Mom is leaving to head back to CA tomorrow… actually, today… in, like, 5 1/2 hours. And I’m not sleeping. Oops. I told her I’d make her some maps. So what do I do? Decide I can’t stand the new way that Google prints maps anymore, so I decide to make my own. Now, they turned out really well. But I’m dumb, “Yes, I feel ill… so let’s spend three plus hours making maps from screen shots and typed directions.” Oh well, she shouldn’t get lost at least Though I suppose their could be random construction detours that weren’t marked… you never know on road trips.

Brain ‘splode!

Well, she won’t get lost in general. Getting from my house to my parents’ house is pretty straight forward. But, the hotel is a bit out of the way (it’s a two day drive, unless you decide that driving 18 hours in one day is fun), so I wanted to make sure that she could find it when she was tired. Turns out that the easiest way to get there is a state highway that cuts the corner, so I did detailed instructions because the highway goes through two small towns and makes a few turns. I also told Mom I’d make her maps for cheap gas. When Dan and I do the drive, I use the GasBuddy app on my phone (it’s amazing how much you can save by driving less than a mile farther into a town). Well, Mom is doing it on her own, can’t exactly do that easily. So I used GasBuddy and Google Maps to make my mom a very detailed list of cheap gas. I gave her options that were closer together than she should need (and even mentioned which stops would also work well for food), but I’m not sure how all of the hills/mountains will change her gas mileage.

I just realized that I’m acting like an overprotective mother. To my mother. Yikes! Oh well, it’s how I show people I love that I care about them, by doing goofy things like this.

Anyway, I said life update.

POTS is being dumb. Like, really, REALLY dumb. I’m reclining in bed, and my feet STILL feel swollen. NSAIDs and other pain medication slows down your digestive system (mine goes berserk by the way), and sitting on the toilet for 30 minutes (just wishing something would decide to move so my stomach would uncramp) made my feet turn black/purple and splotchy. Ugh. This keeps happening. Plus, I’ve been getting CRAZY dizzy spells. Absolutely bonkers. I will simply change the position my head is in relative to my body (look down, look up, tilt, turn, etc), and vroom! I am not happy about it. I don’t know what is going on. Joleen said it might be my body getting used to the new ear, or stress, or dehydration… but even she seemed stumped. It’s been a horrible, terrible, an exciting few days. I feel very drunk… but not the fun kind. The “ugh! why in the world did I do that” kind of drunk. Except I didn’t do anything!!!

*Overshare Alert – Digestion, this paragraph* I have been SO nauseous lately too. My stomach abdomen has been cramping up horribly. Like, daggers types of cramps. Sometimes my intestines start to burn, but then they stop without anything changing. There has been lots of gurgling noises going on, but nothing seems productive… it seems to just be complaining as much as I am. And, on top of the belly pain, I keep feeling like I’m going to throw up. We thought that maybe the ibuprofen I was taking was messing with my belly a little, so I tried being more conscious of eating with the pills, but that didn’t help. Then I started to get worse. I pretty much was like “wow, must have gotten a bug from school.” But now the feeling like I have a cold seems to have passed, and the digestive issues stay. I even keep feeling like I’m throwing up a tiny bit, but nothing tangible happens. Not a good feeling. Just in case it was the ibuprofen, I have switched to Aleve. I can’t completely come off NSAIDs yet, it’s still tender as if it’s slightly swollen. As soon as it stops smarting when I touch specific areas, I will keep taking NSAIDs… or until my six weeks. I really hope this isn’t something I did to myself… that’d really suck.

I’m at week 4 past my surgery! I can lift things up to 25 pounds now! Plus, I can bend over and stuff like that. Still no water in the ear, so I still need to wear goop (Vaseline) covered cotton in my ear when I shower, but I’m making progress! Can’t wait for my first non goop-cotton shower though, where I can really scrub that hair and skin and get the built up gunk off.

School is going well. I am still preferring my geology class to my anthropology class, but hopefully things will improve. Maybe I’ll have more interest when we get to things I don’t know in anthro… I can hope.

So much for short. This is almost 900 words. Ugh. I really have to look up the def of “short” apparently 😉 Well, off to bed!