Too Sick to Sleep

For anyone who ever thought I blog daily because I have so much free time because I have no life (or health or whatever)...FYI I've been blogging in one form or another since the early 2000s. Sometimes twice a day. Those days I had a full time day job and a part time night job. (Those days, if I'd known then what I know now about making money online, I could've paid off my mortgage --I used to have that much traffic. Sigh.)

I think I just have a diary personality. But I like an audience. Which is probably weird. I don't like to write to myself.

So I'm actually not blogging all that often compared to what I used to do. These days I'm either too tired or too busy to blog. Today, I was too tired to blog.

Except now I'm too sick to sleep. So here I am blogging.

Yep. The adrenals are like ol' faithful. I can always rely on them to have a hissy if I act like the adrenaline junkie I am and *gasp* go for a daring walk around the neighborhood.

So GI nastiness galore for me.

I thought the day had ended well considering I didn't even feel like I wanted to be alive until noon or so. After that it went into an upswing, culminating in a walk. I was excited because I had good energy and strength for the walk, but then things promptly fell apart.

The alternative doc wants to get my system "self sufficient" again. To which I say, Hell Yeah. Only I don't think my body got the memo. It just can't seem to handle anything.

By the way, no steroids today. Just trying to power through. Sooner or later my body has to realize Defcon 5 is overkill for a walk around the neighborhood.

10 mg

I felt horrid all weekend. Ended up with that 5mg dose on Sunday and tried to do without the next day. Monday was okay-ish so long as I sat on my ass, which I mostly did. When I perked up a bit at night, I decided to go for a walk.

Ha.

That's rich. Me? Exercise? Only if the sad zombie shuffle counts as aerobic activity. Made it four blocks on weak legs and called it quits.

Tuesday, was worse than Monday. Ostensibly due to my zombie workout. Had a hard time staying awake, my eyes kept closing. My legs were very weak, like a weight was pressing me down, demanding I kneel. I couldn't handle the stairs without stopping to wait for my legs to recover and had to sit a lot. Gait was slow and stumbling. The last time it was this bad was right after the adrenal crisis last year, so it really got my attention.

Breathing was fine. No shortness of breathe. No chest pain or pressure. Any asthma was mild, still reacting to the tomato pepper 'poisoning.'

Since I had an IV appointment with Dr. Alternative, I held off on steroids. Yes, I drove with eyes that would not stay open. I'm going to try not to do that again.

Dr. Alternative was not in the clinic so I threw caution to the wind and took 5mg with the goal of improving my driving. That opened my eyes, but my legs were still very weak. So I did another 5mg and that did the trick.

My theory is I probably underdosed the stress dosing while I was actively ill and I'm in the hole. I need to stress dose for a while to climb back out. I'll be starting with 5mg and see how that goes. The goal is to get me functioning at a level higher than the sentient vegetable I've been of late.

Although we'll see what Dr. Alternative thinks--maybe they have a trick or two up their sleeve.

Oh, how was the Meyer's Cocktail? Yesterday's IV infusion was the first where I've been healthy enough not to have an acute asthma response. It still kind of wiped me out despite the steroids though, which I don't think it's supposed to do. I don't know.

I got a hug from another patient though. I must be scoring high on the pity index. That has not really ever been my life's goal.

All I Need Is a Soundtrack

Suzanna had a question for me in the last post:

"I can't remember why you're trying to avoid the steroids? If you're addison's (either primary or secondary) then your adrenals don't work on their own. They won't come back to work normally will they?"

I avoid steroids because my adrenals aren't just insufficient, they are the cray-cray shiznit.

The best way I could describe it is I feel like my system 'stutters'. It's there and then it's not. It's there and then it's gone. Not always for the same reasons, which makes it hard to predict and accommodate.

I don't believe I need daily steroids, but I (clearly) haven't quite worked out what kind of dosing philosophy would keep me upright and prevent these mini-crashes. In a way, this is an improvement because I used to have a very direct cause and effect going. Now the cycle is stretched out, less immediate, harder to pinpoint. I'm playing chicken with both hypo- and hyper- cortisolism at the same time. Not a fun three-way.

I am also beginning to believe I will never be the same again. I'm past the two year mark and still having problems. Does that spell full recovery for you? It doesn't for me. Not even close.

And iron let me down. I thought it was a partial solution. Not so much.

This past week was pretty serious. Much more serious than I would have believed possible at this juncture. I did not believe the idea of an adrenal crisis would even cross my mind without some kind of surgery or other major health trigger. For me to wonder if the ER was in my future was upsetting on many levels, to say the least.

I did not take steroids on Thursday, which meant the day mostly sucked ass. I didn't forget to eat, but I still hit the low sugar hell because I didn't have time to eat. At least I recognized what was happening early on and ate as soon as humanly possible.

Part of the reason I ran out of time was the fatigue made life go in slow motion, only it didn't slow down the clock one second. I just couldn't move fast enough to fit in lunch.

By noon, I was a wilted flower, too tired to work or cook dinner, let alone eat it (although I snacked a bit). Stomach/flank pain was sporadic throughout the day. I stumbled through the motions of picking up the toddler from preschool and pretending to understand the things she said--I swear, I was too tired to hear. Got home and went to bed. Then realized I had a sore throat, ear ache, toothache and headache, which did not help.

Rested for about four hours and then took some Dayquil, which helped a ton with the sinus pain.

Finally, finally I perked up a bit. I even danced, knowing that it might not turn out well. It's interesting to note that the flank pain intensified after and I had some GI threats going.

So I've decided the cure must be a soundtrack played at full volume at all times--it can never stop because then the adrenal revenge starts. Zumba music would work, except my husband stole the one CD I have. So not cool.

I did have some good news this week to hold on to. Someone gave the story Amazon killed a 5 star review and I got a gushing email from a 'fan'. That was cool. And I put the finishing touches on another story and my critique came back with 'you write so clean, I don't have many comments' which I know no one who reads this blog believes that, given all the gaffes I make here. I, however, was quite pleased with myself.

I also made my own cover in Photoshop, a cover I absolutely love. I find I really like thinking visually, although my skills are nowhere close to reproducing what's in my head. I have so much to learn!

Please body, just let me live my life!

No Dance for Me

I became rather sick yesterday after I hit publish on the last post. Once again, I managed not to throw-up, although it occurs to me that piece of luck won't last forever. My body hit the eject button, but I just refused to cooperate and somehow won. I was sick in other ways though, so not a total win.

I took 10mg. Not sure if it was enough, but I went right to bed and about six hours later, I was okay to watch the last two episodes of Game of Thrones.

So long as I sat, I was fine. The second I moved, an aching weariness pressed against me like a wet blanket.

Main symptoms were profound fatigue and GI upset. A little bit of flank/back pain. Did not check BP, but would suspect it went from low to high, influenced by the adrenaline surge of my body wanting to throw up.

No clue how today will go, but I took 5 mg and I will avoid Maroon 5.

ETA: Ended up with 10mg as 5 was not enough.

Not Winning

Today is getting bad enough that steroids are showing up in the crystal ball.

I'm going to try and do without, try to suck it up.

However, if I wake up this bad tomorrow? It would be prudent to stress dose.

Why is this a pattern now? Inquiring minds want to know.

On the positive side:

1. We've discovered Game of Thrones and have the glorious luxury of watching the first season all at once. The hubby has never read epic fantasy, while I cut my teeth on the stuff--heck, I'm actually writing one now. Why, I don't know, but I am, and I mostly wish I wasn't because it's a ton of work, but I digress. It's interesting to watch him experience it without knowing the genre tropes.

Also, I am wondering if Lord Snow is not Stark's bastard, but actually the child the queen lost?

And why isn't anyone making an HBO series of David Edding's work? Or Marion Zimmer Bradley (and not Avalon, the Dark Over books)?

Oh wait, not enough sex in those stories. Game of Thrones has lots of sex. Okay, I get it now, but that's just wrong. I hate how our culture can't value a story unless there's acres of boobage and assery.

2.I bought some pants. I am between sizes in my closet. Stuck between too big and too small and the scale just doesn't show me any love these days. There's not much on-hand for the size I am currently, I would guess the last weight loss cycle didn't stall quite so long at this point and that I just *whooshed* right into my skinny size.

I've lost patience and decided I can't just wear the same capri pants all Spring/Summer. At least not without wearing holes in them. So I splurged.

Go figure, I'm between sizes in the store too! Ha! I did find some casual capris/crops and maybe I can lose the five or so pounds it would take to fit into the one pair of dressier pants since the next size up is gain-twenty-pounds too big. If the scale ever moves in my favor again, I'll go back and buy them and I should be all set.

It pleases me immensely to build a wardrobe for the warmer months. One, I like shopping with the toddler in tow, we mesh well as shopping buddies (it helps that I'm a super fast shopper). Two, it's really annoying to have only one pair of pants to wear anywhere, which, while they are nice, they are not nice enough for church.

I have Winter and Fall clothes--all set there, but nothing for the rest of the year. Not unless I can magically lose all the weight I need to lose. (At this point, I think I would need another adrenal crisis to lose weight. Sadly, that's the last time I moved any significant weight.)

Now I just need some nice tops. I have T-shirts, but lack lightweight sweaters and the like (unless I want to regain 30lbs, which ummm no thank you). Maybe for my birthday.

Lost in Space

What a strange, nebulous week. I think I'm just out of whack and it's possible that at least half of me got left behind three dimensional planes ago.

Anyway, ended up taking 7.5 mg, which was a wee too much. 5mg would've been better. It helped, but then I had that edge of too much. Went to bed super early, the second the toddler was asleep I crawled under my covers.

Today, just worn out, but not planning on taking any steroids. Wish I had better news.

I think I'm going to try more iron and see if that gets me anywhere good. Maybe I'm more low iron than usual?

As for potassium, it gets checked because of the blood pressure medication and it's fine. No easy answers, I'm afraid.

Someone posted this on an old blog post:

"I have hypopituitism caused by a prolatinoma of the pituitary gland. My pituitary is not producing any ACTH so my adrenals are mainly shutdown. I take 20mg of Hydrocortisone but suffer from Chronic fatigue which has lost me my job. I also take thyroxine. Would a switch to prednisolone help with fatigue better than Hydrocortisone? I understand Pred. has an affinity for Corticosteroid Binding Glubulin whereas Hydrocortisone has not, so Pred. would give a reserve when needed.

Can anyone advise me or suggest some other means of treatment? Ideally if I could get ACTH on prescription it could slowly stimulate and revive my atrophied adrenals, but I understand this is not an option. "

And my answer is I have no idea other than to say some people do better and worse on different steroids, but it's all anecdotal. Try some of the forums linked in the 'post a comment' screen.

And Then She Exercised

My work out yesterday consisted of 15 minutes of windmilling my arms and doing a few squats, followed by a slow walk with the toddler and our geriatric black lab.

7/10ths of a mile.

Nothing egregious.

I'm tanked today. Just wiped.

Although it was just a crazy busy day--very high impact on the stress meter, so that may have compounded things.

For recordkeeping purposes:

-Lots of cramps in my feet, hands and stomach overnight.
-Up peeing 4 times during the night (this is something that manifests with adrenal insufficiency. I haven't really mentioned it here, but it's pretty consistent and improves when I feel less adrenal.)
-Burning adrenal pain that woke me up multiple times over the course of the night.
-Lethargic limbs, weakness.

I was reading back over the archives and I would have to say I really haven't had as much progress as I thought. There was that stomach flu and the times where I had some 'bounce' to my system, but it appears my bounce has bounced away.

As an experiment I might try 2.5mg, just to see. That should be low enough that if it tips me over into hypercortisolism it won't be too bad.

I keep hoping tomorrow will be better, I keep trying to believe that today was better than yesterday, but I think it might be time to admit things are not going as well as my capacity for denial likes to pretend.

More Steroids, More Blathering

I decided to try 5mg yesterday and am convinced it was the only thing keeping me upright. Wow. Probably should've taken 10mg, given I was so tired, I was near tears when it became apparent I would not be able to rest and regroup before work.

Steroids also helped my stomach a lot. Soothing inflammation? Random adrenal quirkery? Who knows?

So far, this morning is better yet and I don't think I'll take any steroids today.

Two signs steroids were the right call: Despite steroids, I had no appetite and ate nothing, not due to the GERD as my stomach had improved at that point, but adrenal appetite suppression. This is what makes me think 10mg would've been a better dose, but, you know me, I'm the reluctant druggie.

Two, my sense of smell was insane. I wanted to claw my nose off my face. OMG.

The hubby used hand sanitizer and I made him leave the room. He washed his hands and I still could smell it from two rooms away so I napped with the blanket over my head. Except, the scent of my deodorant made me want to shave my armpits with a vegetable peeler just to get the smell off me. Then this lavender scent thing I bought for the bathroom began bothering me (and I love lavender!) so I put it in plastic, shoved it in the linen closet under a bunch of towels and I could still smell it through the door. I had to hold my breath and give it to the hubby with instructions to get it out of the house. I hear our garbage can smells awesome now.

The first 5mg dose and I no longer entertained a second career as a drug sniffing dog.

I called my GI doc only to find they have disappeared. So now I have no GI doc and rapidly escalating GERD. They took my stomach polyp and ran. Ha. I can't make this stuff up.

The secretary flat out told me insurance won't approve Nexium twice a day. So I begged for just 10-15 extra pills I can take on the bad days to be prescribed by some physician I've never seen. Meaning, nothing will probably happen. I did make an appointment with someone else sometime later this year, which is the 'earliest' appointment. Ha ha ha. I can't stop laughing sardonically.

The longer I'm a patient, the less impressed I am with specialty care. The pulmonologist only sees me when I'm well, they're way too over booked to absorb me into the schedule when I'm sick, so the ER actually provides primary care for acute asthma. Same deal with the GI doc. If anything goes wrong, they aren't available and it falls to the ER or possibly my primary care doc to try and muddle through. Crazy.

I'm becoming more and more a fan of a good family doctor.

(No I'm not going to the ER for stupid GERD, I'm just making the point that specialists fall short in their care coverage. A lot. I'm baffled as to why this is the predominant care model because from what I can see, it's a lot of money and it doesn't work so well for acute problems.)

Recovering

So I took 5 mg yesterday, after it took me four hours to marshal my energy to get ready for a long anticipated lunch date that I probably should've cancelled, and then after coming home and just crashing into bed, unable to rouse myself even though the hubby had left and I was in charge of the toddler.

Okay, that was a long sentence. It's making me twitch, but I'm just going to apologize and move on. I am not editing that sucker.

Anyway, I break out the steroids if I'm too whacked to parent. Being unable to wake up fully counts as whacked, especially when I'm the only parent in the house.

I also took extra Nexium (which is not good because now I'm shorting myself and may have to go without meds later) and four Advil.

Oh, and I started the next pill pack.

Between the four, something had to help, right?

The abdominal pain began to ease after that--it wasn't just my stomach, but the entire gut. I never achieved a state approaching anything near having energy, but I could get out of bed.

Today the stomach is better, although it's trying to go into acid overdrive after breakfast. I'm hoping I can just mind-over-matter it into submission.

I'm beyond trigger foods at this point, it's now to where I can't eat anything safely. Even though I'm not hungry, I have this drive to put something in my stomach under the misguided notion it will help. Peppermint tea is soothing. Ice cream (Breyer's low carb) feels fantastic and it's a trick my parent with Barrett's has used a lot over the years.

Pepto bismal does jack. I hate Pepto. Every doctor tells me to take it. I don't think they quite understand the nuclear waste properties of my stomach acid. By the time Nexium fails, Pepto just makes me want to throw up, it's like using an eyedropper to put out a bonfire.

Some of this was adrenal, but I'm not sure what the car order was on the Train of Pain. I think GERD was the engine, then tack on the drop in cortisol from the pill pack ending, the tenuous grasp of my HPA axis on reality, cramps, and the hot, overly busy week preceding the whole mess. Something was just seriously off in my body.

For today, I'm debating 5mg. My gut is not twisted in knots, but the fatigue is more than I would like. As in, if I laid down, not sure I would get back up. We'll see.

Had a Great Day Despite It All

Yesterday was a great day, but I got adrenal for some reason. Back pain, fatigue with weakness.

It was a busy day. I forgot to eat lunch, we were so 'go, go, go'. In the morning I did a bunch of housework, took the toddler to preschool where they had a fantastic animal show. My girl was picked to sit on the tortoise--that picture will totally make the Christmas card this year!

(Not pictured: Hot pink cowgirl hat and pink sunglasses that she considers 'styling'.)

From school we went straight into the playdate from hell. Two lonely onlys with strong alpha tendencies and one middle child who followed the strongest lead. Lots of conflict and hurt feelings. Hours and hours of toddler OMG drama. Love the mom, love her kid, just not with my kid. Could not wait for them to go.

Hubby came home, dinner started, more kids came over. One of my mom friends arrived with her girl to try and tutor me in Photoshop. (I'm hopeless.) Despite the sitters cancelling on me, the girls played together well.

We have two long term house guests, one of whom is my relative and we are jawing on and on about the batshit insanity from their parents and mine. Plus, they are in college so I feel like I have to be more motherly. Not to mention their parents are the epicenter of one of the latest rounds of crazy in my family so I'm trying to offer my support.

Throw in a few snarly technical issues with the hubby's homework for school that would not resolve until I swore like a sailor and starting making death threats to technology in general, and that was my day.

Basically, no down time. Right before dinner a wave of fatigue and weakness hit me really hard--the weakness signals adrenal origin in my experience. I had to go sit down for a few minutes and just breathe.

Oh and it's been super hot all week, which probably doesn't help. I feel like I have a fever from all the heat my body has soaked up.

So, anyway, over did it, I guess and I am paying for it.

On the upside, I am maintaining my weight within a three pound wobble range. I bloat now and gain weight if I eat the wrong things, so I bounce around on the scale. Pretty decent considering the lack of exercise and the amount of carbs that creep into my diet. Coming off the adrenal 'eat whatever you want, if you can stomach it' metabolism is a big adjustment and I'm so relieved to be doing halfway okay.

Another positive, Amazon removed the filter from my book. My appeal managed to reach one of the few employees there with a brain and they agreed, my book doesn't need to be banned. Whether it will ever recover sales or rank or anything, I don't know. I am not too hopeful.

I've been very active over the last few months fighting the censorship efforts of corporations to try and control what content consumers access. It's really scary to realize large corporate interests define reality however they want online with no disclosure to the public--think the Lorax movie and the town walls hiding the wasteland, keeping artificial opulence front and center. See what we want you to see, not what you're looking for. Buy what we want you to buy, not what you need.

As a consumer, I thought I could trust Amazon's search function, that it would pull from the entire site, but it doesn't. They cherry pick, sometimes based on your past shopping history, but sometimes based on a whim or darker intent. It's like if I were to go to Walmart and they hid half their inventory from me, refusing to let me see it, let alone buy it. Worse, I wouldn't even know they've hidden anything, so I couldn't even complain and influence their corporate policy. There's no 'we've filtered some results, click here to see them' notice. This is standard operating procedure online. Consumers do not have free access or freedom of choice about what they see and buy.

I did a teeny tiny bit of work for Google, for about a nanosecond, and their approach to search is very different. Their goal is to serve the user above all else. They only filter spam, irrelevant results and malware. Google would consider hiding relevant results from users a supreme failure in their mission and it would not be tolerated.

I wonder what sites like Amazon are so afraid of?

With regards to the toddler, since there was a question...She doesn't have a diagnosis other than muscle weakness. She has a trick hip that goes out on her for no good reason, she also toes in when she walks, which increases the odds of tripping, and then just overall weakness.

Plus she's like fifteen feet tall, okay maybe not that much, but definitely head and shoulders above her peers. When they line up at preschool, I always chuckle because she pops up like a weed. One in a pink cowgirl hat.

At OT they do tummy time because those muscles apparently didn't fully develop the first time around. It's all just kind of bewildering and we are doing the best we can to give her the full use of her body.

Conflicted

Not doing so hot here. Oh, how I hate typing that. Ugh.

I really can't believe, after a week of intimate contact with the toddler's vomit, that I would get the flu this late in the game. The incubation period can't possibly be that long, can it? Or am I about to get sick with a capital S?

Her congestion is a separate bug, at least that's what the ped says and that's what I've been flirting with for the last several days.

Right now I'm freezing, my BP has dropped and I'm weak with fatigue. Reduced appetite, but at the same time shaking with hunger. Oh and back pain and stomach pain yadda yadda yadda.

I could take 5mg, but I'm not sure I'm really sick. I'm not sure I'm adrenal, or, rather, I can't bring myself to believe it.

If I take 5mg now, I might feel better. Or I might feel worse as it may not be what I need. And then I won't be able to sleep.

Is it really possible that I've lost so much ground? Shouldn't I be past this? I thought I had my happy ending.

Of course, the usual chaos abounds over here. Is your life as crazy as mine? I can't be the only one. Hubby is struggling with his broken rib just as we need to move a lot of furniture between floors to accommodate another house guest. We've run out of bedrooms and had to tear down the toddler's playroom to make room for a bed.

Everyone lives with us. Possibly because we are the only sane relatives they know. We're up to seven people now who have stayed with us for weeks, months or years at a time. Currently, we have the mentally ill relative and then a younger relative relocating to launch a career and go to grad school. All in 1000 square feet.

Any time I seem high strung, just remember how I live in a very small nuthouse and still haven't murdered anyone in their sleep because they put away the dishes and I can't find my colander anymore. I think I should get a billion bonus points for that.

By the way, my favorite spatula has been missing for over a year. I'm not pointing any fingers, just saying, if you don't know where shit goes, it's not helping to shove things into random cupboards.

So, yeah, not feeling great, missing a spatula and tired, yet apprehensive about taking steroids.

There's No Mapquest for This

Just super tired.

Took about 2mg this morning. It's not enough. Not even close.

I dug myself a hole and climbed in. I'm not sure what it will take to get out.

The sneezing is slowing down though. Just in time for the weight loss to start (again, happy to have it, but not thrilled with how it comes about).

Even the aerobics bunny is finally on mute.

Will be fine tuning steroid dose, trying to find my way back to normal.

Crisis-y

So because the sack of flesh I inhabit is incompetent, things got a little crisis-y last night.

Let me back up.

First, the hubby and I got a sitter and went for an hour long walk. The weather has been so nice that, even if my lungs are trapping air like a starving hunter, I just can't sit and watch it go by.

I was going to take just 2.5mg, but was not feeling so hot and upped it to 5mg feeling lots of steroid guilt as I did so.

There's no way to know if a dose is too little or too much until I take it. Likewise, the distinctions between too little, too much and just right are hard to articulate. I feel 'off' when the dose is too much. I feel 'adrenal' when it's too little. And just right is fantastic, but rare and tenuous as a double rainbow.

My thought yesterday that 5mg would be too much and I was doing it wrong, but actually it was a good choice. As we walked, I felt strength and energy coming online. It wasn't too much, it was just enough.

But not enough to save me from struggling with energy later or to avoid GI problems. Once again, it came out of nowhere. Once again, we ate the same food and I was the only one sick. I tried to deny it was adrenal, but, when I started shivering from cold, 'not adrenal' was a hard thing to believe. Then I got up to 'run' to the bathroom and all I could manage was the sad zombie shuffle.

Thankfully, I did not throw up, just was wracked with nausea for hours and hours. Thankfully, the electric blanket heated me right up and I was able to become warm enough to turn it off, a positive sign that the worst was over.

Today I am sneezy (low immunity), zero appetite and physically tired with heavy limbs. But I think I can out rest it. Just have to remember that major life stress on top of physical activity might require more steroids than I would normally take.

AM Relish

I woke up this morning at 7:20 and just relished the feeling of not wanting to sleep all day.

Last weekend, I made myself get up at noon even though I wasn't ready.

It's a nice change.

I'm not sure if some of the lingering fatigue is recovery from the endoscopy or just the fact the schedule has gone from lazy hazy summertime to go-go-go school time. Call me naive, but I thought summer was busy. It wasn't.

I feel overwhelmed. Go here. Go there. Schlep, schlep, schlep. Fill out reams of meaningless paperwork or else child will suffer.Wait. Stop. Work. Fill out paperwork for work, also meaningless. Go. No, wait. Go. No, stop. GO already! Toddler tantrums x 1,000,000. Here's a last minute schedule change with cascading effects on everything else. Reorganize your life around it. Now, make dinner, clean the house, plan a toddler birthday party and hurry up or you'll be late for work.

Nap? No time for rest, way too wicked for that!

PS: I ate an entire bag of nut granola. Low carb, but only if you don't inhale the entire bag and deep throat the crumbs at the bottom. I ate other things too, including, possibly, a small town.

The weight?

Same.

Calories in, calories out? MY ASS!

Set points are a bitch.

Hungry Hippo

Things are on the upswing. I am so hungry. Starving. Hungry enough to eat the house and then the neighbor. I would think it's a steroid side effect, except I didn't take any.

Still a little tired. The asthma is freaking out about the drop in temperature this week, which is not helping.

For a while, I dithered over whether it was smart not to take steroids. Well, I'm alive so...thumbs up?

Would I have recovered faster with steroids? Or would I have been ensnared in their 'make one thing better while making a thousand other things worse' net? I don't know.

Steroids are passive-aggressive. They help you with one hand, stab you in the back with the other. Death by a thousand cuts.

I expect to be back to normal next week. This week I'm back to doing everything, but still have to lay down in the afternoon. Just to keep things interesting one of my many job hats came up and sucker punched me.

Like going from 0 to 100mph when you're already out of gas.

Never Sober for Long

I staggered through Saturday, upright at the grocery store only by virtue of a shopping cart turned impromptu walker. The fatigue was all consuming.

Sunday was slightly better on the weakness side, but the spinning kept me out of the game. I really hate the dizziness. Sometimes it's related to low bp, other times not. This time not.

Monday is better yet with actual hunger and the spinning didn't start until now.

But the school schedule has started. Which means no stopping. There' s a preschool tour, an OT appointment. All while feeling like my head is going to spin off.

Wish Me Luck

I am still struggling, but continue to hope it will sort itself out without steroids. Right now, it's muscle cramps and fatigue. At least I don't feel like I'm going to pass out.

I perk up at night and so we went out to see a movie, a rare date night.

I recall this pattern of crap during the day, better at night from before, but I can't remember what it means or what comes next in the sequence.

Saturday, I ate breakfast. That was good. Except I couldn't get up and didn't go upright until almost noon. So really that was lunch.

And Then...

So last we left off, I was loopy and dealing with; an irritating smoke detector, a toddler who was convinced her mother violated the Geneva Convention by serving chicken for lunch, and frustrated, misbehaving dogs.

The toddler ate her chicken and actually liked it once she got over herself. The smoke detector eventually stopped on its own, which made me alarmed. What good is a smoke detector that gives up? It didn't even last an hour.

Then the yellow lab went downstairs and unleashed a passive-aggressive revenge sh*t unlike any I have ever seen. Or smelled.

Fortunately, by then, the hubby was home and got to clean it up. I do 100% of nighttime parenting. He cleans up the poop and vomit. Trust me, he has it easier.

Then our aging black lab started walking like her back was broken and seriously hurting. I thought we were going to have to take her to the emergency vet and put her down, but she recovered. Must've been a muscle spasm or her leg fell asleep. Love that dog and she's getting older faster than I'm willing to accept.

I finally came back online around 5pm. Ate a good lunch and then struggled with dinner, but managed something before going to the preschool parent's meeting. (So excited for her to start, they have lots of cool stuff planned.)

Friday was a repeat with no breakfast. I have so much to do, without hunger or low blood sugar it's very easy to forget to eat.

By Friday afternoon, the low bp struck. So no appetite, low bp, and some adrenal-like flank aches after the endoscopy that were strong enough to wake me up at night.

It's all adding up to an updose, but I'm resisting as long as I can. Maybe I just need more sleep. Plus a good shot of pickle juice.

Dammit.

Going Down

In basement.

Again.

Tornado spotted.

Too much tired.

With flank pain.

Lethargic.

Hard to move my arms.

Lay down every chance I get.

Still don't want to updose.

The HPA axis works.

Has to.

Don't want to undermine it now.

Damn it.

We'll see what happens.

More Dog Tales and Adrenal Crapola

Had those 5 cavities filled today. Shoulda updosed. Face planted into bed the second I got home. My head hurts.

So two days good and now two days bad.

Maybe I should do that blood work after all.

But I keep thinking, I'm on a subphysiologic dose, I should be fiiiine, right? But this isn't steroid withdrawal either. So WTF?

So the dogs, which are much more entertaining than me. First the yellow lab unplugged the freezer with his butt. We all remember this, right?

Then the hubby put all the defrosted meat garbage (some of it was too far gone to save) in a place where the dogs could get it.

I told him to move the garbage.

He did not.

So the dogs got into it.

Duh.

Next day, the yellow lab is horking up balls of aluminum foil on the dining room carpet.

Doh.

Tell hubby to move garbage again.

He doesn't. Because why? I don't know. It's some male genetic malfunction.

Dogs therefore obliterate a bag of mowed grass.

Turns out, they don't like grass. Not like that. So they just spread it around and look at me like 'bitch please' as if I screwed up their food order.

Then they tore into another bag because the hubby lets them loose in the yard with the garbage.

By this point, the hubby sees the light and moves the damn garbage bags.

Finally.

But he makes a mistake. He thinks he moved all the garbage and left the recycling in place (which the dogs won't touch).

Except he moved the recycling and left the garbage.

So for the third time in the same day, the dogs are in the garbage.

We finally broke out the hydrogen peroxide and mixed it with chicken broth to make them puke it up.

Moral of the story? We are bad with garbage. Also, dogs will eat aluminum foil if it contains enough rotting meat, who knew?

Why didn't I just move the garbage? I kept thinking the hubby took care of it, only to find out, after the fact, that no, it had not been moved.

The bag of grass was on me, but they had to pick at it through a fence. I thought it was safe. I was wrong. Next time? I will move it all myself, cramping muscles and all.

Oh, the dogs are fine. Feeling a bit betrayed by that tricksy chicken broth, but fine.

I hope this was entertaining. Not sure if my energy is good enough to do the story justice. The stupidity was painfully funny to me.