Limited Engagement: The Rash

Here's a picture of the rash. It is actually red not brown, the camera warped the colors a bit. You can see the blood welling up underneath the skin on the right. Yep just that one bright little pin prick kind of in the middle there. It looks a bit like a mole, but in real life it is stop sign red. I'm sure it won't be alone for long.

Oh and why did I eat wheat? Two reasons: I'd gone more than a month without any bread or obvious wheat sources much to my husband's aggravation. He missed having bread in the house. He wanted me to bake Christmas cookies and kept telling me I was nuts. He thought I was being silly.

I may be nuts, but probably not about this.

Second, I had a doctor's appointment with the gastroenterologist that I forgot to cancel, and by the time I realized I should've cancelled, it was Xmas already with the appointment the next day. So I  thought 'what the hell I'll trigger the rash to show them so we have something to do'. As it turned out, the appointment was cancelled by the doctor and I'd done this to myself for no good reason.

I don't think I have Celiac's. I'm not malnourished. I don't have GI issues now that the adrenal stuff is more stable.

I am wondering though if it's not gluten intolerance and more of an allergy. The rash was a little delayed in appearance after eating bread and cookies on Christmas Day, but the itching (OMG the itching) was immediate.

So I guess I need to sort that out because an allergy might be a bigger problem than gluten intolerance.

Here's a shot that shows the spread of the rash, the camera only picked up the most affected areas, in reality my entire neck and upper chest is some degree of pink/red. Some areas have those raised blister thingys I mentioned.

My husband doesn't think I'm being silly anymore.

The Season of Wonder

The one good thing about becoming an old hag is that I can look back and see all the events and themes that have come full circle in my life. You don't see this when you're twenty or even thirty, you're too close, but around the forty year mark, it's obvious that our lives are concentric circles that only feel like random zig-zags.

I was crushed when my daughter ended up having some developmental delays requiring expensive treatments.

I was frustrated when the economy tanked taking my home's value with it, and trapping us in a less-than-ideal school district.


When doors close, windows do really open. Sometimes, anyway.

I found out today that my daughter should qualify for a grant that will allow her to attend amazing private schools in our area. I'm talking ten kids in kindy with two teachers kind of amazing. They offer a fully funded curriculum with art, music and PE, none of this cutting programs bullshit that goes on in our school district.

This didn't just happen. I had to pay attention. I had to be on the ball. I had to seek out resources above and beyond what most families in our situation access. It pays to over-function. Sometimes, anyway. Plus now I'm networked with families of kids like mine and have been able to pass on my learning curve. Serendipitously, it was one of their learning curves that helped me with this latest breakthrough.

If you live long enough and open your eyes wide, you'll see that serendipity is always spinning through your life, but its time line is much longer than our attention spans and we only ever spot it in hindsight.

Being sick for so long has had its upside too. I can't really blog about it though, it's not for public consumption. Plus, I would still have preferred to be healthy, but at least being sick wasn't a total waste. It ended up serving a higher purpose that I didn't see coming at the time.

How the Hell Do You Spell Minutiae?

My grandmother grew up in Kansas during the Dust Bowl. Not only did her family survive, they thrived thanks to my great-grandfather who kept the family financially solvent by 'wild catting' and striking oil. Still, no amount of cash could blow back the dust, so her early years were spent trying not to be swallowed whole by the desert prairie. Then WWII hit and one desperate situation replaced another.

Despite a life steeped in history, she only ever wrote the most inane letters to me, as if she didn't want to forget one detail of the better days.  As if she knew the practicalities of life are the building blocks of its wonder.


In her letters to me, she would note the temperature and record the weather. There would be a list of what she ate. Once she told me she rearranged the rocks in her garden and then went on to sort her socks.

I kept her letters because I found the banal narrative hysterically funny.

And then I look at what I do here; record every detail as if the minutiae of my life is at all important.

It must be the Kansan in me.

Some of us talk about the cool stuff and some of us are fixated on how the process of sorting our socks went.

I'm a sock sorter type. (I don't actually sort my socks. I don't believe in that level of organization. I would rather tell you about how I don't sort my socks.)

Here's the latest minutiae.

We survived the flu. The newborn had already been exposed and we were able to enjoy a family Christmas. (I am an awesome aunt by the way.)

My kiddo is still boogerific with no apparent end in sight.

The asthma gave me a hard time, but responded well to everything I threw at it. For once. I'm now tapering down to my base line meds.

I ate wheat again to see what would happen. I paired it with Alpha Lipoic Acid which has meant no joint pain or carb hangover. I do have a resurgence of the itchy rash at my neck. This first appeared about a year ago and was about the size of a quarter. It then grew to cover my entire neck and extend down into my upper chest.

Avoiding wheat helped it quite a bit, although it would still flare here and there, I assume due to wheat cross-contamination. (Going totally wheat free is incredibly difficult. It's easy to avoid bread, harder to skip the additives and hidden gluten.)

The dermatologist diagnosed the rash at the quarter size stage as eczema, but I'm not so sure about that. I think it's a wheat rash  (which is possibly still technically eczema). It sometimes seems to blister up and then I get bright red pin pricks of blood all over.

So wheat is out, for real.

Breaking

I've got some carrots and potatoes bubbling away on the stove, the first step in making a kielbasa kraut soup. So while they boil, I will share our breaking news: We are all sick.

Hubby with the flu.

The kiddo with that respiratory bug she's been battling for a month.

And me with an as yet undetermined problem. It could be that the metric ton of snow we got is messing with me, or maybe I have the kiddo's cough-forever bug, or perhaps it's whatever flu people who've had the flu shot get. I don't know. I don't have the hubby's flu, but I got something.

My lungs are not good and I'm adrenal tired (which is fatigue + weakness for those who don't know my made-up lingo).

I've upped the asthma meds, trying to head off any ER festivities. I have hope it won't come to that. I can take being sick over Christmas, but being sick in the ER over Christmas? Is too painful to contemplate.

We are trying to take it all in stride. Lots of Netflix going on and any gift that arrived in the mail today, we opened. One because the jar of pickles shattered in transit and needed to not steep my house in sour pickle juice thank-you-very-much. Another because it kept the kiddo busy and happy.

As much as I worried about being too paranoid, thank goodness I am all hyper about germs. Because Christmas is ready, waiting to be unwrapped whether I'm sick or not.

My only other concern is I became an aunt (for the first time, huzzah!) almost a month ago and the baby will be at the extended family Christmas. So long as I don't go downhill, we should be feeling okay to go unwrap presents and have a family meal, but I worry about being contagious around the baby. Any ideas on how contagious we'll actually be? I won't hold the baby or hug or touch anyone, but the kiddo isn't so easy to contain, she'll be germ vector one. So do we not go?

I Called It

Hubby's down.

Fever of 101F.

"I'm achy," he says.

"It's the flu," I say.

"No, no it's not." His lips tighten and he glares at me.

Diagnosis? Denial.

But thermometers don't lie.

So we'll see whether I succumb or not.

The Coming Storm

So the last post I wrote about asthma past, present, future never did get around to what I really wanted to say which was this:

It is clear that, while things have improved, I still struggle. I need to plan for a future where I'm not as capable as I am today. I am not reliable.

The asthma is going to continue to be a problem and my lung capacity will continue to erode. Right now, my oxygen level only flirts with the cutoff for intubation, It has become more and more apparent to me that this asthma gig is a progressive one. I really don't see the asthma going backwards, only forward. I hope I'm wrong, but if you think aging is a bitch on your skin, you should see what it does to fussy lungs. Not a good scene.

So the writing is a good way  for me to produce income, but it requires high output and a fully functioning brain on a consistent basis. One bad asthma episode and my income will be wiped out. Should I find another job with an outside employer, I would not be able to meet performance expectations. Between the fatigue and cognitive issues from steroids and subsequent low cortisol levels, it would be easy for me to be unemployable for a year or more.

For the record, I think half the reason I'm such a slow writer still is because I still have word recall issues. The phrase or word will be on the tip of my tongue, but I can't get it out. I spend a lot of time editing to get my prose up to snuff. The effects of the last few years are far reaching.

So what am I going to do about all this? I have some ideas. The trick is to leverage what I know about being a successful writer into a business model that doesn't require me to create content on a weekly basis. In 2013 (assuming the world doesn't end today) I will be launching a few micro business initiatives around the indie publishing phenomenon. I will continue to write in the hopes of building a fan base that will wait for my work, which will help me weather any long lulls between stories.

Today the sun is shining and life is good, but I'm preparing for the storm.

Ghosts of Asthma Past

My hospitalization in 2010 was preceded by my daughter being sick for a good three months straight--back-to-back bugs. The last bug savaged my lungs like a cannibal on (ha!) steroids.

So here I am today and my kiddo has been sick since before Halloween. She is on at least bug number two, and, at the moment, is worsening as the gunk climbs up from her lungs to her sinuses. I am concerned for her, but there's nothing to be done beyond worry. No need for antibiotics right now or breathing treatments, just hope that it clears up soon.

On top of that....Thanks to Facebook, I can now say I know more people with the flu than without. How we don't have it yet is  mystery, but I worry that it will be bug number three and history will repeat.

When I was in the ER back in 2010, one of the research docs came down to see me. They wanted my DNA as a "non responder asthmatic" (meaning I took all the meds and the asthma didn't care) and they talked at me for a while (I was a bit of a captive audience). Their words haunt me.

Their spouse has bad asthma and the early school years with their kids were--and I quote--"hell because of the bugs". The spouse stayed home in an effort to stay out of the germ pool.

The look in their eyes as they told me all this was chilling. It was the look of knowledge someone wishes they didn't have, of knowing the hard road ahead and holding back the directions because it would spare no pain. It was pity.

I don't remember a lot of being in the ER and in the hospital during that particular episode, but I will never forget that doctor. They're my own personal ghost of asthma past, present and future.

In Search of a Second Wind

I'm without progesterone and I've had fairly active asthma the last few days.

I'm tired.


We ran some errands and went shopping...I hit the wall big time.

I ate, but it wasn't enough. So add in some low blood sugar. 

I need to work but I'm barely with it enough to write a coherent blog post. I would like to lay down but that's probably not going to happen for a while longer.

Ugh. Dislike mucho. Today is going to be a wash.

My Heritage

Well the kiddo is sick, but it's not the flu. Some ongoing respiratory bug that has moved from a cough up to her sinuses. Hegemonic germs.

I think I've just horribly abused the word hegemonic, but I don't care. I like the way it sounds.

She's not feverish and is in good spirits...the whining is at its usual full bore. She's currently running through the house blowing a New Year's noise maker loud enough to make my ears fold over to protect themselves. So, full steam ahead.

I have the asthma just in time to not enjoy a lovely Spring-like day less than ten days before Christmas. The asthma does not like temperature swings and is generally a cantankerous life companion. I would like a divorce and a restraining order. Someone tell me how to get one.

Anyway... story about my parent of the spine surgery.

They were t-boned yesterday by someone who failed to yield when they were supposed to.

A dramedy of errors, this surgery.

They are okay. Only minor whiplash, but goodness. Really? And I thought I was a real calamity Jane.

At least I know where I get it from.

Oh! And someone asked about the kiddo's diagnosis. Initially I did not share because I had a run-in with another parent who had a conniption fit of some kind. Apparently, that parent kept a weaponized score card and, without understanding the game we were playing, I lost. Therefore I sucked as a mother and other nastiness that I'd sooner like to forget. I wasn't interested in what infertiles call the 'Pain Olympics' so I thought I would just keep my mouth shut here regarding the Name of Things.

Now, I'm withholding information as it is identifying. Not that I would shrivel up and die if one or two trolls looked me up, but I think, for her privacy, I should be circumspect.

Patients Are the Answer

I'm thrilled to report that, so far, I'm paranoid with delusions of flu. Let's hope it stays that way.

Today we drove almost two hours to a family meet-up for the neurological thingamajig the kiddo has. It was edifying, and I am so glad we went.

On the way down, all I could feel was the weight of my other obligations pressing on me. I couldn't remember why I wanted to spend two hours in the car with a screaming child (she hates the highway, it's a sensory thing for her) to meet people I didn't know that we probably had little in common with given that my kid is allegedly on the 'mild' end of her disorder's spectrum. I have so much work to do at home, it seemed like a poor use of my time to go.

Then we arrived and all the shared real life experiences opened my eyes. I learned things I needed to know. I realized that being discharged from OT/PT is not a discharge from the diagnosis. We still have work to do and a road ahead of us to navigate.

I mean, I kind of knew that, but thought we were in an okay place. She's within the realm of normal on pretty much all the motor stuff now.  She won't be crafting pop-up books or Star Wars snowflakes (it's a real thing) any time soon, but she can meet the criteria of 'motor normal'.

And then one mom showed me how some of the recent behavior issues we've been trying to resolve were all hooked into our kid's neurology. That was a big light bulb and will inform our parenting moving forward.

Patients live with the diagnosis. Doctors only see it in an office visit, a very controlled environment. Patients are much more knowledgeable about what the disease really looks like naked and how effective various medical treatments are. When they get together and swap information, they change lives.

It's really amazing when patients are on the cutting edge while mainstream medicine is behind the eight ball. I think we'll see this phenomena more and more thanks to the internet. Eventually patients aren't going to take this shit anymore and will coordinate online in such a manner that they can't be ignored. That will be an interesting day.

It's Coming

The kiddo has the same hollow-eyed look as the neighbor kid. I would bet she's 24-72 hours away from impact as that seemed to be the time delay with the neighbors.

Or not.

Oh how I want to be paranoid! I wish it was paranoia! Team Nuts for the win!

I'm over here all adrenal because I'm off progesterone for the next however many days. So I can't tell if my body is just pissed I'm denying its hormone of choice or if I'm on the flu's hit list too.

Either way, I spent the better part of the after noon in bed for the first time in a long time.

Watching this. 

Dr. Lustig continues to be my science crush. Sigh.

Now I'm going to meander a bit...

Took the kiddo to the ped yesterday. She did her antibiotics, was well for all of two days and then began hacking like Santa after centuries of cigar smoking. Initially, it didn't seem too bad, but we recently progressed to shortness of breath on activity and now she sounds worse than Santa after centuries of cigar smoking.

Surprisingly, she's not up all night coughing.

Ped had nothing to say other than they didn't see anything serious. We're going to treat it like asthma and see if it improves. If not, back we go...or not, I haven't decided.

On our way out of the office, the kiddo says, "Now I'll be like you, mommy." This was in reference to the inhaler she's to take. She was happy about it too, whereas my stomach sank.

I took a deep breath and did my best to explain what mommy has is something I hope she never has to endure. "Be like your Daddy," I told her. "He's never sick."

This confused her. I foresee some work ahead on this issue. Surely as much as she's seen the sick she's also seen how mommy always plans crafts, read books, takes her to school and other events plus works? I'm not exactly a Victorian hysteric (this blog aside).

Anyway...the shooting in Connecticut...my heart breaks. We have a society and political system that would rather be on the sidelines of funerals for five-year-olds than fund the programs or create the legislation that stop the violence before it starts. Once is a mistake. Two, three, four, five, six mass shooting--all just since I've been an adult-- is unacceptable tolerance of a sick, toxic status quo.

It needs to stop.

And all the gun nuts whining 'but you can't take mah guns' need to stfu.

Math

I had an epiphany last night, the format reminiscent of those dreaded story problems in school with the two trains going different speeds. Could you ever figure out when they would intersect? I never did.

But given that the flu is mercilessly taking down parents and children alike from the kiddo's school and we aren't sick yet...

I did the math and came up with 'flu over Christmas' as the answer.

Oh.

OH!

So I power wrapped all the Christmas presents last night and will buy the rest today along with more wrapping paper. I restocked the freezer with chicken soup last week, so that's all set. We have jello and will make a grocery run tonight.

I have some big cooperative marketing stuff going on with other authors...I always end up running the thing for some reason. People are intimidated by spreadsheets I think or maybe they believe it's too much of a time suck when it's not really bad. I need to get it all squared away so it's plug-and-play over the holiday and easy for someone else to step in and take over in the event I'm down for the count.

My husband thinks I'm nuts for being so attentive to this. He points out that we may not get sick and I know that's true. In fact, I hope that being the last family standing is a sign we're immune to this bug.

But working to get ahead of illness has always been a best practice for the asthma, although admittedly I wait until I'm actually sick to start over-functioning. This flu bug is pretty nasty and I don't think the flu shot covers it so...I'm trying to be smart and proactive as opposed to crazy germ nut. Time will tell whether I'm crazy or not.

The way I look at it, even if I'm nuts, all the presents will be wrapped, making for a very relaxing Christmas Eve.

Nothing Like Flashdance

It's been an interesting week.

First I was thrust into a rage of anxiety by my neighbor. I sent their child home as they said they were sick and didn't feel well. They didn't look well either. So I did what any mother would and felt their forehead, which seemed warm. Being a responsible adult, I sent them home.

And the parent in charge booted them right back to my house.

WTF?  Really? What part of that scenario screamed 'send them back'?  When your child is sent home it's not because we want to play boomerang.

As it turned out the parent in charge had the flu. The hug-the-toilet-like-it's-your-bff flu. So cearly, their child couldn't be sick.

For days, I ranted to the hubby about these dipshits. Both because I don't want to get sick and because they are not worthy of being parents half the time. They have beautiful children, but their parenting dims their future and there's nothing I can do to stop it. CPS is already involved and it's not getting any better.

At least I feed the one that comes over to play...they are a darling child. Too bad their parents are going to royally mess them up. I do what I can but the psychosocial paradigm that will doom them to poverty and a future as a dipshit parent themselves is already in place. The launch sequence has started, there's no stopping it now.

I was, however, able to stop being so mad about the complete lack of germ containment a few days later when it became clear the kiddo's entire school has the flu.

So I'm doomed either way. It's not all my neighbor's fault.

Then my body had an adrenal flashback. Dreams of lower back pain that woke me up because of the real back pain and left me exhausted by dawn. Stomach pain. Stomach flu type GI upset (although nothing ever really happened, I was just threatened with it for hours).

I couldn't figure out what the deal was but then I connected the dots...I'm probably fighting whatever bug is going around. Or  not. But many a time the adrenals flare before I'm objectively sick with a bug. I'm crossing everything this is the worst of it and I hope we don't linger for a month before we succumb like we did with that stomach flu a while back. If the puke is going to rain down, let's just get it over with.

Not the Only One Anymore

It's now PCOS plus one in my family. At least they aren't first and can, hopefully, benefit from my experience. The email I sent them today...

Are your LH and FSH ratios inverted? If anyone other than a reproductive endo looked at you and your labs..take it all with a grain of salt. Especially since you are not text book. The REs are the real experts on the hormone levels. There are all sorts of variations. As an example, my testosterone and androgen levels are fine but my LH/FSH are all messed up and I will have a good A1C but a high total insulin (of course the steroids don't help).

The shortcoming of the RE is that they don't care about your heart or diabetes risk, they just want to put a baby in your belly lol. So you might want to search the medical literature for patients like you and track down a nearby PCOS expert to gauge what, if anything, else you need to worry about.

I could not take Clomid...I reacted to it like a recreational drug, totally high with disruptions in vision which made it a no-no for me. So I moved on to injectables and then IVF.  If you do Clomid I would pester them to monitor via transvaginal ulstrasound so they know how many follicles are 'ripe' so you can decide if you want to risk multiples or not. This was/is not the standard of care but it's also how folks end up with too many babies. The best way to control for multiples is IVF two embryo transfer...but it will break your bank. Then again, twins or quads will mess you up financially too. So pick your poison.

I also would not get pregnant without knowing your progesterone levels. You will miscarry if they are low. Progesterone is usually administered via injection in the butt, but it is painful and can leave lumpy scars. I insisted on vaginal suppositories from a compounding pharmacy and the science supports this as being effective for maintaining pregnancy. Most REs know to check for this, if they don't I would be concerned about the clinic's quality of care.

Go to your local Resolve.org support groups...they know which doctors and clinics are good and are up on the latest research.

Let me know if I can help! Try not to stress about it...I've been there, I know it's not easy but don't let it eat you up. You are young and likely on the 'light' end of the PCOS spectrum...I would not imagine that you wouldn't get pregnant. I'm on the fubar'd might as well have Cushing's end (indeed some PCOSers actually have Cushing's).  I am very lucky to have my girl!

One more thing...The only big piece of wisdom I have to impart is time is more expensive than money when dealing with infertility. I spent four years trying to be cheap and now I am too old to pursue a second child in good conscience. My health is much worse now with the asthma and steroid side effects. On top of that, I'm almost 40. If I'd just sucked it up and done IVF that first year, I might've been able to have more kids.

So don't focus on the price tag, focus on efficacy and making sure you have time left to have more kids down the road, if you want them.

Loose End, Tied

That would be an emphatic yes on the tricked out glammed out rocket ship and space suit (although she might decide silver lame is fashion enough).

Total girlie girl. Who is also going to be a nerd.

For the record, she's the one saying she wants "more science stuff." However, I don't think she's thought through the implications on the pink and glitter front. Sadly, they are mutually exclusive. (Anyone else thinking how kick ass it would be to pair a lab coat Barbie with an awesome glam microscope and pre-made slides? No? Just me?)

I'm going slightly crazy this month for Christmas. We have money for once and I am decently healthy for once...it's hard not to overbuy as I have an abundance of the two rarest commodities in my life. Next year I will make more of an effort to restrain myself  (see also: the fiscal cliff will eat our disposable income and go after the money we need for groceries) but I'm not going to deny a Happy Christmas this year. Not after such a long period of suck.

Anyway, I just did a little mini workout and am cooling down by blogging with a side of steaming hot (low carb) chocolate. That's not how you end your workouts? You are missing out!

The kiddo is sick. Again. Good Lawd. She's coughing at night and has gunk in the lungs. I am mildly concerned.

There are only 7 kids in her pre-k class (yes, that is awesome) so I don't get how we're doing back-to-back sick. Hmmm. And I have no idea how I'm staying out of the fray (please don't let it ever end though).

I finally finished a project I was working on before my hospitalization in 2010...the kiddo's 2009 baby book. It just arrived in the mail today. It had lingered untouched in Shutterfly's system for so long I wasn't able to edit anything, so I had to order it with four blank pages in the back. Finished is more a euphemism for 'I opened my wallet and bought something.' If I could've edited I would've though. Does that count?

That last paragraph was really all I wanted to say. I do tend to go off in tangents, don't I?

Okay, gotta run. Time to kick this day's ass. Boo yah!

A Riff

I want to be five again. My daughter heals so fast that it makes me feel my advancing years and slow motion cellular response to injury. Her head bump was much better the next day. I checked on her all through the night and she woke up in full hyperactive puppy mode....running through the house and cutting paper like mad with the result that my house now looks like we hold regular ticker-tape parades.

Thank goodness.

The relief was immense.

We are almost ready for Christmas. I think I'm done shopping for my chickadee. There's some pressure as we're trying to avoid a repeat of last year where the educational presents were legion and she had no idea what anything was.

I will never forget how polite she was about it, opening each gift and staring it as she tried to puzzle out wtf it was. She said thank you very sweetly before chucking it over her shoulder and moving on to the next, her body language tight with hope that the next gift would make sense.

I felt so bad last year. Yes, she had gifts, lots of gifts, but they didn't impart joy or delight, just confusion.

This year, I've tried to remember she is all about the girl bling. The name of the game is balancing our need to shower her with microscopes and books with her raison d'etre, which appears to be pink glitter.

This may possibly involve my husband in the garage on Christmas Eve trying to glam up a microscope.

Okay, we probably won't do that, but let the record show we are fully capable of doing so. We have glitter and paint guns and an assortment of specialty paints. It wouldn't exactly be outside the realm of our weirdness.

So anyway, head injury crisis averted. I have no idea how my parent is doing, but assume we would've heard by now if the dogs had killed them off.

Infertility: The Gift that Keeps on Giving

I did not like my day today. Saw my parent who just had spine surgery and is recovering while navigating a gauntlet of love in the form of two rambunctious dogs.

Upon their arrival home from the hospital, one dog jumped and slammed into their groin, causing them to double over, a huge no-no post surgery. We thought they would have to go back to the hospital, it was so bad.

It would be funny if it wasn't so tragic.

Today's visit was better. Of course, the other dog jumped on my parent's stomach twice. It will be a miracle if their recovery continues uncomplicated.

Then the groin smasher pup nosed into my coat pocket like a thief and stole a sucker. Because these dogs have no training or boundaries, the dog was aggressive when I took the sucker back.

Yeah, well, my dog philosophy can be summed up thusly 'hello, bitch, I'm your alpha.' So you bet I got  that sucker back. Dog meets reality smack down.

By the way, we have the two sweetest, most well behaved labs you'll ever meet. Boundaries aren't just for kids. They work for dogs too! I wish my parents would try it sometime.

And yes, I offered to take the younger most hyperactive dog and also suggested they kennel both dogs for a while. What they do or don't do about it is out of my control.

This was not the low of my day. I wish. It just added to the tension.

Before we left to see my parent, the hubby rough housed with the kiddo and she ended up slamming her forehead into a wall. Hard. OMG. So hard.

Huge goose egg. Immediate bruising. Crying inconsolably.

I checked her pupils, administered ice and gave her some Motrin. She was a little confused about an hour later and still doesn't feel great, but otherwise seems okay. The goose egg is much smaller than it was. I am keeping a very close eye on her and confining her to quiet activity.

I spent the ride down to my parents' house crying in the front seat. I hate crying. Loathe it. But my daughter was hard won after a brutal fight with infertility. Seeing her with a potentially serious injury just gutted me. My stomach was a pit of fear for hours today and it sucked.

Five years after I 'won' my battle with infertility and nine years after I started trying to get pregnant, I am still not free of its grip.

Troll

You should see the spam I got on my last post....someone felt it was germane to share a link to a doctor profile featuring naked patients. I gather the guy is a plastic surgeon.

Why anyone thinks it helps their career to get a back link on my blog escapes me. The SEO of  plastic surgery? Not a concept I am familiar with.

For that reason, comments will continue to require moderation forever and ever, amen.

Also, trolls have been a problem. For a while, folks with IPs associated with various .edu or medical organizations felt the need to tell me I was depressed. At length.

Sigh.

I just...there really is no hope for patients like me. If you want to find a way out of bad health, you have to find it. Medicine's default setting is to throw anti-depressants at you while scornfully rolling their eyes at your temerity to have a different perspective.

Of course, I never had a real life physician tell me I needed anti-depressants, just the pretend ones on the internet. So I either got really lucky or the folks who troll patient blogs aren't such hot shots. I don't know. Probably both are true given that most patients with difficult-to-diagnose conditions usually do end up on anti-depressants at some point.

Then, recently, I stumbled across an online conversation of various medical blog personalities and they were colluding to troll patient blogs. That was scary to read. My stomach sank when I saw it.

So keep your comment moderation on and set fingers to delete. And if you're frustrated or angry...you're not necessarily depressed, you're just a patient at the mercy of merciless medicine. The trolls will make sure you don't forget it either.