zeptember

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.

Happy New Year!

Today we slept in til 11:30am, got up, ate smoked salmon w/ cream cheese (B had his w/ baguette, I had mine w/ rice crackers), drank mimosas and also had some Peerless pumpkin spice coffee, and we watched Gonzo.

This year, I will:

• Become more of an advocate for Endometriosis awareness and humane treatment for those of us who suffer from it
• Put my life’s worth (1985 - present day) of diary entries about my chronic Endometriosis-related pain all in one place publicly on the Internet
• Travel to the U.K. for the first time
• Buy my first ever kitchen table
• Finally stop consuming alcoholic beverages because I know it will kill me based upon the medical condition that I have, and it’s time I started loving my innards every minute of every day instead of cursing myself for an illness I was born with
• Learn and practice yoga
• Live my first year of many decades under the new title of WIFE to my superhero
• Re-read every book I have on Tibetan Buddhism, and seek out more, because that more than any other belief system still really speaks to me 14 years after I found it
• Begin pardoning people who have incurred my wrath in years past (I’m not talking about small tiffs here, I’m talking full on silent treatment for years or decades)
• Generally start to practice true forgiveness on a grand scale

And I’d also like to quote my friend. This is second-hand as I do not recall the words as they were spoken last night, but Damion says that Chase said something last night that is so full of awesome, that I shall put it as my signature file in email…

“Let’s not hope for a better year, let’s MAKE a better year.” - Chase Worthington

Love and hugs and all that mushy crap,
zept

Just finished my first full week on the new job.

In one week I’ve gotten plugged ears from having to wear earplugs all day after having my eardrums pierced by screams of a 6-month-old for two days straight. She screams all day because she misses her mother. She’s inconsolable. I’ve tried everything within humane ability to calm the child - to no avail.

In one week I’ve gained weight rather than losing it.

In one week I’ve gotten very sore calves and shins from hiking with a stroller up suburban sidewalks and roads that I estimate to be 10 to 15% gradient steep.

So I should be losing weight. But I get home from work and chow down on fatty and sugary foods for comfort. I’ve been officially depressed since Wednesday, the day of my birthday. My man took me out for drinks and dinner that night, and I overdid it. I woke with thee worst headache and the spins around 4am. Great going.

I don’t think I’ve had a healthy meal once this week. This child doesn’t even let me have time to eat a meal in silence. Even when she’s sleeping, unless the stroller is continually moving, she wakes up and the screaming starts again. So I get no break. I have to move the stroller. It’s hard to prepare food for lunch and type up how the day is going when having to keep a stroller rocking to and fro. I can’t make any phone calls because the slightest murmur out of me wakes her up and she begins screaming. But noise from passing trucks outside when I’m walking her, or noise from the TV when I’m rocking the stroller back and forth - those are fine for her.

I had a heart to heart with the parent of the child I’m working with, and told her that if the baby doesn’t begin adjusting to me and getting better bottle training from mom and dad this weekend and continuing nightly when I’m not there, then the absolute most I can last will be to mid-October.

I have bruises on my inner thigh where it nearly meets the pubic area because that’s where the baby pounds her feet on me when I’m trying to put her to my shoulder and rock her to calm her down. She has slapped me repeatedly on the arms and face, and has spat food and milk on my shirt, my face, and my coat. Her screams are with such force and shrill that I crack after an hour and a half. I got two full days of work in this week but the other three, I had to call the mother home because I just couldn’t handle it anymore. And to be extra cruel, it’s as if the baby knows I’ve just called mom home, because she settles down in time for mom to walk through the door and give me that look like I’ve just cried wolf.

So today I let the mom hear her baby by phone, rather than texting her or Internet chatting with her about how the day is going.

On Monday, the mother is sending her friend over to give me a break for a bit and we’ll see how that goes. Gotta see if this will be a daily thing or what. I guess it all depends on how it goes on Monday. And on Friday, my friend is bringing her baby over to see if another baby’s face might help calm the girl I’m caring for. There are no parks nearby where other babies would be found playing. There’s an elementary school up the hill, but the kids are not available to play with a baby off the street. They’re in school.

Oh and there’s the bees. I get chased by yellow jackets every fucking time I set foot outside of that house. The hills and brush around where that family lives, all the way down to the shoreline, is teeming with yellow jackets. If they’re not after the milk on the baby’s breath, they’re after my sunblock or my hair or something.

While rushing uphill away from a yellow jacket yesterday, I stepped in dog shit. I began cursing and this woke the baby and for the next half hour, I now had a screaming baby that I had to take back down the 15% gradient hill. People on the street walking their dogs or tending their lawns kept looking at me. They’d look away, then back again as the child screamed and screamed. I would stop the carriage, peek in at her, and she’d scream even harder.

She wants nothing to do with me. So long as I’m behind the carriage, she’s more fine than with me in front of it, but the screaming is a given. This all started on my birthday, because on Monday and Tuesday, I was able to rock her to sleep and she slept on me. I don’t know what the change was.

All I know is, if she doesn’t get used to me soon, I’m resigning. And I’m only doing babysitting gigs until the wedding is over. Maybe even take a break til the end of the year. Who knows.

On a bittersweet note, I like all the exercise I’m getting, and the ocean view I get is really awesome. I will have to take my camera with me next week on the job. Hopefully there will still be some sunny days left, cuz that area is usually fogged in for most of the day. When I used to live down the road from this area back in 2000, I used to joke that I lived in Alaska because of the constant gloom, the fog so dense that it felt like it was raining all the time, and then the rain in wintertime pelting and accompanied by gale force winds.

There is truth to the saying, “The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.”

Overall, I had a nice weekend!

Friday in particular was great, because I got a lot of good news that day.

I was told that the company that fired me will settle for the last dollar figure I threw at them, PLUS they will revamp their disability training, PLUS they will remove the ‘fired’ status from my record and call it a ‘voluntary quit’, PLUS they will give a good review for me if employers call for reference check.
HOLY CRAP THOSE THINGS ARE THE VERY LAST THINGS I EVER EXPECTED TO COME OUT OF THAT COMPANY. This excites me to no end to know that they will restructure how they treat disabled people.
I can’t help but wonder if fellow coworkers finally found the bravery to step forward and also complained about how they were being treated.

On Friday, I was able to get a wagon and a boombox on loaner from a friend to use on the AIDS Walk, which I participate in every year.
Also on Friday, I went and did what I threatened to do - go looking for a wheelchair. I posted on freecycle.org looking for a wheelchair - someone actually had one right here on the island! I went and picked it up - it fits in the trunk of my car! I nearly cried, I was so relieved at having found a wheelchair, that it was free, that it was local, and that it fits in my trunk. I had no idea the amount of stress that would be lifted from me in just knowing I have a wheelchair handy in case I’m too debilitated at any event now or in the future. It’s not admitting defeat to my illness - it’s being prepared. *big happy sigh* I just didn’t know what a weight that would lift. I’m so happy.

We spent all of Saturday running around town, preparing for the AIDS Walk and a friend’s birthday party. And then we stopped in at the local German restaurant to see a friend who was celebrating her graduation from massage school. It was a coincidental delight to also see my other friend’s friend playing there that night - his band is called the Frisky Frolics.

We got home with sore feet last night and wondered if we’d be up for the AIDS Walk, after having such a long exhaustive Saturday running all over town. Our feet already hurt from that alone.

But we did it - we got up bright and early this morning and packed up my car with the wagon and a portable ipod speaker system that we got (we decided that would work better than the old boombox, and we can use the ipod thingy for the wedding, too), and we drove off to San Francisco for the AIDS Walk.

We met up with our friends - there were only six of us this year but we still got recognition from some of the other walkers who see us there every year, and we got compliments on our team shirts as usual.

I have blisters on my pinky toes after completing the 10km walk, but otherwise my feet and other toes survived just fine, as did my calves. All that walking the baby around town for my job has really paid off!

I had mild cramps on and off today - mostly when I *wasn’t* walking, but taking a rest. George showed up when I got home and went to a friend’s birthday BBQ party. I have been premedicating with Motrin so when the cramps did finally hit this evening, it’s been mild overall.

Two people were at the birthday party whom I wasn’t expecting to see. Well, one of them I should have known I’d run into sooner or later at this friend’s house, but I just wasn’t thinking. The other one - complete surprise - as I thought she’d moved out of state.
I chose to talk to her - we’d been roommates for a short time, and it went really really badly and I left the situation, and we’d not talked since that time. We never really shared the same circle of friends aside from the second person I didn’t expect to see today, because they’d dated at one time - that’s how I came to know her.
Anyway, she had moved down to L.A., then moved back again. Apparently she’s dating someone within my circle of friends, that’s why she was at the party - she was his date. She told me she was a bit unnerved to see this other person at the party though, too. She chose to talk to him - I chose not to.
It was a decision I made on the spot as soon as I walked into the house and we laid eyes on each other - I just decided to keep smiling like I’d been doing when I walked in, and just walk past him. This means I’m still not ready to talk to him after the big fight we had what was it, six years ago now?

I will respect my decision not to talk to him. One day I may be ready again, but today just wasn’t the day. I was never catty towards him - I simply avoided acknowledging his presence and it appears he did the same. Perhaps he did this because he saw my initial reaction - my smile and eyebrows faded slightly before renewing in a “keep it up, just keep it up, keep walking” giveaway.
Perhaps he’s still mad at me after all these years, too. I’d prefer it if it were mutual, honestly. But then I know I’m not one to let go of grudges very easily. Oh hell who am I kidding. I just don’t let go of grudges.
The fact that I know all this means that maybe one day in the not too distant future, I may acknowledge him, should I run into him at this person’s house again. Maybe. We’ll see how I feel that day.

When I got home, I had an email reply to a video I posted on youtube about a year ago. In this video, we’re at the person’s house whom I did not speak to today. It’s Halloween and another friend is telling a funny filthy story. The person whom I am not speaking to is prominently displayed in the video, standing behind the storyteller, grinning.

So weird that I’d get that today on the same day I ran into this guy. I checked out the youtube comments, it doesn’t appear to be anyone I know or anyone in our circle of friends.
Since I do not believe things JUST happen coincidentally, I ponder, and say again, maybe one day in the not too distant future, I may acknowledge him, should I run into him at this person’s house again. Just found out from my man however that he’s still willing to punch the guy in the throat and had to really restrain himself at the same party today. Still overprotective as ever, I see.

Oh! One last thing! This weekend I went to two different places where alcohol was present, and I did NOT take a full drink. I had nothing to drink last night, and today I only had a couple sips of peoples’ homemade vodkas, just to see what each tasted like. Never even came near catching a buzz. Even in the highly charged social situation where I ran into two unexpected people who at one time hurt me (one much worse than the other), I was not driven to drink. I am very proud of myself for this.

Now if I can just get through the wedding and dealing with family without needing to get drunk. Shit, THEY’LL be drunk, they’re promising it. They’ve said it’s not a wedding if people (themselves) aren’t trashed. Emotional cycles with certain people take longer to change than with others.

Elliptical: 25 minutes at incline 1 and resistance 1, slow to moderate pace, and I STILL managed to pull a muscle in my left calf. 200 calories burned - I quit 5 minutes before the 30-min mark to avoid really screwing myself up.

Arm/Torso machine: 10 minutes on medium-high resistance. 50 calories burned.

Treadmill: 10 minutes at brisk walk (2.5 on the monitor), which actually helped my calf to feel better. 50 calories burned.

After the workout, I went and washed my car, which of course is upper body workout when handling the soap brush and keeping the power wash hose nozzle depressed. Wheeee!

I really need to clean the inside of my car - not that it’s too messy - it’s just that the upholstery hasn’t ever been cleaned and so it kinda smells like old lady in the car.

But first, I’m recharging with breakfast. I ran out of strawberries, apples, walnuts and almonds, so instead of my usual fruit salad, I blended up yogurt, flax seeds and flax oil, honey, cinnamon, a splash of vanilla extract, a splash of orange juice, and a splash of vanilla almond milk. I’m eating 2 fried eggs on top of two gluten-free waffles for protein.

Note to self: pay attention to how you feel after eating the eggs, as they are suspects in a plot to murder you, along with other known killers; caffeine, wheat, yeast, corn syrup, beans and cow milk.