zeptember

Today is the second day in a row that I did not have diarrhea upon waking. Today is the second day in a row that my stomach and intestines tried to stabilise - until I fed myself something other than Cream of Rice with mashed banana.

Last night it resulted in 8 episodes of diarrhea. This afternoon it resulted in moderate nausea and stomach and intestinal gurgles. I’m worn out. I’m tired as hell. And I worked a full day today on top of it.

I was supposed to see a physical trainer today, but instead I went to the doctor.

That’s when I found out that it’s not JUST a food reaction I’ve been having, and it WASN’T food poisoning.

My doctor is certain that I have an enterovirus. She said it’s going around - she’s seen patients with my exact symptoms for over a week, now.

I know that what’s going on with me IS also a food reaction on top of the enterovirus, because my left thumb is covered in flaky dermatitis, and my thumb is cracked and will probably start bleeding tomorrow.

According to MedScape, I was harbouring the enterovirus for up to a week before the diarrhea hit me on Friday. It says, “The average incubation period is 3-10 days, during which the virus migrates to regional lymphoid tissue and replicates. Minor viremia results, which is associated with the onset of symptoms and viral spread to the reticuloendothelial system (spleen, liver, bone marrow).”

Another MedScape article says, “The enterovirus enters the human host through the GI or respiratory tract. The cell surfaces of the GI tract serve as viral receptors, and initial replication begins in the local lymphatic GI tissue. The virus seeds into the bloodstream, causing a minor viremia on the third day of infection. The virus then invades organ systems, causing a second viremic episode on days 3-7. This second viremic episode is consistent with the biphasic prodromal illness. The infection can progress to CNS involvement during the major viremic phase or at a later time. Antibody production in response to enteroviral infections occurs within the first 7-10 days.”

I could have caught it at my neighbor’s house when we went over there last Tuesday to watch the season premier of the last season of LOST.
I could have caught it from my new psychiatrist’s office on my first visit.
I could have caught it at work.
I could have caught it anywhere.

The bum deal out of all of this is that I went from being bedridden with endometriosis pain right into being laid out flat with massive diarrhea for three days. I lost two weekends of fun out of that deal. I didn’t get to see an old high school acquaintance who was in town for the weekend. Worst of all, I went out on Sunday to a party while still sick with the virus, because I was convinced it was food poisoning and/or food reaction I was still dealing with. I ate some home cooked food at the party after having been on mush earlier that day, and the stomach cramps returned with a fury. When I got home at 9pm Sunday night, the diarrhea returned and I had 8 rounds of it.

I didn’t want to go in to work today, but I was still partially in denial about actually being SICK sick…even though I called to cancel my physical trainer appointment on my way to work. To be fair, I took my temperature at work and it was 99.8°F at 11am. I hinted that I should go home, but the director told me I was fine. The secretary told me I was fine.
What they meant was, “Lunch rush is coming up in the next half hour, and we’re short staffed. You have to stay, we need you.”

I did stay on, but that’s when I called my doctor and scored an appointment after work.

When I left out of the doctor’s office, it was raining, and I hadn’t brought my raincoat with me. I walked in the rain back to my car, parked a block and a half away. When I got home, I took a blow dryer to my hair, put some dishes in the new dishwasher my husband recently bought, scooped the cat litter, and got into my jammies and crawled into bed.

I’ll be staying home tomorrow - I made sure to get a doctor’s note the moment the doctor suggested I stay home. I called work the moment I left the doctor’s office to let everyone know I won’t be in.

Once again, I’m kicked when I’m down, thanks to my immune system being deficient, thanks to endometriosis and allergies and lord knows what else I have going on immunologically.

I guess if one can find a silver lining… I lost 6 pounds in 3 days. I’m down to 158lbs.

Friday night, I went out with my husband to a local taqueria to have dinner. I ordered a corn quesadilla with cheese, and it came with guacamole, salsa and sour cream. The order also came with some fried tortilla chips, hot red sauce and mild green sauce.
I drank a Mexican Coke (no corn syrup) with my meal (I rarely drink pop these days, but I was craving the coke).

A corn quesadilla is not a big meal. Corn tortillas are rather small by American meal standards. Normally I can easily finish this and feel full, but on Friday, I wasn’t even a third of the way through my meal when my stomach began rumbling.

I wondered if it was the oil they’d used for cooking - had it gone bad?

I wondered if they were cooking with lard, since my body really hates lard.

I continued eating, albeit a lot slower, to sort through what my body was trying to tell me.

But WAIT, you say, Didn’t you tell yourself back in October that you have a corn allergy and to stop eating it?

I got about half-way through the quesadilla, and eaten perhaps a third of the guacamole, when the stomach upset reached a maximum for me. I turned to my husband and told him I was ready to go home. He looked at me, concerned, and said, “Oh no.” He could tell I was having a food reaction, but he couldn’t believe it. The food I’d chosen was all on my approved list. He asked me if I was sure, just as I was saying, “I gotta GO, be right back” and fled to the bathroom.

Diarrhea. Was it a food reaction…or was it food poisoning?

I asked my husband if he was alright, he said he was feeling fine. But then, he usually has a stomach of steel.
And then again, a long time ago, he’d gotten food poisoning from this very taqueria.

We began walking home and happened into the local used book store. I was alright in there for awhile, and then we resumed our walk home. We only got a few doors down when I declared I needed to use the bathroom again. We went into Tucker’s Ice Cream parlour, and ran into one of the parents at the school I work at. She’s also a friend of a friend. The need to go subsided, so we chatted for awhile, then got nervous as I always do when in a social situation, which flared the need to go again, so I excused myself and made my way to the bathroom.

Another episode of diarrhea.

We had some ice cream with our aquaintances (who were sans child), and then made our way once more towards home.

I cannot recall if I had any further episodes on Friday night.

However, early Saturday morning, I had a couple more episodes of urgency, and noticed that my lower back and my stomach region were killing me. When I got out of bed for the day, because my back was pounding from the pain, the diarrhea started up again with a fury, and lasted all damned day. No solidity whatsoever.

I had 16 or 17 episodes of diarrhea on Saturday from 7:44am to 1am Sunday. I was a miserable mess. I cried once. The world had that same hazy blur around it that it does when I’m in a lot of pain from endometriosis. I was listless. I didn’t want anything to eat. I chugged half a bottle of powerade with some water but all it did was make the diarrhea worse, so I stopped drinking it. I’m assuming it was the sucralose - I always get loose stool from sucralose. But I can’t have Gatorade because of corn syrup and dextrose. Same thing with Pedialyte because of the dextrose, which is a corn derivative.

I woke again this morning with severe back pain. It’s downgraded to moderate, now. All I’ve eaten today is a bowl of Cream of Rice with mashed banana. My stomach still feels like roto-rooter has gone through it.

I began wondering about the avocado moreso than the corn, because in the past 6 months, whenever I’ve eaten guacamole, more often than not, I will get loose stool pretty soon afterwards. Whether I eat out or make it fresh at home doesn’t matter.

And in trying to pin down my allergies with sushi - I’m sure I have a sulfite sensitivity, but I also eat avocado with most of my sushi rolls.

So now I need to cut out corn, sulfites and avocados.

So those boxes of chocolate my ma got for us?

I began chowing on them on Tuesday. Within two days, my fingers began splitting open. This is usually the sign of a wheat reaction, so today I popped out of my complete denial and began looking up the ingredients in the chocolates.

Whitman’s chocolate contains a bunch of stuff, but for me the red flags are invert sugar, sodium metabisulfite, confectioner’s glaze and invertase.

According to sugar.org, “Sucrose can be split into its two component sugars (glucose and fructose). This process is called inversion, and the product is called invert sugar. Commercial invert sugar is a liquid product that contains equal amounts of glucose and fructose.” Ok, so no gluten to worry about, but I don’t want fructose in my diet. Whitman’s chocolates have invert sugar AND corn syrup, so it’s out.

Sodium metabisulfite contains the word ’sulfite’, and according to wikipedia, “may cause allergic reactions in those who are sensitive to sulfites”. Hi that’s me! Well I didn’t rash out or get diarrhea like I do when drinking wine or eating stuff with too much vinegar, but still…Whitman’s chocolates contain sulfites so I shouldn’t have it.

Confectioner’s glaze, aside from the gross potentiality of being made from scaly mealy bugs, does not appear to contain an allergen for me.

According to enzymeindia.com, “Invertase is a yeast-derived enzyme”. Because I have a yeast sensitivity, I should not be consuming invertase.

The Queen Anne’s cherry cordials also have corn syrup and invertase in them, so of course they’re out.

Sorry ma, no more Whitman’s or Queen Anne’s chocolate deliveries.

Besides, after having eaten gourmet chocolates in the time I have lived in California, Whitman’s tastes like crap now, anyway.

Whitman’s therefore becomes another childhood favourite to fall dead, along with Baskin Robbins ice cream and Taco Bell…killed dead by becoming enlightened through California cuisine.

So…my fingers. It’s my right ring finger and my right pinky finger, both split open and started bleeding on the right side of each digit. I bandaged them up last night and all of today, and they seem to be healing up nicely…until I got home from work today and chowed down on some more chocolates. And then remembered…oh yeah, my fingers split open.
So they’ll be splitting open again, heh.

On December 24, 2009 I drank 1/2 glass of red wine. The wine tasted gross, but more importantly my face, neck and chest rashed out immediately. My ears turned beet red and felt like they were sunburnt.

On January 5, 2010, I drank another brand of red wine, which also tasted gross. Once again, my face, neck and chest rashed out immediately. My ears turned beet red and felt like they were sunburnt.

On January 16, 2010, I had a sushi dinner with my husband at a local restaurant. Just over an hour later, I had diarrhea. I went back in my mind and examined everything I ate for dinner. I did not have any sauces or salad with dressing or soy sauce or miso soup. I called the restaurant and asked how they prepare their rice - it’s just rice vinegar with some salt and sugar - just your basic.
This is at least the third, if not fourth time I have had a reaction after eating at that restaurant. All of the fish was super fresh and tasty, so it wasn’t bad fish. I do not have food poisoning. This does not happen every single time I eat at that restaurant, either. All I can assume is that sometimes, they use more vinegar in preparing the rice than they normally would. Vinegar contains sulfites, just like wine does.

I have known for awhile that I have a sulfite sensitivity, because I’ve been noting it or photoing myself after drinking wine or alcohol. Now I just need to make a point of omitting sulfites from my diet. Woo, one more thing to cut from my diet. Wheee, on my way to not being able to eat anything at all.

I seem to have every symptom for flu except for fever at the moment. It started yesterday with a mild sore throat that persisted into today. Then, around 3pm today, everything else hit:

All types of flu can cause:

* Fever
* Coughing and/or sore throat
* Runny or stuffy nose
* Headaches and/or body aches
* Chills
* Fatigue
-courtesy flu.gov

In addition to the above, webmd.com lists “ill appearance with warm, flushed skin and red, watery eyes” as a common flu symptom. Well, I have that, too.

It all started yesterday, when I developed a mild sore throat sometime in the afternoon. I’d worked ‘holiday daycare’, which means I spent much of the day inside, rather than outside, in close quarters with preschoolers. Several of the little buggers have wet coughs and runny noses. Some have clear snot, some have yellow or green snot.

The day before that, on Tuesday, I’d opened a door to a teacher’s classroom, gone inside and asked her if she had any eyedroppers and bottles that my co-teacher and I could use for our seed propagation project. She’d said she did not have any. This conversation is relevant later.

By the time I got home from work yesterday afternoon, I was feeling run-down. I’d had a crappy dinner, and asked for Tuckers ice cream (thus violating my sugar ban on the fourth day). Tuckers uses cow’s milk, like every other ice creamery does. I’m not supposed to have cow’s milk. Hello cravings! Within a few minutes of beginning to eat the ice cream, my stomach began to gurgle wildly. Hello lactose intolerance!

An hour of eating the ice cream, I got sharp stabbing uterine pains. This is reproducible 100% of the time, and yet I keep going back to eating dairy foods. The reason I get the pain is that dairy, especially cow’s milk, contains inflammatory prostalandins. For more info on that, read here, here and here. This may be relevant later.

This morning, my joints were aching. My knees and lower back were bugging me, so I decided not to bicycle to work, and to drive, instead. It’s the first time since November 2nd that I drove my car instead of biking to work, so I felt like the break from biking was okay. Plus, there was a chance of rain today, and I didn’t want to get caught in it like I was last week.

The uterine pain continued intermittently throughout today. After the children went inside from lunch recess, I began sweeping up the yard. My co-worker brought out lemon-scented Clorox wipes and began wiping down the tables. I gagged, the bleach scent was so strong. I looked over to double-check the type of wipes she was using and it was indeed the yellow label - the only label I thought I was still okay with. Dammit. Stupid chemical sensitivities.

As I continued to sweep the yard, my eyes began to water with thick gooey fluid. That’s when I knew for sure that my recent bout of eye allergies are triggered by the workplace. This may be relevant later.

I was on my lunch break when I sat upright on the couch in the lounge and nearly yelped from the pelvic pain. It felt like my uterus had been locked in one place and I was moving against it. So having consumed ice cream still had its effects on me. This too may be relevant later.

Around 3pm, as I was closing up my classroom for the day, I went to the open children’s bathroom and emptied out a container of dirty water into a sink. The noise of the water emptying from the container made me nauseous. My mind flooded with images of me puking water non-stop. This imagery made me want to vomit of course. The last time I was this ill from hearing water or other fluids pouring was when I was on a mushroom trip. Immediately following this imagery, I wondered if I would be getting that sick in the near future, and this was my body’s way of giving me a head’s up.

I went back outside to my classroom and wrapped up the data for our daily record book. While doing that, I was seized with severe fatigue, low and mid back pain so strong I wanted to cry, and a general blurry feeling all over. It’s hard to explain, but it’s similar to how I feel when I’m in a lot of pain from endometriosis. The world around me looks different - not so bright, and kind of blurry - and my head feels like it’s stuffed with cotton.

By the time I got home from work, around 3:45pm, I had severe chills.
I turned on the heater fan, the house furnace and put a heating pad under the covers. I changed into pajamas and went to bed and napped for a bit. I was freezing under two blankets, with the heating pad set to medium, with the heater fan going, and the furnace set to 70°F.

The thing is, with all that I’ve listed, most of it fits the bill for the premenstrual pain and suffering that I routinely experience, up to two weeks before george.

However, I remembered the scene from early this morning when I got in to work - the office was scrambling to avoid having a teacher come in to work. She’d called to say she has the flu, but that she couldn’t afford for hers and her students’ sake to miss any class time, so she’d be coming in only for a little while. The office was trying to decide whether or not to go to her house to prevent her from leaving, or to meet her at the front door and shoo her away. As it was, I heard later, that teacher DID show up to work to deliver some classroom materials, and the office staff shooed her away.

This is the same teacher - I’d opened the door to her classroom and I spoke to her on Tuesday.

Could be that she’s the infection point. Could be the children with their wet coughs and runny noses every day. Hell, we’d had a case of swine flu a couple weeks ago, and the staff decided to suppress the news, saying the mother said the child developed symptoms at home, not at school, and she kept him home for days. I found out because his teacher spilled the beans to me. Good times, eh? Covering up swine flu, a teacher coming in despite knowing full well she has the flu. No wonder the world still gets epidemics and pandemics. Stupid people.

…When I woke from my nap this afternoon, I checked out flu symptoms at flu.gov and then called my doctor’s office. It was 20 minutes to closing time, but I asked if I could be seen. They’d just stopped taking patients 10 minutes before I called, but asked me what was going on, and then did a run-down of symptoms checking with me. I was told I’d get a call back.

The on-call nurse called me back, we went over the symptoms again, and she told me she was pretty sure I have the flu, and that the doctor herself would call me back. She asked if I have had the flu shot. I told her I’d refused it because I have egg allergy (many vaccines, including the flu shot, are made with egg protein). She replied, “Oh! No you can’t get the shot, then.” Glad she didn’t fight me on the decision.

A little while later, the doctor called, and we went through the symptoms one more time. By this time, I had facial flushing, headache growing worse, sensitivity to light getting worse (all the lights in the house were off). As I ticked off my symptoms, I mentioned the back pain which came on suddenly and so severe that I wanted to cry.

The doctor interrupted me and said, “yeah, ya know, I’m sorry, but you have the flu, and tomorrow you WILL have a fever. You can NOT go to work. I’m sorry.”

She faxed in a doctor’s note to cover me for tomorrow, and told me to call back if I need an extension for next week.

We discussed over-the-counter remedies to help me through the flu (Tylenol, Advil, Pseudoephedrine), and she mentioned Tamiflu. I told her I would not feel comfortable pursuing Tamiflu based upon the side effects I’d read about, the fact that I’m super sensitive to all medications (I’ve hallucinated on prescribed minimum dosages of Tagamet, for example) and well, the news reports in general over the years. The doctor did not argue with me - in fact she said that taking Tamiflu only reduces symptoms by 1-2 days, and there’s only a select group of people she’d be willing to press to take Tamiflu.

When I got off the phone with the doctor, I broke the news to my husband, and added “I don’t want to be sick. I want to think she’s got it wrong. Maybe it’s just early george symptoms.”

Maybe it’s allergies. Maybe it’s because of the cow’s milk. Maybe it’s all of the above, but still not the flu.

It’s taken me a couple of hours to chronicle everything. In that time, it’s gotten very dark outside and I’ve turned on the overhead light. The light in the room, as well as the monitor brightness (which I keep reducing) has not helped with the stinging eye pain. I’m sore behind the eyes as well as experiencing the stinging in the eyes.
Meh.

So there is my über detailed influenza report, should I need it for the doctor, and non-influenza report, should I need to refer back to it again in case of ingestion of cow’s milk.

Stupid cows.