Hi all! As I announced on my shop page back in August, I was scheduled for surgery on 8/17 and expected to return to work 2 weeks later.
Well, the universe had other plans. and I’m here to tell you about it.
At my 2 week checkup, I was doing great and my doc was really impressed with my progress and gave me clearance to sew (but not iron, fold fabric, cut fabric or use my press). So what did I do? All the things, because it needed to be done and I had deadlines looming (pop-up shop in Cambridge on 9/17, Southern Adirondack on 9/24 & 25 plus club bags need to be delivered to my club partner by 9/30).
The Saturday after my 2 week checkup, we had family over for dinner and ate on the patio. I went out, put my feet up and noticed a spot on my ankle. Upon closer inspection I saw it was a #$%$ing tick! It was pretty tiny and I barely touched it and it fell off, but you could see that it had bit me. I kept an eye on the spot over the next few days and never noticed a bullseye so thought nothing further of it and kept trying to prep all the things so I could start sewing bags for my pop-up shop.
Fast-forward to this past Friday, I had a great night’s sleep (unheard of, trust me) and felt ready to take on the world. By 1pm I was flat on my back with a 100+ degree fever.
I checked with my doc and she gave me some antibiotics thinking I might have something going on due to the surgery and overdoing it all week.
My temp spiked high on Friday in the wee hours but I woke up with a somewhat normal temp. By dinnertime, it was back to 103 and I was told to head in to the ER. Where I got to enjoy a lovely barium cocktail and a CT scan then admission to the hospital for an overnight stay and more IV antibiotics. After multiple conversations with many medical professionals, it finally entered my fever-riddled brain to mention the damned tick and that changed everything.
A few more blood draws (oh.my.god. I now have a new respect for my pincushion) and a few more tests and it was determined that I had contracted ehrlichiosis. I was happy to have a diagnosis that wasn’t some kind of horrible abscess that would need God only knows what to treat it and also happy to hear I was going home.
I’m feeling much better today, but still nowhere near ready to stand in a booth for 6 hours (and sew to fill it in 3 days, and travel and setup etc) so I’ve had to cancel my pop-up shop at Mind’s Eye Yarns in Cambridge on the 17th. BUT they will have a whole bunch of my bags since I’m sending out a box to her tomorrow! I also expect to be able to be back to sewing for a few hours a day starting tomorrow so I will have a pretty full booth for Southern Adirondack next weekend and club bags out the door within their expected date.
…as long as I don’t manage to contract some other crazypants thing between now and then. I might look into getting myself a nice bubble… and, as I said to all the doctors, I don’t get sick often but when I do, I go full bore. I mean, why do only half a job? 😉
Thank you all for your patience – I do have fall/halloween prints to get listed and I’ve been trying to move my shop over to a self-hosted site for weeks which is holding up the listing process too. I wish there were more me’s and more hours in the day, and I’m pretty sick of this being sick thing, trust me. xo