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.

Saturday 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. Like, 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 I managed to wake myself up at 8am because I had to get Dan off to the airport for a business trip. He’s launching a rocket today from Florida. You can watch it here (in the Atlas box on the main page there is a spot where the “webcast” link will become available starting at 10pm EDT) if you are interested. They are always fun to watch. I was pretty dang tired, but I was able to spend a little time with Dan, got him to the airport on time, then crashed on the couch for the rest of the day.

Launching  3/22/2016; from Cape Canaveral Florida; about 11:05 pm EDT

Monday, I pretty much didn’t do anything either. I’ve been pretty dead. Well, actually, yesterday I was kind of dying.

So my headache medication causes dehydration. On Saturday night, I was feeling it badly. There was a partially consumed LifeWater in the fridge that has been there a while and I decided I would drink a bunch of it to help with the dehydration before bed. I did and then drank more water and went to bed.

Sunday I was also focused on drinking a bunch of fluids because I still felt terrible.

Monday, I felt super dehydrated still, and exhausted. As I was filling my tumbler up, I suddenly had a weird gurgling in my intestines. Normally, my IBS makes me extremely gassy; I’m used to some rumbling and gassiness. This I could tell was a little more, so I decided to hold in anything and get to the restroom. Good thing too, because as soon as I sat down it was pretty much pure water. Um, that’s bad. Well, obviously that’s not good. Anyway, I know that diarrhea can take all your energy pretty quickly, so I knew it was going to be a day of conserving all of my energy (because diarrhea that bad is not a one shot thing either) and eating rice and drinking fluids. I grabbed the rest of the LifeWater I had had on Saturday (it had been too sweet for me to finish before bed) and took a sip. I have a small head cold, so things have been tasting a little off so I didn’t think anything of the weird taste. The second sip, though, something felt odd on my lip. I thought that because my lips were chapped, a bit of skin had stuck to the rim of the bottle (this is common) so I pulled the bottle back to look. I rotated the bottle ever so slightly and noticed a medium size clump of mold on the inside of the bottle rim. GAG!!! Oh geez. Then as continue to look at the bottle, I notice there is sheen all the way around the bottle rim on the outside. Needless to say, I quickly screw the bottle cap back on and run over to the kitchen and throw the bottle away and start spitting violently into the sink. I’m awful at making myself vomit, awful meaning it’s impossible. I wish I could have, because tomorrow I may have another round of diarrhea to contend with. I spit all my saliva into the sink for about 15 minutes. Well, probably less because the restroom called again. I decided to look up how dangerous it was (like, did I need to go to the ER to get flushed out type of dangerous?) and it appears the general consensus was that if the diarrhea cleared up on its own within about 24 hours then you probably didn’t need medical intervention provided you could stay hydrated. Oh good. Since my diarrhea was almost pure water, I did decide to take a half dose of an anti diarrhea medication, however. I know you aren’t supposed to use them when eliminating a toxin, as the body needs to expel it, but since my new medication has the side effect of dehydration and I was losing a LOT of water in each bowel movement, I really didn’t want to end up in the ER (especially since Dan is out of town). I just wanted to slow things down enough that I could keep up with my fluids. I then got out my rice cooker and made a large amount of white rice to help even more. I’d say I did a decent job with fluid intake, taking in an estimated gallon and a half to two gallons of fluid yesterday.

Today, I’m feeling a bit better. My intestinal distress seems to have completely cleared up. The weather is shifting dramatically, which is making me feel less than fantastic though. I also seem to still have a head cold. I got up today and was kind of dizzy. I told myself I needed to at least put on my lounge clothes and get the trash out (it’s trash day and it gets taken about 9am, there are two flights of stairs from my bedroom to the curb). When I realized I was amazed I hadn’t passed out on the way back into the house, I realized I probably shouldn’t go to class. I made the decision to go back to sleep and I slept until noon. Obviously, my body needed some more rest. I’m still having some issues (dizzy, congestion, etc), and I’m getting weird visual auras as I’m doing stuff on the computer (which I wouldn’t expect on this new medication but may have to do with the odd lighting in this room), but I’m feeling a bit better. Tomorrow is a hectic day though, so hopefully the rest of today can be restful enough for me.