I promise, no more medical talk after today (maybe....)

So, I'm hoping this is the last of my "oh woe is me and all of my medical problems" posts

The last doctor I met with (well, in relation to the evil sickness) was an infectious disease doctor

Pretty much the first thing he said to me was "I don't even know why you're here"

We went over my medical history

The fact that I don't smoke, drink, do drugs?

All of that worked really well in my favor

He was impressed

The fact that I hardly ever get sick (besides the typical cold) really worked in my favor

Pretty much he told me I was a fluke

He has no idea why my immune system was so shot

(I'm wondering if it had anything to do with the fact that Hubby and I weren't getting decent sleep for way too long....we're night owls, it's a problem)

(and for some reason his body handles it way better than mine...not fair)

He said to me, probably 4 or 5 times, "I'm not worried about you, you're going to be just fine"

He said that while the majority of people have the herpes virus, hardly anyone actually suffers from it

Only about 5% of people, if we're going to be specific

I'm just lucky enough to be one of the 5%

I used to get cold sores pretty regularly when I was a kid, but I haven't had one for years

And that's the last symptom of herpes that I've had

Until this one, anyway

The doctor couldn't even figure out why the other doctor referred me to him

To him (and me, let's be honest) it was the most ridiculous appointment ever

He ordered 2 more blood tests, just so he could cross his t's and dot his i's

(they came back clear)

He told me that the herpes would never leave, but that I shouldn't really be affected by it, especially considering my history

So in other words, I think I'm good

Which is a huge relief

The Hubster is still having a hard time with it, he's so worried that I'll get sick again

It's pretty cute, most of the time

I'm able to eat anything I want again, which is sooo nice

I still am eating smaller meals, but I can handle that when they're not limited

I lost about 20 pounds in the month that I was sick, so I'm trying really hard not to go overboard with the eating and gain that weight back

It's hard when I just want to eat everything that I haven't been able to eat, but I just have to remind myself that the food isn't going anywhere and I don't have to eat everything all at once

This is the first week that I haven't really felt any nausea

Our routine usually consists of Hubby getting out of bed and taking care of his business, and I fall back asleep for about 30 minutes or so

This week we've been focusing really hard on going to sleep at a decent time to see if that would help with the slight nausea that I still get in the mornings and it seems to have helped

So this last week when Hubby got out of bed it woke me up, as usual, and I felt a little bit of nausea

So I rolled over and went back to sleep and by the time I woke up the nausea was gone, horray!

So this is the first week since I've been sick that I've been able to spend all day without feeling any nausea

It's been so nice

So as long as this keeps up, I'm going to start walking on the treadmill next week

Very slowly, because I've been inactive for about two months

But I need to get my energy back up and my body moving again to remind it that it's capable of doing things

I went about two months not drinking soda, not eating chocolate, just eating very basic, plain things and I told Hubby that I just didn't think I would be the type of person that would all of the sudden hate foods that I couldn't eat for a long time

I was right, everything still tastes as wonderful as it did before

My tongue is not as used to the spices and stuff, but it's still just as delicious

Other than that, as far as I can tell, I'm back to being as healthy as possible

(and I completely forgot about this post....so, carrying on...)

We tried the whole going to bed at a decent hour thing for a week or so and the nausea has completely gone away

I'm sure it wasn't just because of extra sleep, but I'm also sure it helped

Other than that, our life has gone back to normal, or as normal as it was before

Hubby works an insane amount, both at the actual office building and here at home

He's salary, so they require him to work 115% which means that he does a lot of work after work at home

When he's not supposed to be working

When he's supposed to be spending time with me

But, it could be a lot worse

And really, at least he's at home working, so I get to see him

And I'm a big fan of his job right now because they approved his time off request for Christmas

So that means we get to go home for Christmas :)

And we'll be home for two weeks!!

Oh I'm so excited I could scream

And I probably have

Cause it's just awesome

And I'm soooo dang excited

Other than that, our lives continue on as normal as possible

Hubby goes to work every day, I stay home every day

Now that I'm recovered and getting my strength and energy back I'm getting back to working on my school and doing little projects around the house

I'm currently tackling making pillows for our couch

I haven't done any sewing since I was in young women and I made my own pajama pants for Girl's Camp

But I want to sew

I want to create things

I want to be my mom :)

She's like the awesomest person I know and if I could have half of her talent....I'd just be the best seamstress and cook and baker and everything else all rolled into one

Anyway, I'm learning

And praying that I don't mess it up because I only have so much fabric

And when I go home for Christmas Mama Smurf is going to teach me to crochet

A lot of learning going on

Really the only annoyance we are dealing with right now is medical bills and insurance companies

There are a few different "offices" where our doctor is and they are all also connected to the ER, so while it's a little confusing, it's nice because they were all interconnected

They do go by different names, but the names are so similar that it's hard to really distinguish them

Because they're all in the same building and they're all connected in some way or another we just assumed that the billing would all be connected too

(i'm assuming that my naivete on major medical problems and billing and how it works comes into play...but if I have to be naive about something, I'm glad it's this)

So we got the first statement, which was not a HUGE amount...more than we would have liked, but it could have been a lot worse

 A few days later we got another statement in the mail, but because I was still slightly out of it I didn't really pay attention to it and assumed, for some strange reason, that it was the same bill as the first one

Last week I was working on paying all of our bills and I left the doctor's bill for the last because I was dreading it trying to decide how much to put towards it

By this point I had completely forgotten about the other statement until I was shuffling through all of our bills

When I saw it and really looked at I just about died of shock

It was definitely not the same bill

It was very much a different one

So add that to the other bill and we weren't too thrilled

But, it was manageable, we would just have to make smaller payments on our other bills and get those out of the way first since they're not as gracious as our credit card collectors

But then yesterday we got yet another bill from one of the same people

Because why can't they just lump it all together so we can pay towards one bill?

Obviously that's just silly talk

Obviously they just need to make life difficult

****

And wow....I just went on and on and on for far too long on medical jargon

Sorry friends

In other news, I finally pulled out the crazy puzzle that I've been working on forever

This one

(I just realized I haven't posted a picture of the puzzle since 2011...wow...and sad, especially when you see how far I haven't come with it...)

So, these are the last pictures I posted:

And this is what it looks like today

Okay, so a lot more progress than I thought

I feel a little bit better about life

It went through a rough life after we got married and then moved

You can tell by the fact that the one boarder in the sky is missing

And the fact that it wasn't missing before

I'm just crossing my fingers that I actually find it

Cause if that one piece is the only one that is missing?

I'm not going to be happy

I wanted to glue this and hang it somewhere one day when we have room for it and/or a spot

So if we are missing any pieces...that just means I have to buy it again

And that's going to tick me off

Because I'll have to put it together again

But, we're not thinking about that

We're just going forward with the hope that I will find all of the pieces

AND!!

Something else SOOO exciting??

I'm an Aunt again!!

My brother Jared and his wife Rachel had their 6th child a few weeks ago

2 days after my brother's birthday, to be exact

World, meet Tabitha Alegreia (which means joy in English...all of their kids have a Portuguese middle name [except their son, who's middle name is my brother's name])

Oh she's so adorable!!

I love having new little ones to dote on, but I hate that I'm not there

And I can't hold her

And I haven't officially met her yet

So sad

It's a good thing we're going home for Christmas

We'll have to get lots of snuggling in

And now I must publish this post

Before it takes me another month to finish

I swear I'm going to get on top of this blogging life again

I hate writing essays just to talk about what has happened in the last three months

It gets tedious

Happy Fall, everyone

I hope you're enjoying your fall clothing, hot chocolate, beautiful colors, and whatever else you love during fall weather

Those are my most important items, including Gilmore Girls

I'm currently on season 3 and I'm trying to decide if I want to speed watch them or drag them out

And if I choose to speed watch them, how reasonable is it for me to watch them again immediately afterwards?

Tough decisions..