monday morning weigh-in: week 3

Well, the good news is that I'm just about back on track, weighing in at 173 lbs. today (I should be at 172.5). The bad news is...

...I experienced a series of unfortunate events this weekend culminating with a trip to the ER early this morning. My 3 year old Sofia has had better weekends, too...

...On Saturday I brought her to the doctor because she started getting hives every night since a couple days before Thanksgiving. They mostly go away during the day, but Friday night they were particularly bad so I brought her to the doctor. The doc said there was no obvious cause, but it could be a symptom from an earlier viral infection. (We had elimated food as the likely cause). If viral, they would probably go away in another couple of weeks, but no matter the cause, they weren't anything to worry about. (I myself had a bad case of hives when I was about 12 years old. After slicing my finger with a pocket knife while whittling a stick, I was stitched up and given a shot of pennicillin. I soon broke out in hives all over and man did they itch! (That's when I found out I was allergic to pennicillin). It was really bad for several days. I went on antihistamines which kept them under control, and after a couple of years I never got them again. During those hive years, though, every time I got scratched my skin would puff up into an itchy welt.)

Then, Saturday afternoon Sofia got her big toenail mangled by a slamming door. I'm not sure if she slammed the door or her little sister Lucia did (she claims the latter), but in any event it bled quite a bit and the nail was traumatized enough that it looked like it might fall off. The doctor's office told us to just keep it well bandaged, but expect the nail to fall off, and give her foot baths twice daily with antibacterial soap. Eventually the toe should scab over and a new nail should grow in.

So last night, her hives were keeping the poor thing awake in the middle of the night and she was scratching at them like crazy. (I'm in charge of putting her to sleep,and keeping her asleep, while my wife handles daughter number 2). At Sofia's request, I let her watch television; I figured it would get her mind off the itching while we were waiting for the Zyrtec to kick in (which her doctor had given us). At that time, about 3:30 AM, I decided to bring some of the dirty glasses which had been collecting upstairs down to the kitchen. Somehow I slipped on the first step, with a glass in each hand, one of which broke on the way down. I slid all the way down, my butt making contact with each and every stair, and my slipper-clad feet violently knocking down the safety gate at the bottom of the stairs for the finale. My wife woke up in horror, but I assured her it was just me, not the kids (a relief to both of us!). I knew the gash on my left thumb would require stiches, and the gash on the right hand was questionable but worth looking into as well. With towels to stop the bleeding, I called 911 while my wife had the unenviable task of cleaning up the glass (and blood) while keep the kids at bay (our 17-month old had woken up by that time and was running around like crazy.)

Since my wife was quite busy I rode the ambulance to the hospital, got stiched up (6 sutures on the left hand and one on the right), then waited over an hour for a frickin' cab to show up at the hospital to take me home. (It was cold, and cabs were scarce). I've never seen a bruise like the one on my right buttock before. I'm going to take a picture of it for posterity (don't worry, I'm not intending to post it...)

The really ironic part is, we just spent big bucks to replace the carpeting in the place with hardwood, including the stairs, which seem to be about 10X more dangerous now with the hardwood. We were planning to put a carpet runner down the middle, now we may need to speed that bit of decorating up a bit.