How do you recover from a month of crazy emotional stress, travel stress, chronic illness, and allergy testing?

Zofran, Tramadol, two Benadryl, two Excedrin Extra Strength

I just got home from my allergy testing, and this is the first thing I did. Well, technically the second. This has just been the most ridiculous month, and definitely not in a good way. Grama passed on the 3rd, and now suddenly it’s the 19th. I do not know what exactly happened to the month of April, but I do know it has been a giant ball of stress of all kinds.

We piled into our (new) car and drove out to California starting at 10pm on the first of April because we found out I needed to say goodbye to my grandmother. (We did the 17 hour drive straight through.) Grama passed on the 3rd. We drove home on the eighth and ninth, this time with a sensible stop at the halfway point. I was crazy close with my grandmother and it was so unexpected that I was crazy ill and couldn’t cope with anything. I was on autopilot, but I managed to make it to the appointments I had. I did find an article that helped me start to move onto the next step of the grieving process though. We flew back to California on Thursday night (the 14th) arriving at my parents house about 1am (2am for us because of the time difference). The memorial service was at 2pm Friday. We flew back to Colorado on Saturday, arriving home at 1am. Technically, our flight landed just after 10, but it was snowing (a lot) and so it took us until about midnight to get our car and get to the house and then we had to get the snow off the driveway before it turned into an ice sheet and off our tree before the branches broke. Obviously, all of the travel and emotions really stressed my system.

Denver International Airport on 4/16/2016 at about 10:30pm

On top of that ball of fun (please tell me you can see that sarcasm?), I had the second half of my allergy testing today… That means that I had to come off of about half of my medications starting on Sunday (they interfere with my allergic responses) through this morning (I cannot start taking all of my normal medications again until tonight). Coming off the beta blocker actually didn’t appear to be a problem, I didn’t notice any heart issues. Kind of a bummer though, since that one of the medications I don’t have any reason to need to come off of in the near future. Not being able to take any of my allergy medicine, nor being able to take any pain medication, nor being able to take my EoE medication sucked. I DEFINITELY noticed all of that. It’s spring, ALL of my allergens are acting up right now. My tongue has been raw for a few days now (allergy bumps). My eyes feel like they’re full of sand (also allergy bumps). So much phlegm in my throat, and so much nose blowing, and sinus pressure.

I think I also picked up a cold travelling. Or I aggravated a cold because of travelling, or from the stress.

I’m also still having major digestive issues from my IBS and from who knows what else. My Linzess has, once again, stopped causing diarrhea finally… for now. However, I am feeling super off. It feels almost as if a giant sponge (like those big car washing sponges) is hanging out in my abdomen: hard but squishy at the same time, and heavy. Whenever I try to go to the restroom, and push, I can tell I’m pushing on SOMETHING that is in my abdomen, but it feels like I’m pushing on a wet sponge; and it acts like a wet sponge, because it suddenly will feel like stuff wants to try to come out both ends. It actually feels like the more I try to push things down the more likely I am to make things come up. Oddly, the more things feel like they’ll come up, the less likely it feels like things will go down. I do NOT understand what is happening. Because of everything going on with my family, I had to reschedule my GI appointment and now I don’t get to see him until the beginning of May. Ugh.

Oh. By the way. I’m still in school. Remember? This is my last semester, which means I REALLY need to stay on top of it! I only have a few weeks left. Last night, I opened my computer and decided to look at what I’d missed while dealing with all of the above and SURPRISE! I have a math test on Thursday. I haven’t been to class and I haven’t looked at any of the material. Yesterday, I did half of the homework assignments for the covered material. Now, while on Tramadol, I will be attempting to do the other half. That way, tomorrow, I can just study the study guide. I also have my major paper for psych due by midnight on Monday. I haven’t even read the article for it yet. Luckily, the paper should be pretty easy, I just have to do it. First, however, I need to do and pass the math test, then the paper. It’ll be okay. Just more stress. At least now I can take my medications.

Thanks to not being on my meds and due to all of the above, I actually choked from my EoE today. It wasn’t super bad, but I haven’t had it happen in so long that it took me a minute to recognize it and panicked for a little bit. Ugh. I’m glad I can stay on ranitidine (the EoE medicine) when I decide to get pregnant, because it definitely seems to work.