I’m a solid fan of not taking antibiotics unless you need them because I fucking FEAR shit like this… and then… this shit is happening… 

I took my daughter to get her ingrown toenails removed because it’s been bad, they’ve been infected more times than I care to remember and she’s not even three yet. 

Doc: We’re going to remove the sides of her toenail to *hopefully* permanently remove the ingrown, deal with it now so she won’t have further issues. But we have to do it at the hospital, so she can be sedated because she’s two and won’t sit still for numbing shots and me digging around in her toe. 

Me: okay makes sense… no antibiotics, sterile environment, okay fine. 

@3 days post-op (over the weekend)

ME: it’s looking pretty gnarly… *sends pictures and email* she says it hurts. *thinking – I should probably just take her in.*

Doc: no, pictures are a little cutoff, but that looks normal. keep soaking 2xday and bandages. We’re slammed in here so won’t be able to see her until March anyways. 

ME: okay. *follows directions*

*background* – I sent pictures of a rash to her pediatrician when she was 5 months old. We went in the next day and she showed me how those pictures came across on their side. They were warped, distorted and blurry. She said the best thing to do when sending pictures from phones was to take as many close-up pictures as possible and send them together so they could compare to get a good idea of what was going on, think of it like putting the puzzle pieces together. So that’s where my brain went when I got the response from this doctor, Oh, it’s not coming through clearly. He literally cannot CLEARLY see how infected this shit is. *takes more pictures*

@ 5 days…

ME: *sends pictures* are you sure doc, this looks pretty bad and while she whines a lot she’s a bit of a spartan in handling pain and still saying OUCHIE soooo…

Doc: Nope still good. follow up with more pictures at 7 -10 days

ME: *calls the office* explains that she is complaining of pain

Office nurse: that’s normal, it hurts, Tylenol and soaking, any walk-in doc will think it’s infected and give her antibiotics she doesn’t even need. 

ME: okay, if I’m overreacting then fine… okay… this is okay *FEELS LIKE ROOM IS ON FIRE* 

@7 days

ME: HEY DOC HERE ARE MORE PICTURES… This is bad, should I be taking her to walk-in if you’re too busy to see her?

Doc office: *calls me* you might be soaking it too much it looks pretty wet, let’s try to keep it dry at night.

ME: okay… *Follows directions with a sinking feeling in the pit of my gut* 

… we went back and forth like this where I would send pictures and follow up with a call saying “I think this is infected, I’m not trying to push for antibiotics for nothing but this seriously looks like it NEEDS antibiotics”… and got a trivial “let’s try this” as a response. more soaking, less soaking, more dry, less bandaging, until finally my response was essentially FUCK YOU ALL I’M TAKING HER IN…

@Day 10 

walk-in doctor: *as she is walking in* I saw the emails you sent this doctor and I have some choice words for him. those are some seriously infected toes …

*Going through the steps to swab her feet* “I’m giving her an antibiotic and will call you if I find something stronger growing here… it will probably be something stronger so be prepared to answer your phone” as I internally FREAK THE FUCK OUT

@Day 11

Low and behold she called while I was in my doctor’s appointment for my own illness (ear infection with sinus issues), I missed the call, so she called my husband. 

Fun side-story, when your husband isn’t expecting a call from a hospital while in BFE doing fieldwork and they asked, “Are you the father of XXXX? Can you verify her date of birth?” it’s a quick way to give him an immediate anxiety attack. ANYWAYS. He talks with the walk-in doc about what is going on and basically, she should’ve had antibiotics coming out of the hospital. Yes, surgery was sterile but it’s a breeding ground of gross shit and I should have trusted my gut. 

The current plan is that she is on the strongest antibiotic they can prescribe for at home since the STRONGEST one tastes like gasoline, so they have to give that one via IV. So if she is not showing massive signs of improvement within 72 hours we have to take her to the ER to be admitted for said IV drugs. It’s cool… I’m totally fine, this isn’t something that is going to throw our family’s routine or life totally out of whack at all. 

However: We are LUCKY enough to have medical coverage AND coverage through the state we live in due to her pre-existing conditions (until she is a certain age). My husband is at a level in his company where he can make arrangements with work to take the week off or work from home. I work from home with a flexible job where I could work from the hospital room if needed. We are LUCKY to be in this position. Many others in our country are not. Many others would question going into walk-in simply because of the copay being more than they could afford that week. Most of us have been there and could easily be there again depending on various factors. So I am very grateful that I could take her into the walk-in clinic during my very fuck-you-to-that-one-doctor moment. 

But all I can think is – FUCKITY FUCK FUCK FUCKITY FUCK 

I AM SO FUCKING LIVID 

I’m mad at the doctor for brushing it off, but I’m madder at myself for not trusting my gut. I work from home with a VERY flexible job. I could’ve taken her in at any time. ANY FUCKING TIME. I could’ve caught this earlier. Could it have been avoided? I have zero clues and frankly, I’m too scared to google search it. 

My point is, trust your gut when something seems off …

And get antibiotics when leaving the hospital …

Dear New Teacher, 

Sweet, sheltered, naive teacher. I am, unapologetically, going to be your worst nightmare. I never wanted to be, yet here we are. Let me first explain why. On top of the general tears and fears of parents sending their babies off to school I have new world issues to deal with. My other problem? I’ve been there. I’ve taught. I had a year-long student teaching role. I’ve spent years subbing in schools here and in other states. I taught my own 3rd/4th combo class. I KNOW how schools work and I know what you are supposed to be doing.

My child, with whom you are supposed to care for during a large chunk of the day along with his classmates, took more money to conceive than your teaching degree cost. Even at the college you bought, er, earned, your degree from. He and his twin were our rainbow babies, notice that past tense there and that there is only one child enrolled. We’ve lost a lot. A lot of time, energy, money, possibilities, children, emotions, relationships, and more. We hold tight to this child because he is our miracle. Fitting that all this is going through my brain on National Rainbow Baby Day. So it concerns me greatly when you so flippantly reply to my concerns. You stated “those shootings only happen in big cities” when I expressed concern for my child’s placement and asked what your shelter in place procedures were going to be during this year. It worries me that you don’t have any understanding of the massive panic attack I was hit with upon noticing my child’s placement in the classroom. He is the first seat coming in from the door, with his back to the door. Your classroom is the first classroom nearest the K/1st-grade exit door. I don’t want my son, or any other child, with their back to the door that close to an entrance/exit door. I don’t care how distracting it may be. I care that these kids have a chance to live, even if that means running and hiding. I am in tears even typing this out. This is not the world I want for our children. I have great anxiety in a state where 90 plus percent of the population owns two or more firearms. I have huge anxiety over a door that (thanks to my subbing there often) I know is often left open, in a school with no gates and street access. I have an unbelievable amount of anxiety over what if’s. 

When you break an anxiety attack down it really does seem to be the overwhelming reaction to too many “what if’s”. My husband knows this and while he himself has never had an anxiety attack, he’s witnessed enough of mine. He grabbed my hand and pointed out that we can see his classroom and said door from our front window. Guess who is moving their desk to said window… that’d be me. Not knowing that the door is often left open he tried to point it out as a quick escape route for our son rather than an easy entrance for a predator. 

I have worked in various roles and know a great variety of people. This is great when I have a question and terrible when I hear their experiences. Such as my friend who is a public defender. You know, the person who defends those without the means to provide their own attorney. Or as she put it, those who attorneys will not take because they are so blatantly guilty it is too difficult a task to find a loophole to allow their release. This leads to knowing too much about crimes committed against children, felons possessing (and using) firearms and more than I ever wanted to know about the evils of our society. The worst part is that I know about the things that happen in our town, not some far off distant “big city”. I stated on your “facebook” group release that ‘heads will roll if I see a picture with my child on social media’ and you tried to argue that your “closed” group was a safe place. Sweet new teacher, no social media group is a safe place. School isn’t even a safe place anymore. I specifically moved to a house close enough to see this school so that I wouldn’t have to worry so much about sexual predators, I still do, OBVIOUSLY. But I have legit taken even step possible to shield my child from harm. So for you to argue that your group is “safe” I am over here so proud of myself for not strangling you. You also made a comment that “some studies show it helps increase parent-student communication” and I asked for ONE. I know it’s been close to ten years since I was in a college class on teaching but I want to see just ONE reliable study that shows that. I want to know how you posting pictures of my kid is going to foster a conversation rather than make him more narcissists and checking “how many people liked that?” Just one. Show me ONE. This passion you have for pushing social media in the classroom just tells me that is you’re going to be on your phone on Facebook all damn day. 

You never asked about any of this, and why would you? To you, I am a stay-at-home mom with a child going into the public school system who worries too much. I felt the same way when I taught my own first classroom. I distinctly remember thinking,  “why are they so worried? I am going to take great care of their children.” I did. They were worried about social/educational reasons, will their child be liked, will they behave, will they learn at the same pace, will they listen, etc. I am lucky to have my background and opportunity to put my child in a great preschool in order to get past those worries early on. Now, I am just concerned about my child’s safety. 

You are a first-year teacher with less than a quarter of “student teaching” and a 3-week “long-term” sub position. FYI, three weeks ain’t friggin long-term. You have close to no real experience handling students let alone their parents. So I am TRYING to be patient, I am struggling to help you communicate, and I am working fucking over-time to give you the benefit of the doubt. Please, I beg you, sweet new teacher, take a step forward. Lean in. The best advice I ever received while teaching applies to just about anything. “When pulling drowning students out of the water, go upstream and figure out why they are falling in to begin with. Rather than pulling them out, stop them from falling in.” Find the cause and solve that, rather than dealing with the flood. I am telling you, I just want my child safe, please keep him safe. I will cheer you on along the way because I want to, I know how much it meant to me to have not only fellow teachers but parents in my corner. I just need to know you are going to educate yourself and realize some very big, very real problems with our world. I will thank you every day that you do because I am no longer willing to teach due to these and more issues. 

Trying to be in your corner, 

Ella

My neighbor Sterling* (and day care provider) was telling me how Tracy* was going to be staying with her & her husband that night so that Tracy’s mom & my Sterling’s son (they’re engaged) could get a night out alone. She was saying how they used to go out all the time but now that the wedding is getting closer they hardly get the chance to go out, limiting it to the weekend and sitters cost so much. I felt my heart sink. I’m Facebook friends with all of them, I know they get to go out every Friday and Saturday without said child, I know that Sterling watches her pretty much day in and day out. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve dropped my kids off to hear “ohhh sweetie be quiet Tracy is still sleeping” because she was still there from the night before.

Straight up y’all, I’m fucking jealous. My family is so fucking far away and even when we flew 1300 miles to meet at a “half way” point with a HUGE 3 bedroom & 3 bathroom timeshare so that they wouldn’t even have to pay for a hotel… they couldn’t fucking be counted on. It pains me to see Sterling exhausted after caring for a twit of a kid and how much Tracy’s mom & Sterling’s son use her precious time. I know she enjoys taking care of Tracy and I know she loves so much. It just hurts that we don’t have that.

It’s not so rare that they go out anymore, they go out every fucking weekend, they have on demand full time day care AND babysitting. My husband and I have gone out sans children in the last three years since our first was born for a total of 9 hours. Six when we were visiting friends on a trip back to California and my son stayed with my stepmom & sister for the afternoon and three while we saw Jeff Dunham after eating pizza with the friends that were watching the kids. That is it. To me THAT is RARE.

So when it comes to seeing my family say they miss me and how I need to “come home” I get mad thinking about it. I want to go home. I want to go back to what is familiar. I want a family support system. I want my kids to know their cousins and make amazing memories. I want my kids to have grandparents that care about them… but then I think… would they? If we moved 1600 miles, sold our home, fought for jobs that paid decent, RENTED because there’s no way we could afford a house there, changed everything…. Would they have that? Would they have family to play with? Or would they be too caught up in their own worlds? Would they have grandparents to care about them or would those grandparents be “done after all the other kids”?

I’m just. I’m jealous for me and sad for my kids, all at the same time.

*Names changed for privacy because stalkers exist and I don’t want anyone’s feelings to get hurt.

Generally these words don’t belong in a sentence together unless undermining each other. Like in the sentence; PCOS is the reason I’m not pregnant. Which is why I was using it as an “effective birth control method”, well that and my husband not being around, but that was normal with his job. I finally convinced him that his boss was a total douche bag and from what I’d heard around town a “snake in the grass”, that’s not a term you hear everyday and caused great concern for my husband. I found him a better (yet similar) company and did the application for him… ya ya ya… he knew I was doing it though so there’s that. Anyways, he gets the job and I get sick… dant dant dant… baby! While he wants to say this pregnancy arouse from him and his super sperm being around I’m going to give it up to the fact that I was getting healthy and my gut health was getting my PCOS in line. I had been doing research on gut health, and when I say “research” I mean google searches with credibly sourced medical reviews, about gut health after my doctor (who is THE leading specialist in ND for PCOS, mostly because she is the ONLY specialist in ND but that’s not the point) made a comment about how your gut is related to more than they previously considered. Fore most people with PCOS the problem lies with their sugar processing, often mistaken for diabetes since it usually leads to that. It was an offhand comment and something she wanted to look more into but thought that it was worth my time to find a good probiotic and start there, working towards reducing my sugar intake (mostly cutting down on processed foods) which I was all about!

I spent three months trying various 30 day supplies that were $60 and up per month until I said fuck it I’m cheap, I know I’m cheap someone in my mommy group has got to know of one I can get for cheaper. Lo and behold they did and I got an influx of testimonials on how great this ProBio5 is… fuck it, worth a shot. Here’s the kicker with me and any MLM type situation, I go ALL in because DISCOUNTS. So I signed up as an ambassador and all that good shit. I could probably link y’all to my page and get some sort of kickback from the company since you would be my customer, but eff that noise, that’s not why I’m taking this stuff. I’m taking it because it works and I love it and did I mention IT WORKS (hahaha pun intended for my friend that sells It Works stuff). I started dropping weight, my energy was up (until it wasn’t from being pregnant lol), and best of all my PCOS symptoms were disappearing. I didn’t have to shave my mustache, my skin was clearing up, and the kicker was my sex drive kicked up… thus the pregnancy. I saw that it was working but didn’t think for a second that it would help me ovulate. Found out later it was, obviously. So I’m not going to link you or tell you that THIS IS THE ONLY ONE THAT WORKS MY GOD YOU MUST GO GET THIS SPECIFIC ONE but if you think it’s worth a shot, then fucking give it a try, it’s less than a buck a day and that is a shitton cheaper than my fertility drugs were. If you have a friend selling Plexus products then hit them up, they are doing it because they want to have time with their family and that shit is totally respectable. I’m not going to link you to my page because while I have no shame that would be some shameless self promotion. If you find a probiotic out there that works and you feel good, then take that shit. Unlike my foray into essential oils this past year, you can’t get hurt taking a probiotic, it’s just good for your gut

My name is Ella and a probiotic got me knocked up.

I don’t know how this all happened, I really don’t, I mean I can list it out in order and say “yea that happened” but mentally I can’t wrap my head around how I went from “feeling it” to downright cheating. I remember being really excited about it and in the weeks leading up leaving for FL I felt REALLY good about running, like a legit feeling of “holy shit I can DO this” and totally proud of myself. Totally proud of how far Robin and I had come from like couch to 5k to this… like we could do this shit! My times were getting better, I was focused on my health and getting faster, and then I wasn’t.

I was feeling REALLY shitty and exhausted for no damn reason. Went to the doctor to discuss what was going on in my training since I was done with my physical therapy and my knee felt great …but now I was exhausted out of nowhere and what in the world is WRONG with me… am I dying? She laughed at me, we’re cool like that so don’t get the wrong idea, and jokingly (yet seriously) asked if I was pregnant. HA!! I have PCOS and it took $10k and countless drugs over the course of a year to have my son, not to mention my husband was gone like 6 days out of the week, there was no way… just no. She upped my dosage of anxiety meds and said to just enjoy my vacation, “if you finish you finish”, if not I’m doing better than 90% of the population who don’t even get five thousand steps a day. But I wanted to finish! I wanted to show that my 300+ pound ass could do it! I hold my weight well because while the scale says I’m 52% body fat, I know a good deal of it is muscle. I can lift like a MOFO people, especially with my legs and my back. I’m strong. I can do this…

All things I said until two weeks before the race when I puked during a training run one fateful Saturday morning. I took a pregnancy test on a whim, because why the fuck not, just reassure myself that everything was fine because the doc made her comment and it can’t possibly be an issue. Until it was and the two lines showed up. This must be faulty, I thought, too old to be accurate (we hadn’t been trying so these were all leftover tests from when we were TTC for my son)… I was concerned with the puking and the positive and immediately drove my svety ass to urgent care to get a blood draw confirmation…. Which was just that… confirmation that I was pregnant. SAY WHAT!? Was told to stop the anxiety meds and in the next 48 hours I broke out into hives, terrified I ate something wrong, I overhauled everything in our fridge, by Wednesday the hives were out of control and even my ears were swelling up. This is when the urgent care doctors explained I was having “stress hives”. Fun shit I didn’t know existed. PSA people, stress from an unexpected pregnancy just weeks before you leave for an expensive trip to do a run is some real shit. *the more you know*

I still ran, without anxiety meds and endurance drinks, worried about blowing up the way I did with my son I figured I needed to fight the fatigue and keep going. Which I managed to do pretty successfully, until the night before the race when I started puking from what I’m assuming was anxiety without the meds that I usually used to combat it. I had a game plan to pace myself with a friend I was meeting from Cali at the race. He had finished several races with his wife and figured he could help me pace with thousands of people around me. Here’s the thing I didn’t know about runDisney races and learned VERY quickly: corrals are just like farm corrals, you are pinned in with thousands of other people and no one gets a quick start, people slow down RIGHT in front of you, and people will cheer you as they fall behind you. We started the race and had a VERY slow first two miles, at which point we stopped in America at Epcot to drop a deuce. That whole having to poop while running, that shit is ALSO real…because I took the quickest mother of all dumps ever in my life! Noticed that others were stopping too and was so glad I got to the restroom before the line for stalls showed up. I was no fan to the crowded areas as they slowed us down even more but we did manage to stay in front of the “pacers”. Also something I learned about races, they have people that run AT PACE with ballons/t-shirts to let you know that if you’re behind them at the checkpoints (mile 3, 6, and 10 for this race) then you will be picked up and YOU DO NOT FINISH… long story short, if you’re behind them you’re going too fucking slow…. Guess who was behind them at mile marker 2… ME (well Steve too but that’s obvious). So my friend being the good friend that he is says “you’re pregnant just slow down and let them pick you up, you can run again later”. I love Steve, but that was not what I needed to hear. I told him to go on without me and started to walk. He ran like a zombie victim and got WAY ahead of the pacers. I walked for 2 minutes and said fuck it, I can run and I fucking RAN…got to the pacers and saw them just STANDING THERE… like wtf people. I just ran my ass off and y’all are just standing here?

They say, almost in unison, “we were going too fast” followed with the one saying “you’re still ahead of pace, and anyone that gets here in the next 8 minutes, so keep going girl you got this!” I jogged and saw Steve hunched over on the side of the now VERY open road. Amazing how the congestion clears up after mile marker 3… I told him my great news and encouraged him to stay with me… only to hear of his plan “I’m going to mile 5 or 6 then I’m going to cut across the highway and walk the rest of the way”… I argued with him as we jogged. I held my ground that we would finish this the right way and FINISH until mile 5 when the pacers passed us and I felt the urge to vomit myself… at mile 5.5 we pretended to stop at the port-a-potties and crossed to the other side (or as I like to tell myself, to the darkside), we were just as svety as everyone else was at their mile 11. We walked the rest of the way. Cheering others on and at one point stopping to sit on the benches. We waited until his brother in law came up (legit on his mile 12) and I went on with him while Steve waited for his wife to finish with her. I crossed the finish line and while people cheered me I felt like a total fucking failure.

A TOTAL FUCKING FAILURE

I waited for Robin and couldn’t wait to tell her how proud of her I was, because she LEGITIMATELY finished that fucking 13.1 mile run, on her own, kicking ass the entire way. Her strength and persistence is something that I admire about her and even that is a total understatement. I went back to our room and cried in the shower like a total fucking loser. My husband thought I was crying out of either being proud of myself or pain. I used pain (since my legs were on fucking fire) and regret as my reasons for crying. Sucked it up and went about my day. I haven’t been on the treadmill since we got home but that is going to change.

So while I didn’t “finish” finish I did walk a fuckton while in FL as seen by my fitbit report below

So at least there is that. Word to the wise people. Don’t cheat. Totally not worth the feelings of loserdom, just admit that you’re done and tap out… crossing the finish line without earning it…. not cool. Only 5 people knew what really happened with me, they were the real support, while others congratulated me thinking I had done it… only made me feel shittier.

E