Fool's Gold

Saturday was a good day. I didn't do anything physical as my joints were quite stiff and sore from Friday's pool workout. (Drinking ginger lemon infusions helped tremendously by the way. LOVE ginger, very effective anti-inflammatory.)

I did, however, have a very productive work day. The toddler had a little buddy to fight play with so she was well occupied.

I finished edits on one story. Wrote the complete rough draft of another as well as made the cover in Photoshop (which is a real pita now that retailers have increased the cover sizes).

This morning I woke up, decided I felt good and did the elliptical first thing. I want to start exercising in the morning again so it's now or never. It pretty much sucked because it's hot and my legs are/were weak. Usually when I feel this good energy-wise I can chug away at 60rpm, today I was fighting to just stay in the 40s.

I've been puzzled by having weakness not in combination with fatigue. The two are like conjoined twins of torture, where one goes, the other follows. But then it occurred to me that maybe this is the first significant break in the adrenal pattern.

Maybe this is the beginning of the end?

Maybe now the weakness will fade too?

Or am I just fooling myself to think that any good days are the start of a new and better pattern?

Neverending Hangover

Yesterday went okay. Eight hours with me and the toddler at non-kid friendly events (although she enjoyed herself immensely, not sure how the other people felt that had to deal with her exuberance). And older relatives at various stages of senility. Plus a half mile walk in 100F!

But I survived!

I just wish I didn't constantly feel hungover.

Yesterday it was the low blood sugar hangover from the 4th.

Today it is the high blood sugar hangover from the 5th.

From one extreme to the other and my body can't moderate either one!

I tried to work out last night to try and burn up the excess sugar and my muscles fatigued very quickly, going straight to the burn of over doing it. I don't know if this is just me being out of shape (but surely not that far gone, I have been exercising) or my body being weird.

And now I'll end this post because I've hit some 'shrink the screen until it's almost invisible' button combination. I can barely see what I"m typing. Ta ta for now.

Not the Fourth I Planned

Yesterday was weirdness.

I forgot to eat.

No hunger so no interest in eating, it didn't even occur to me to eat. I totally missed the fact that meal times had come and gone without me eating anything-- so far off my radar, it fell off screen. I try to be aware of eating regularly because this is a known pitfall, and I mostly do a pretty good job, but I guess I got all caught up in preparing for the day.

I fed the toddler at least, then drove her 45 minutes to the grandparent's pulled into the driveway only to have the world tilt sideways on me. I was on the phone with the husband when it hit and I had to hang up as I was too dizzy to talk.

It was embarrassing as I essentially demanded food and juice the second my family opened the door, lurching through their house like a drunk person. I do pretty well covering all the daily insanity of my health, they'd never seen me like that. I tried to explain, tried to carry a conversation even though my brain was goo, but I probably looked like I had a drug problem of some kind.

Food helped but fatigue lingered--it would appear the problem wasn't just low blood sugar alone. I actually drove home and went to bed, sleeping until we had to leave to re-join everyone for dinner. That helped even more but I didn't come fully online until around 9pm yesterday.

So today, I'm making sure there's food in my stomach and in my purse. We have a busy day--hour and a half drive to a family event involving a fancy restaurant. It should be fun, but I'm kind of nervous about how I'm going to do it all.

Change the Conversation on Vaccines

Twice in the past week I've run into anti-vax hating conversations online. Not on purpose. They just snuck up on me and hit me over the head with stupidity.

I hate the pro-vax, anti-vax debate. Like most debates of their ilk (abortion, taxes, partisanship etc...), it sets up a false dichotomy and allows logical fallacies on all sides to flourish. Rhetoric is heavy-handed and often all proponents have to fall back on.

Case in point, the conversations I ran across were all rabidly pro-vax, blaming those nasty anti-vaxers for everything bad in the world.

Not one commenter brought up the recent news that vaccines aren't properly stored in most cases, rendering them ineffective. Not even the mothers of immune compromised children. Or the "medical scientists" who hasten to add to the pile-on of 'only morons don't vaccinate.' You begin to see why the whole thing puts my teeth on edge. This is what passes for critical thought on these kinds of issues.

It's just ideologically easier to believe that the reason pertussis has made their kid or their friend's kid sick is the small number of folks who don't vaccinate. So everyone keeps having the same fight over and over, retains their moral superiority and, meanwhile, poor quality control in a flawed, unethical industry festers, hurting us all.

In the mid-90s I was reading the books that brought up quality control concerns with vaccines. It's a major Achilles heel for the pharmaceutical industry and national security (think 'ill-prepared for germ warfare'). That being said, we vaccinated our child because we understand the science and agree it is true. We just hoped it was implemented correctly because that is harder to know, that's the part where everyone is working blind... including the medical staff administering the vaccines.

I remain unconvinced that my child received a high quality product from a properly maintained factory. To my knowledge, legislation has never been enacted requiring the industry to bring manufacturing facilities up to code--it's too expensive and we need the vaccines too badly to close anyone down and force the issue. It's either been blind luck or a blind eye that this information has not escalated like it should.

And now actual data has surfaced that the very doctor's offices exhorting everyone to vaccinate (you should see our ped, they all but put us in a head lock) were undermining the entire vaccine program with poor storage practices. Here are the salient data points:

"Report findings identified 76 percent of the selected vaccine providers had stored their vaccines to inappropriate temperatures for at least five cumulative hours.

The report also found that 13 of the 45 providers inspected had stored vaccines that had expired alongside those that were current. The providers in the study all participated in the Vaccines for Children program."

Pro-vax, anti-vax, alien-vax whatever...this is a problem and it is only the tip of the iceberg.

Yet not one person is asking, 'how do we know our kids are vaccinated?' Because now it's not just enough that they got a shot, parents have no idea if the shot was any good!

But instead of being outraged at documented failures in the vaccine program, we spend all our time calling the other side 'morons'. Because we would rather validate our own biases about who we are vs. who other people are than deal in facts or unite to fix tangible problems.

Really, I don't know why anyone cares about who vaccinates or not, because stupidity seems to be a much more widespread and lethal disease. Now there's a vaccine I would line up for.

That Would Be a No

The pajama day was a success...kind of. The toddler must've needed the downtime because she was content to putter all day with nary a whine, which has happened pretty much never.

I made meatballs, muffins, cookies and coleslaw. As well as lunch and dinner. Got in the elliptical work out.

Felt great. Checked my bp and saw it was 100/70 and thought huh. But I went by how I felt, which was fine (see also: big mistakes) so I did what I wanted to, which was cook and exercise.

Then my bp went pfffft to 99/68. In me, that doesn't feel so great. I became fatigued and rested most of the afternoon.

By early evening the GI stuff started along with weakness.

I had a googly-eyed bp drop that I didn't measure, just breathed through it on the couch and waited until I could see straight again.

It wasn't too bad and didn't last long, probably because my highest BP of the day was 115/79.

So that would be a no on stress response recovery?

State of the Pajamas

This summer has been busier than I anticipated. First the toddler has summer camp. The second we got our tax refund, I signed her up. Then I got sick. Then I started this alternative medicine thing, which is like a serious hobby in terms of time commitment.

I have very distinct memories of being four and know who I was. I was self-contained. I played independently--every day. I was quiet (which is a good quality for a minister's kid because you have to sit through all those sermons and behave). Once I could read, I just took a book with me everywhere my parents dragged me. Books kept me entertained in a facsimile of exceptional behavior, allowing my parents to look amazing as opposed to merely lucky.

Enter my daughter, who is a social butterfly. She can't play independently. And she whines like a tornado siren with a broken 'off' button.

It's not that I expected her to be exactly like me, more that I thought she'd be at least a little like me. Or perhaps easy going like her Dad.

But no, not happening. The cognitive dissonance between what I know about four and how she is four is one of my biggest challenges as a parent--I'm in one lane, she's levitating on the Jetsons' superhighway.

She is who she is, my problem is I don't know this personality type well. So I keep her busy busy busy.

All summer I've been getting up early to either take her to summer camp or go to the clinic or both on the same day. Being so ill in May, of course, made it extra hard. I just need (needed?) a lot more rest than I did before bronchitis hit--although that is slowly improving.

This past week, I really felt the need to slow down, but we just had something every day and were even double-booked in spots. Sunday was going to be my lazy day, but my friend took me out to see Magic Mike (hubba hubba). As much as I appreciate having the energy to do everything, I just want to set all the balls down and take a short break. Catch my breath. Smell the roses.

I'm supposed to be somewhere today, but I canceled in favor of lolling in bed, snuggling with my daughter. Plans consist of an elliptical work out, baking almond flour cookies and generally puttering my ass off.

It's official. Today's a pajama day.

The Turtle Come Back

So the IV nurse at the clinic turned me on to P90X and I was able to borrow it from a friend to see what it was all about firsthand.

At first, it made me want to cry because all I could do was watch. I was just lucky to be able to go for walks still.

I loved the pylometrics workout. Except for the fact that it's like an hour and a half long.

Is it even safe to do that intense a workout that long?

Unless you're an Olympic athlete of course.

Even if I was in shape, I don't think I would do pylo for that long. It seems excessive. I would break it up into 20 minute increments myself.

Eventually I did what I could of the yoga dvd. Which was not much. That's another hour and a half work out which seems long, but the yoga class I signed up for is the same length. I can feel my commitment to yoga wavering on time constraints alone.

I need Mommy's Quick Relax Yoga not Yoga to Infinity and Beyond.

But no one does that so spit, meet wind.

Then I stumbled onto the Cardio X workout on the P90X menu, which is a 45 minute hodge-podge of the yoga, kenpo and pylometric work outs. It's easier. It's shorter.

Huh, I thought. Maybe I could do this. You know, someday.

So the hubby and I tried it today. I did about 1/3 of the workout. I like the Yoga because FYI Yoga is effing hard and I feel like I need to work those muscles a bit before the yoga class starts. The rest of it was okay. I think I like my kenpo (aka cardio kickboxing) choreography better. I'm kind of an exercise loner--once I learn the basics, I like to skip the class and create my own routines.

So not a P90x convert. Other than to data mine it for moves I like and want to use on my own.

After the dvd ended, I finished with 10 minutes on the elliptical because I felt guilty about not being able to go full throttle. I actually wanted to do 20, the hubby confined me to 5 and 10 was our compromise. He's right to not want me doing too much, I should want to go slow too, but it's so hard to be a turtle when, in the moment, I know I can run.

The aftermath of exercising is never foreshadowed in my body. This makes it really hard to know what constitutes over-doing it and is a major source of frustration for me.

As for my BP, I don't know. I don't care. I am taking a break from bothering with it. I medicate it. I eat right. I exercise. It's going to do what it's going to do. Frankly, it can kiss my fat ass.