This last month has been such a blur for me. My health decided to skydive, without a parachute, and it hit the ground hard. I haven’t gotten quite this sick in a long time, and it’s just as miserable as I remember.

So, what exactly happened? Well, I do kind of mention it in these posts: Being “Normal” Sick, The New Diet So Far, My Virus Has Returned, and I mention a little in my LEAP/MRT Diet: Phase 1/2, Week 2 post.

In summary: Right before starting the new diet, I got sick. It turned out I had both a general virus and a pretty bad viral sinus infection (diagnosed by my primary care doc March 26). Then, I got an infected hangnail on my thumb (normal for me) that just wouldn’t go away (not normal). I had Dan take me to urgent care (April 6) because I knew I needed antibiotics for it after more than a week with no improvement. Then, April 7th, I started coughing horribly. By that Sunday (April 9th) I had bruised several ribs and could barely talk to Dan due to the fatigue and pain and coughing. Back to urgent care we went, and it was confirmed that I had influenza B. Then, I came down with oral thrush from the antibiotics. Then, as I was healing up from the flu, I got another sinus infection. Luckily, that sinus infection didn’t require a doctor visit and cleared up relatively quickly on its own.

As you can see, skydive.

The new diet also hasn’t been working as well as I wanted it to, and my mental health has plummeted. Between the stress of the diet, and the pain and stress of all those illnesses, my mental health decided to join my physical health in its skydiving. I haven’t been writing much, because I have been so stressed that I just haven’t been able to hop on the computer.

The stress has also decided to add a new type of headache to my chronic headaches: mixed tension migraines (some explanation from Healthline). Essentially, I’m now having combinations of horrible tension headaches that come with migraine symptoms. The very first tension migraine I had lasted from Wednesday (April 19) at about 2:30pm until about 4:30am Friday (April 21), which is when I went to bed. It was extremely unusual for me to have a headache for more than 24 hours, since they usually go away after I sleep for the night, and it was an extremely severe pain level. Thursday night, I actually went to the ER for it; they gave me an antihistamine, anti-nausea, and a steroid then sent me home with the diagnosis of the new headache type. Thankfully, it was only about 2.5 hours in the ER that night. I now need to followup with my neurologist to find out if there is a reason I’ve suddenly started having these. I have had one every single evening/night since the first one, and they are extremely painful. The one I had last night (April 26) turned into a full blown migraine, so I actually went to sleep far earlier than normal.

My mental health, as I already mentioned, has been skydiving too. I have a very difficult time writing about my mental health – not because of any stigma or a lack of want, but because I can’t fully articulate it without making it sound like I need to be hospitalized (to prevent suicide). I want to clarify: I am NOT suicidal. I don’t want to leave Dan, at all, and I don’t want to die. My main thing, however, is I don’t want to live like this anymore. My depression has become crippling again, and I might see my PCP to get back on antidepressants for a little while (I never stay on them very long, just enough to help stop a downward spiral). Most days, I don’t want to do anything at all, not even eat. I force myself to eat because my stomach gets painful cramps if it’s completely empty. I only shower about once a week, which is no good (it’s also physically difficult).

Right now, my life is all doctors and lying on the couch. From January 1 through April 30 of 2017, I have had a total of 58 medical appointments, two trips to urgent care, and one trip to the ER (emergency room). There are only 119 days from Jan 1 to April 30, and 34 of them are weekend days (one of my urgent care visits was on a weekend, everything else is weekdays); that leaves only 85 days for appointments. That means that I have spent about 68% of my days with various doctors. It’s been pretty awful! (A part time job of three 8 hour shifts a week is 24 hours each week. In 17 weeks, that means only 51 days spent at work. I have spent more days with doctors than I would if I had three work shifts a week.)

I am hoping that I will be able to start writing more often, and that I can get these headaches under control. Since I wasn’t writing as often, I really wanted to let you all know why!