Fractals within my goopy mucus filled mind-mind

 5.04

That's what I see when I open my right eye and glance, without moving my head, at the small wooden triangular-shaped clock, that sits across the other side of our bedroom. The numbers are illuminated in red - a colour that will no doubt remain in the corners of my tired bloodshot eyes for the 18 hours and 56 minutes that remain of today. If this was the old movie - 'Groundhog Day', then the numbers would slowly flip over and an alarm would sound, as Bill Murray clambered out of his bed once again to live the same day over and over - But for me, I stare as the numbers silently advance to 5.05 or is it S.O.S? What could SOS stand for right now? Snot Ooze Saliva? Sticky Oral Substance? Yep, my second mind-mind decides that this is the perfect description to match the three-letter abbreviation just before the numbers/letters perform their silent 'flip' and change once again to 5.06 or 'SOG'.

This is our lives at the moment - I refer to 'our', in a couple of different ways - Our - as in our little family, all of us suffering for the umpteenth day of house sickness. I also refer to the 'our' in terms of myself and my mind, which at times like these, feels much more like its own being - It wakes up when I try to sleep and gets excited about the most ridiculous things at the stupidest times - It as if someone else is controlling my thoughts rather than me actually doing it myself. I actually which one of me is writing this right now!?!?

The 'Rick' side of my mind wants the 'Mind' side of my mind to shut the fuck up and stop talking, so that the rest of me can at least try to get some sleep, but the mind-mind reminds me that this isn't going to happen. Because he is enjoying himself and also because of the sticky green beings that have taken up residence in my itchy throat and within the seemingly endless sinus cavities just above the ridge of my sweaty nose and behind my 'clock number red' coloured bloodshot eyes.  

My actual real mind (I think) is thinking back to the start of September when I got Pneumonia and the 6 weeks of illness and coughing that followed - After just a short week of freedom from the lurgy, another virus or whatever it was, found its way into our little hovel and infected me and Oliver at first. Buffy and Hannah followed a few days later. For a couple of weeks, our house reverberated to the sounds of hacking and coughing, sneezing and wheezing! We really should all have been sponsored by 'Kleenex', until we ran out and started on the toilet roll and Paper Kitchen towels, which really do a good job at removing soft wet skin from the round point nit at the end of your nose! 

Thankfully, after a couple of horrendous weeks, we all recovered and had a week of freedom before some other infection manifested itself into poor little Ollie's throat - he got it bad the second time and passed it along to all of us again - meaning Hannah missed school, Ollie missed daycare and Grandma days and I had to take a day off work 'unpaid' due to not having any sick days left. During that time, I spent the day with the kids transforming the front room and dining room into a huge blanket fort, whilst making frequent trips to the kitchen to grab kitchen paper towels to wipe various running noses. Buffy had some time in bed from where she worked when she could. Here's the fort we built!

Luckily, these illness's somehow checked the calendar, we all share, before arriving, and were not present when Hannah was due to go to the hospital for her first round of plastic surgery on her mouth injury. She did an amazing job and actually had a pretty nice time at the hospital until they took her away for the surgery itself. Then, when she came out she was a little groggy and we had to wait about an hour before she could get dressed into her clothes and we could take her home. It was a bit funny as the nurse said that she wouldn't be able to leave till she was walking around by herself - we tried her walking and she was very wobbly and unsteady, like a drunk early on a Sunday morning, but the nurse said 'Yeah, that's good enough and discharged her immediately!

The surgery itself was a great success - Dr Price - a really soft-spoken, South African plastic surgeon, with great taste in clothes-  is very happy with the result, as are we. The large protrusion at the corner of Hannah's mouth has gone completely. The area is still very red though and we know (we are now experts on how and why scars form and heal over time) that over the next 3-4 months the redness will continue and may even become more obvious, but once the body stops reacting to the injury, the scars will reduce and fade away. Add to that the twice-daily facial massage and scar cream that we do with Hannah (Oliver gets to join in too as they watch short videos as we do 'cream time'.) and we know we are doing all we can at the moment to reduce the long-lasting effect of the dog attack. 

We have to return to see Dr Price again in 3 months for a check-up and then we wait to see what other procedures Hannah may need in the future. 

Here are a few photos showing before, at the hospital and afterwards. You can see the difference!

Anyway, I digress - As I said the surgery took place in a rest period between illnesses. Once Hannah was out and back home, we were infected once again and poor little Ollie had it worse than all of us - AGAIN! 

Luckily, Hannah seems to be escaping this outbreak and has continued to go to school as normal. Ollie had about 5 days between getting well and getting ill again - I have had this sinus monster pushing the taught skin off of my face for about 10 days now and it is quite literally doing my head in!

We have been ill so much we have also had to cancel 2 nights out due to the kids or Buffy and I or all of us being ill. We only get a couple of nights out a month as it is, so we are now desperate to get the fuck out of this house!

Anyway, back to last night and the clock, sleep mind-mind thing- 

I was up with Ollie, as he woke up crying and stuffed up around 2.27am. I managed to get him back down, but the process of cuddling him to sleep in his bed means I have to lean down over the side of his safety barrier,  and the pressure on my sinuses increases tenfold. So, when I get back in bed I am completely stuffed up with nasal sprouts!! However, my mind-mind doesn't mind, as it gives him/her/it the opportunity to catch up on whatever the fuck it is they want to sort out or just to entertain itself!

So last night my mind-mind did the following thinking:-

1. It worked out a way to run a power cable for our newly installed Security cameras without having to drill through any walls! This is so the batteries that power them don't die too fast in the frigid cold weather. I won't give you details, but it is genius!

2. It sang a lot of Frozen songs - 'Let it go. 'Do you want to be a Snowman', 'For the first time in Forever'. The inside of my head was a Kristen and Idina (Anna and Elsa) fan club for hours. That is not surprising as Hannah and Oliver love the movie and Hannah has taken to becoming Elsa at every opportunity. She even has 4 'Elsa' dresses that she wears  - two of them are actual proper 'Princess' style dresses  - (one of them that Buffy wore as a toddler! ) Till it got really cold she also said that she liked the cold and didn't have to wear warm clothes outside. This changed quickly at -37 degrees Celcius! She also has an Elsa doll (Ollie has Anna) and a couple of Frozen books alongside a Frozen-themed quilt!

The Elsa doll

One Frozen dress

This one doubles as a Frozen dress too 

This is another version of an Elsa dress - worn here with a homemade queen's crown!

Doing the Christmas tree in an Elsa dress!

Twin Elsa's

Ollie in his Anna cloak!

Ollie also has his own Elsa dress too and an Anna dress and cloak - he much prefers Anna! He also chooses 'Fwozen', whenever it's his turn to pick music when we are in the car or just having a dance party! Hannah/Elsa prefers Sandstorm by Darude at the moment! 

My mind-mind kept singing over and over again and especially repeated the bit where Elsa stamps her foot during 'Let it go' and the Ice castle grows around her. She then sings about Frozen Fractals. I swear since the kids started to listen to this all the time, I have started to notice the word Fractals every bloody where! I think it's going to be my word of the year! Watch this (2.21 to 2.51 is the best bit)

I must admit, Frozen is actually really good - Sometimes the music is still playing in the car after the kids get out!

3. My mind-mind thought about just how many foods are actually finger-based and others that should be but aren't! You get Fish fingers (obviously) Kit kat fingers and Lady Fingers, plus chicken fingers too. But why aren't sausages called meat fingers? It really doesn't make sense - Also why are fish fingers called fish sticks over here? Would you prefer to eat 'sticks' or 'fingers'? At least the fingers have a little bit of meat on them. 

4. My mind-mind also designed a new type of bed for people with coughs and colds. I will explain this one in more detail...

Last night the clock said 3.11 as I lay there on my right side. My right nostril being gravitationally underneath my right had the pleasure of being filled to the brim with the sticky green mucus that apparently fills my entire head! 

My right arm was giving me diverging signals - My forearm throbbing due to the tennis elbow which I currently suffer from, and my wrist and hand were numb from bearing the weight of my head on the pillow. So I decided to flip over. This 'Flip' is the best bit of being stuffed up. 

As I quietly turned my body over, the slow release of phlegm, mucus and green glue from my sinuses began. Very slowly, gravity worked its magic and the goo manoeuvred from one side of my face to the other. There is a very short but magnificent moment when the substance is 'inbetween' nasal cavities -

 This is freedom. This is release - For just a few seconds I can breathe - with both nostrils! 

It is the best feeling. It's like the best ending to the best movie you have ever seen - joy and relief abound! Only for it all to suddenly disappear as the goop monster rears its ugly head once again and the nose treacle starts to fill up the crevices inside my face! I breathe no more through my nose, but instead through my tired dry chapped lips. 

Anyway - my mind wondered and wandered through this scene again and again last night as the big red numbers glowed in the corner of my eye 3.34- pulsing and measuring the ever-decreasing time until my scheduled meeting with the kids around 7.55am! My mind-mind thought back to one of my dad's old stories about creating the first ever penny falls with a windscreen wiper motor. Then the light bulb lit! My mind-mind had designed a new bed for people with colds. 

The bed would have a soft cushioned area for your head to hold it still. The bed itself rocked side to side powered by the windscreen wiper motor. However, this motor would be timed to exactly match the magnificent moment of freedom and 2 nostril breathing as I described above. It would slowly rock the bed, not allowing enough time for the nose-mud to settle in any cavity left or right or both - instead, the disgusting mucus monster would remain in the centre of the sinus area, unable to flow left or right as the constant rocking motion created a kind of alternate gravity, stopping the nasal flow and allowing the sleeper to breathe -  b---r---e---a----t----h----e.....gently and slowly, and enjoy a deep restful sleep, assisted by the gentle rocking motion. I think this is just genius and I am off out to remove some windscreen wipers from the first car I find!

So that's it. That's what my mind does when I am not able to sleep. I am sure I am completely normal and my other mind-mind is a pure genius or pure evil, but maybe that's not the case. Either way, I am enjoying a nice cup of hot lemon and hoping with all hope that in a few weeks when our flight to Mexico is due to depart Winnipeg Airport for the sunnier and warmer climes of Playa Del Carmen, we are all well enough to be on the fucking thing!