It's a birthday pity party!

So today is my 34th birthday.  Over the years, I have become less excited about my birthday for many reasons, none of them actually due to aging, ironically.  I could care less about getting older-my life has improved as I've gotten older, so it's no big deal.  However, I was actually looking forward to this birthday.  I am more than happy to bid 33 a fond farewell.  It was not the best year of my life for many reasons.  If you've read my blog for any length of time, you know that my health took a real turn for the worse this past year.  Since all my cancer stuff and sinus surgery is now behind me, I was hoping 34 would be the year of health restoration.  While this is just my first day of 34, so far that goal does not seem possible.  I'm home from work today with a feverish Harper.  No other symptoms, just a fever and just high enough to make her sweet puny.  She's snuggled up next to me on the couch and has told me she loved me many times already today.  Sometimes sick babies aren't so bad.  I'm being careful with her though because Tuesday night she, Jruss and I all had stomach issues-all night long.  Poor baby girl threw up four times in her bed-we ran out of clean sheets that fit her bed and she closed the night sleeping in between two flat sheets that didn't fit her bed.  And we'll just leave it by saying that cleaning up someone else's throw up when you have either just thrown up or feel like throwing up is really hard.  I have to give Jason props on this one.  He actually handled the last 3 clean ups for Harper because I was, um, indisposed, at the moment.  This is not an activity that I recommend, incidentally.
It does remind me of something my social work practicum (fancy word for internship) instuctor told me.  He was leading a group of at-risk high school students and somehow they got around to talking about what love was.  You can imagine what at-risk high school students thought love was-mostly stuff you see in movies.  Terry told them that love was actually waking up in the middle of the night to the sound of your wife throwing up and choosing to get up, go into the bathroom, and hold her hair.  That has stuck with me over the years and the longer Jruss and I have been married (almost 11 years!), the more I see the truth in his words.  For us this week, love was tending to our child when we were both sick too.
Oh, and how did I start out the day of my birth?  By a visit to my favorite ENT, Dr. French to check on my stupid ear.  Got some good news in that the rupture in my ear drum has healed, but what's causing the hearing loss is fluid behind my ear.  There is fluid behind my ear because my adenoid tissue is very swollen blocking my eustachian tube, meaning fluid in my ear can't drain.  So I go back on my Nasonex, which I had stopped to speed healing form the surgery and have been given an antibiotic in case the ear starts hurting again.  The fluid is not infected currently, but could become so, thus the antibiotic. Yay!  Oh, and he removed some more crusts from my nose without first giving me the numbing spray.  He did stop and give it to me, but not before my left eye was watering uncontrollably and I had gasped out loud.  Nurse's oversight.  Good times.

So here's my list of things you don't want to happen to you on or around your birthday:

1. You discover your daughter is running a fever during your morning post-shower snuggle.
2. Your doctor pulling nastiness from your nose when they haven't given you the awesome numbing spray first.
3. Stomach problems for you and/or your family.
4. Missing a fun lunch with your awesome co-workers.
5. Missing fun desk decorations by your awesome co-workers.
6.  Not being able to do your planned birthday dinner because of recovering from #3.  We were planning on doing Mexican tonight, but I'm not sure our tummies are up for that just yet. Who wants chicken noodle soup on their birthday??
7. Ruptured ear drum/hearing loss/fluid in the ear that won't drain.

So far it seems like 34 is going to look a lot like 33.  I guess I can still hold out hope for 35!

As an aside, I have a whole series of Disney posts.  We didn't have internet access at the hotel (we could have but didn't want to pay for it), but I kept a word document going so I wouldn't forget stuff.  We are still sorting through our pictures, but I promise you'll get more than enough of details of our very fun trip to Disney. Hey, I'm going to be at home all day today, you might even get one later on today!