I'm sorry to have been absent for so long.  Things in the Shire have been challenging at best, and down-right awful at their worst. 

It started a month ago, when I tried a new workout and on my second time through the workout, I managed to hurt myself in a big way.  The workout wasn't anything big, a short and quick routine that involved doing leg lifts (both sides), squats, some tricep curls with light weights, 15 push ups (from my knees), and 30 crunches.  Pause for a minute, then repeat... do this three times.  Sounds pretty easy, right? 

Well, I managed to damage my left shoulder.  I thought I had just strained it and didn't seek out medical attention for a couple of days, until every breath was bringing tears to my eyes.  A trip to the ER, and low and behold, I had slightly torn my rotator cuff (or so the ER doc claimed).  I left the hospital with a Rx for naproxen and orders to do no heavy lifting for a week (ha ha... with a very large toddler in the house?  Not to mention an active preschooler?  I ended up having to have help for a couple of days to manage the kids). 

Here's the thing... apparently, I can't take naproxen.  I don't know if it was a reaction with my regular meds, which my pharmacist should have caught, or if I've developed some sort of sensitivity to it (used to take naproxen regularly for menstrual pain when I was a teen and young adult).  Whatever the cause, I was only able to take the meds for two days, because I ended up feeling like I was having a heart attack.  Breathing was still painful, my chest was super tight, shooting pains up my neck, tremendous headache, and I could feel my heart banging against my ribs it was pounding so hard.  I stopped taking the meds, and went to just extra strength ibupro.fen for a while.  I still wasn't feeling great, but it was better.  It wasn't until I went completely off the ibu about a week later that I began to feel better.  I can still feel it in my lungs occasionally, and it scared the tar out of me.  I will be getting my doc to make a note in my file that naproxen is a no-go for me from now on. 

I was just starting to feel better from all that mess when we woke up one morning to Pippin puking his guts out.  Grand.  The next day it was Ginny puking, and by that evening it was me.  Pip seemed to recover quickly, but then developed roseola (baby measles).  Ginny and I took a couple of days to get over the stomach flu.  And then, just as we were starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel, when I thought I might be done cleaning up puke for the time being... my Beloved got slammed with it.  This is the man who never gets sick.

It's been a week now since we were all sick, and I was beginning to think we were coming to a bend in the road.  The weather has been improving, and spring is finally starting to emerge.  I have been able to get back out walking, and while I'm not up to the 6km I was doing last year, I'm feeling good about getting in 4km in 45 minutes. 

That bend in the road I was hoping for, well, it came today.  It turned out to be a blind corner that led us right off a cliff.  At 8:30 this morning my Beloved came home from work with a pink slip and a severance package.  He's been laid off. 

Needless to say, I've been hovering on the edge of panic for the last few hours.  His severance amounts to a little more than a month of his salary.  My Beloved has been, for the most part, taking this in his normal stride... nothing frazzles that man for very long.  He's been quiet and just focussed on playing with the wee-lings while I stomp around in anger and frustration. 

I am trying very hard to get to a place where I can be optimistic about all this... we weren't 100% happy with his job, but it was a good paying job and the company was paying for his CGA courses.  The benefits package wasn't sufficient for our family, either. I can only hope and pray that the right door will open, and will open quickly. 

In the mean time, I will likely be raiding our Christmas savings jar, and all vacation time we had planned for this year is out the window (oh my mom isn't going to be happy about that).  I'm really trying not to panic too much, but if he doesn't find a new job quickly, we could really be in a bad place financially.  If you pray, could you please remember our little hobbit clan?  I would appreciate it.