Friday, August 31, 2007

Shingles

I'm 40 years old and I have shingles - EEK!. I always think of shingles as an "old person disease" (although I have certainly seen younger people with it) and I'm feeling kind of old right now!

When I went to the doctor for my headache on Tuesday, we noticed that I had a rash on my hip. It wasn't painful, though, so the NP and I really didn't think it was actually shingles - although it does not cross the midline of my back. Then, last night, I started having actual pain and a new crop of lesions (although they're not really blisters) developed in a lovely dermatomal line. I saw a different NP today and she agreed that it looks and acts like shingles, so I got Valtrex, Lyrica, and lidocaine patches. I have a patch on right now - it's not perfect, but it helps.

I had a wicked headache again yesterday so we did unschooling. Ga'Hoole Girl worked for several hours on her computer game that she's programming. Wild Man made a "Master Sandwich Shop" in which he serves meals and snacks. Payment is by rupees - an imaginary kind of money from the Zelda games. Wild Man, who doesn't typically enjoy writing, wrote up 5 or 6 signs to show what he was selling. We watched part of a movie about Ancient Greece while the kids painted. It was a highly educational day, despite the fact that I can't cross anything off my schedule!! I have been thinking about scheduling and how much structure the kids should have during the day. There is a thread on Sonlight Forums about unschooling, so I'm interested in seeing other people's ideas.

Well, the kids have dinner ready - pizza from the Master Sandwich Shop - so I'd better go sit down for dinner!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've been learning about unschooling as that's apparently how lots of homeschool moms teach with newborn babies. I already had our school year planned out so I'm trying to stick with the "schedule" as much as possible. But I do have plenty of computer games/websites, toys, and movies to keep E occupied if needed. He will volunteer to do handwriting so that helps. We've just got to work on math at this point but I have some games that I guess we could play instead. And I'm interested in the sandwich shop! That sounds like something E would LOVE! Let me know what Wild Man did for that! Hope your headache gets better (and Shingles)!

Staci Eastin said...

I'm so sorry. Shingles can be so painful. Hope you're better soon.