So let’s get the facts straight… first of all antibiotics only helps with bacterial infections. Most illnesses are viral and not bacterial. Ear infections – YES, bacterial, Strep Throat – yes, bacterial, Pneumonia – only SOME are – some are bacterial but some are VIRAL. Colds, the regular FLU (as in influenza – not vomiting flu), stomach flu – these my friends are VIRAL. Antibiotics will not help you and will only make you resistant to when you do need to use them.

Tylenol brings fever down – it does not help PREVENT you from getting sick. Even if you have a fever and use Tylenol to bring down the fever – you are still SICK!!! It treats symptoms, not the illness. On top of that – unless the fever makes you very uncomfortable – LEAVE IT ALONE – a fever is your body’s natural way of fighting the virus or infection. Your body raises the temperature to help kill the bad stuff. By taking Tylenol, you are slowing down the help your body is trying to do for you. A fever is your friend … yes, if you are MISERABLE with really high fever, get some help … but if it is that bad, the Tylenol won’t even make your temp go to normal. However, if you can deal with the fever or your child isn’t miserable (by the way, sleeping is not miserable – it is good and will help your child get better sooner) – let the fever help fight the illness.

The “Flu” – the regular flu (the virus that we get offered vaccines for each fall/winter) is almost always accompanied by a fever. If you think you have the flu and you don’t have a fever, you probably don’t have the flu (but with that said, you can still have the flu without fever – it just isn’t that common). Flu is fever with cold like symptoms and lots of fatigue. The flu happens most often between October – March – with the highest chances around January and February most years. Flu usually lasts for a week and then kind of lingers. But note that the STOMACH FLU (see below) is NOT the “THE FLU.” We call it the stomach flu but it is not the influenza virus!

The STOMACH FLU - this is not really a flu. It is a virus that causes vomiting, diarrhea, and usually lasts under 12 hours. This is when you start feeling sick – are throwing up every hour or so – and after a few hours (sometimes just a couple to up to 12 – longer if it is a nasty case of Rotavirus) start to feel better. You have to eat slowly to get your stomach used to food again. This virus does not cause a fever in most people. So – if you or your child throws up multiple times in a few hour span but doesn’t have a fever – they are still SICK!! Don’t think that if they don’t have a fever – it must just be “something they ate.” Most of the time, it is not something they ate (in all my life, I have had the stomach bug multiple times and only ONCE was it from “something I ate.”). If they vomit only once and they can eat fine – then YES, they probably are not sick. But … multiple times (and yes with no fever) – guess what – they have a stomach virus. Do they need to go see the doctor? NO! Well, in most cases. We were in the ER once and a family brought in their 2 year old to the ER because their child threw up in church – SERIOUSLY??!! Take him home, let him rest, give him sips of water and wait a couple hours to see what happens. Now, if you or your child is dehydrated or seems REALLY ill – yes, go to the doctors or hospital – but not just because they threw up in church or school! And don’t take your child out with you! They are still contagious – remember the misery they just went through? Don’t inflict that on others! Don’t send them to school – don’t take them into Walmart – don’t use the bathroom at McDonalds when you are out. If your child is sick – if you are sick – please STAY HOME! These viruses are VERY contagious. Did you know that they can live on surfaces in your house for 2 weeks or more? So, if your child is sick and a week later when your child has been well for 6 days – they have a friend come over – if you missed a spot when cleaning – or maybe you didn’t go nuts with bleach like I do after someone in my house is sick – well, that friend could catch it! Yes, a week later – at your house – long after your child has been well! Finally, after throwing up, your child may become thirsty. They will want to down a large glass of a drink – and guess what? it will probably come back up!!! You need to offer small sips, spread apart – after each vomiting episode, let the stomach rest for at least 1 hour before starting anything to drink. Give a small ice chip if your child is “dying of thirst.” Yes, we want them hydrated but don’t overdo it when the tummy is not happy!

So – to summarize…

Antibiotics only work on bacterial infections – colds, stomach bugs, and the flu are NOT bacterial!

The FLU is the regular winter flu – it generally does not cause vomiting – and usually does have a fever but is different from the Stomach Flu!

The STOMACH FLU – or STOMACH BUG – usually does not a fever – that is the norm – do you hear me??? NO FEVER!!! And yes your child is sick – and NO – it is probably not the candy they ate if they have thrown up multiple times – the candy – that would be a single event!

DON’T rush to the ER and doctors as soon as your child throws up in most cases – the doctor will tell you “your child has a stomach virus – gradually increase liquids, don’t let them dehydrate and put them on a bland diet (BRAT diet) until they feel better. Think before you act! Although if something isn’t right – then go to ER!

DON’T take your child out in public when they are sick! Think of others!!! And remember that the virus can live in your house for weeks!!!

One last thing? How can I stop the Stomach Flu? The obvious answer is hand washing (lots of it!) especially before eating!! But, I also have researched and have had excellent personal experience with 2 supplements: Echinachea (take as soon as you are exposed or start feeling sick) and Vitamin D3 (about 5000 IU’s per day) – not just the amount in your calcium supplement (that is only about 400 IU’s per day). If you don’t believe me – look at the research! Both of these have helped me from getting sick and I swear by them!

Disclaimer: I am not a medical doctor and this advice is based on medical fact about viruses and bacterial illnesses as well as personal experiences of a mother of four.

2005

Today was the day of my Lasik surgery procedure. Before I begin to discuss today’s events let me share what led me to decide on Lasik. I started wearing glasses at age 15 and quickly switched to contacts because I didn’t care for glasses. My eyesight would get a little worse each year. By the time of surgery, it was at -3.75 and -4 for each of my eyes. I was very nearsighted although I know that my poor eyesight falls in the more moderate range than severe. Still, I couldn’t see or read anything in front of me unless I was on top of it.

I had wanted to get Lasik done but the cost was the main reason why I didn’t pursue it. The procedure itself seemed quite daunting. The thought of someone working on my eyes was nerve-wracking but I chose to think of the outcome and not focus on the procedure. I asked around and found every single person who had the procedure done was thrilled and raved about it. Most said the procedure wasn’t bad at all and the end results were fantastic.

I didn’t do too much research on doctors; I used the one whom my insurance gave a discount for. In the office, however, I was very impressed with Dr. Dornic at the Laser Eye Center in Cary. I read all of his patient reviews while waiting for my consultation and everyone had wonderful things to say about the doctor so I felt very good about that.

The initial consultation was free. They took some pictures of my eyes and measured the strength of my glasses. The doctor looked in my eyes and told me that I was a candidate for regular Lasik and Custom, or Wavefront, Lasik. Regular Lasik was cheaper – at $1249 per eye with the insurance discount. It boasted an 85% chance of 20/20 vision. It used your accounts of lenses to determine how to shape your eye. Basically it is done the same way they determine what prescription lens to use. The custom approach is more expensive at $1649 per eye. It uses a machine to determine how to laser your eyes. It gives a much more accurate picture of your eye and therefore the adjustments made are more precise leading to better vision. They boast a 98% chance of 20/20 vision or better with a high probability of improved night vision as well.

Since I was already paying for the procedure, I decided that I might as well pay for the best and chose the Wavefront approach. The office scheduled a pre-op appointment for me and told me to stop wearing contacts for a week before the appointment. It was terrible having to wear glasses for a week when you are not used to it. The pre-op appointment was no different than a regular eye doctor examination. It took about an hour and they had to dilate my eyes.

The next morning I arrived for my procedure. I signed some consent forms and made a down payment for services. Next I was given 5 mg of Valium and some antibiotic eye drops. After 15 minutes I felt nothing from the Valium so they gave me an additional 5-mg. To be honest, it still didn’t have that much affect. I was a little more relaxed but I didn’t feel drugged in any way. They did a total of 3 sets of the antibiotic drops and I headed into the laser room.

They showed me what the sound of the laser would be like and told me what was going to happen. They gave me a stuffed monkey to hold onto during the procedure – it was kind of funny at first but in the end I was glad to have the monkey! They taped one of my eyes with a black shield so I couldn’t see out of that eye. Next they taped my upper and lower eyelashes on the eye they are going to work on. They gave me numbing drops in my eye and finally put the eye speculum in to hold my eye open. I was really worried about that part but it wasn’t bothersome at all. They put more drops in to wash out my eye and then put this suction cup on my eye. I felt pressure and it was weird but it really wasn’t bad. When they do that, however you totally lose your vision until you can kind of make out this blinking orange light that you are supposed to look at.

The next step is to cut into your eye to make a flap. This was where I was glad to have the monkey. I guess my eye wasn’t as numb as it should have been and it hurt (and I was squeezing George the Monkey) – not like labor pains or anything but it wasn’t fun either. Luckily it was only for a few seconds. The next part is weird, the doctor lifts up the flap and suddenly everything is really blurry and strange looking. The laser then starts and I could actually smell my eye being burned away. The laser doesn’t hurt at all. It only takes about a minute tops and then they put the flap back down and you can see again. At this time the doctor sponges your flap to smooth it out and lets it air dry for 2 minutes. One eye is done!

For the next eye the procedure was the same but I was nervous because of the pain I felt during the slicing of my first eye. After the numbing drops, the doctor was touching my eye and I could feel it – I began thinking – okay if I can feel him now (which I couldn’t with the last eye) what is it going to be like when he slices the eye. So, I spoke up and they put more drops in. That turned out to be great, as I didn’t feel the pain with the slicing this time. The second eye was much easier since I had been through it and knew what to expect plus I didn’t have the pain that I had with the first eye.

Despite the few seconds of pain – I would do it all again in a heartbeat – it isn’t even supposed to hurt – they just didn’t get my eye numb enough. So, if you are considering the procedure – don’t let my experience convince you not to do it – it wasn’t that big of a deal. I had more pain closing a door on my finger than during the procedure and that pain lasted a lot longer!

After the procedure, they moved me to an exam room and put some more drops to lubricate my corneas and told me to keep my eyes closed. The doctor checked my flap and then did another laser patient. After that patient, he checked my flap again and gave me more drops. By now my eyes were burning so they gave me more numbing drops. They taped plastic shields to my eyes and gave me sunglasses to wear over them and sent me home.

Joe drove me home and I went to bed. I would have thought after all that and 2 Valium I would be tired but I wasn’t. The burning in my eyes kept getting worse and worse and I will admit it was very uncomfortable. I was also tearing a lot and that was uncomfortable too. Any light made the tearing worse. So I ended up taking an Ambien, 2 Tylenol, 2 Motrin, and putting 2 bandannas over my eyes to keep all the light out. I finally got knocked out and slept for about 5 hours. When I woke up I felt a ton better. The burning was gone and the tearing was less. I could take off the bandannas and glasses and walk around. My eyesight immediately after surgery was still quite blurry – although less blurry than when I was without contacts or glasses. As the day has gone on, it is without a doubt improving. I took another nap this evening and again woke feeling even better. I can obviously see to type this, can read the guide on the TV, and can see things fairly clearly even with these shields on my eyes. I am anxious to wake up tomorrow and take them off. The pain is gone, I feel very mild scratchiness and they feel somewhat dry but overall I am doing really well.

Tomorrow I start using drops three times a day and have my post op visit with the doctor to check my vision. If you are considering Lasik surgery, I would have to say - do it! I think I am going to be really happy with the results.

One Day Post-Op: I woke up and took the shields off. My eyesight was very good. It did vary some during the day – sometimes it was very clear, other times a little blurry. They didn’t really hurt at all but they did feel tired and it helped to rest my eyes throughout the day. I went to see the doctor and he said my flap was healing fine and my vision was 20/20 in one eye and 20/25 in the other eye – with both eyes I was seeing 20/20. The doctor said that my eyesight will continue to get better as my eyes heal. The ‘side effects’ I have are: 1) the variation in my eyesight throughout the day 2) I can’t read really close up right now, I have to hold the paper back a little bit 3) I do see the halos around lights at night and 4) Occasionally, my eyes will burn a little or feel dry. Still all of the above is minimal and I am told that they will go away. I am thrilled with the results. I see the doctor again at 6 days post-op.

One Week Post-Op: My eyes are healing good. I have less fluctuation in my eyesight. I am still seeing 20/20 with slight nearsightedness of -.5 in each eye. I asked about the fact that seeing things close up is still difficult and here was what the doctor said – since I wasn’t using the muscles in my eyes before for reading (the nearsightedness compensated for that)the eye muscles didn’t develop. So now that I don’t have the nearsightedness anymore, I will need to develop the muscles in my eyes. As that happens my ability to see close up will improve. He said 1-6 months. He also said the same time frame for the halos at night to go away. So the few “problems” I am having are common and will go away. He did say that after 40, people are not usually able to develop the muscles due to aging but I shouldn’t have a problem at 36.

One Month Post-Op: It has been one month since my surgery. My eyes are great! I saw the doctor today and I have 20/20 in both eyes. He checked my ‘nearsightedness’ that was at -.5 last time and it was at 0 today – perfect eyesight! I can now read close up without any problems except for ultra tiny print. The halos are going away. I don’t do drops except 3 times a day and my eyes don’t really feel that dry. The surgery was a total success. I am enjoying the freedom of not having to worry about contacts or glasses. It is amazing!

Let’s start off from the beginning.  I started having VERY (and I won’t be graphic but I mean VERY) heavy periods and bad cramping.  I went to a local GYN doctor and he examined me, did a pap and ordered an ultrasound and endometrial biopsy.  From the exam he said my uterus seemed a bit enlarged.  The ultrasound showed 1 small fibroid (probably not the cause of my bleeding) and a thickened endometrial lining.  After much reading on the internet, I was told by MANY women that an in-office (with just Motrin for pain) endometrial biopsy was EXCRUTIATING.  I told the doctor that I just couldn’t do it awake.  He told me that my pap had come back abnormal so he would refer me to a GYN Oncologist anyway.

At GYN Oncology, I was examined again and got conflicting information from the 2 doctors – but she did agree to do a cervical biopsy (for the abnormal pap), a D&C (and get my endometrial biopsy that way), and a hysteroscopy (looking inside the uterus with a camera) under general anesthesia and then we would proceed from there.

I  went to same day surgery for that and tolerated things very well.  The worst was that the anesthesia guy couldn’t do an IV to save his life.  It took 4 attempts with Lidocane that was quite painful.  Post surgery, I woke up nicely, bleeding was minimal, and I went home.  I was up and about within a couple days, just taking it easy.

The pathology results came in and all was clear of cancer!  Thank God!  So, the doctor referred me back to a regular (but different – I wasn’t going back to doctor #1 as he was terrible) GYN doctor.  I chose to cancel that and go see my GYN doctor from 12 years ago because she is the most amazing person and doctor.  She had delivered my 12 year old son back when she was doing both OB and GYN.

She told me all of my options:  Birth control pills, Depo Provera shots, IUD, ablation, and hysterectomy.  I gave it a lot of thought and decided that the hysterectomy was the best choice for me as it was a guarantee to fix my problems, the other solutions may or may not have worked and I did not want to be back dealing with all of this again in a year.

We scheduled the surgery quickly.  Two days prior to surgery I had to do a bowel prep.  I drank Magnesium Citrate (Cherry).  The dose said 6.5-10 oz for an adult.  I went with the 6.5 oz.  The stuff was nasty and one more sip would have made it all come up.  It took 7 hours to work and I went about 15 times (didn’t get sore but did use baby wipes).  I was on an all liquid diet at this point too.  The next morning I had 2 more episodes of diarrhea.  I didn’t eat much that day just 1 milkshake and  a bowl of cream of chicken soup broth.  I took 2 days of antibiotics and 4 days of acidophilus.

We got up at 4:30 am to leave at 5:00 so we would be at the hospital at 5:30am.  We then waited without much interaction from the hospital staff for 2 hours.  I did get an IV (one stick, yeah) during that time.  I had a terrible headache from not eating so they let me take 2 Tylenol with a sip of water.  It helped a lot.

Finally they came in at 7:30 and gave me a dose of “happy meds” in my IV.  I don’t remember anything after that until I woke up.  Waking up was HARD.  My incision site was VERY painful.  I remember asking for pain meds and going back to sleep.  Apparently they want you to breathe while sleeping though – which apparently I was not doing.  The nurse said no more IV pain meds until I could remember to breathe!  I tried and was somewhat more successful.

Once I got stabilized with pain meds, I was still very sore but better.  I had to go to the bathroom (the cath was taken out before I woke).  The first bathroom trip was in a wheel chair, painful, and not too rewarding (just a small amount that burned when it came out.)  I felt very weak and sore after the trip.

I got back and bed and kept dozing off.  My throat was very sore from being intubated.  I asked for a popsicle and felt much better after having one.  The sugar and the cold was helpful.  That was when things started getting better for me.  It was slow but now that I was on top of the pain meds, the sharp pains in my incisions weren’t as bad.  I had one bout of feeling like I would throw up but that quickly passed once I was lying down in my bed.  I had to use the bathroom again and  had a nice “normal” event and “passed” my tests including walking to the bathroom.

The nurse wanted to start me on oral pain meds but wanted me to eat a cracker or two first.  She gave me a package of Graham Crackers.  The problem was that my mouth was SOOOOO dry (I had a patch of med behind my ear to also help with nausea and it makes your mouth turn into Cotton Mouth) that I couldn’t eat the cracker with a sip of liquid for each bite.  I finally got the cracker down and she gave me liquid Lortab (ughhh, nasty tasting stuff!).    Once that kicked in, I felt really good, only mildly sore.  I walked to the bathroom a third time (they used up 3 liters of IV solution!) and did well.  I told them I was ready to go home.

My doctor came and talked to me.  She said my uterus was quite large and she thought I was going to feel so much better once I healed.

At 1:30 pm (6 hours from start to discharge) we went home.  I was comfortable on the way home but did have to stop once to use a bathroom AGAIN!!!  They told me to stay on top of the pain pills (taking Percocet) and the nausea meds.  We got home at 2 pm, I took 1 nausea pill and by 3 pm I was in a lot of pain from the incision site again – I was supposed to wait until 4:30 for the pain pills but couldn’t do it and took it early.  I have been doing great since.  I haven’t even had to nap.  Just typing on the computer, talking to my kids, and still going to the bathroom a TON.  There is no bleeding (a tiny bit of brown discharge sometimes).  I have 3 incisions.  One is in my belly button and one on either side.  The left side is the one that hurts, it is bigger (about 2 inches) and is where they had to take the uterus out from.  She did my LEEP, removing a cone of tissue from my cervix and stitched it up.  I weigh 6 pounds more than I did this morning when I weighed myself, all water weight.  I am hungry, awake, and in no pain as long a I don’t move a lot and stay on the pain pills.  My doctor said that Thursday and Friday will be harder days as my insides “wake up” from the anesthesia.