This and That, Chernobyl Edition

I don't know why I'm posting every day of late, although the big pile of dreaded editing giving me the hairy eyeball likely explains it. Anything but that.

The asthma is not controlled. It's yanking me out of sleep with symptoms. Not sure what the cause is other than the weather has been up and down a lot. Yesterday we had snow.

My spacers died. Note the plural. Yes, they both died at the same time. Apparently, rubber/silicone cracks after a decade. I have yet to replace them because I really like their design and they don't seem to be available anywhere. So that may be a factor in the poor control as well. Especially considering I'm having a hard time inhaling fully until about noon.

It's unpleasant, but not serious. It serves only to alarm physicians who are stuck with me as a patient and make daily life more irritating for me. It will go nowhere because my main trigger is not present--no germs on board makes for mild asthma.

The toddler fell down the stairs yesterday. She's scraped and bruised, but fine. Just to stay on theme, my attack furniture impaled my hip as I rushed to her. And all I can say is I felt a sense of victory that it wasn't my knee.

Our house guest has noted the toddler falls a lot. So we are not yet to where it's at a normal, not worthy of commentary level. Fatigue is a trigger. The day she had Tae Kwon Do (which is an adult work out, I would huff and puff in that class), walked a mile and ran the playground, she began falling and tripping all over the place. Three bloody scrapes in total.

My fatigue is still there, but the iron supplements definitely blunt it. I really think I had maybe slipped into anemia there for a second. It would also help if the toddler would sleep past 7am. She used to sleep until 8:30, but now with daylight savings time we are up at the equivalent of 6am. Ow.

We are working on a cancer care package. So far, a soft, warm blanket, a bag to carry it and a plan to buy lots of favorite candies that aren't available where they live. Hubby wanted to arrange a visit, but the surgery is happening so fast, we can't pull it off.

Hubby asked me if stress could give you cancer. I sort of rolled my eyes. I hate the New Age idea that our feeeelings can kills us. It victimizes people who have done nothing other than try to live their lives. So they get sick and then we tell them if they just had better emotions they wouldn't be doing this to themselves. Ugh. Hate that.

Do our emotions impact our biochemistry? Yes. Do they impact our behavior? Yes. So, on some level, how we feel and what we do about it have a physiological impact that could enhance an infection or help foster cancer. But it's more than that. Look at Henrietta Lacks, her cancer cells march on even though her emotions died a long time ago.

The hubby's family was exposed to Chernobyl. They were not in the Ukraine, but it hit their city anyway. Chernobyl hit a lot of places. So did Japan.

We are braised in a toxic stew and some of us cook faster than others.

The Road to an Updose

One thing I wanted to write down before I forget it happened was after the Wednesday work out, I was sneezy and kind of flu-ish the next day. Similar to what happened when I accidentally worked out for three hours that one time. Just really run down.

So I worked out again Saturday. Not because I wanted to or felt up to it, but something needed to be done to change the path my body was on. Which was one of sugar supernova explosion and Oompa Loompa salt bloat.

It's funny how I can eat my weight in sugar and it's therapeutic, but then I can barely have any and I feel like I'm being stalked by a ninja named Diabetes. Who wants to do the three year death* move on me.

I don't know.

We had Thai food at a mediocre Thai restaurant. I am super duper salt sensitive anymore and really have to watch salt intake (except for those times I need extra salt to stay upright--I'm just full of contradictions!). I don't feel that I ate all that much, some chicken satay, a few lettuce wraps and some wonton.

Maybe they used MSG or I was reacting to something else in the food? Whatever it was, it compounded the fatigue.

After that, I propped up my bleary eyes to bake cookies and make turtles, which involved heavy sampling of the mini Milky Ways.

At that point, I'd already started drinking lots of water to flush out any extra salt, but the sugar hit me hard for some reason. So I put on some music and bopped around the house while the cookies baked in an effort to sweat it out and give the sugar high something productive to do.

I couldn't do squats as I was still sore from Wednesday. I had changed my squat technique to target my hamstrings better and it was almost too successful. My abs were also pretty sore still as I'd added 10lb weights to my routine. Just because that's what you do when you're chronically ill and haven't worked out in a while, amiright? There's no way that's ever a bad idea!

So between the bopping and a high impact day with no time to rest, by the time it was all over, I had collapsed on the couch. The hubby covered me with blankets and I just lay there for a couple hours, trying to get warm. I was D.O.N.E. Stomach pain and the adrenal gang came to beat me up.

Then I had an asthma attack because surprise! The inhaler was empty and I didn't notice. Who knows how many doses I missed? Check stupid in your dictionary to see a picture of me.

The asthma made it so much easier to swallow a 10mg updose Sunday morning.

*Three year death...maybe I'm mis-remembering the name but it's a sequence of (mythic?) martial arts moves that causes death years later.

The Vacation Post that Barely Mentions my Health

I love the Great White North that is Northern Michi-gan. The beaches are so gorgeous, even the butterflies come by to sunbathe. Everyone should vacation in the Trav-erse City area once in their lives. It should be on everyone's bucket list.

The first day, we body surfed in 5-8 foot waves. I was ankle deep in the Lake and one wave hit me at the waist only to be followed by another that got me in the boobs. Crazy! The water was so rough, it seemed like even the ocean had stopped by for a visit to the UP.

The toddler (in a life jacket, with Daddy as lifeguard) and I screamed like we were on roller coasters. The water was polar bear cold and the day was cool, but the waves were so. much. fun. no one cared they were freezing.

Yesterday, we returned to the same beach and found the lake whimpering meekly on the shore. Booooring. Instead of jumping carnival-ride waves, we got sunburned. Humph.


Today, the family, including the hubby, is on a fishing trip, leaving me with toddler duty. Given that the hubby hates fishing, and my extended family is more cantankerous than usual, I have the better end of the bargain. He's on a boat right now silently chanting 'at least the fish will be delicious' and 'I will not chuck anyone off the boat.'

So I slept in until 9, let the toddler watch cartoon after cartoon on networks she's never seen and threw in a load of laundry. Now I'm waiting for the washer to finish so we can go to the farmer's market and a rumored art activity (everyone has told me about it, but I have yet to see the fliers they've seen).

The really big news? The toddler wrote her name for the first time and then typed several words on the computer as well as maneuvered the mouse, also for the first time. She just blossomed, right in front of us.

You know it's a developmental spurt when they are so focused on a new skill, you can't even capture their attention with the promise of ice cream. We waited until fatigue made her less accurate with the mouse, and then pried her fingers off the keyboard and took her to the ice cream stand where we stuffed her with caramel ice cream.

The asthma snapped back into formation the second I started a new Symbicort inhaler. There is something wrong with those dang inhalers. I keep having this issue.


(Note: Click to enlarge the pic above to see the butterfly. My camera is good, but not good enough to get great detail on such a small thing.)

So I'm having a good time and can finally breathe. Winning!