Sweet Catastrophe

My head is throbbing and my stomach is turning (unrelated) and yet, I’m wide awake.

I believe it’s time for a Dramamine Dream <3 It's just what Dr. McMahon ordered.

Ohhh yay; it’s starting already =)

Oy. Brittany and BJ are getting married in November. Kristi’s engaged and well, she’s not getting married right away, but that’s coming!

For my brother’s wedding I found a dress I was comfortable in, until I saw the pictures and realized just how thick I looked! It’s not even so much that I looked fat, I just didn’t look like me anymore.

I’d really like to look into some serious diet pill reviews and see if I can’t find something that could work for me.

The diet changes I’m able to make don’t seem to be doing anything and neither, really, does the exercise. I’m just not sure what else to try, but I’m just flat out not comfortable in my own skin anymore. How I feel I look in what I’m wearing affects my mood way too much these days. Depressing? You bet. It’s seeping into every aspect of my life and I’m sick of it. I want to be back at my old weight.

Aside from the amazingly horrible cramps, my pal still didn’t drop by this month. I’m taking suggestions now on everything I need to bring up as possibilities on what’s wrong and what we can try to sort this out when I go back.

I talked to Momma on Sunday and we started my list. I’ve got to find out for sure exactly what all they tested when I went in originally because we didn’t really discuss it thoroughly. I know they checked my thyroid, and she said something about still sending all the correct signals, but I don’t really remember what she said about my hormones. I don’t know if maybe I’ve got some whacked levels of progesterone, or what……I guess I’m gonna have to scrounge up some money for a specialist. We need to make sure there aren’t cysts or anything like that.

It’s also been suggested to me to use a morning after pill, sort of as a ’soft reset’ to see if that could get things going again, so I need to ask about that.

I really wanna go in with like, a note pad and just make sure I get out all my thoughts on it because this is seriously driving me crazy. I mean, to have this going on and the pains I’ve been having–and no idea whether or not the two are connected in any way!

The pain is still there. I’m a little less freaked out about it though; I guess I’ve sort of decided that it’s out of my hands until something really happens. I’m back to mostly dull aches though. I’m just trying to keep up with it and see if there’s anything that seems to make it worse–so far, no good. I’m still noticeably more tired than ever. I still feel feverish when I do anything significant, though admittedly I haven’t been regularly checking my temp like I should. I need to make a point of doing that.

I’ve got a pretty high pain tolerance and since I’ve kind mentally let go, it’s gotten easy to not stress over it and kinda just go about things as usual.

I’ll keep updating with any significant news.

Well, Joolie and Brandell offered to help. I’m not sure if they offered before or after knowing how much money I would need–I’m gonna have to talk to Ryan about that, but if that’s all straight, I’m still not going for a CT Scan.

Before I get lectured, I’m well aware of what it could mean for my health, but I’ve got to do it the way I’m comfortable doing it. I’ll wait it out and if things get worse I’ll go to the emergency room and hopefully have it all straight once and for all.

I’m not comfortable taking someone’s money for a test that may still give no helpful results. I know it’s not the best idea to wait until something has to be done, but that’s what makes the most sense to me. If I just wait it out, I may see that it’s really nothing at all, and if it’s something big, at least by the time I feel like I need to go to the emergency room, they problem will be to the point of being obvious. If they want to scan me then, fine. But I’m really just not taking someone’s money without the assurance that it’s gonna do any good–especially considering what a negative experience it was visiting that doctor’s office. How am I supposed to feel confident that the CT Scan is necessary when this man completely ignored the things I mentioned as concerns and even took a phone call in the middle of my visit?

Again, I know it’s risky to just wait until something happens, but I feel like it’s really the only choice I have that makes sense.

I’m trying to make them aware of what’s going on at work. Hopefully keeping them aware will help me out when it comes to being uncomfortable at work. We were talking about taking a trip or two this summer, but until this is sorted, I’m not planning any Orlando vacations. I’m still planning to see Lifehouse at the end of June, but dammit I’m not giving that up.

I’m also gonna call tomorrow to find out how much the Lortab would cost. I wouldn’t really say it’s a strong enough pain to need Lortab, but it’s strong enough that I can’t ignore it and none of the other otc pain killers are touching it so I’d kind of like to have the Lortab for the longer shifts at work. I’d rather be sleepy while I’m there than hurting.

So wish me luck while I wait it all out!

Not so much a complaint as just updating those I don’t often talk to and also a reminder for me should I need to look back to keep up with time-frames and such…

Today at work I realized that a lot of problems I’ve been having lately could very logically be a mono-relapse. I’m trying to be as non-hypochondriac as I can be in assessing the situation and it really all makes sense.

Lately it hasn’t been odd for me to be ready and able to go to bed by 8pm. I’m ready to go back to bed within just a few hours of getting up, even if I haven’t done anything significant with my time. I’ve been complaining to Ryan about an unusual amount of muscle aches in muscles that I haven’t been using out of the ordinary, and my work-induced aches aren’t fading as they normally do. I’ve also been having a lot of abdominal pain, which I’ve been assuming had something to do with the missing-menstruation-situation, but this morning I realized it’s only been on my right side. Once I realized that, it really became clear that this has been the same dull ache I had during my mono-stint with my not-so-swollen spleen. It also became clear that every time I’ve gotten up to do anything at all–put a few dishes up, make a sandwich, etc–I’ve experienced a feverish heat. I took my temp at the beginning of my lunch break, end and also once I got home, and I am, indeed, running a low temp.

Now, I know it’s not a very common thing for people to actually have mono a second time, but 10% of people do, and I did have a weird case the first time around with a limited number of symptoms. At this point I’m not saying, “hey, I’ve got mono,” I’m just realizing it’s a very big possibility. On Tuesday I’m gonna make a call to the school clinic and find out what I’d have to pay in health fees to see a doctor since I’m not in classes this semester. Even though there’s nothing to do other than wait it out, I’d like to know–If I do, in fact, have mono again, we’ll discuss how much, if any, swelling I have in my spleen this time around and figure out if I can be okay with just cutting to short-shifts at work. I’d like to avoid rupturing my spleen since, well, ow….and uninsured surgery would probably leave me all but homeless…

On the female front–one month in and still no sign. For those counting, that makes 4 months with no period. I had cramps the day I should’ve started, but that was about it. Originally the doctor wanted to see me in two months, so if I pay the health fees to the school, I’ll probably go back to her after the next missed one.

So yeah, those are the current events in my ridiculously unhappy body.

For longtime readers and friends I speak to regularly, some of this will sound repetitive–sorry!

I have acid reflux disease. I get some killer heartburn pretty much daily. I hate taking meds I don’t have to have, so I’ve never been able to get into the habit of taking something for my reflux beforehand, I only ever think about it when it gets to an unbearable point. I hate it.

I was turned onto an old home remedy about two summers ago that I looked into and it looked good. The thing is, chronic heartburn isn’t usually caused by your body having too much acid, on the contrary, it’s because your body doesn’t produce enough. When it does produce acid, it basically overcompensates, thus heartburn and all that fun stuff.

The old home remedy is to swallow a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar. Doing this helps teach even things out and teach your body to produce the proper amount.

It takes a little bit of time for things to even out, but you end up doing this less and less often. Some people even report getting to a point where they had heartburn maybe twice a year, if that.

It works. When I learned about it, I gave in and started doing it. It really wasn’t easy. I’m a picky eater to begin with and apple cider vinegar tastes god awful! I just started off taking it whenever I’d get heartburn and it wasn’t long before it had been something like 6 weeks since my last dose.

Unfortunately, I took a teaspoon and choked on it. So I tripled the amount of time I had to taste it, gave myself and asthma attack and gave myself even worse heartburn. As you can imagine, I didn’t do it again after that. Couldn’t bring myself too.

I’ve been taking way too much Zantac lately, so I finally decided to grab a bottle of vinegar tonight.

I’m gonna keep up on my blog with how often I take it and how often I take it, both for myself and for any of you who suffer and might want to try it if my results are pretty good.

Even geeky gamers can find a use for Freeze It!

It’s just the topical pain relief Peter needed to soothe his Halo 3 soul! Now go Peter! Pwn your little heart out!

My allergies are really taking over today. I’ve taken meds to no avail for the first time in a long time. My nose is running like crazy and I’ve been rubbing my eyes with a  fierceness.

I’m not sure what’s going on, but I suspect Ms. Willow has something to do with it. I think she slept on my head and just moved right before I woke up.

All my allergy meds and the inhaler have my heart rate all jumpy today. Supposedly I have some condition that makes my heart rate go all wonky, which makes me feel exhausted,but it has no other effects–I suspect that’s not exactly true and I’ll one day fall dead or something. Then again, that could easily be the hypochondriac in me!

There’s a pretty steady rain out right now. Looks like the perfect opportunity to get a good nap, which is exactly what I think I’ll do.

Wow! I seriously just learned something new from Youtube. I was browsing through videos and came across a bunch about cats with asthma! I had no idea cats could even have asthma!

I’ve looked through a few sites and learned that only about 1% of cats develop asthma, but apparently the number is growing due to pollutants.

If your cat ever experiences something that seemed to you like a really stubborn hairball, only no hairball ever comes, you  should consider discussing this at your next vet appointment. You can glance at some of the videos on Youtube to get a better idea of what a cat experiencing and asthma attack looks like. I’d post some here, but they’re breaking my heart! I know it’s not necessarily a serious problem in every case, but I know how the poor kitties feel!

I developed asthma towards the end of middle school. It was brought on by a combination of my horrible allergies, and my constant exposure to cigarette smoke. I’m one of a handful of people in my family who doesn’t smoke. There’s a definite downside to developing asthma versus being born with it. Many people who are born with asthma eventually grow out of it. The chances of someone who developed asthma later in life ever outgrowing it are slim to none.

I’ve only ever had a few serious attacks in my life. The absolute worst was probably in my Jr. or Sr. year of high school. At the time, for one reason or another, I only had one inhaler. I woke up around 4a.m. wheezing, and reached for my inhaler. At this point, I didn’t really need the inhaler,  but I have a really hard time getting to sleep while I’m wheezing. I found myself panicking when I realized my inhaler wasn’t there.

The trick to avoiding a full attack is to calm yourself down and get control of your breathing. That’s a pretty impossible task when you know that if you can’t do that, you’re pretty screwed. I knew where my inhaler was. It was sitting next to my register at Kmart, so my dad drove me up there, but of course, the store wasn’t open yet. The doors can’t open without a manager key and I had no way to get in contact with whoever was opening that morning! It was absolute torture sitting in front of the store, looking directly at my inhaler through the window. After a four hour attack, I finally got that glorious puff and I was okay again.

I ended up in a world of pain though, later realizing I had strained all the muscles in my chest. Imagine what it would feel like if your lungs were physically bruised. That’s how I felt. It hurt to breathe, it hurt to talk…on top of that, the stress caused some major heartburn so I had do deal with just about every possible symptom of that.

I can’t imagine how helpless a kitty feels while having an attack. For me I know there’s help. I know that at the very least, I can go to a hospital, and after they make me wait a ridiculous amount of time (nope, no quick inhalers to get you out of the way, they don’t give a squat!) they’ll give me an oxygen treatment and send me on my way.

Even though kitties generally cause my asthma to flare up, I’m sending my love to all the asthmatic kitties of the world!