Monthly Archives: March 2016

Day 3 of Digestive Distress and I am so Far Out of My Element – Please Help!

When I was trying to determine what “severe diarrhea” was defined as, medically, I couldn’t find anything. Seeing as how I have suffered from the exact opposite problem my whole life, I don’t exactly have a reference point. The Linzess says to stop taking it and contact your doctor if you have severe diarrhea. It’s to treat IBS-C. I see problems with this, in that most people that need medical intervention for constipation probably don’t really understand what qualifies. However, while I was trying to find a definition, I did find that you should seek medical help for diarrhea lasting for more than 3 days in an adult.

Today, I woke up completely exhausted, and decided to skip classes to recover my strength (my stomach didn’t hurt at 6am). Then I woke up again at 11a, and realized that my stomach hurt again and I was still exhausted. Sadly, I seem to once again have very watery diarrhea. Tuesday, when I had the watery diarrhea, was a Linzess day, and so is today. But I seemed to have adjusted to the Linzess and it wasn’t causing any problems for a week or two so I don’t know if that’s causing it or if it’s a coincidence? Ugh.

Tuesday, I had one non-watery diarrhea episode, and three watery diarrhea episodes. Yesterday, I had one non-watery diarrhea episode but could barely eat anything at all so nothing was in my system to pass through my intestines anyway. Today I have so far had one and I can tell in about two minutes I will need to rush to the restroom again for another episode of watery diarrhea. Does this count as three days? Why is medical intervention necessary after that long? I don’t have any signs of dehydration above anything that is normal for me (my lips are chapped, but they are almost always chapped; my skin isn’t dry and it is still completely elastic). I’m doing my best to drink fluids, but my belly is upset so I can’t do it too quickly or I feel like I’ll vomit. I see my GI doc on Wednesday. I just need to know  if I should be calling my doc tomorrow morning or if I might be okay over the weekend. My Urgent Care centers can give IVs, so I don’t think I’ll have to end up in the ER if i get dehydrated. I’m just worried and very confused. Any advice?

This Time I Didn’t Eat Mold, So What is the Deal?!

(Started writing this 3/29) If you read this post, then you already kind of know what I’m dealing with today. If you didn’t, a quick summary is that last week I accidentally drank a moldy LifeWater and had to deal with watery diarrhea for a day (and overall feel like I was dying).

Today, I had to go to school. I managed to wake up at 6am and make it to my 8am class because I had to take my exam.

instagram waiting at school signed

just waiting…

I haven’t been to class much at all, but my math teacher is very kind and still recognized me by name and seemed very happy to see me today. I had two hours to take my exam, and I finished it in 45 minutes (that was the total time even after looking it back over twice). I had 15 minutes to kill before the “graduation expo” (or whatever they called it) opened, so I could buy my cap and gown, and my next class wasn’t until 10. While I was waiting, my stomach issues of the last few days got worse. The last two days I’ve had a lot of gurgling high up in my abdomen, and I’ve been having a lot of bloating and some distention, but nothing has really been moving. I’ve really just felt awful as a result, and really haven’t wanted to move. I don’t know what has set this off. But while I was waiting to buy my cap and gown, I started to feel even more sick. My lower abdomen started to get stabbing pains (which is usually a sign that things are about to get dramatic in a not so fun way), but it still didn’t feel like anything was moving; the bloating feeling was getting way worse; I felt like I wanted to throw up just to empty my abdomen out, but I’d only eaten two homemade blueberry muffins so I knew that wouldn’t actually help; and my upper abdomen started to get all gurgly again. I started to get the acid feeling in my throat from the urge to vomit, and was swallowing hard to keep it at bay (I knew I didn’t need to and it was just a last ditch “please help” type of reaction). Then I got all light headed, probably from not being able to take all my meds.

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Burn Out

My house is burning out: both Dan and I are burning out, actually. We’re both pushed pretty far towards our limits and both our burn outs are feeding into each other. It’s not a good situation really, but luckily we have each other and the little strength we each have left is stronger together. Dan is really busy with school, and work, and the stuff around the house that I can’t do, and the home improvement stuff that I can’t do, and taking care of me. I’m busy with school, and the stuff around the house that I can do, and trying to get the stuff done for making money that I want to do, and trying to figure out how not to be in so much pain, and all my doc appointments, and dealing with side effects, and getting over a head cold, and trying to figure out what I can actually do around the house, and trying to make sure I have the spoons I need for the commitments in the coming days.

The burn out is really why I haven’t been on here. I’ve just been trying to survive right now. It’s been harder than it sounds. Hopefully, things will start to equal out soon.

I’m alive. Really, I am.

Wednesday was insane. Anyone that hasn’t noticed, I live in the Denver area. So, yes, Wednesday there was a blizzard. At my house, I got TWO FEET of snow. Yes, two feet. Yikes! If you don’t know, a blizzard isn’t actually characterized by snowfall (it can snow very little) but by wind and visibility; to be a blizzard wind must be consistently over 35 miles per hour and the visibility must be less than 1/2 a mile (due to blowing snow) for more than 3 hours in a row. This blizzard also came with crazy huge amounts of snowfall. Everything was cancelled, and the airport closed completely for over eight hours. Sadly, instead of just enjoying the snow day, I was stressed about Dan because he was trying to get home from a business trip and it wasn’t going so well (due to the airport being closed). Thankfully, he managed to get home Thursday morning instead of Saturday like many of his coworkers. Here are some photos from Wednesday:

At about 7:30am it didn’t look too bad. You can still see some of the road even (just over the wall there) and we’ve only gotten about 3-4 inches of snow. Visibility kind of stinks, but it’s not awful yet.
The windows on the north side of the house have iced up pretty well though (at about 8am).
I’d say this is about noon. As you can see, it’s snowing quite hard, and we have a LOT of snow now. It’s incredibly blustery, and visibility is terrible (that wall is really close to my house).
Everything is starting to ice up, even south facing windows, and you can see we have even MORE snow now (look at the pickets on the gate between this pic and the last one). There is only about a 3 hour difference between this pic and the last one, maybe.
It’s done snowing, mostly, and there isn’t much of a step down anymore. Normally, you walk out of my sliding glass door and the porch is about two feet below… The snow is currently over the height of the metal frame on the door.
We got a LOT of snow!

I Survived the Blizzard

Internet Hiatuses Can be Good, When My Stomach Doesn’t Rebel

Whoops. I kind of dropped off the planet for a bit. Though, I have to admit, my three day hiatus from the internet was kind of nice.

fireworksSaturday was my 26th birthday. I can’t believe I’m 26. It’s odd. I am actually starting to finally feel a bit more adult. At the same time, I still feel like I’m “pretending” half the time, but it sounds like that feeling never goes away. Dan and I are starting to fall into an “adulting” rhythm (meal planning, house stuff getting under control, organized, etc) that seems to be really helping to add to the feeling of being an adult. Oh, and I should be graduating in May, which should really help. Not having homework anymore will probably make me feel older.

I woke up on Saturday feeling awful, actually. That morning, it appeared that my new headache medication was really kicking my butt. Or something. I seriously just felt horrid. I was exhausted. cd0ec9ab3ff18c2d10f8c778bd3fc2a9Like, I got out of bed and took a shower and could barely get back into bed type of tired. I’d been up all night tossing and turning and having serious temperature swings and having to pee and it was terrible. Before bed Friday night I’d also suddenly been hit by a wall of exhaustion which pretty much meant Dan had to put me to bed. Thankfully, after rest and some fluids I felt a bit better and was able to get myself pulled together enough to enjoy my tiny get together. Three friends came over and we chatted a bit, played a game, and went to dinner. It was a lot of fun. I pushed myself a little harder than I probably should have, but it was still a much needed emotional uplift. I also realized I do not talk to people outside this blog often enough (or outside of Dan often enough) as I accidentally talked about my physical stuff a little more often than I meant to. Oh well. Thankfully, the friends that came seem to really understand what goes on with me physically so they were very understanding.

Sunday & Monday were interesting…

march18 snowing es signed

Today is 35°F and snowing. The official first day of spring is this Sunday (the 20th). It doesn’t look very springy out.

I like the snow, I really do. However, my depression is not liking it right now. To pick myself up, I’ve been making some springy designs on Zazzle. Hopefully, they can pick you guys up too. (Daffodils are my favorite flower, so the first one is my favorite and I actually made 6 different products with that picture.)

 

Click here to see more designs

Spring is Coming

I Feel Like the Sky Looks

It’s very cloudy outside. Normally, I love cloudy and overcast weather… but the sudden cold that has accompanied it isn’t making me too happy.

Yesterday, I slept until after noon. The “Reformer for Recovery” class that I normally do on Wednesdays starts at 12:30. Obviously, I didn’t go to that. At about 4:30, however, I decided that the cold was messing with my hips too badly to skip Pilates entirely for a whole week (Joleen was booked solid for this coming Monday). I decided to do the beginning level “Core Training” class, which is a hybrid between mat and reformer.

I did alright during class. My arms, neck, and shoulders are definitely messed up though. Today, I’m paying for it. The class did help from the waist down, but it feels like my upper body has been run over by a large truck. My depression isn’t helping, and the pain isn’t helping my depression. Hopefully, I can have a good day for my birthday (Saturday the 19th). Please, Universe?

Neurology Results – More Detail

Yesterday was absolutely exhausting. I slept horribly because of nerves, so I was already exhausted when I woke up to get to my 9:50am appointment. Well, and some of that was due to my odd inability to adjust to daylight savings time (for those that don’t know, in spring we move our clocks forward one hour, and in fall we move them back one hour… not every state does it, and it’s an antiquated concept we just haven’t abandoned)… normally, I adjust just fine, which is why I say it’s an “odd inability.” At 9:50am, I had my neurology appointment, then at 3:30pm I had an appointment with my ENT. In between the appointments, Dan and I went to Sam’s Club for some prescriptions and garden stuff. The ENT was really behind, so I actually didn’t leave until 5pm. Needless to say, after that, I was so exhausted I didn’t do anything at all the rest of the day.

On to the neurology stuff, the real reason I know ya’ll are reading this post 😛

First, he listened to all my complaints and asked some basic questions. Then he pulled up the MRIs and showed them to Dan and I. MRIs are SO COOL!!! It was so interesting getting to see what was happening inside of me and what I looked like in so many different layers. He showed us the brain one (from top to bottom and then from side to side). My brain is 100% normal! This is fantastic news. My headaches are also not due to Chiari malformation, which is a condition where part of the brain is protruding from the skull into the spinal canal, thankfully. Then, he moved on to the scan of my neck. Click here for the results

“Official Uniform of the Dysautonomia Warrior” – another shirt and two questions

 

I found a pretty and comfortable looking tee shirt! (It says it’s made out of very soft materials.) I’m thinking it’ll probably be great for lounging around the house in the summer.

What kinds of merchandise do you think will work well with this design? I have a basic sweatshirt and now this tee.

What other illnesses/conditions do you think I should make this design for? (Example: “Official Uniform of the Fibromyalgia Warrior”)