another reason to add to my list for needing a house...

My apartment makes me sick.

Not only in the frustrating, 'iwannagetoutofhere' way, but in the moldy, 'let's give Naomi sinus infections every week' kind of way.

I have spent the past two days at home pretty much glued to the couch with a horrid bacterial infection that decided to take over my body. Monday at work, I was just coughing in between calls. By the time I got home and we started putting up the Christmas tree (yay) my cough started to get worse, and by the time I went to bed, I had this kinda nasty, croup sounding cough.

I thought i'd just sleep it off with a humidifier (Thanks Brent and Sherry). As made obvious by my 3:30 wake up (after waking up coughing and noticing Stephen's eyes flutter open each time) I decided it was not going to be that easy, and I just grabbed my pillow and moved to the couch. (no need for BOTH of us to lose sleep over this).

Well, at about 7:30 that morning, Stephen comes in to check on me and I tried to get ready for work.
It turns out standing + coughing = vomiting.

After I emptied my system of about every glass of water I had the day previously, I just crawled back in bed and Stephen decided that he was going to take me to the doctor.

After saying a little prayer that we would not have to wait for hours (last time i went just a couple weeks previously, I had to wait for about 3 hours), we headed to Doctor's Care. (which reminds me, any of you know a good family doctor? i'm sooo tired of having to go without an appointment)

I was poked and prodded by needles for a good 20 minutes to even draw enough blood to run tests. Even WITH my warning, that i'm hard to get blood from, the nurse thinks she can do it. After two attempts of jabbing needles into my arm, she gives up and calls another to help. Then i'm stabbed again. She misses as well and decides, "i'll just dig for it" as she proceedes to move the needle in my arm until I can only see about a third of the needle still outside my body. Luckily, while prodding around, she finds the jackpot, and proceedes to draw some viles of blood.

The doctor comes in, not strep, not flu...but a bacterial infection. I had a sinus infection about 2 weeks ago (which I also was treated for with antibiotics) and I guess it never went away. Instead, it morphed into a full-blown bacterial infection which has attacked my whole body.

I leave (a blessing) about an hour later with some prescriptions and a really tired body.
Stephen was just so caring and took care of me all day and catered to me and cooked for me and refilled my ginger ale about every 20 minutes! haha

After taking about 6 -8 pills (not kidding, the doctor prescribed me antibiotics(2 pills daily), and coughing suppressant(2 pills 3 times a day), then advised me to take mucinex-dm, sudefed, tylenol (for my pounding headache), and zyrtec...I felt a little better and was able to sleep some.

I thought I was starting to do a little better, but as it got later in the day, I started feeling worse getting cold chills where I just could NOT get warm, and then I would be on fire, kicking off all the blankets and sweating. I took my temp and realized that I now had a fever of 102 degrees. Which is bad enough for a normal person, and it was terrible for me who has a normal body temp of 97.5
After drinking more liquids, having my BIL come over to help give me a priesthood blessing, taking some tylenol and having a cool shower, we finally got my temperature down to 100 deg.
I was able to sleep that night (another small blessing!)

We decided I needed to stay home yesterday too, to let all the antibiotics take affect in my body.

Well, amist all the frustrations of my moldy apartment that is obviously trying to make me miserable, we got some great news!

We knew Stephen had been put up for a promotion, but it hadn't went through yet. As of yesterday, his manager called to let us know that he got a raise!! It was a lot more than we expected, and more than we'd even hoped for....especially with the economic trouble that we're in, and we feel so blessed!

As soon as he got off the phone, we said a prayer of thanks for what a huge blessing!
All the stresses we've had trying to find a house that is in our budget and a good, healthy, house to live in seemed to be worth it. We know that our Heavenly Father loves us and has a plan (even when we are discouraged and doubting).

Being so sick (because of my living arrangements) just made me so frustrated on not finding a house. It seems like everytime we got close to getting one, something would fall through or go off the market.

I'm not saying that we can afford some extravagent house now, but this does give us a little 'wiggle room' and a little hope that maybe this is why we haven't been successful yet.

We feel extremely blessed and have hope that we can get out of our apartment, and get WELL!

So, out of the grossness of sickness that has infested my body this week, we did have a little light at the end of the tunnel. A little hope to cling onto...another drop to put in our lamp...another blessing to add to our heap.

Keep us in your prayers to find a house...the sooner the better. Then you will all be invited to a happy house warming party where I will be WELL!