Skyler has a little rash spot on her neck. I’m pretty sure it’s ringworm. It’s been there for about two days so this afternoon I consulted our doctor WebMD in search of a picture of ringworm and how to treat it. The picture on WebMD looks almost exactly like her rash so I’ve put on my lab coat and declared it ringworm.

Our doctor WebMD told me to put Lamisil or Lotrimin on it so I headed to Target to pick some up. Before I put it on Skyler I asked her to come over to my desk so I could take a picture of it. She groaned, “Are you going to put it on your blog?”

Smart ass. Not all of the pictures I take end up on my blog.

The reason I wanted to take a picture is because I’m actually going to see our family doctor (for reals) tomorrow for a little checky-poo on my asthma issues (cause you gotta love visiting your doctor’s office three times in one week). I want to show him the picture so he can confirm it is indeed ringworm. I mean, I trust my good friend WebMD and I did put on my lab coat and all, but just to be sure…

So I may not post the picture of her ringworm. But that’s not going to stop me from blogging about it.

It’s been an exciting couple of days for me. And by exciting I mean totally crappy and awful. I spent the last three days gasping for breath, hacking up a lung and sucking on to an inhaler. Good times.

It was so bad on Sunday I almost went to the ER. But I decided against it because I’m that cheap. If my kids were sick I’d rush them right to the ER. But me? I think I can suffer through one day of chest pains and blue lips rather than spend a hundred dollars at the hospital.

Early Monday morning (and early for me is around 9:30am) I made an appointment with my doctor. I went in at 11:30am. By then I practically had to crawl in to the office because I couldn’t catch my breath. My doctor listened to my chest and had me do some peak flows. My normal is around 390 (your healthy non-asthmatic lungs probably get you a much higher number than that). I was blowing around a 230 to 250. So then I got an albuteral breathing treatment. Followed by more peak flows. This time I blew around a 250 to 280. Improvement, but still not great.

That’s when my doctor used the H-word. No not hell. Not even heck. No, he used the word “hospital.” He said he was going to give me a steroid shot, prescribe a higher dosage of Prednisone (I take a small dose every day for my sinus issues cause I’m just all kinds of healthy), and schedule another appointment for the next day. He said if I wasn’t feeling even a little bit better or if I had a fever that night I needed to call him and he would do a direct admit to the hospital.

I hate hospitals. Not that I’m scared of hospitals. I just don’t like them. The nurses come in every four hours to take your vitals and they always wake you up. The beds are never comfortable. The gowns are less than stellar. If I wanted my butt to hang out I’d by some assless chaps. There’s always loud people walking down the hall. And my families not there. Plus I have a hundred things to do at home that I just can’t get done at the hospital. Immediately after Keaton was born I told my parents I was ready to go home. Then I tried to stand up and my legs felt like jello (that happens when you push out a nine pound baby with no drugs). So I decided to give it a day. When I had my appendix out I gave the doctor two days. When he came in that second morning for rounds I said, “I’m going home today so write up my discharge papers.” I have no time for hospitals.

So, even though I really wasn’t feeling any better I refused to call my doctor last night.

This morning I walked the very tall hill to school. By the time I got to my classroom I seriously thought I was going to die. I parked my backpack at a desk and went out in the hall to cry. But after a couple puffs of my inhaler and some deep breaths I recovered enough to return to the classroom.

I went back to the doctor today at 1:30pm. I was fully expecting him to send me to the hospital. And I was quickly running reasons why that just wouldn’t be possible through my head. But by then I was starting to feel a little better. My chest was still very tight and any sort of movement took my breath away (not in a good way). But I wasn’t wheezing as much as I had the day before. My doctor listened to my chest and said it sounded like air was going through better. Then I tried the peak flows. They were between 280 and 300. Woo hoo. Improvement. A 300.

So my doctor decided to continue to treat me as an outpatient. One more steroid shot (which goes in the butt cheek, but different butt cheek today), keep up the higher dosage of Prednisone and nebulizer treatments every four hours. I’d take a steroid shot in the ass every day if it means not going to the hospital.

So I’m feeling slightly better tonight after my second shot and some breathing treatments. I go back to the doctor on Friday. I’m hoping that will be the last visit or a while. Love my doctor to death, but I’d like to see less of him.

We’ve really been slacking on our Halloween responsibilities this year. Halloween is only five days away and we were still pumpkinless. Every year we make a big deal out of the family trip to the pumpkin patch. We spend a couple of hours there going through the haunted barn, riding the go-karts, and petting the animals and then get pumpkins.

Not this year. This year we spent about five minutes at the pumpkin patch.

It started like every other trip to the pumpkin patch. We piled all the kids in the van. As we were driving down the street we argued about which pumpkin patch we should go to. You think after years of this very same argument we would decide this information before hand. But then it wouldn’t be tradition. Once we decided on a location we headed for the pumpkin patch.

We parked the van and jumped out. And that’s when the witch’s tit cold hit us right in the face. And it wasn’t just cold. It was windy. Very windy.

The woman running the pumpkin patch told us there were no more pumpkins in the patch. The only pumpkins she had left were right here up front. We’re not sure she was being all that truthful because there appeared to be quite a few pumpkins the patch when we drove by. But whatever. It was too cold to hike all the way to the patch anyway. So we let Skyler, Spencer and Caleb pick out whatever pumpkin they wanted from the selection in front of us.

Look how thrilled the kids look to be standing in the freezing cold picking out pumpkins. Good times.

We also decided not to carve pumpkins this year. Well, at least not for the little kids. Instead we headed to Target for Mr. Potato Head pumpkin pieces. Decorating pumpkins was much easier than carving.

Skyler picked the princess pack.

Spencer chose the vampire and Caleb chose the pirate pack.

I think they look way better than a mushy rotten carved pumpkin.

As for the teens, they picked out larger pumpkins at…Hy-Vee. Yep, we got our pumpkins at the grocery store. I should have taken a picture of them in front of the three cans of corn for a buck fifty sign. That could be our new redneck Halloween tradition.