Tag Archives: spoonie

School Monster Eats Time

I had a math test today, totally nailed it. The studying, however, took a ton of time since I didn’t realize I had it until Monday when I decided to see what I needed to do to get caught up in my math class.

My major psych paper is due on Monday by midnight. I have to read an article (already picked out and professor approved) and then do a write up about it. I haven’t read the article yet.

My mother-in-law is coming down tomorrow until Sunday. Haven’t seen her in awhile, so it’ll be nice, but it means I have less time to do my HW. Which means WAY less time for fun stuff, like this blog.

Hopefully, I’ll be back after the paper gets turned in… But the rest of the semester is pretty busy since I only have a few weeks left.

FINALLY a Recovery Cocktail

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

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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.

Here is why I’ve been a ball of stress:

Chronic Illness “Uniform” Sweatshirts

I was thinking of making some generic chronic illness warrior designs, for those of you without dysautonomia or fibromyalgia. Since it just snowed another foot here (yup, I just more than a foot of snow this weekend), I decided to start out with the standard “official uniform” design on the sweatshirt! I’ve just been doing women’s clothing so far, since most of my readers are women and the majority of chronic illnesses seem to primarily impact women (sadly). Let me know if you there is an interest in male designs though and I’ll get right on it! Here are the basic sweatshirts and hoodie designs I got together you other chronic warriors 🙂

 

 

 

 

I’ve also been growing the art portion of my Zazzle shop significantly: I’ve added throw pillows, coaster, art pieces, postage stamps, and many other items. Please check out my entire shop and let me know what you think!

Stress Cruds

My body reacts poorly to stress. The emotional stress of the last two weeks and the physical stress of all of the traveling seems to have knocked me out. I have some sort of infection thing going on somewhere… Sinus or something. I have no idea what is going on, but I feel horrid. I also had to come off of my meds for my second round of allergy testing, so that definitely isn’t helping. Hopefully this crud will be short lived and some rest as I get back to my routine will let it clear up.

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.

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…

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