You Take The Good, You Take the Bad...

The Facts of Life, right?  A show that I saw maybe twice because we didn't have NBC at our house.  Or ABC or whatever non-CBS channel it was on.  I could have learned so much from Blair and Jo, but I had to learn my lessons from Thomas Magnum and the Simon Brothers.  Whatevs.

So, it's been one of those days.  I knew last week was just too perfectly perfect, what with everything falling so neatly and amazingly into place.

First.  The kids have had these God-blessed colds for about six weeks now and I'm about at my wit's end.  The only other stranger virus I've encountered was my bizzare German virus--remember that one:  fever, chills, body rash?  They thought I either had Lyme Disease or there was a dead Nazi in the basement whose malevolent spirit was causing my illness.  Remember that one? 

This cold that the kids have (which Hans and I have not caught, for some strange reason) appears and disappears at random.  They will be fine for a few days, then here comes the cough again--usually appearing in the middle of the night.  They will be snot free, then suddenly they are congested.  They will be fever free for days and days and then suddenly spike a low-grade temp for a few hours.  It is so random and so irritating.  Just when I think they're finally free of it, it reappears in a slightly mutated form.

They have all missed a few days of school--just based on the fact that the cough is so obnoxious and distracting.  They sound very sick, but they're not, really.

Last night, Josiah started coughing again at about 11:12.  Cough-cough-cough.  23.6 minutes later:  cough-cough-cough.  I wake up every time.  Every. Single. Time.  I went in and dosed him with cough medicine, got him a drink, gave him a cough drop.  I shut their door.  I shut our door, turned on a second fan, pulled the covers over my head.  I could still faintly hear him.  Cough-cough-cough.

AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

Josiah was up at 5:15 a.m, apparently none the worse for wear after a night of coughing every 23.6 minutes (oh to be 8-1/2 again and able to subsist on 12 minutes of sleep!).  It was at this unpleasant hour that I decided that I had had enough of the cold and I was taking them in.  All three of them because all three of them have it/had it/are going to have it tomorrow.

Called Tricare, our wonderful military healthcare.  No appointments.  I make the executive decision to take them to the local hospital's urgent care.  Load up, drive over, sit for 30 minutes.  The Good:  the very nice nurse there looked at my insurance cards and told me that if I drove over to a different urgent care, it would be covered under Tricare (why the HELL Tricare can't tell me that, I have no idea).  She said "You'd easily be running over $300 for these three visits today".

Thank you, nice and honest nurse.

Drove back home to get military ID that I had forgotten (see, last week I would have had every necessary thing on my person).  Stopped to put gas in the car.  When I pulled the nozzle, gas sprayed out and ran down the leg of my jeans.  New ones that I've worn twice.  I'm hoping it comes out in the wash and doesn't eat holes in my jeans.

Drive on towards urgent care place #2 with full tank, reeking of gas, when suddenly the CHECK TIRE PRESSURE light goes on and I blow a tire.  In the middle of the interstate going 65 mph. 

The Bad.  Obviously.  But The Good:  it was the rear driver's side and not the front.  I may be wrong, but I think that it would have been a much wilder blowout ride if one of the front tires had gone.  I managed to pull over and called Hans, then the state police, who sent me Mr. Pete with the VDOT.

Of course, I was in tears because it's a little disconcerting to blow a tire.  The Good:  Pete showed up and was completely THE nicest, kindest, funniest and most helpful man ever.  He told me that he became a member of the VDOT team after he had a flat tire and they came to help him.  I have to say that it's pretty dang lonely sitting there with your hazard lights on--I don't know what I would have done.  I guess I would have called our insurance company, but luckily for me, I got Pete and he was amazing.  VDOT sends out these folks to help cars with flats, cars that are out of gas, etc.  Pete changed my tire out in no time flat (haha!) and he did it for no charge. Thank you God, for people like Pete, who are out there every day, putting themselves in harm's way on a busy interstate--all to help a stranger get back on the road.

The Good:  I was only about two miles from Costco, so I was able to drive over there on the donut and order a new tire.  The old one couldn't be fixed.

The Bad:  We never did get to urgent care.  Anywhere.  We stopped at Walgreen's and bought a bunch of new remedies to try to ease through it.  The professional opinion from my nurse friends is that it's a virus and will work itself out eventually.  I bought some Vick's and some fancy eucalyptus stuff for the vaporizer, some vitamin C and a different kind of cough drop.  We'll see what happens.

The Good:  It's almost 3:00 and Hans hasn't called me.

The Bad:  We still haven't heard anything from the board.

So...thus hopefully ends our adventures for the day!