It’s a whole WEEK after New Year’s (and my birthday – Jan 2nd, the worst day of the year to have a birthday. TRY TO CHANGE MY MIND). Most of you are begrudgingly back into the swing of things, but not me! I’m just starting. I still have a kernel of hope that it will all be different. You see, we decided to ignore the Board of Education’s schedule and take our vacation the first week of January. I learned my lesson last year after going to Florida during spring break. NEVER AGAIN.
Before I get into how it all panned out, we have a great new episode of Parenting is a Joke available for your ears - it’s with the podcast powerhouse Sara Dean, host of the Shameless Mom Academy that has been a #1 podcast in the parenting field for the last 7 years. She talks about being raised by a nun, why she decided to leave the fitness industry, and how to make meal prep easy for everyone. This is the perfect episode to jumpstart your New Year and you can find it here.
Right before New Year’s Day, we decided to go to California. Leading up to it, our son had a 3-day virus (a different one than COVID! There are so many!) that included puking, pink eye, and a sinus cold, but he got over it. The night before we left we were all packed and healthy. We got to the airport without fighting and with plenty of time to spare. Our son had a fully charged iPad and the airport was empty. Some of the holiday decorations were being taken down as we were wheeling down the concourse. I fucking loved it. I felt like I finally conquered something in my life.
As we settled into our plane seats, my husband complained that his eye was watering and then showed me the tissue he was dabbing it with – it was covered with yellow liquid. His eye looked a little swollen, a little pink, and was tearing a lot. I’ve never seen pink eye in an adult NOT on the internet, so I just assumed something got in his eye and he was having a reaction. Meanwhile, my sinuses were brewing up a cold that had the potential to become something awful. 5 1/2 hours later, when we landed, I gasped at the progression of my husband’s eye - it was almost swollen shut and a fiery red color. Every eyelash sported a yellow orb of puss. So the next words out of my mouth were the words you never want to say on any day of your vacation, especially Day 1…but there they were, “We need to get you to Urgent Care immediately.”
I googled our problem and found one with a 3.7 rating! (rather high for a walk-in medical facility) and after dropping him off, my son and I went down the street to the first restaurant we saw, which was a pizzeria offering ‘NY Style Pizza’. I mean, why not be disappointed by whatever cheesy, thick-crust imposter would be coming our way? I ordered a salad, and I was excited because California restaurant salads are so much better than New York restaurant salads, but I was served a hunk of iceberg lettuce, a can of sliced black olives, topped with a package of blue cheese crumbles, and all covered in a puddle of gravy-like dressing. I started laughing, out of exasperation more than anything. My son asked me why I was laughing, and I said, “Because sometimes if you don’t laugh, you’ll cry.” And he thought that was the funniest thing he’d ever heard. He just kept repeating it and laughing; he parroted it to our server and to the people one table over. Something about this mix of emotions to my 8-year-old boy was the best joke I’d uttered in a while (and I know because he’s often told me, ‘not one of your best jokes, mom’).
A few hours later, my husband had antibiotic drops and penicillin in his clutches. We went to our Airbnb, and I downed a couple of Sudafed. My son wanted to hit the pool, but I didn’t feel well enough to go in, and goppy eye certainly wasn’t diving in, so we just sat on the deck chairs while my son splashed around alone, kinda like it was the 80s.
The next day I woke up half crying because I couldn’t breathe, my head felt like an overstuffed paper towel dispenser in a public bathroom. Worse than that, my left eye was puffy and puss was leaking from the tear duct. It was New Year’s Eve day. I found myself uttering the phrase once again, “I need to go to Urgent Care.” At least we knew where it was. They dropped me off and went somewhere for Mexican food, better than the pizza place so we were starting to find our groove!
During my intake with the nurse, which I always find exhausting because I have an exhausting and long medical history, when she asked, “Prior surgeries?” I said, “None relevant to my eye.” Which only served as bait for her to really dig into my past. She took my blood pressure, and while the machine was squeezing and releasing around my bicep, she asked how much I weighed. I joked, “Not the best question to ask a woman while she’s getting her blood pressure taken!” Stereotypical material, I know; I was just trying to lighten the mood. She didn’t get it. I explained it. Joke suicide.
Then she asked me if I was depressed.
I wanted to say, “YES BECAUSE I’M ON DAY 2 OF A PRICY CALIFORNIAN FAMILY VACATION AND THIS IS OUR SECOND TRIP TO URGENT CARE!!!!”
But instead, I said, “….Nope.”
Then she asked when my last period was and if there was any chance I was pregnant. Again – not relevant to my fucking oozing eye! But I figured out why they always ask that to women regardless of why you are there. It’s because so many, and I mean SO many, procedures, treatments, and medications could harm an unborn fetus. And you know how America loves an unborn fetus. So that’s why.
Soon enough I had my very own prescription for eye drops, and I loaded up on the over-the-counter sinus medication.
Our New Year’s Eve was spent drinking tea, doing NyQuil shots, and timing out eyedrops. We went to bed at 10 pm.
The next morning, my son woke up with a slightly pink, swollen eye, and I looked right into it and yelled, “NOOOOOOOOOOOOO! You are not allowed to have pink eye AGAIN!!!” And it cleared up. Seriously. It did not develop into anything.
The universe was even tired of me.
Even though we were both technically sick for the full week (our son was fine), we had a pretty great time. Maybe that’s the best one can strive for. 2024: lowering the bar on the definition of a good time. Now that’s something I can stick to.
Did you make any resolutions? Feel like sharing them below? I’m trying to do 20 pushups a day - well work up to 20. Currently, I can do 8. I’m sure I’ll injure myself by February and it’ll be all over, but it’s fun to pretend now!
Check out this week’s Parenting is a Joke episode with Shameless Mom, Sara Dean, and look forward to next week with the very funny comedian, actor, writer, and bread maker Tom Papa. Subscribe to this is you haven’t yet, and if you have THANK YOU! Also, subscribe to our podcast - you will not be disappointed.