Damn

I had to take 10mg yesterday.

Asthma flared pretty significantly over night and into the morning. My entire rib cage was sore from being so tight. Sticking with albuterol via inhaler though. It's just easier. Ended up two-timing the inhaler with the nebulizer and still...yucko.

The fatigue was killer. And my body started acting out with that adrenal complex of sore throat and general malaise with weakness.

I gave it a few hours and added some caffeine, but things just were not improving so I caved and did 5mg. Then another 5mg.

Work was bad. I started with diarrhea which I hope was just Augmentin messing with me, but, regardless, the adrenal piece came alive with generalized stomach and back pain, increasing weakness and fatigue replete with clumsiness resulting in a cut finger and a bruise along my spine. I also lost time, zoning out and coming to with no memory of things that were said to me or that happened.

I am not sure what I should do today regarding everything.

Hopefully it's just that I did too much the other day and will settle down now that I've had a good night's sleep stayed up most the night with abdominal pain and adrenal inflammation in my back. I have another IV today and I'm looking forward to its assistance with the mess that is my body.

It's not that I get sick, you know. Bugs happen. It's that I can't seem to get better. If I feel better and act accordingly, I get sick again. Over and over again this pattern manifests, usually with adrenal strain, but now with asthma and adrenals together. It needs to stop.

On the upside (my life is not one long downer no matter how much it reads like it) I have a 'date' with a new friend and the families liked my photos. I like taking photos and it looks like I have an eye for it, if not the actual $5,000 camera needed to do it well.

I did 'silly face' photos with all the kids and it was gratifying to hear everyone laughing and enjoying the pictures at the 'graduation' party. To think I had a hand in that creating that moment just blew my mind. One family wants me to come take photos which will be fun.

As for the comment on the previous post regarding if I ate paleo. I do. Pretty much. Here are photos of lunch and dinner from Tuesday (I'm working on a food project). Breakfast was a 'green' smoothie, which I drank, but didn't care for so much.

Please Just Stop Already

I still can't breathe.

But there's nothing I can do about it.

I hate the fact that I'm on my own as a parent right now. I've called in family and sitters to help so I can rest. But I wish we had cancelled the hubby's trip. I thought I would be fiiiine though. Instead I'm no better than I was yesterday and I'm using the nebulizer and taking steroids--I'm not playing around.

Took the toddler to the park twice today. I can't push her on the swing, can't walk around the duck pond and it's hard for her to understand WTF is wrong with mommy.

It's frustrating.

Being Mommy never stops.

Being sick never stops.

It's impossible for me and unfair to her.

Lots and Lots

Okay, busy busy here. Ready?

Take a deep breath. Here we go.

1. Visited 2 preschools. One is the perfect fit (I think) with a gentle director whose done the PT/OT hamster wheel with their kid due to muscle issues. The other is the perfect schedule, fit unknown, but slightly better facility and a good Pre-K program for next year. Gah. How to choose? I hate this part.

2. Did my favorite work out. Ran 400 stairs and walked something more than a mile. Calves were sore for 2 days. I will try for 600 stairs next time. Trying to figure out when to stop? At 1000?

3.Also did some interval running/walking/skipping/hopping. No soreness after that.

4.Had an adrenal moment after that stressful Friday. It wasn't bad, but I was foggy for the whole next day and just run down. Didn't 'wake up' until the day after.

5. Aviva suggested I look at endometriosis (sp?), but I would not think I fit the profile. No painful periods. BUT I did have that laproscopic (sp?) surgery for appendicitis that wasn't appendicitis and I wonder if there's scar tissue from that. There is a palpable difference in tissue quality RUQ vs. LUQ and even appearance. The RUQ is bigger. I have wondered if it's scar tissue.

6.Forgot to ask the gastro on how to handle breakthrough symptoms at night as well as the possibility that it's the GERD meds that are the problem. Also, forgot to ask for refills. Doh! That's how stressed I was that day, stressed into disorganization. Also I ran 6 flights of stairs to make it to the appointment and was still out of breath when they called me back. Really frazzled that day.

7. I seem to have now lost 3 pant sizes, depending on cut and fit. This is the exact same size that no one has in stock. Which is bad because the pants I have on now? Kept on by prayer alone.

One more size 'til goal.

On top, I've dropped one size and I can't quantify beyond that. The goal is just to be something smaller than the current size.

When I was bikini skinny? I wore anything from an 8 to a 16, depending on cut (the curse of being tall with broad shoulders). At goal, the top size will probably waffle between the next two sizes down at. My ass, I can get into one size, the rest not so much.

8. The salad ebook in the right side bar? Hit #4 on Amazon's Kindle top sellers list. Note this is not a competitive category. I think someone could return the book and I'd probably shoot to #1. Still, kind of nice.

Also, one of my slow cooker recipes was selected for a recipe newsletter. No pay, but publicity.

I'm still waiting to hear from the editor on the novella. They are a few days past the deadline they gave me which grrrrr.

9.The asthma no likey the humidity. I've had to use the rescue inhaler. Sigh.

A Bit of This, A Bit of That

1.The asthma has done a great job of making my lungs feel like they've been scrubbed on a cheese grater. With gusto. It is abating, bit by bit, this is not serious asthma, just painful asthma.

Further I am tired. Whether I am tired enough to need more steroids is still open to interpretation. Possibly I am in the denial stage of grief.

I am so close to breaking free, to have to significantly updose again, well, I worry it would reset the clock back to zero. Which would basically crush my soul.

2.I purposely used just my first initial on the ebook. M. Last Name. Now I'm getting what passes for fan mail amongst the business crowd and they all assume I'm a guy. The language used in the emails is different too, lots of guy oriented slang.

I wonder what would happen if they knew I had boobs and a vagina?

3.I think my gallbladder needs to be Raptured the hell out of my body. I am having problems. No stones, but I need a function scan to see if it's working (this was on the schedule but I got pregnant and it had to be scrapped). I suspect not and my body seems to be on the path to gallbladder implosion, the ante is ratcheting up.

The pain is daily, has been daily since Thanksgiving. Now heartburn is a problem despite avoiding food and taking extra Prilosec. Nor do I think that vomiting episode a few weeks ago was a bug, I think it was a GI mutiny.

This means at some point between now and the next decade, I will go see someone about it. I've been thinking to go to the same GI who treats my parent since this GERD GI crap is familial. There might be some benefit to working with someone who has seen how the genes play out.

Maybe I can avoid Barret's, although my parent has not been so lucky. (I know gallbladder is not specific to Barret's, but GI crap is all related, at least I think so for me.)

4. The toddler made a huge mess on the carpet with her jello. Smeared it right into the carpet she did. When I asked her to clean it up, she began to sob and meltdown.

I hadn't yelled at her. Had remained very calm in fact, but she was distraught.

Finally I said, "I still love you. You are still my special girl. Please clean up the mess."

Worked like a charm. It was really something. Gonna have to remember that one.

Exposure & Slamming Doors

Exposure

The asthma has suddenly become very bitchy. I don't even want to say how many times I used the albuterol. It's depressing.

Today is the inauguration of 4mg. May it go well.

Of course, the universe, the nasty ho bag that she is, sent me a student yesterday suffering an acute infection of some kind.

Featuring a fever of 104 F.

My student's parents have incentivized the hell out of getting good grades. So much so that my student dragged their sorry ass to tutoring.

Except, when your brain is on fire, you can't really absorb things like fractions.

Also, HELLO. If your throat is too sore to talk, I can't do much with you. (And Good Lord stop looking for an app that will talk for you on your iphone.There are no apps in tutoring.)

So I had to cut the session short.

Meaning I was exposed to all those germs for no good reason.

Humph.

Let the record show that I am wearing my Spongebob Shiny Optimism pants (that squeak!) and chanting a silent mantra of "I will not get sick, I will not get sick."

(P.S. Lucky for you those pants are invisible.)

Slamming Doors

The hubby recently did a number on himself.

He managed to slam his finger in the van door. Hard.

Why, I don't know. He can't quite figure out how he was stupid enough to stick his hand in the door as it was slamming home.

He was in so much pain, he couldn't stand still, on the verge of tears. I have never seen him in that much pain before. This is the guy who walked on a seriously broken ankle that narrowly missed needing surgery and bought him 6 weeks of disability. The guy I had to bully into getting surgery for an avulsion fraction of his finger so he could still pick his nose if he so chose and retain the ability to use power tools without accommodation.

This is also the guy for whom pain triggers an impressive anger response with a side of irrational logic.

In fact we had a screaming match about ice packs. Me trying to get him one, him insisting he wanted to go to bed.

Then we had a screaming match about how, no, you can't go to bed until we look at your hand.

We really don't yell at each other,we're a pretty copacetic couple, so this was pretty unusual. I was very glad the toddler was asleep, she would've been traumatized by the vigorous conversation at the top of our lungs.

The relative staying with us, who does not speak English, and whose worldview is warped like that of Kim Jon Il unless they are pretty heavily sedated, was freaking out. I dread how they will represent the whole thing to the rest of the hubby's family (I never come out looking good in the gossip and have not yet evolved to where I don't care).

By virtue of the hubby's high pain tolerance and the fact it was not able to save him this time, I made him go get an x-ray the next day at an urgent care center (because he has no primary care doctor because he doesn't go to the doctor).

No fractures.

Impressive considering he has an actual dent in his finger. Just looking at it makes me wince in sympathy. The new rule at our house for the hubby is now, if it hurts, you're fine, if it doesn't hurt, you need surgery/disability.

And based on the anger that pain elicits, I am very glad he is so healthy. As it stands, he is going to have a heart attack in his dotage and try to smack the snot out of the EMTs as a result.

Please accept my apologies in advance.

I Just Can't Catch a Breath Here

:(
Can you sprain a lung? Is that possible? I think I did something to the left lung. It hurts to breath, especially on that side. Like I'm raking my lungs over shards of glass with each breath.

The biggest problem is the pain followed by the feeling that I'm just on that edge of a big spasm.

But my peak flow is fine. What they call 'good air movement' in the med biz.

I tried to take a nap but since the toddler wasn't napping and with the pain, I couldn't sleep.

I've been taking my albuterol since yesterday, maybe 10 times in 2 days. That's a lot for me.

After the no nap, I caved and took 10 more mg of prednisone. At the time, I questioned myself. I mean, I could breathe, just look at my peak flow, it only felt like I couldn't. Apparently, if the small airways are shot but the big ones aren't, the peak flow can be inaccurate.

So I'm not that sick.

On paper.

In real life, this is bad. I'm very short of breath on activity and have I mentioned the pain? Or the spasms in the muscles of my rib cage?

As much as I second guessed myself on the prednisone, I am thanking all that is holy that I took it. Why?

Well, I had my first student of the year.

Unfortunately, their assessment of the home environment was not entirely accurate.

They do too smoke in the house. Right in front of me in fact.

They do too have a cat.

None of this was disclosed on the intake forms.

The only reason I didn't turn heel and leave is they stopped smoking and I didn't know about the cat until the end (although I kind of wondered when I spotted the cat nip toys).

I informed the family I wouldn't be their tutor, but they said they would meet at the library if that meant keeping me.

Sigh. Don't get me wrong, I like being liked. I think I'm a decent tutor BUT showing up is half the game and a lot of these families struggle with attendance. I hope they are as motivated as they say they are.

Meanwhile, I'll be giving the nebulizer a blow job. If I had not taken more prednisone, it would've easily been ER time.

This is where I begin to feel disabled, like I've been put on hold against my will. It doesn't matter what my intent or desire is, it's beyond my control. I can't even work without accommodations and if people don't properly disclose things, I get screwed. Sooooo frustrating.

Dance to the Beat, Or What Really Sucks About Being Sick

Believe it or not, the video below is the kind of dancing the hubby and I used to do. I was an amateur dancer who didn't have anything close to the physique needed for classical dance (or the technique) so when I met the hubby and he invited me to join his dance troupe....well, how can a girl turn down a pick up line like that?

Folk dance is a little more forgiving on technique and lines than classical dance. Emphasis on little. But I loved it. Absolutely loved it. Nor did it hurt that they were desperate for warm bodies.

Folk dance ain't exactly popular with aspiring dancers. I was alive and breathing, the fact I had some dance background was just gravy. As a result, our troupe was a mix of professionally trained immigrant dancers and people like me who they hoped to mold into a proper folk dancer.

Anyway, we recently saw some other groups perform and commiserated on how much we missed dancing. We used to travel all over. The troupe performed for presidents, went to Canada and Europe to perform.

It was a lot of fun and another thing prednisone and subsequent Cushings followed by Adrenal Insufficiency stole from me. I was eventually asked to leave the troupe due to Cushings weight gain. That and my timing was too slow as I lacked the energy to stay on top of the beat.

Hubby and I both miss it, but, alas, now we are too old, I'm dealing with the fallout of prednisone anyway (some things never change) and our troupe eventually folded for lack of dancers.

Sometimes I wonder who I would be without illness. What I would achieve if I had any stability at all in my health? The fact I have to wonder angers me. The thing about chronic illness isn't that it sucks to be sick, it's that it sucks to never be in control of your own destiny.

Backsliding

Last night was not good. The lungs did NOT like the walking from the other day (I bet the little bit of nicotine I got didn't help either) and I paid for it.

Very tight. Waking up mid hack.

Suffocation nightmares. Dreaming of cyanosis.

All an indication that I am not breathing well in my sleep.

But I couldn't wake up. I was deep in what I call 'sticky' sleep. I was aware I was not breathing so well but I just couldn't get up for some reason.

Finally battled through the lethargy and took the rescue inhaler at 3am.

Spent the rest of the night feeling the muscles in my lower ribs cramp. Couldn't 'pinch an inch' this morning--the skin on my chest was taut. No audible wheeze though.

Woke up as tired as when I'd gone to bed.

Peak flow 400.

Trying to make it with just the albuterol inhaler.

Feels like a huge step back. Not what I was going for at all.

Well, poop on a Manolo Blahnik.