Better Than Expected

I only made it to one store yesterday and then I had to rest a bit. However, my legs were strong and I didn't feel overly strained by the trip to Costco. I was happy to sit down after, though.

Then I did a very very very low key, low impact Zumba work out. It seems the asthma accumulates overnight and I spend most of the day trying to recover,and by evening I start to improve, just in time to start the cycle all over again.

I don't know if anyone reading this recalls that I tend to buy things when I don't feel well? I call it retail therapy for asthma.

I feel so godawful, that buying things is a welcome distraction and source of pleasure--it brings me outside the prison of my body. Hence the Zumba dvd.

This latest episode, I have also bought:

1.Clothes for the toddler.

2.Shoes for the toddler.

3.A zumba DVD set (which was planned, I just hadn't gotten around to it).

4.Books.

5.Vitamins for the toddler. Fancy ones.

Do I have the money for all this? No, not really, but it made me feel better and I just can't see beating myself up about it right now. Of course, I really need to get better before I talk myself into a new car or some other financial stupidity.

You know, I could totally see myself doing that. Buying a new car. Just because I can't breathe.

How strange.

I think the hubby needs to take the credit cards away when I'm sick in the future.

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Surprise

I'm sick. I'm not sure if it's going to settle in for a long torture session or not, but I'm definitely sick. No more waffling or dithering. At least things make sense now.

If it's the bug the toddler had and it manifests at even half power in me, I may be in trouble re: asthma which could mean trouble re:steroids.

The whole thing is a good validation of what is and isn't adrenal for me. The stomach pain is back and I now realize that all the gallbladder pain was somehow related to the adrenals. It improved somewhat with the switch to Nexium, but it really got better once the HPA axis was functioning more normally and hardly bothers me...unless I'm adrenal.

Given how my gallbladder thrashed like it was in a mosh pit, I would not have expected any adrenal connection. But it really wasn't the GERD, which is actually much worse these days--medication is kind of not working.

If I didn't have the adrenal stuff complicating things, I would be pursuing surgery to tighten the sphincter asap. My stomach produces copious amounts of acid and the muscles are too lax and I really miss eating cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers and cabbage.

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Bewildered

I took 5mg this morning after waking up to adrenal pain and just not feeling great. I did a little bit better last night after a nap, but it took hours and hours after I woke up to get that improvement.

5mg is really helping, but I wonder if I might actually need 10mg.

Trying not to do that, but it may come down to taking more.

Is my system pooping out on me? Or was last week really too much? Really?

Today I'm not sick. Yesterday I was congested with asthma symptoms. It seems like every other day I feel like I'm coming down with something, which I guess I will now take as a sign of adrenal stress.

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Conflicted

Not doing so hot here. Oh, how I hate typing that. Ugh.

I really can't believe, after a week of intimate contact with the toddler's vomit, that I would get the flu this late in the game. The incubation period can't possibly be that long, can it? Or am I about to get sick with a capital S?

Her congestion is a separate bug, at least that's what the ped says and that's what I've been flirting with for the last several days.

Right now I'm freezing, my BP has dropped and I'm weak with fatigue. Reduced appetite, but at the same time shaking with hunger. Oh and back pain and stomach pain yadda yadda yadda.

I could take 5mg, but I'm not sure I'm really sick. I'm not sure I'm adrenal, or, rather, I can't bring myself to believe it.

If I take 5mg now, I might feel better. Or I might feel worse as it may not be what I need. And then I won't be able to sleep.

Is it really possible that I've lost so much ground? Shouldn't I be past this? I thought I had my happy ending.

Of course, the usual chaos abounds over here. Is your life as crazy as mine? I can't be the only one. Hubby is struggling with his broken rib just as we need to move a lot of furniture between floors to accommodate another house guest. We've run out of bedrooms and had to tear down the toddler's playroom to make room for a bed.

Everyone lives with us. Possibly because we are the only sane relatives they know. We're up to seven people now who have stayed with us for weeks, months or years at a time. Currently, we have the mentally ill relative and then a younger relative relocating to launch a career and go to grad school. All in 1000 square feet.

Any time I seem high strung, just remember how I live in a very small nuthouse and still haven't murdered anyone in their sleep because they put away the dishes and I can't find my colander anymore. I think I should get a billion bonus points for that.

By the way, my favorite spatula has been missing for over a year. I'm not pointing any fingers, just saying, if you don't know where shit goes, it's not helping to shove things into random cupboards.

So, yeah, not feeling great, missing a spatula and tired, yet apprehensive about taking steroids.

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We Are Our Own Medical Soap Opera

So while the toddler was sick, the hubby was walking around like an old man. Turns out, he broke his rib playing hockey the week before. Since he was complaining about being short of breath, I forced him to go get an x-ray.

Meanwhile, the mentally ill relative that lives with us when the rest of their family can't stand them, caught the bug the toddler had. Which is bad as they have underlying medical issues and are vulnerable.

We are holding on, though, by the skin of our teeth. Everyone is drinking pedialyte now.

I am slowly getting my energy back. I am still puzzled about why I was so adrenal, but do have a working theory.

I worked out rather hard about two days before the toddler got sick. Not a problem in of itself, but I was rather sore and strained and then you add in zero sleep the night she was sick and I think the two converged into a wave of suck.

I may also be fighting a respiratory bug. I just feel under the weather but there's no real obvious reason why.

I do think that food poisoning was the same bug that struck the toddler, so I think I'm safe. So glad there's a silver lining on this one!

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Crazy Spacey

Literally 15 minutes before we would hit the ER deadline the ped gave us, the toddler finally stopped vomiting long enough to hold down some pedialyte.

She's still not eating much or drinking as much as I would like, but at least my house is no longer being hosed in vomit and, for that, I am grateful.

As it turns out, vomiting toddlers are about as accurate as drunken frat boys when it comes to aim.

So now my house smells like Lysol and, surprisingly, I couldn't tell you which is worse; the acrid carcinogenic scent of Lysol or the sour stench of stomach flu. Both have me pulling my shirt over my mouth.

And not to make this sound like an Oscar acceptance speech or anything, but I am also so grateful the laundry has stopped. Six loads yesterday and then we had to wash things again because they still smelled. The toddler ran out of clothes and we dressed her like a little hobo clown in ill-fitting, mismatched scraps of things from the bottom of her dresser.

Also, if you're wondering why I'm going on and on about this, it's because we're traumatized over here. From seeing our girl so sick and just the tsunami of bodily fluids that attacked us from behind. The hubby and I have been fist-bumping and saying 'we survived the stomach flu of 2012'. At this rate, we'll be making up commemorative T-shirts.

Still this was better than the flu of '07, that one had us all sick at the same time. Going to the bathroom was like a game of musical chairs, one where the loser had to go outside to throw up and then rinse off the neighbor's lawn.

This is all probably more than you wanted to know. I'm too ptsd to be sorry--when your kids do this to you, you'll understand the internet is really for parents to talk about the stomach flu. In detail. No, really.

I continue to hope this is the bug I had a few weeks ago. I'm not sick yet but am really run down adrenal-wise, which puzzles me. Of course, we were up all night and are probably still working with a sleep deficit. Maybe tomorrow will be better.

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50/50 Odds

The toddler has a bad case of the stomach flu, vomiting about every 15 to 30 minutes since 2 am, which means it's been about 7 hours now. There's nothing in her stomach and she's starting to produce small amounts of blood from the irritation.

She just looked at me and moaned, "Mommy, I'm a poor thing."

My poor baby. This is the sickest she's been since she was two.

A couple more hours like this and dehydration will become an issue. She's not been able to keep down any fluids, despite begging for them.

I have no idea if I'll get it. It's rather similar to the 'food poisoning' I had so I don't know if we just have the slowest moving stomach flu in history working its way through our family or if I'm deluding myself.

But the adrenals are putting out feelers. I have muscle spasms all over my body, way out of proportion to the work out I did two days ago. Very much like steroid withdrawal, only I'm not coming off steroids so I assume it must be a manifestation of inadequate stress response. And I'm tired. Not sure yet if I'll 'bounce' or sink.

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The House of Sick and Well

First, thanks for all the comments. Sorry to be so quiet, just crazy to the max over here.

I am doing well. I saw the endo and I've been discharged unless things suddenly slide backwards, which, you know, is actually possible and scares the shit out of me. But I was glad to leave a doctor's office on an optimistic note for once.

The endo agrees that I will need to stress dose for illness and that I may have to play exercise by ear, but the fact that my system now shows some ability to stabilize itself is good. I didn't have that ability even last summer when I stopped steroids and was supposedly 'cured', so this is good progress and took nine months.

Damn, just counted that out. Kind of slow, no?

Anyway, onward and upward. I just hope my endo has learned as much as I have about this adrenal shiznit.

I did get them to laugh. They had tested my thyroid last visit and when they said the results were normal, I snorted and said, "Of course, thyroid would be too normal and easy."

Doesn't seem so funny when I write it out, but I believe that if I can make someone laugh, we'll get along okay.

The toddler is sick and managed to get us all worried last night when she bloomed a huge red... hive? on her cheek. Pink eye came with a nasty cold for her and she's not getting better, just morphing into different kinds of sick.

She stopped eating or caring about food on Saturday which, that never happens. Whether she actually eats anything or not is immaterial, this kid bugs me for food like she's part labrador retriever. Half the time she doesn't even eat it. So I notice when she's not nagging me about lunch two hours early.

I flirted with that cold a lot myself and was quite adrenal on Saturday, but decided not to take steroids unless I got worse. I wheezed a bit. Hacked a bit and now seem fine? So a win for my immune system.

Other than that, I'm good. Toddler is adorable. OMG. She kills us. She is so bossy and funny right now. I keep forgetting to write down all her best lines to preserve them for posterity. We're so senile, we have pillow talk about how cute and funny she is before we go to sleep, but neither of us can remember what she actually said.

Writing has been interesting. I am making money and I continue to work furiously to position myself to make more. However, whenever individuals make any serious money online, corporate interests move in to seize the pie. There's a lot of market consolidation now, which is resulting in fewer avenues of distribution and less opportunity for independent writers.

Big Business realized we could take their space on best seller lists and get our own movie deals (not me, others) and they have made a series of competitive strikes the last few weeks. I think they thought that their eye for quality was so precise that independent authors were surely all dreck and a non issue in terms of competition. To their surprise, they've missed quite a few gems and are getting spanked online.

Having observed this business pattern before, I would say that the golden era of being an independent author is dimming. If you were toying with the idea, don't wait too much longer.

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I Lived!

I'm better. Sick for most of the weekend. It must be food poisoning because no one else is sick. I thought for sure this was IT though as the preschool has been working through the stomach flu in slow motion.

For about month someone has been out with the pukes or sitting in the hallway with a trash can waiting for their parents to pick them up. So we were kind of due for a demonic GI possession.

Anyway, the cool thing was I was able to exercise Sunday even though I was still symptomatic that morning. It's really amazing to have the ability to 'bounce' to not crash and burn with every little thing.

Also, by the way, we never got lice, but guess what? Once you start looking for nits, you never stop. Wow. The paranoia. Huge.

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Of Battles and Wars

I think one of the worst ways for the stomach flu to arrive must be in the midst of cooking a huge batch of chili for the church chili competition.

Especially if you went to bed, all drowsy and ready for the Land of Nod, only to jerk upright with "I forgot to make the chili." Commence the midnight cooking session, pepper it with yawns of resentment.

I felt fine. It really hit me out of the blue. The only possible hint that I was sick was wicked heartburn that was resistant to medication the last two days.

So there I was dumping everything in the crock pot and the food didn't smell so good and then...well you can imagine, right?

Once again, I'm the only one sick, but I do think this one is an actual bug and might spread. We'll see.

It played very adrenal. Lots of adrenal pain, huge wave of weakness, breathlessness, shaking and that horrid stomach pain along with that even worse feeling that something was really wrong. I fought and fought and fought not to throw up because that probably would have pushed my system over the edge.

I prevailed in controlling my stomach and the adrenal stuff receded a couple hours later--there goes that resiliency I've been missing for almost two years. I am still sick, the stomach flu told me "ve have our vays, you vill pay" and that threat turned out to be true.

I am still adrenal as well, mostly with weakness, but nothing compared to what it would've been in the past. So a victory of sorts.

Now just to win the war on dehydration.

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Wednesday is for Whining (Or Humping, Your Pick)

So yesterday...trying to keep good notes.

In addition to what I already whined about mentioned, my sense of smell went kind of crazy. Hubby was eating Cheezits two rooms away and I could smell them.

At dinner I couldn't finish my food and there was a distinct lack of enthusiasm for ice cream.

Some adrenal flank pain.

Also, very very cold. Like shaking, teeth chattering. I sat in front of the gas fireplace and relished the sensation of imminent combustion. After an hour of that, I was just warm. Ridiculous.

I kind of think the fire alarms yesterday escalated things. First, they were very very loud and they came in unexpected bursts, which just about made me incontinent--I startle easily, like whoever is lamer than a wimp, that's me. The alarms really got me going. I remember feeling very anxious and on edge.

Second, I had a strong surge of momma bear hormones regarding the fact that my kid was hysterical and her PT was cut short due to the alarms. We kill ourselves to pay for PT, so they were f*cking with my kid and my wallet and I think the noise itself just pissed me off, priming the pump for irritation.

Anyhoo, despite my whackadoo body, Valentine's Day was fun. We kept it low key and low cost. We had a ton of veggies for dinner (that made me happy) and the toddler even ate them. Then she played 'restaurant' making our hot fudge sundaes for dessert. Hubby brought home balloons so we each had some tied to our chairs.

We also went to a (free) magic show at the library. The toddler is always making up crazy magic tricks and putting on shows, so she loved it. We got an autograph too as the guy is a ummm whatever you call a magician that is famous but not a household name. Yet. Kind of well-known?

After dinner we played games. As evidence that I'm really Amelia Bedelia reincarnated... I cut myself on the Trouble game. My hand slipped off the dice dome and hit a perfectly smooth game piece with enough force to draw blood and require a band aid (featuring Dora!). Do not ask me how that happened. All I can tell you is that this is normal for me.

You don't have to laugh at me because the hubby is doing it for you.

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Monday Report

Friday sucked. The most adrenal crapola day I've had yet. Not sure what the trigger was, I just sort of slowly deflated to that point. I also had those low immune symptoms--sore throat, feeling like I'm coming down with a cold--but I couldn't tell you why.

Toddler is now 46 1/2" which is completely off the growth chart (although I have seen kids taller). She's also been going through a rather unpleasant phase. Lots of bad attitude. We signed her up for a karate class, which we bartered our services as slaves to cover the tuition. The instructor is going to be so good for the toddler. Boundaries. Respect. We have those at home, as I'm actually kind of strict, but this is a whole new level and it's great to have help.

Also, she'll never have the right physique for dance, but martial arts might be a good fit for her long term. We'll see. I watch her and I can picture her at competitions when she's older. Assuming she ever graduates from PT.

This blog post has no plot. Sorry. I used all my plot up last week.

Wrote 20k words. This week is focused on editing to get two stories up and out into the world. I also worked some promo and hit 12 on the Hot New Releases list on Amazon as well as their top 100 list, that was pretty cool, albeit short lived.

I have been working very hard to pull this together. It is going very well, knock on wood, kill a chicken and do a voodoo ritual naked under a full moon etc.... The downside is I have no time for anything else and it's the kind of work that sucks you in. I don't remember much about Sunday other than the stories I worked on, for example. The rest of the world faded away--it's like that when I read too.

Then when I go to bed, I can't shut off my brain. Even cheesy, lowest of the low genre writing is like working a mind twister 24/7. So I talk to the hubby, but he just wants to sleep. Last night he finally suggested if I was so wired that I go downstairs and work on his research paper for school. Anyway, it's all consuming. I hope it's not the reason the adrenals are tanking.

Interestingly enough, on Friday when I felt so bad, I couldn't work. I had to take the day off. Which is why I hate being adrenal, it eats your brain up.

Exercise has been in and out. I got in one workout last week and then took it easy after that as I didn't feel well. Not sure how it will manifest in my life this week.

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The Next Stage

So Sunday I woke up to full body aches and I was a little nervous. My morning elliptical work out was awful. I was tired and I just couldn't get myself going. Despite everything I've written here, I did not take steroids.

But it was okay. I got a little more tired after the work out, but it passed in a couple hours.

Then I took a delicious nap because we had agreed on a lazy Sunday after church.

And did another Zumba workout.

All without steroids.

We'll see how it all pans out, but I think I'm transitioning to the next stage where I may not need to stress dose for exercise anymore. Illness remains to be seen.

A couple things have changed in my body's status quo:

1. I don't get the 'adrenal pain' so much anymore. It used to be almost constant but now it's mostly gone. Medicine doesn't recognize this pain, but since it correlates so well with when I feel adrenal and now that I'm not so adrenal, I'm comfortable blaming it on the adrenals.

2.I can gain weight now. Not so much lose, but I have to be careful with what I eat. So far I'm maintaining, but I really have to watch the scale and remember my carb free pass is now gone. All those times I ate ice cream and cake and candy and didn't gain weight? Yeah, that's over.

I do still have issues with low appetite when I get run down and I have continued to have low immune symptoms after exercise, just not every work out.

As for baby shower gifts... yes gift cards are really awesome because, even though you put the entire store on your baby registry, there's always something you need that didn't know you needed until after the baby arrived. Plus, diapers are expensive. So are breastfeeding and formula feeding, those gift cards are great financial cushions.

My favorite gift was from work where they presented me with a $500 Target gift card that somehow lasted us a year. It was a huge help.

And,when in doubt, books. Babies need books. Tactile books. Classics like Cat in the Hat. Just books. Nobody buys babies books and it's a crying shame. At 7-8 weeks their vision is such that they like to look at the pictures and hearing mommy or daddy's voice? Is just gravy.

In case you wondered, I got them several books and then a few outfits in bigger sizes, because everyone gives you cute newborn outfits and then your baby has to go naked after their first big growth spurt (about five minutes after birth) until you can get some bigger clothes. Not that I know anything about that because I'm a perfect mother. Ha.

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Just Right

Penelope asked about secondary adrenal insufficiency and my recovery. My rather garbled response is below.

There are several kinds of adrenal insufficiency. You'll most commonly hear about Primary and Secondary. What is the difference?

Primary is pretty much a complete failure of the adrenal glands. So your brain is doing its job, sending all the right signals, but the adrenals are asleep at the wheel and unresponsive.

In Secondary, the system failure is in the brain. I think medicine does not address the fact that decline can be slow and gradual with symptoms appearing long before tests will reveal anything useful. You can retain some functionality of the HPA axis with Secondary and medicine has no freaking clue what to do about that craziness, so it ignores the problem.

Medicine is all about total failure when it comes to adrenal glands. 99% of the time medicine misses the nuances of adrenal problems and the tests are not cutting edge, which does not help. The textbooks are lacking, which leads me to think the hands-on training is pretty lackluster too.

The end result of primary and secondary is pretty much the same, not enough cortisol in the system. Treatment is roughly the same, but Secondary doesn't always have the blood pressure issues of Primary. With Secondary it is good to image the brain to look for tumors or other bad actors--unless yours is steroid induced.

The main cause of Secondary is steroid use and affects something like 6 million people (US). For comparison, GERD affects about 7 million people (in the US) and look at all the meds and commercials for them! Adrenals get nothing! That is insane!

I do not know if I will ever fully recover. I would expect, at a minimum, that I will always need to stress dose for surgery. Right now I still need to stress dose for exercise and illness. I could get worse, I could get better. Hell if I know.

I have corresponded with someone who has Secondary but also retains some functionality and I feel very similar to them. (Except they test better.) They struggle to know how much steroid to take because their system isn't completely dead. I'm on that tightrope now.

I hope that answers the question and that I remembered everything right. I like the Merck Manual for the basics and would suggest you start your reading there.

As for me...

1. Did not exercise today so I wouldn't have to take steroids. That is just not cool. I'm trying to commit to stress dosing for a month and then see where I'm at, but sometimes it's just easier not to exercise.

2.5 mg is not enough. I need 5mg when I exercise, so at least I know that much now, but I keep resisting the whole thing, like that's going to help.

2.I got a (small) consulting gig. Holy shit. My competence remains to be seen and I am nervous as hell.

3.I wrote 10,000 words in 4 days which is pretty cool considering how busy I've been. Unfortunately, the story is no longer streaming through my brain, now it's work.

4.Some business-y post I wrote went viral and I got mentioned on a huge blog that I majorly respect. Sadly, I am probably the only person I know who can go viral in such a way that it sells no books.

5. We got free entry and free pizza due to the puke and play incident I bitched about.

6.The zumba people still have not refunded my money. I will SO fry their asses via a Better Business Bureau complaint.

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Leading Up to 5mg

So I'm writing the preamble to some hot vampire sex in my story (What? You thought I was the War and Peace type? Ha! Try it and see if it sells--pssst...it doesn't. Not unless there is beaucoup hot vampire sex) and I got an inquiry for some consulting on the business book I did.

I can feel my brain splitting into quadispheres trying to handle it all. This piece is family and housekeeping. Then there's writing. Then there's business/tutoring/all the other part-time gigs. Then there's the health piece.

When they collide, there's an explosion.

By the way, I am not actually certain that quadispheres is a word, but it sounds good, right?

So of course I'm tired. Blah blah blah--you know the story. Thinking of taking 5mg so I can get by without a nap because there is no time for that today.

It's 60F out today. I want to take the toddler for a bike ride and not be drunk with fatigue for my evening meeting for one of the part-time gigs as a result.

I want to be able to write more tonight without having to prop my eyes open with toothpicks.

I want to exercise without worrying about what it will cost me later.

Why is that so hard?

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Speed Blogging

Good News: No one is puking and no one has lice.

Bad News: Preschool teacher was out with the pukes.

So we are still on puke watch, just for different reasons.

Good News: I did two elliptical workouts last week without the adrenal GI symptoms I'd been having.

Bad News: They completely ruined my day, wiping me out anyway.

And of course, the second I start feeling better I become very busy doing things because I can. And then, of course, I hit the wall and it sucks.

Today I hit the wall. Poor appetite, weakness and very tired, unable to wake up. So irritating and I am scheduled with something to do literally every minute of the day--I have five minutes before I have to leave for my next obligation.

So I took 5mg and it is helping.

The end.

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Waking Up

Toddler slept in until almost 9am today! Woot!

She appears to also have grown another quarter inch. At this rate she'll surpass professional basketball players by 2013.

She also makes me practice 10-1=9, 9-1=8 etc... before I tuck her in at night.

Plus we do 'reading cheers' as she's ready to read but tries to tell me 'that's for older kids mom'. So I call BS with cheerleading for literacy. Note: I was never an actual cheerleader.

(Cheers are a made-up thing where we clap out the letters to a word and do a motion that means the word--like for book you fold open your hands like you're reading a book or for up, you point up. She's into it so I make like Cheri Oteri and pretend I'm killing it on SNL.)

OMG the cuteness slays me. She's going through a fun phase.

I have mostly caught up on sleep. My energy has been good, I had some adrenal weakness with the sleep deprivation and there was one day where I regretted not canceling work, but it was, overall, mild. For the first time in almost two years I would call myself resilient. I bounced more than I crashed.

I worked my ass off, publishing 3 different stories this week. Plus two student gigs at night.

My appetite has been steroid insane except I haven't had any in a while. It's like my body woke up and realized it was missing about two years of calories. I actually gained weight, which is a huge change. I didn't even eat any pie!

The only thing I haven't done is add exercise to the mix. Will be interesting to see what happens with that.

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Wii Tired

Mike stopped by and left a comment on the whole Wii Motion Plus thing...

The wii motion plus is now being incorporated into every wii remote. It should have been there from the beginning. An accelerometer just can't give the feedback needed.
I hacked a wii motion plus with a tri wing screwdriver to make some sensors for a self balancing robot. Worked great.

The second he started linking to a thing actually called a 'Nintendo Screwdriver' my brain began to melt.

However, I did want to say, I totally agree that it is incorporated into every Wii remote with one caveat: It's only the Nintendo brand products. If you buy an off brand, trying to save money, guess what? You may need to spend another $20 for the Motion Plus thing-y which is mostly out of stock due to a)Xmas and b)everyone else knows you just buy the brand name remote so demand is kind of low.

Although I think I still saved $10. It only took me three internet searches, thirty minutes of swearing in confusion at the Wii when it wouldn't let our off brand remote play the game without the Motion Plus attachment, and two trips to the store once we got a clue to do so.

Totally your call on whether or not all that was worth it to save $10.

The toddler is not sleeping anymore. So I am a little punch drunk. Exhibit A: I was talking about finding shrunken heads in a linen closet (true story) while working at an elementary school today.

To adults. Not kids. I bet the kids would've loved it though.

Anyway, she's going through a growth and development spurt. She grew a 1/4" this week for a total of 2" in two months and I overheard her working out rudimentary subtraction. Five, take away one is, 1,2,3, FOUR! Four take away one is 1,2 THREE!

So, she's amazing and I feel like shit.

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More Steroids and Wii (with comments on comments)

I locked myself out of the house last night. Doh. Hubby and toddler were at Disney on Ice... the event that manages to add $10 per ticket in fees. Which is kind of why I didn't go. Too expensive for the three of us, even with the nose bleed seats.

So, after work, I went shopping. The toddler needed things like underwear and socks.(And OMG the swimsuits are out already, which means I have to buy them NOW before they go out of stock. So stupid. It's January people!) Plus, I finally got a new BP unit--that whole process has been a comedy of errors. At one point, Amazon gave me a $10 credit because they screwed up so badly. Without anything shipping or me even spending any money.

Then there's a whole story about my doctor's prescription for it and home health screw ups and my stupid insurance. Basically, the reason it took me 2? 3? months to get this thing is not my fault.

5mg yesterday was okay, but felt like an underdose. Slugged through most of the morning, finally perking up in the afternoon. My energy was good for coming home from work to sit on the couch last night. Not so good for killing two hours shopping. I became very, very tired and regressed to being fatigued enough to doze in the car.

On a whim, I took some sublingual B12 yesterday. Who knows what effect it had or didn't have, but I woke up much better today. (So far.) I'm going to stick with 5mg for a little bit longer. I do not see exercise in my future any time soon.

I did not have a crisis, but I had a brush with some kind of adrenal badassery. This is going to take a while. (And feeds my suspicion/fear that I will never be the same again.)

Thanks to Aviva for that list of useless Wii things. I agree with all of it except the Motion Plus accessory. You have to have it or you can't play the games that use it and it is standard on the Wii brand remotes--meaning it's now being incorporated into every game. I thought I was being so frugal buying an off brand kids' remote for $29 vs. the $40 Wii price, except it didn't come with Wii Motion Plus.

We spent an hour sniping at each other and the Wii trying to figure out why her remote wouldn't work with the one game we have. Nothing like technology problems to bring out the best in people! It didn't help that the game's messages to us were not upfront about what we needed.

"You need a remote to play this game."

No shit Sherlock! Look? See this remote here? The one I'm about to shove up your Sync button?

"You need a remote to play this game."

At that point, the hubby and I turned on each other, behaving a lot like feral monkeys who've eaten a case of Pixie Stixs.

Like I told the hubby, I would be interested in the 10th generation of this technology. Not loving the first/second generation so much. But I hear there are better games out there, such as the dance games. (And just say NO to dance shame. Dancing is cool. The only people who poo-poo it are the ones who can't dance!)

And thank you, Aviva for using the affiliate link. We don't make a lot, but it helps keep me in low carb necessities and vitamins.

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Winter Carnival

I don't know if I'm sick, but I have felt better. Much better.

Fatigue has been bad. I guess I should have taken steroids yesterday??? Still sorting out the rules on this and still trying to get by without whenever I can.

But it looks like I have another kinda sorta cold. One medication can't touch. Nothing is giving me relief. Not allergy meds. Not cold meds. Nothing. However it is not as bad as the last one, it's just the constant itch-sneeze in my nose that is driving me up the wall.

On the fatigue front, I have been so weak, I couldn't climb stairs without resting. I'm back to needing to lie down in the afternoons. Not eating much either.

And the asthma hack is on board.

Oddly enough there's this aerobics bunny bitch bouncing around in my psyche suggesting we go out for a walk. Or do some squats. Or hey, what about some push-ups? I have no idea where this drive to exercise is coming from because I am in no shape to do anything.

Fortunately, she shuts up when I'm asleep.

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