i’m going to put the good/relevant articles i find on the mmr here:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1469-7610.2005.01425.x/full

in a couple weeks, little bear will be receiving his mmr vaccine. while the amount of vaccines he receives makes me nervous, i read a lot about it, which made me feel a bit better. and so i have dutifully taken him in to receive his shots on schedule. but the mmr gives me pause.

i received the mmr as an adult because it was a university requirement. as far as i know, i’ve never had a reaction to a vaccine aside from a sore arm. not so for the mmr. in addition to some of the side effects i was aware of – such as feeling like crap – i had a horrific headache for almost a week. and i was in my 20s. i hate to think what it’s going to make my baby feel like.

so i went in search of some specific information about this vaccine. my first stop was pharyngula, as he usually offers up some pretty reassuring science. instead, the first post i found was about sending readers off to vote in a poll about vaccines and austism. many of the commenters were being complete assholes, and, honestly, i value the opinions of the parents voting in the poll more than a bunch of angry nerds. the parents are people who witnessed first-hand what vaccines seemed to do to their kids. are these parents wrong? i guess probably, but when your child gets a shot then deteriorates within a couple weeks of said shot… well, i’m not an idiot, but i’d probably blame the shot, too. that’s one of the things that bugs me about the science side: they make fun of these people and say things like, “most people get vaccinated and most people like ice cream, so vaccines make you like ice cream.” that’s not really comparable. for one thing, it seems like most autism parents claim that their child got a shot, then changed fairly soon afterward. for another, the autism rate did seem to go way up after the new vaccine schedule (5 shots at a time every three months) was introduced. to make stupid generalizations is just snotty and counterproductive. could the rate have gone up because the screening process is better? sure, i’m completely willing to believe that. that’s probably the case. however, i do find it a bit worrying that it’s possible that giving babies so many vaccines could be harming them.

so, after my initial experience with that topic on that site – messing with poll results is way scientific, right? – i decided to skip blogs and laypeople and try to find studies specific to the mmr. i’m not having a lot of luck. many of the studies i see are like this one, which is about vaccines in the first year. the mmr isn’t given in the first year, so that doesn’t really help. and when people want to see a study that includes children who were never vaccinated, this quote from a 1999 study gets thrown around a lot: “There was no difference in age at diagnosis [of autism] between the cases vaccinated before or after 18 months of age and those never vaccinated.” well, there wouldn’t be. children are usually diagnosed between the ages of 2 and 4, and there’s a reason there’s such a wide range. autism is a spectrum disorder that presents differently depending on severity. and you have people who were born with it and people who regress. i think this is because autism isn’t just one disease/syndrome, and therefore doesn’t have just one cause. there is almost certainly a genetic component, and this is especially obvious in children who have the symptoms from birth. but the children who lose language skills between the ages of 1-3? couldn’t the cause in their cases be environmental? or maybe something genetic touched off by environmental factors? going back to that quote, if autism is genetic – or certain types are genetic – then you’ll have unvaccinated kids on the autism spectrum as well. but the timing of their diagnosis has more to do with doctor cooperation and parental awareness than when their symptoms presented. and if a parent notices her child regressing after a vaccine, and the doctor doesn’t agree with her, chances are very good that her child will not receive an official diagnosis until much later. like maybe when that child enters preschool with the autistic unvaccinated kid who also gets diagnosed at that time.

anyway, i’m going to keep trying to find information on the mmr, because i really do want him to stay safe from these diseases. but in closing, i’d like to tell some of these people to get the sticks out of their asses and have some fucking compassion. you’re more annoying than the conspiracy theorists. it’s not like i’m saying dinosaurs didn’t exist or there’s a sky wizard or anything. i just want to be sure that my first and only baby doesn’t develop a mysterious and debilitating illness that could ruin his life. (and, let’s face it, our lives, too.) especially when it’s as easy as not giving him a shot.

i took little bear to the doctor today. he feels the fussiness is probably due to teething, as he has two teeth about to pop out on the bottom. he also thinks the reflux is an issue again. i asked about little bear’s weird movements, and he said that reflux can actually cause stuff like that, too. he agreed that if it were seizure activity, i’d probably have been able to film it by now because of how long they usually occur, and that he’d be zoning out when it happens. he doesn’t really roll his eyes back or anything, and is responsive right after, so it probably isn’t anything serious. sohei said it was a waste of money to take him, but not for me, because i feel a little more reassured now.

i read an article the other night about behaviors similar to infantile spasms (seizures), and what he does sounds more like that. no one knows what causes the pseudo-seizures – some speculate that it’s a primitive masturbatory thing! – but they seem to be harmless. (the real seizures can cause death and generally cause mental retardation, but i guess the fake ones don’t.) anyway, unless he gets to the point where the spells last long enough for me to film them, and he starts zoning out, i’m just going to quit worrying about it. i can deal with tics and even tourette’s and stuff, but anything that could potentially be fatal? not so much.

have stomach flu. have it bad. mother-in-law watching baby. haven’t been able to hold down anything today, including water. kidneys killing me. that is all.

i’m getting kind of worried about little bear. he’s almost seven months old, and he seems to have stalled developmentally. he was kind of ahead until 5-6 months, then slowed down. he almost never uses consonants anymore, so he doesn’t really babble. he makes noise, like screeching and oohing, and he still laughs and smiles. he was saying da-da a bit, but doesn’t really do that now. he sits up well if you put him that way, but doesn’t seem anywhere near pulling himself into sitting on his own. he’s not making much progress with his crawling, either. he just falls flat on his stomach. i know babies all develop differently, but this just doesn’t seem normal for him.

the seizure thing is starting to worry me a lot, too. he still seems to kind of flail backwards, but when i try to put him on his back to see if he keeps doing it, he gets upset, so i can’t tell if it’s a spasm or he’s just freaking out. he does this thing with his head, too, where it suddenly drops. i thought he was headbutting me because he doesn’t have perfect control of his head/neck yet, but except for the weird head-bob, his control seems fine. i’m going to try to record him doing it at some point and show it to his doctor. i’m hoping i can capture it soon, because i’d like him to be able to see it, rather than having to try to explain it. it’s not that i think he won’t believe me, but i’ve heard this is really hard to diagnose. unfortunately, it’ll be hard for me to get on film, too, because he’ll do it a couple times, stop, then do it again later. and sohei probably won’t help because he always thinks i’m crazy. if i can’t record him doing it within the next couple days, i’ll make him an appointment anyway, because it’s important to catch it early.

i hope i am just being crazy and worrying over nothing, because a seizure disorder in an infant almost never has a good prognosis.

this weekend, i hit the 50 pound weight loss mark. 50 pounds. in two months. granted, 20 of that was pregnancy weight, but no one seems to think it’s the least bit odd to lose that much weight in so little time. i get that i am/used to be/hell, still am freaking huge, but doesn’t that seem a little drastic? everyone says it’s because i’m nursing, but i can’t find anyone, online or otherwise, who lost that much weight in such a short time just from breastfeeding. (i’m loathe to post about it on a forum or something, because i always hate those people who post things like, “is my baby sleeping too much?” and i don’t want to be that person.) i don’t think it’s a thyroid thing, because i don’t have any symptoms other than weight loss, and i tend toward low thyroid function anyway, not high. i guess it could just be that i’m not eating enough, but that never caused me to lose weight before. i’m a little worried that it may be that my diabetes got worse after i had little bear, not better. i’ve checked my sugar a handful of times since coming home from the hospital, and it’s remained pretty high. i need to do the glucose test again, but have to wait until i’m insured. i also need to get my kidneys checked out, as well as some worrisome moles. because you know what else can cause weight loss? cancer! (no, i don’t suppose i really think i have cancer, but my kidney function does suck, and would like to have something done about the moles before they become problematic.) i do know that my joints hurt pretty bad, despite popular opinion that they’d feel better once i was less fat. and i’m always tired, though that’s not uncommon for a new mom. anyway, my point is, i lost 50 pounds in two months with no effort, which is not healthy no matter how fat i am, so stop being excited about it, everyone!

but i’ll probably gain all the weight back and then some, like i always do. and if it is health related, i can’t do anything about it until i’m insured again anyway. so i guess i’ll just enjoy being slightly less fat while it lasts.

my baby bear had his first series of vaccines today… i still think getting five at one go is a bit much, and i’m worried about him, but most reasonably scientific folks seem to think it’s okay. the doctor argued that little bear is exposed to all kinds of germs every day, which is true. however, none of them have ever given him a fever, so… anyway, i’m trying not to be one of those crazy vaccine people, but it’s hard. how can that not overload his little immune system, is all i’m saying. he’s not feverish enough to be concerned about, according to the doctor’s website and my trusty what to expect book, his temperature being in the 99.something range. i don’t know how sohei keeps from worrying like i do. i worry about sids and autism and vaccine reactions and just about everything else, but none of it seems to bother him much. and he just gets pissed off when i worry about it. i just feel like if something happened to my little guy, especially if it was my fault, i’d feel horrible.

in other news, he’s getting a bit better at nursing, and pretty much does that exclusively now, with only a supplementary bottle or two per day. my poor nips still hurt, as he’s still not always great at latching, but it’s not quite as excruciating as it was. also, the vinegar-water solution is keeping me mastitis-free so far. (i did get the antibiotics at a discount, so at least i can take them without having to pay for a doctor visit in the event that i get mastitis again.)

i’m going to go cuddle my baby boy, as he’s had a kind of rough day and is looking very cute right now. here’s hoping the next few days are uneventful…

i have hives all over… arms, back, belly, sides, boobs, even bum. it started with about five when i woke up this morning and over the course of the day, new ones keep popping up. my palms are itchy, and having to wash little bear’s bottles in really hot water isn’t helping. i’m assuming this was caused by the bactrim i’ve been taking for my mastitis. well, i’m fine with that, because i fucking hate bactrim anyway and am glad that i can now tell doctors i’m allergic and they’ll have to give me something else. (i always tell them it gives me an upset stomach and headaches, but they don’t much care.) i called my obgyn today – since i still don’t have a gp here – to ask whether it was okay to stop taking it, and she prescribed me z-pack instead. i’ve never taken it, but hear it’s hardcore. to be honest, i’ll probably fill the script if it’s not too expensive and just hold on to it in case i get mastitis again. it was a really minor case, and was pretty much cleared up by monday evening, so i don’t really feel like i need more antibiotics. (i know this is incredibly stupid, but if it comes back, i’ll just take the meds then. i can’t afford to go to the doctor to get another prescription in the event i need antibiotics again, so i’ll take my chances.)

unfortunately, sohei doesn’t give a crap that i’m in agony and won’t come home and bring me some freaking antihistamine. i am really. fucking. miserable.

so, after nursing for less than a week, i got mastitis. if there’s anything good about it, it’s that i came down with it on saturday, which was my last day with insurance. there weren’t any walk in clinics open, so i went to the er. since it’s a small neighborhood facility, at least i was seen right away. even though it didn’t take that long, it kind of ruined halloween, as by the time i got home from that, getting my prescription filled, and picking up dinner, there weren’t any kids out trick or treating anymore. i can’t nurse while i’m on the antibiotic, so that gives little bear ten days to forget how. frankly, now i’m afraid to nurse, because without insurance, i can’t afford to go to the doctor every time i get mastitis. i think this is about the last straw for me regarding breastfeeding. i could actually put up with the breast pain and stuff, but the medical bills? not so much. i’m sick of being thwarted at every turn with this. i managed to overcome the shitty hospital experience, his tongue-tie, his impatience, his myriad food sensitivites, the dwindling of my supply, his continuing inability to latch properly (causing the nipple damage that in turn probably caused the mastitis), but it’s been two months of hitting wall after wall, and i’m done.

and, since it’s fucking monday, he won’t sleep, so i can’t even finish this post.

i detailed where my breastfeeding woes began – in the hospital – in the last post. but i’ve kept trying regardless. to start with, i went to see the lactation consultant at the hospital. (after trying and failing on my own for a few days at home.) she suggested a specific type of bottle, which my father-in-law bought and brought to me during a visit. she also recommended some strategies, like a lot of skin-to-skin contact, etc. so i started feeding him with the specified bottle, mostly with hand-pumped breastmilk. the hand pump was a pain to use, but i knew if i quit pumping, i’d lose my supply. i used it for almost four weeks. anyway, when we went to see the consultant, she felt his tongue tie (his tongue was tied down a bit with tissue and couldn’t extend past his gums) was impeding his ability to stay latched, so we went to get it clipped the next day. the ent guy who clipped him said it was a medium tongue tie and could indeed be keeping him from nursing. also, if we didn’t have it fixed, he could have speech problems later. so clip the excess tissue we did. it didn’t seem to hurt him much, thankfully, because i wasn’t sure i wanted to have it done.

that should have been that, but of course it wasn’t. he still was refusing to latch, so i called the consultant a few days after the procedure and asked how long it might take for him to be able to latch, etc. she said to give him a week or so. but then another problem cropped up, and we had to focus on that, so it ended up being more like two weeks after the clipping that i called her again. (i’ll detail the digestive issues in another post, maybe. like mother like son. in a nutshell, i had to restrict my diet again due to little bear’s apparent cow’s milk allergy.) she said to go ahead and come back in, which we did. during the session, he shrieked until we gave him his bottle – like at home – and managed to completely fill himself up on that. like at home. (he screams and cries until he’s full, and will refuse to even try to nurse when he’s like that.) so once he was full, after a lot of work, he finally latched. then sucked a couple times and let go. she said his latch was fine, but agreed that his impatience was an issue. unfortunately, there is no real answer for that. i’d just have to keep trying. thankfully, no-chan rented me a hospital-grade double pump a couple days beforehand, so at least it was just annoying to pump now and not painful. to my hands and wrists, anyway.

i was starting to lose hope, but at least we were doing everything right. all i had to do now was keep pumping, keep my supply up, and maybe he’d learn. then today my supply started to dwindle. i’ve barely been able to produce enough today to keep up with demand. i’d had literally more milk stored in the fridge than i’d known what to do with, and now i hardly have enough to give him at each feeding. so despite weeks of pumping and going to the consultant and buying expensive and hard to use bottles and restricting my diet and trying to patiently teach little bear to do what should come naturally to a baby, it’s pretty much over. now i’ll have to feed him formula primarily and supplement with breastmilk until it dries up entirely.

this entire ordeal has been really upsetting to me. i had kind of expected my labor and delivery experience to suck, as i’d been warned about that from the get-go. and i knew that breastfeeding could be difficult, but i thought if i tried hard enough, we could do it. i wanted him to be able to do it for health reasons, so the pumping was annoying but at least somewhat rewarding. but i also wanted to do it for bonding reasons, and it really hurts that i won’t have that. i missed out on all the post-delivery bonding stuff because of my surgery, and i can’t have this, either.

[i wrote this about a week ago, and guess i must have intended to say more, but i don't know what... anyway, my supply just keeps getting worse. i bet it'll dry up within the next month.]

okay, i have a lot of catching up to do…

so, first off, little bear’s birth story. i went to bed around 3 am on 9/5, because i couldn’t sleep. at 4ish, i had a dream that i was peeing myself and woke up immediately. i had either just peed the bed (a lot) or my water broke. i jumped out of bed to assess the damage, and as the liquid didn’t stop flowing down my legs, i figured it must be amniotic fluid rather than pee. sohei, who had been jolted out of slumber after the first frantic “uh oh” i uttered upon waking, wanted to know whether it was time. i said i figured it was and pretty much started panicking. he was supposed to wait until tuesday! what if the velamentous cord thing really was a problem and he was bleeding to death? this was about the last thing i wanted to happen. i’d hoped my water wouldn’t break until i was in the hospital and labor was well underway. no such luck. as it turned out, this would be only the first thing to go exactly the way i didn’t want it to.

after changing my underwear twice, and finally figuring out that the flow wasn’t going to stop, i grabbed a towel and we headed out to the car. i was kind of excited but mostly still panicky as we made our way to the hospital. i was dying to know what was going on in there and whether little bear was okay. also, why hadn’t any contractions started? sohei dropped me off at the women’s center and i went upstairs while he parked the car. i signed in, still dripping all over the floor and my shoes, and wondering if i was ever going to stop leaking. (short answer: not for quite a while.) i put a gown on and a hep lock was placed. i was assessed and – after two tries – found to still be at 2 cm dilated, 50% effaced. so no change since my last appointment. the prodding started some contractions going, anyway.

i was moved to the room where i was to labor and deliver, and they pretty much started me on pitocin right away. i wasn’t happy about that, as i wanted a chance to do things on my own, but i was still nervous and they made it sound like the pitocin would make things move a lot faster. fine. i wasn’t allowed to walk around, either, because they said his head wasn’t engaged and if i dilated too much, the cord could slip out or something. so i was stuck in bed on a monitor, with the pitocin flowing. exactly what i didn’t want to happen. still, i was relieved that little bear was okay, and that the most dangerous part for him re: cord was over. sohei and i hung out for a while, and he got some breakfast. i wasn’t allowed anything more than ice chips. i didn’t care that much, because i wasn’t all that hungry anyway. the contractions weren’t terrible, but they hardly stimulated my appetite. sohei’s mum showed up sometime between 8ish and 9, and stayed with us the entire time. i was really glad to have her there. before everything started, i thought i’d want to be alone or just have sohei there, at the most. but that wasn’t how i ended up feeling.

the nurse kept turning up the pitocin and the contractions kept getting worse. i finally ended up begging to be allowed to get up and at least shuffle around my bed, because when i got up to pee, that was the only time the contractions weren’t fucking awful. they said it should be fine at that point, so, with a monitor on my abdomen, a monitor in my uterus, and dragging around an i.v. pole, i stood up and paced a couple of steps back and forth and shifted my weight from foot to foot. it was about all i could do with all that shit strapped to me. it wasn’t long before i started feeling tired and frustrated, what with only having had one hour of sleep and not being able to actually move. so i went back to bed. more time went by, and i had a contraction that lasted at least three minutes non-stop. i told sohei to call the nurse, because the pitocin was killing me. i had been able to deal with the contractions up to that point, but having one that long with no break was too much. she turned it down or off – i don’t remember now, it being a month later – and i got to rest for a bit.

once the pitocin was started again, though, i couldn’t handle it anymore. by that point, i’d been laboring for ten hours, on one hour of sleep. and for the entire ten hours, i’d had the nurse and sohei pushing me to get an epidural every few minutes, and i was just sick of the whole thing. i finally relented and said i wanted the damn epidural. i knew that if i didn’t get to rest soon, i wouldn’t have energy to push when the time came. also, i was tired of people bothering me about just getting the epidural already. the procedure, which freaked me the fuck out to begin with, wasn’t pleasant. i was told i’d feel pressure or maybe a shock. what i felt was like someone thumped me right on the spine, and this weird dull ache followed. after what seemed like a bunch of futzing around, they had me lay back down again and kept asking me all these assessment questions. i guess it all checked out, because everyone finally left me alone. i couldn’t feel the contractions anymore at all. sohei and his mum decided to leave for a bit and let me sleep. i tried, but all this weird shit kept racing through my brain. it wasn’t at all restful and felt a lot more like a bad trip. then some alert started going off on one of my many machines, and no one came to check on me. worried that things were going south with little bear, i panicked and called sohei. he didn’t answer, and i was too foggy to think to do anything other than keep calling him. he showed up a few minutes later and asked the nurse about the beeping, and she said it was nothing and turned it off.

time had pretty much lost all meaning by this point, and i don’t know how much later it was when the epidural started to wear off. i could feel the contractions again, and they started to hurt pretty bad. an anesthesiologist (or some kind of tech, i don’t remember) showed up and fiddled with the catheter going into my back and pushed more medicine. it took the edge off, but i could still feel contractions. i was told that they were getting so intense, i was bound to feel some pressure. since “pressure” seems to be the medical terminology for “pain” i decided that this was just as good as it was going to get and gave up on getting any sort of pain relief from then on. not much later i noticed that i couldn’t feel – or move – my legs at all. i was pretty terrified as this hadn’t happened before. initially, i’d been able to feel it if someone pressed on my legs, and had been able to wiggle my toes a bit, etc. now i couldn’t feel or do anything, leg-wise. i still felt my contractions, though. after a while, they got excruciating. the pitocin was literally cranked up to 11, and the epidural was wearing off completely. i was afraid to ask for more meds, after the whole leg thing, but i couldn’t manage contractions that strong that went on for that length of time. they pushed more meds, which did fuck all this time, and said i couldn’t have any more for at least an hour.

they checked me and i was stuck at 9.5 cm. there was a little lip of cervix that was refusing to budge. but because i was starting to feel a lot of pressure, i could start pushing if i wanted, and the nurse would just hold that part out of the way. i tried pushing a few times and nothing was happening. i took a break, and was rolled over on my side to engage the baby’s head better. he was kind of stuck at an angle or something. then i felt more pressure and we tried again. nothing. the nurse went to get the doctor, and he came back and assessed the situation. then he informed me that everything had pretty much stalled and the baby wasn’t doing much in the way of moving downward. he said the baby was perfectly fine at that point and i could keep trying until he wasn’t, or i could go ahead and have the c-section now. i completely broke down. “i’ve been laboring for 17 hours, and now i have to have a fucking c-section?” (i had already lost any sense of decorum hours ago, when everyone including my mother-in-law saw everything there is to see below my waist.) the doctor wisely chose to leave to let me make my decision. i just sobbed. i didn’t want to keep going and end up hurting the baby. also, i just couldn’t do this anymore. especially when continuing meant they were going to increase the pitocin levels some more. i told sohei to tell the doctor i’d do it. but i made sure everyone was aware that i did not want to be knocked out. i was then told that they’d try not to, but it might be necessary. whatever. this wasn’t going to go the way i wanted it to no matter what anyway.

i’d had the shakes pretty bad off and on for a while, but after getting the surgical-strength dose of epidural meds, they became more like seizures. my teeth were chattering and my arms were jerking around like i was being electrocuted. i knew that the more i tried to stop shaking, the worse it would be, so i tried to relax. ha. they prepped me for surgery and wheeled me to the room, but i was really out of it. i didn’t think epidurals were supposed to affect anything above the waist, but they’d been making me sleepy and my mind all fitful, and this last one just about knocked me the fuck out. as far as i could tell, at least all the shaking was happening up top, so it probably wouldn’t interfere with the surgery. but i really felt like i was pretty much going to die anyway. once they had me all set up, they had sohei come in and sit next to me. the curtain was set up so high, neither of us could see anything from where we were. i felt a whole lot of pushing and shoving, and the nurse anesthetist told sohei to stand up and watch the baby be born. he said he’d rather not, and she pushed him to do it, so he stood up. i was watching him, as i couldn’t see the birth myself, and his face was priceless. “holy shit,” was about all he could manage, and not much later i heard little bear’s unique cry. he was brought to me a bit later, but i couldn’t hold him or anything. so i kissed his little face instead.

sohei left with little bear to do all the stuff they do with babies after they’re born, and he got to cut the cord and all. i wasn’t there for any of it, because i was being put back together. and the epidural was wearing off. it started as shooting chest pain. then i started to feel what was going on below the waist. it hurt. a lot. i started crying out in pain and the nurse asked if i was feeling anything. to which i replied that i was damn near feeling everything, and was promptly knocked out. when i came to, it was all done, and i was wheeled to the recovery room. i finally got to hold my little bear. they had me breastfeed him for a bit, did some other stuff i don’t remember, and we were then sent to my hospital room. at some point, i think sohei and little bear went to the nursery for his first bath, and someone came to try to get me up and walking. if i recall, it was about four hours post-op. i wasn’t ready. i tried, but my legs were still very shaky and wouldn’t hold me. i hadn’t had anything to eat in over a day, and wouldn’t be allowed to eat until sometime the next day. i explained that the epidural must still be lingering and i was shaky from not eating, but maybe we could try again later.

the rest of the hospital stay is kind of a blur. i know the next day we couldn’t wake little bear to eat, and the nurse on call said it was fine, and that he’d sleep a lot to start with. so, despite our attempts, he didn’t eat all day. and though i asked to see the promised lactation consultant, that never happened. the night nurse didn’t think it was okay that little bear hadn’t eaten all day and got me a pump and took him to the nursery for a cup feeding. i hadn’t wanted him to do anything but breastfeed, but she said he’d be too sluggish to try after not eating all day, and that cup feeding shouldn’t hurt anything. so off he went with sohei and the nurse, and i pumped. the next morning, sohei was gone to take care of the dog when all hell broke loose. i was yelled at for not feeding the baby the previous day, and was told that he was jaundiced and if he didn’t start eating, he’d have to be put under a lamp in the nursery. i asked whether i could keep trying to breastfeed, and whether i could at least go sit with him if he was taken away. no and no. and if the jaundice wasn’t cleared up on our checkout date, little bear would have to stay and we’d be leaving without him. by the time sohei got back, i was crying and trying to explain how i hadn’t wanted to starve him, but he just wouldn’t wake up, and the nurse from the day before had acted like it was normal. we had to force-feed little bear bottles all day, and this was the beginning of the end of my breastfeeding career. the rest of our hospital stay was fucking awful. i didn’t want visitors, but had them anyway. my attempts at nursing my son were futile, and i kept pumping while sohei kept giving him bottles. on the morning of our last day, i finally saw a lactation consultant, but by then it was pretty much too late. it was tuesday, and my son hadn’t breastfed since late saturday night, right after he was born. after a lot of struggling, we finally got him to latch, but he wouldn’t stay on long. he didn’t have the patience for it. (nor has he had the patience for alternative feeding methods or further nursing attempts since we got home. he seems to be permanently bottle-spoiled. and so goes any hope of my being able to breastfeed my baby, despite how important that was to me.)

so that’s the story of little bear’s birth, etc. i’m glad he got here safely, and that he’s mostly well. but now i know for sure i will not put myself through that again.

i had a pretty good appointment today. the ultrasound looked good, with little bear weighing in at about 9 lbs. (i guess he’s not such a little bear.) he was in perfect delivery position and looking healthy. and sleepy. he was resting his little face on his arm and looking comfortable. he’s not so tired right now, though, as he’s squirming around like crazy… anyway, the doctor said i’m 50% effaced and 2 cm dilated, which is quite a change from last week where nothing was happening at all. i knew that those contractions had to be doing something. then we scheduled the induction for next tuesday morning. assuming he doesn’t get here before then. sohei seems really nervous about waiting that long and i am, too, a bit, but i really want a certain doctor to deliver and that’s the only day she can do it. i was willing to go with a different doctor if it meant inducing sooner, as long as it was a woman, but it was just the men. none of whom i particularly care for. two of them rushed me through my appointments with them, and one of them was kind of loud and annoying. if little bear gets here before tuesday, i’ll have to live with having one of them do the delivery. which i don’t mind too much, because hopefully i’ll be fully in labor and have little need for intervention. (or being rushed through labor and delivery.) if i’m induced, though, i want someone patient that i trust, and none of them fit that description.

i’m afraid, of course, that i’m making a stupid decision. maybe i’m being too picky. and if something happens to little bear in the next week, it’ll be my fault. because if i’d just picked a closer induction date, maybe he’d have been okay. i know that if something goes wrong, sohei will never forgive me, and i’ll never forgive myself. i can always call the office and ask for a closer date, which i’m considering, just because my nerves keep getting the better of me. but i also liked the idea of waiting a week because i think i should give little bear a chance to come out when he’s ready. i don’t want to force him out in case i got the date wrong or something. but what if the velamentous cord thing becomes a problem? maybe i shouldn’t labor outside of a controlled setting… i kind of wish i didn’t get a choice in the matter, because i hate having this on my conscience. i guess i’ll have to see if waiting is worse than having a jerk for a doctor. i might lose my nerve completely and go in early.

there was a third loss announcement before the day was up. i can’t believe so many women lose their babies this late in the game, considering how supposedly medically advanced we are. i know at least two were lost in labor. if you’re in the damn hospital, how can that happen?! i don’t really want to think about it anymore. i can’t stand it.

anyway, it’s been an interesting day for me, physically. it felt like little bear dropped some more this morning, like i mentioned before. then i found myself having to go to the bathroom constantly. (and i don’t mean peeing, because constant peeing is pretty much an everyday thing at this point.) that doesn’t necessarily mean anything, though, because i frequently have days that i spend in the bathroom. though less so the further along i get in pregnancy. so between the weird dropping/pressure feelings and the frequent trips to the bathroom, i felt kind of off today. then sohei got home and we spent some quality time together. (which i’ve heard is good for getting labor going, but hasn’t done much to that effect yet.) afterwards, i started feeling very crampy. like menstrual cramps. i was kind of crampy over the weekend, and sometimes i wake up with them, but these hurt a little worse and were pretty much non-stop. i decided to try to push things along and had eggplant parmesan for dinner, which i’ve also heard is good for starting labor. (i have no idea where this one came from, as at least the sex thing has a somewhat scientific explanation.) not long after dinner, the cramping became less consistent, but was joined by lower back pain. now it’s about time for bed and i’m still having cramping and back pain, which has been joined by what’s starting to feel like an upset stomach.

so i’m feeling pretty uncomfortable, but the pain is far from excruciating. am i going into labor? i’ve been checking with my friend, the interwebz, and get mixed reviews. i guess i’m just going to go to bed and try to sleep, and if it gets worse or my water breaks, i’ll go to the hospital. otherwise, maybe i’ll call the doctor in the morning if i’m still crampy. we’ll see. it sure would be nice if i were going into labor, but i’m thinking as it’s been a few hours and the pain isn’t getting a lot worse, i’m probably not. instead, i’m just starting to feel kind of sick.

i went to my weekly doctor appointment today, where i learned that i am not at all effaced or dilated. i know that these exams don’t really mean a whole lot, in that some women are completely closed and end up in labor the next day, and some get stuck at 3 cm for two weeks. but aside from some painful practice contractions, i’m really showing no signs of going into labor any time soon. so it’s looking like i’m going to be induced in about a week and a half. when this whole thing started, i was adamant about not being induced or having a c-section, etc. but i’m just kind of over it now. i have these irrational fears about him having a knotted cord or it being around his neck or something, so i really just want him out. i know it’s stupid, but if we made it this far to lose him now, i’d pretty much die. so, yeah, i’m so beyond caring how he gets here or whether i have to have an epidural or whether i get cut open or what. if they’d given me the option of going straight to the hospital today and getting a c-section, i’d probably have said yes.

it’s funny how much different things are than they were a few months ago. how much my attitude has changed regarding things. and then there are things that i used to dread that i’m now actively hoping for. when i spotted a few months ago, it felt like the end of the world. now i want to see some freaking blood, damn it! and cramps would throw me into a panic, but no longer. cramping and contractions? more please. (not that they’re actually doing anything, apparently. ) and why was he so ready to leave seven or eight months ago, and now he won’t budge? what the hell, little bear?

I met with little bear’s future pediatrician today. There are three doctors in the practice, and the two I met looked younger than me. Which isn’t saying much nowadays, I guess, but you know… Anyway, she’s really nice and isn’t making me vaccinate him in the hospital, and said we can do his vaccines (or not) however I want. Also, I can call at any time, and have my questions answered whenever I’m freaking out. The practice seems well-run, and she’s not a jerk about stuff, so as long as we can afford them, that’s where we’re going.

While I was waiting to see her, I had my first serious ouch contraction. My Braxton-hicks have been painless though slightly uncomfortable until now. This one freaking hurt. And it went all the way around to my back. I feel kind of sick to my stomach even now, and my back still feels a bit tight. But there are no other indicators of impending labor, so I think it’s just practice. Maybe he’ll be here soon, though…

while i’m on the subject of weight-related issues… i’ve been really surprised at how good pregnancy has been for my self-image. i was doing pretty well regarding fat acceptance, thanks to the likes of shapely prose and all those books i read. but i was a little scared that pregnancy would make me gargantuan, and that i wouldn’t be able to handle it. but i have felt nothing but gorgeous this whole time. i don’t think i’ve looked in the mirror once and had a negative thought. (well, okay, the stretch marks do look awful, but i’ve been pretty good about ignoring them. they’ll fade.) in general, i’ve loved how pregnancy makes me look. and while i always thought i wouldn’t be one of those women who rub their bellies all the time, i totally do. part of it is because it’s the closest i can come to touching little bear, but it’s also just fun to feel how big and round it is. it’s even dwarfing my boobs and butt, which i thought was impossible. anyway, pregnancy has just given me a very nice silhouette. i’m not sure how i’ll feel about it when i still look six months’ pregnant after giving birth, but for now, i like it. (since my total weight gain is still under 20 pounds, i’m honestly not sure i’ll look too terribly different from pre-pregnancy when all is said and done. not a few months down the road, anyway.)

i’ve also noticed that i feel no shame about my body in certain situations, either. i’ve been swimming a lot this summer, mostly in front of strangers, and it hasn’t bothered me at all. i’ve proudly stuck my belly out and waddled past a crowd of people i’ve never met, at no-chan’s house. it wasn’t long ago that i don’t think i’d have dared. and i walk to the pool in our complex in just suit, sandals, and towel. i don’t even own a cover-up. i don’t know if it’s because i’m pregnant or if i’m finally accepting my body, but i just don’t care. if i want to swim, i’ll swim. i also thought if i ever got a massage, i’d be too mortified to really enjoy it. not so! i felt surprisingly little embarrassment at having a strange man rub my naked back with oil. i didn’t care if my back looked fat or if he could see my stretch marks. (i was on my side, with a towel over my boobs, so you could pretty much see everything from the waist up except nip.) actually, i was so relaxed i dozed off.

i was reading an excellent post over at shapely prose the other day, regarding how most of us can accept how fat we are now, but are unsure how we’d deal with being any fatter. and a lot of women said they were terrified of getting pregnant because of that. but speaking from personal experience, unless your significant other or family members are a bunch of douchebags who make you feel bad about it, being pregnant is kind of a positive step in the fat acceptance journey. i realize that i’m lucky that my husband happens to love my pregnant body, maybe even more than my regular one. but even if he didn’t, i still think this would have been a good experience for me, self-image-wise. and it makes me sad that so many women would pass this up because they’re freaked out about how they’ll look. i always feel bad for the not fat women on the message board i read, when they say their s.o. isn’t attracted to them anymore, or they feel disgusting or whatever. it sucks that we live in a society where so much of who we are is tied up in how much we weigh.

wow, i never update anymore…

so i had my second baby shower on the 1st. no-chan and sohei’s mum threw it for me at no-chan’s house. it was neat to see a lot of people i never see anymore. also, between the shower and genma and gift cards, little bear’s nursery is now pretty much complete, and he should have everything he needs. i finished up the shopping today and got him an extra crib sheet, a 2-pack of bumgenius cloth diapers (yeah, i’m giving it a go, but at $35/pack, i’m trying it out before buying more.), and a sling. (because i guess i’m also giving the “attachment parenting” thing a go. i think i’ll like having him strapped to me at all times, but we’ll see.) i also got him the classic pooh musical mobile. the mobile is actually the only thing i’ve bought for him with my own money, if you can believe it. frankly, i can’t. the kid has more clothes than he’ll probably ever wear, diaper gear, a travel system, a playard, toys, and myriad other stuff. every time i go into his nursery, i feel kind of overwhelmed. not just because there will be another human being living in our house in a couple weeks, though that does kind of blow my mind. but also because everyone has been so good and generous to us. my son is going to be the first (biological) grandchild for all our parents, and is also the last male with our name, which is important to genma. everyone’s so anxious for him to get here, me included. i really did enjoy my pregnancy, but the last real hurdle is this possible cord issue, and the danger it poses has to do with delivering him, so i’d really like him to just be here already. every morning, sohei wakes up and asks if i’m in labor yet, and asks little bear when he’s going to get here.

and i’m still so, so happy to be back home. i get visits from no-chan and sohei’s mum all the time, which is nice. i missed my family so much. and if it weren’t for their help with shopping and unpacking and stuff, i don’t know what i’d do. even if i had my car, i’m not sure i can drive now. my belly is huge, and the no a/c thing would really be a problem at this point. it’s awesome to have everyone so nearby, and it was so nice of no-chan to let me stay with her all the times sohei was away this summer. and we’ve been seeing some old friends, too. after the relative social desolation of tallahassee, this kicks ass.

went to the doctor yesterday, and she said my pregnancy is going really well. no major issues (she doesn’t seem to see the diabetes as much of an issue as my numbers are mostly good), not too much weight gain, measuring well, etc. i’m actually pretty good at being pregnant. who knew?

i always mean to talk about all kinds of things when i sit down to write a post, but forget what half of it was. oh well…

hmm. updatery…

things have been pretty good. i love being back in my house, of course. i’m waiting to hear back about the tenant paying to fix the broken closet door. the unpacking has been slow going, as i can barely manage keeping up with chores. i’m huge and sore and tired. the playard sohei’s mum got us arrived yesterday, and we put it together without too much trouble. it was confusing at first, but i think after a couple tries, we’ll be good at packing and unpacking it for trips. i can’t wait to get the crib from no-chan’s house and get it set up, but it’s looking like we won’t be doing that until after sohei finishes his bar exam. (he’s going to be away from me for two days next week. ) i think the nursery will be pretty cute when it’s all set up. and my mother-in-law and no-chan are throwing me a baby shower in about a week. i already have everything i need except a stroller and carseat. there are some odds and ends i could use, but i have some gift cards and stuff, so it should be fine. so i don’t really need a baby shower, but it’s always nice to see family. there are going to be a bunch of people there i don’t know, too, which is a little awkward. (hi! i don’t know you! give me presents!) but i’m not throwing it, so whatevs.

little bear seems to be doing okay, as far as i can tell. my diabetes is pretty much under control, so i only have to test twice a day, rather than the four times/day i was doing. strangely, my numbers got a lot better, and i haven’t been throwing ketones (i got ketone test sticks at the pharmacy), when i started eating normally again. i read this forum on gestational diabetes, and some women found that eating 1/2 cup of ice cream before bed helped their fasting numbers and ketone issues. so i started doing that on monday, and my fasting numbers have really improved. also, i haven’t had a positive ketone test all week. i tested after eating the ice cream, too, to make sure it wasn’t causing too much of a spike, and my numbers were still under the limit. i was told my numbers would get worse as the pregnancy progressed, and they still might, but now that i’m pretty much back to eating like i used to, everything’s a lot better. that isn’t to say i’m drinking juice and eating donuts and stuff. i don’t consume as much sugar as i did before the diagnosis. but i’m not being as strict, either. i’ve been eating onion bagels with no problems, for example. i put butter and whipped cream cheese on them, which also seems to help, glycemically. i learned in the nutrition class i took as an elective that eating fats with carbs changes the way you digest the carbs, kind of slowing things down. (which means less of a spike.) the stupid nutritionist i talked to told me to limit fats, and when i asked about the fact that fats delay the conversion to glucose, she hemmed and hawed and said something about how it wasn’t worth it or some half-assed thing. it was like she was claiming i’d only done well on a test because i’d cheated by studying for it. anyway, i find that if i eat “bad” foods like bagels and ice cream, if they’re good and full of fat, it doesn’t cause a negative impact. i knew that lady was an idiot. even sohei now thinks my gd diagnosis is bullshit. (i was borderline before i got pregnant, and being pregnant made things slightly worse, seems like. i will be eating more carefully from now on – not so many icees and sodas and candy bars – but the diet they had me on is ridiculous.) anyway, i thought this was interesting, considering my dieting history and my mum’s tendency to not eat anything and my resulting low birth weight, and how that all ties into my insulin resistance.

unfortunately, brumby isn’t doing too well. he’s had diarrhea for a couple of days, and threw up today, too. if he’s still doing this tomorrow, i’m going to have to make him a vet appointment. (i don’t know how we’re going to pay for it, considering i can’t even afford to pay all our bills in full this month, but if he’s sick, he needs to go to the vet. ) i just hope it’s a bit of a bug and he’ll be fine…

and in other randomness, i got an invite for google voice, and now have a phone number with “gish” in it. which i got stupidly excited about. (i’m probably going to put a widget on here soon that’ll allow you to call me. i don’t know why you’d want to, but it’s a neat idea.) i fixed whatever was causing the issue that wouldn’t allow me to post pics here from my phone, too. and i got this neat app on my ipod that updates my sidebar music thingy with whatever i’m listening to on my ipod at the time, as long as i have wi-fi access.

i think there was more i was going to talk about, but this has gone rather long, and i need to go get a snack.

some updatery is necessary, i reckon.

yesterday morning, i went to the doctor. he took a quick look and my numbers, said everything is fine, and pretty much left. i asked about the whole losing five pounds thing, and he said there are ketones in my urine and i’m probably not eating enough and to take it up with the nutritionist. wham, bam, thank you ma’am. (i do not like the male doctors at this practice so far, and am hoping like hell i get dr. miller on delivery day. i told sohei i’m thinking about just arranging for a c-section in advance so i know for sure that she’ll be doing it. )

then we left and went to pick up the keys to our house. we went home, and things mostly looked great! i was sooo relieved. there was a rotten spot near the door, which is not the tenant’s fault, but the condo association’s. you’d think for $400/mo they could fix that shit, but no. and there was a similar spot by the garage door. i’ll be calling about that once i’m back in the house. the carpet was mostly fine with the sort of wear and tear you’d expect with a carpet that age. i still dream of replacing it with a nice, light-colored pergo, but that’ll have to wait until we’re not broke. (also, i want to make sure we’ll be there a couple years before undertaking a bunch of projects.) the walls had chips in places that looked like moving-related damage, but should be easy enough to touch up. the walls were always a little spotty in places, due to the previous owner’s smoking habit, but i lived with it before, i can live with it now. while the house is a bit dated (having been built in ‘89), it’s still the house i remember being madly in love with. again, updating will be nice, but is based on finances and how long we expect to stay. i think sohei remembered how much he loved the house, too, because he was talking about maybe staying 2-3 years. dare i dream? also, i think watching the kids play in the fire hydrant in the park across the street and hearing their cries of glee re-endeared him to the neighborhood, and how nice it might be to raise our little guy there.

anyway, the only problem was that one of the bedroom closet doors is shattered. the closet doors in both rooms are glass, and one of the panes in the master bedroom is smashed. i called the property management lady right away (after taking a picture with my camera phone), and she said to have it fixed and let them know how much it costs, so we can be reimbursed out of the deposit. i also think, after looking at the red wall in the bedroom again, that i might paint it to match the rest of the room. i’m not sure i want to change the red in the kitchen, though. i’m also not sure i want to paint little bear’s nursery. i kind of like the color the way it is, and the ceiling is realllly high. i think i’ll just put up some wall art or something. but everything is mostly good, and i’m hoping we stay a few years and i can fix some stuff up a little.

then we went to the sound exchange near our house and got some lunch and went to the nutritionist. (the sound exchange trip also seemed to help reaffirm sohei’s liking of the old neighborhood. this could have been possibly further cemented by a lunch trip to hao wah, but chinese buffets aren’t good eating for diabetics, so we went to chik-fil-a instead.) the nutritionist i saw this time seemed, to me, to be completely grasping at straws the whole time. i asked why my fasting sugar jumped 20 points in two weeks, when i was eating a better diet, and she said my sugars were just going to get worse as the pregnancy progressed. okay, i can kind of buy that, but not by that much. she said my liver was putting out too much glucose overnight. i thought that might be the case, too. and when i showed her the numbers i got when i experimented with taking my sugars every couple of hours one night, she didn’t really have anything to say about the pattern. she also started in on me about my food choices, and said in one instance my numbers were elevated due to eating fried chicken and the breading, etc. i pointed out where it said, right in front of her, that i had taken the skin off and hadn’t eaten the breading at all, but she didn’t have anything to say about that either. (i wouldn’t have eated fried chicken to begin with except that i don’t always have a choice about what to eat for dinner.) then she tried blaming the sugar-free pudding i ate, even though there was no evidence of it raising my numbers at all. i said that, yes, i was absolutely sure it was completely sugar-free, and got pretty snippy at that point considering that she was treating me like a freaking idiot. she pointed out that it has 14 carbs, and i said 1) those come from the fact that it’s a dairy product, which is a perfectly allowable carb, and 2) it’s on the freaking list of approved foods, and as such, i assumed it was okay to eat. i hope if i go back, i get to see the lady i saw the first time, because this one irritated the hell out of me. if you aren’t familiar with your own list of allowed foods, i don’t see why i should trust you regarding anything else. (she said i could fix the ketone issue by eating my morning snack. since it’s an overnight issue, i’d think it has more to do with my bedtime snack not having enough carbs or something, but she didn’t like my bedtime snack choice either. couldn’t really give me a suggestion about what to eat, but again, i was an idiot for eating an approved food on the list and expecting not to go into ketosis overnight, apparently.)

the nurse, however, i love. she was the same one i saw last time, who showed me how to use my meter. we talked about possible solutions to my numbers. and because she didn’t spend the entire time insulting my intelligence and instead gave me actual ideas about solutions, i think i understand better what i need to do. i’m probably going to have to go on insulin, though.

then today i woke up feeling kind of ick. i made my breakfast of yogurt and strawberries, with a sprinkling of no-chan’s homemade granola on top (’twas a good idea, empress, thanks! ), and ate part of it when my vision suddenly went nuts. sohei was out getting his own breakfast, and i was eating and watching tv. out of nowhere, i was unable to focus my eyes. everything got all blurry and “buzzy” and this weird pattern showed up. i tried squinting and closing my eyes, but it just got worse. then i lost peripheral vision in my right eye. as you can imagine, i freaked right the fuck out. when sohei got home, i told him what was going on, and he said to call the doctor. he was supposed to be studying for the bar, since he had the day off, but that never seems to work out for him, poor guy. i tried lying down and calming myself, but i started feeling this weird pressure behind my eyes, so i gave up and made the call. a pre-ecclampsia symptom is nothing to ignore, after all. i got the answering service (because the 3rd of july is now a holiday as well, apparently) and explained what was going on, and one of the doctors i’d never met called back a few minutes later. i told him what happened, and he said to go to labor and delivery for assessment. shit. (we’re still in brandon, and the hospital is in clearwater, over an hour away.)

by the time we left, my head was starting to hurt pretty bad. sohei drove like a maniac until we hit the expressway, which i both appreciate and fear. we got to the hospital alive, and i got checked in and all. after a couple of urine tests, consistent baby monitoring (yay for listening to his heartbeat for a couple hours) and a lot of waiting, i was told that my blood pressure was fine, and there wasn’t much protein in my first test, and none in my second. (i am so, so relieved by this, because it means i probably don’t have a kidney problem after all. though i will still be checking into it one of these days, to make sure.) the doctor never showed up, but the nurse said it was probably dehydration or something. which i guess makes sense because i totally overdid it yesterday. i mean, i drank tons of water yesterday evening, but whatevs. i have to get a blood pressure cuff to use at home, and no-chan has one, so i’m going to use hers. this is mainly so next time i go blind, i can check and see that my bp is fine before bothering the fine people at the hospital.

so that’s what i’ve been up to the past couple of days. is it any wonder i’ve barely been able to stop sleeping since yesterday evening?

i was just talking to ju-chan about this on the phone, but i’m apparently not done venting about it yet.

i took my three hour glucose tolerance test on 6/12. my fasting glucose that day was 85. After drinking the glucose drink, at one hour my sugar was 197 (was supposed to be under 180), at two hours 156 (limit 155, so i was a whole point over), and 112 at three hours (limit 140). so two and a half weeks ago, despite eating a lot of fruit and sugary stuff like icees and chocolate, and my usual ibs-friendly high-carb diet, i was barely gestationally diabetic. i was diagnosed with gestational diabetes on 6/18, about a week later, due to having two out of four values over the limit. (even if one was barely so.) after the doctor scared the hell out of sohei, i was pretty much limited to salads until i could see the nutritionist. by the time i saw the nutritionist on 6/26, i’d lost two pounds. when you’re pregnant, losing weight is not a good thing, even if you were fat to begin with. (this puts my total gain for this pregnancy at 13 pounds, in case you were interested.) i completely felt like shit. i got my new meal plan, however, and it looked a hell of a lot better than the insanely restrictive diet i’d been on for the past week, so i had some hope. i also got my glucose meter and learned how to use it, etc.

i’ve been following my meal plan and testing my glucose levels since 6/27. i have not had one fasting glucose level under the limit of 95. when i was eating whatever the hell i wanted, it was 85. now it’s in the low hundreds every morning. why the fuck would it jump twenty points in two weeks, especially when i’m eating like i’m supposed to now? since i was “barely diabetic” i was told that i probably wouldn’t need insulin, but it’s sure not looking that way. and about half of the readings i take two hours post meals are too high. i never go over my carb limit, and actually stay around the middle to low end, but to no avail.

i also still feel like shit all the time. i’m always starving or nauseous. according to my meal plan, i’m supposed to be getting 2300 calories per day, but routinely eat between 1200 and 1400. this is way, way too low for a pregnant woman, but since they want me to limit fat as well, i have no idea what the hell i’m supposed to eat that would even bring me close to 2000 calories per day. i’ve also been consuming way too much aspartame. before my diagnosis, i refused to touch anything with artificial sweetener in it. no gum, no diet sodas, etc. i never use it anyway, because aspartame (and sucralose, to a lesser extent) give me awful headaches. but once i was pregnant, i especially didn’t want it, because it seemed like a stupid risk to take as far as the baby was concerned. now i’m kind of stuck using it. though i think i’m going to stop. instead of the light yogurt they want me to eat, i’ll get plain instead and just put my own fruit in it. no more sugar free snacks, either. i just hope i haven’t done any harm to little bear in the meantime.

none of this feels right. pregnant women shouldn’t go hungry. and i understand there’s a certain amount of feeling crappy that comes with pregnancy, but this does not feel normal. i can’t imagine that my feeling this awful can be good for the baby. when i was eating intuitively, he was growing like a weed, and i was putting on weight at a healthy rate. i didn’t have headaches or as many stomach aches. i didn’t feel weak or depressed or apathetic. now i barely have the energy to do my chores. my mood has been horrible. i’ve been losing weight, when i’m at the point in my pregnancy where gaining half a pound a week is to be expected. i have no idea what’s going on with little bear or his growth, but his movement patterns have been downright bizarre. he used to be active in the morning and before bedtime, but now he barely moves all day, and then suddenly can’t sit still around 1 am. between his weird patterns and being hungry, i don’t sleep well anymore. since this whole stupid thing started, i don’t fall asleep until after 2:00 almost every night, usually later.

i’m frustrated because something about this feels wrong. ever since i stopped eating intuitively, i’ve felt bloody awful. i was amazed throughout my pregnancy at how good i felt, but that’s all over. i worry because this feels so wrong, i don’t think it’s good for little bear. but i’m told that i was apparently sick, and i won’t get better unless i do all this stupid stuff. funny, but i felt pretty good before i started following everyone’s instructions. now i can barely function. little bear was doing just fine, too, but i don’t know how he is now. all i know is that i’d better keep following this insane meal plan and feeling like shit, or i’m putting the baby at risk and i’m an awful person.

it’s hard not to be upset and confused. my intuition has been right all this time, from knowing that i was pregnant to quitting that dangerous antibiotic to everything else. i felt really good almost the whole time, and despite being at risk for growth restriction, little bear was actually growing into a pretty big bear. (his growth wasn’t affected by my diabetes or lack thereof, btw. his weight was due to his frame, not fat. babies don’t usually start to put on much fat until the 3rd trimester, and he weighed 3 lbs. even before then.) i don’t feel good or healthy anymore. and i feel distressed because i’m being forced to go against the intuition that has served me pretty well thus far. and i’m pissed off that i’m more severly diabetic now that i’ve started eating “healthy” than i was before. (yogurt with artificial flavoring and aspartame is way better for you than fruit, don’t you know.) so much so that i’m going to have to start injecting myself with yet more artificial crap every night. (because putting more weird shit in my body and exposing my baby to that is just awesome.)

i’m supposed to have another ultrasound in a couple weeks. if little bear isn’t growing at the same rate, or there’s some new problem, i’m throwing in the goddamn towel. because something about this is just fucking wrong. starving is wrong. feeling this sick is wrong. eating crappy artificial shit instead of fruit and bread and juice is wrong. every time i test my blood sugar, the meter is telling me that something’s a lot less right now than things were two and a half weeks ago when my sugars weren’t completely out of whack. i hope the nutritionist can explain why my reading jumped 20 points in such a short amount of time after following all the damn rules, because it doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, and i’m about to go back to listening to my own body again.

i’ve been watching little bear in the afternoons. i can’t wait to watch it with my little bear. it’s still another couple of months until he’s due to be here… while it’s neat feeling him and seeing him move around, i think it’ll be nicer to actually be able to hold him. hugging my stomach just seems weird, anyway. also, my body’s so messed up, it’ll probably be better for him outside of it. i worry about what my high blood sugar might be doing to him. (my morning fasting sugars are always too high, and my post-meal numbers are too high about half the time. i’m working on it, but honestly don’t know what to do about the fasting number. it’s looking like insulin for me.)

lately, i’ve been thinking about all the books i want to get for him. i think i’m going to start reading to him pretty much right away. i’m going to buy all the little bear books, of course. and i already have winnie the pooh collection. i want him to have at least one richard scarry book, and where the wild things are. (yeah, i guess that is a lot of maurice sendak.) and lots of dr. seuss, obviously. and then there are all the books i loved when i was a kid, that i used to get at the library, like space case. oh, and that one where they went to a farm on a field trip and the giant snake got loose and wreaked havoc.

and though we don’t really know when we’ll actually be back in our house (we’re hoping mid-july at this point), little bear has just about everything he needs. no-chan was kind enough to buy his crib, as well as a ton of adorable clothes (most with bears on them), a bathtub, and a little chair thingy i can put him in when i can’t carry him around. i want the matching playard really bad, but i’m waiting to see if i get it as a gift. i think sohei’s mum might be getting it. she already got the bedding i wanted. everyone’s been really generous, and sohei and i will have to buy hardly anything at all. we need a car seat and a stroller, but we’re not sure what to get. should we get a travel system? a separate convertible seat and stroller? part of the problem for buying anything for him so far is that we have no idea how big he’s going to get. he’s measured pretty big so far, and the diabetes is going to make him fat as well. he could very easily weigh over 9-10 pounds. and i don’t want a bunch of stuff he’ll outgrow in a couple months. i’m also going to get him a bookshelf to hold all those great books i’m getting him. (with a door and drawer insert thrown in for good measure, maybe.) i think, if there’s time, i’d like to paint his room. we’re still going with sage green. i just want to get in there and freaking nest already!

so, to update on stuff, i was diagnosed with gestational diabetes at my last doctor appointment on thursday. the doctor isn’t sure i have pre-eclampsia, because i’m spilling way more protein than the average person, but don’t have any of the other symptoms. she thinks there may be an issue with my kidneys and wants me to see a nephrologist. i’m going to wait until i have permanent insurance before i do that, though, because if there is something really wrong, i don’t want it to be a “pre-existing condition.” (in other “we have no idea what’s wrong” news, there’s nothing new on the cord front. so we still don’t know whether it’s an issue or not. i’m thisclose to just scheduling a damn c-section and having done with it.) i won’t be seeing the nutritionist until friday, so in the meantime, i’m doing the best i can with my diet. gd requires you to be a lot more strict than with type 2, apparently, but i can’t find anything specific, so i’m kind of eating according to type 2 guidelines. i doubt i’ll cause him that much harm in one week, but what a pain in the ass.

and i’m updating about the house situation privately.

i just wrote a really long post on the gestational diabetes diagnosis i got at my doctor appointment on thursday, and the pre-eclampsia thing, but accidentally hit the wrong key on this pos laptop i’m borrowing, and lost the entire thing. i’m sure i’ll try updating again, but i don’t fucking feel like it now.

the doctor visit went okay yesterday. little bear was more cooperative, so we got some pictures of his face, and the tech could see the cord a little better. they don’t really see a problem with the cord, but will keep an eye on it. my relief didn’t last long, because it turns out i may have preeclampsia. there was protein in my urine, so now i have to do a 24 hour collection and yet more blood tests. my blood pressure seems fine right now, so i’m trying not to worry about it. still, could there be one trimester in this pregnancy where i don’t have to worry about something? (to review, 1st trimester i was diagnosed with threatened miscarriage, 2nd trimester was diagnosed with marginal/velamentous cord insertion, and now in my 3rd trimester i may have preeclampsia and am also being tested again for diabetes. w00t.)

little bear seems fine, though. i guess he’s measuring pretty large at 3 pounds, and has a giant head. (not like hydrocephalic huge, but big.) according to the tech, his heart is “beautiful.” he seems to have a round moon face like his mum, but i think he’s got his dad’s nose. (i don’t have a scanner handy, but will upload some of the 4d pics at some point.) i’m really looking forward to seeing how he turns out.

i’ve been stricken with yet another uti. after the string of them i had a few years ago, i kind of figured i was done with them. apparently not. i don’t know why the hell i keep getting them when i take all these precautions not to. i can only assume it’s because i get really dehydrated sometimes when i get sick, and i can’t drink enough water to fix it. damn, these suck. and they’re doing construction upstairs which is really loud and grating. after waking up at 2:00 and not being able to get back to sleep thanks to the feeling of fire ants in my bladder, that’s about all i needed to make this day perfect.

oh my god ithurtsithurtsithurts. i’m trying to detox from my meds, thanks to the prolonged overdosing. my cough is starting to improve, but at what cost? it doesn’t help that i’m having really bad cramps and we’re out of ibuprofen. if i can just suffer through it for the next… five hours?! holy shit, this day is crawling. ugh. okay, in five hours, i’ll be at home and will be taking the ibuprofen that sohei has so kindly gone out to get me. we have to go to training tonight for our voter protection gig, or i’d probably just go to bed. man, i’m tired of feeling this awful…

i didn’t get around to upgrading the blog software this weekend. maybe at some point this week…

i went to the doctor on friday to get my fmla forms filled out. according to the office scale, i lost more weight. i told her what has been happening, and she told me to go to the specialist. and i told her that last time, they’d only offered me painkillers, and she said to try going there again, and if i wasn’t happy, she’d refer me to someone else for a second opinion. i started feeling better over the weekend, though. i was able to eat a little, and didn’t get sick afterward. which was weird, because thursday had been particularly bad. i didn’t eat all day, and when i tried to eat dinner, i felt so sick. whatever. i’ll enjoy this period of normalcy while it lasts. and when everything goes to hell again, i can call in sick as much as i want, thanks to those forms. of course, they’re kind of a red flag on my employment records, and i probably won’t ever be able to find work again, but getting written up or whatever would’ve been bad, too.

bloody hell, this shirt smells awful. i didn’t think to sniff it before putting it on this morning, because i got complacent and figured it was clean. but i’ve been slacking pretty badly on doing chores because my job sucks the life out of me and i’m an exhausted husk when i get home. hopefully, if i leave my sweater on all day, no one will be able to smell it.

in other news, i went to the gas station last night, wearing one of my obama shirts, to buy smokes. and the clerk wanted to take a picture of me on his camera phone. i’m not sure why. he was pretty psyched about my obama shirt, though, so i let him.

better run to the bathroom, etc. before my desk shift starts…

after looking into it, the dysentery-like symptoms and abdominal pain (and sudden 8-pound weight loss) point to gall bladder issues. i’m going to the doctor this friday to have her fill out my fmla forms, so i’ll ask her about it then, i guess.

not a lot going on, otherwise. work stuff, election stuff… if it gets final approval, i’ll be doing flex time soon, which means i’ll be working for 11 hours a day, four days a week. they won’t let me have three days off in a row, which sucks, but being off thursday, saturday, and sunday will be nice. we should work four days a week to begin with. for eight hours a day. everyone, i mean. why do we have to spend so much time at work?

ugh, not feeling well again.

it’s been a so-so week. i’ve had some nasty abdominal pain the past couple of days. it kept me up last night. i’m pretty sure it was my gall bladder again. or i have an ulcer. sohei made me feel better by telling me that he’d be willing to get up at any time to take me to the hospital, and i was finally able to fall asleep.

in other news, i was walking from my car to the library when a couple of strange guys asked about my lip ring. and then one said to the other, “dude, she’s so pale. she looks like scully.” and the other said, “dude, i know! she’s hot.” which i thought was pretty funny. it was pretty early in the morning to be that stoned.

ki-san has started to show an undue amount of concern about me and asked that i fill out a questionnaire about how i feel about my job.

and, finally, i spent the evening watching the vp debate. since the only thing palin could have done to appear worse would have been to pee herself or knock the podium over, i assumed it would be considered a win for her, but biden (according to the polls at least) was the clear winner. and obama continues to climb in the polls, particularly in this insane state where i live.

it’s clearly one of those days. work has been a complete bitch, the dentist i’m going to about the lost filling completely fucked me over (above and beyond the $500 this whole thing is costing me), and my doctor’s office won’t answer the goddamn phone. i go straight to hold every time, and sit there for at least five minutes before i get a work call and have to hang up and start the fucking process all over again. i’m about to lose my goddamn mind. i need to get that tooth filled before it requires a root canal, because i can’t fucking afford a root canal. i can’t even afford the filling, but i asked dad to give me my christmas money now to pay for it. merry fucking christmas to me. and i can’t take any more leave until i get my fmla stuff processed, which will take who knows how long. i have to have my doctor fill out a form and all this other shit, then it has to be processed by the university which takes fucking forever. and of course i’ve been getting really sick lately, so it’s the best possible time for this to fucking happen.

can the universe just cut me a fucking break already?

oh. my. god. i hate my body so. freaking. much.

i had to go home early yesterday. as usual, i started feeling better in the evening. i felt okay when i woke up this morning. and then things go steadily downhill. i can’t miss any more work. i’m pretty sure i’m out of leave for this pay period. god, this pisses me off. it’s like i get to work and my body decides that’s the best time to bring on the excruciating gut pain and sickness. and my meds aren’t even touching it anymore. (now that the baby plans are off, i’ve been taking them again.)

sometimes i wonder why everything has to go to hell at once.

oh sunday, you’re always ready to surprise me with some new shitty thing. i was relieved to find that my stomach had settled down this morning. but then, right before i left, i was talking to sohei, and a filling fell out of my mouth. after a lot of whining and hand-wringing on my part, sohei pointed out that as long as i’m not in pain, i should be fine til i can see a dentist. just don’t chew on that side, etc. after all, he pointed out, pieces of his teeth used to fall out all the time. (it’s true. they did.) anyway, of course i don’t have dental insurance. and i’m probably going to have to take time off work to get this fixed. and there’s this big gross hole in one of my teeth that i’m trying not to touch, but it happens. goddammit.

because things just couldn’t get any fucking better, i developed a uti yesterday evening. i get to suffer through an entire day of work with it, then go to the walk in clinic afterward. according to weather.com it’s supposed to rain all evening, too. fan-fucking-tastic.

and i’m stuck on virtual reference so i can’t go pee constantly like i feel i need to. and i can’t even listen to my goddamn music, because the student assigned to the exit desk is completely fucking clueless and i have to listen for her cries for help. then i’m on the desk for an hour before i go to lunch. i’m hoping like hell i’ll be able to go to the bathroom at some point before then. coz if i don’t get bathroom breaks, you know what happens, right? the infection backs up into my kidney. and the last time i had a kidney infection, it took about a year for it to completely go away.

it would be nice if i could stay home today, but you know that’s not going to happen.

fuck it, i’m listening to my music. maybe if i work real hard at it, i can get fired and go on unemployment until we leave this stupid town.

i’ve pretty much been sick all week. i stayed home tuesday and went home after a few hours yesterday. i’d really like to have stayed home today, but i think i ran out of sick time yesterday. if it gets too bad, i’ll just use my personal holiday and go home. i can’t figure out what the problem is, except that i’ve been trying to eat breakfast and lunch, which clearly doesn’t agree with me. also, my gallbladder keeps hurting, so i stopped taking my vitamins to see if maybe that had something to do with it. and then there are the raging menstrual cramps that decided to join the party this morning. i do miss being on the pill. also, i fucking hate my body, in case i haven’t made that clear yet.

at least i managed to download still alive yesterday, so i’ve been cheering myself with that a bit.

after calling all over the place, i finally got a goddamn appointment with my doctor on monday afternoon. and the kindly hr chick said i don’t have to file ada stuff because it’s not a permanent injury. so things should be okay now, but i’m still mad that my shoulder’s fucked up. i was going to write more, but i think i’m supposed to be at a meeting in a couple minutes. and i shouldn’t have been quite so mean about t-sensei, since he wants to help me and all. but i still think we wouldn’t even be in this mess if something was done about my complaint initially.

t-sensei and i had an hour long meeting yesterday regarding what to do about my non-functional arm. i managed to be pretty civil about the reason it got injured to begin with, and we decided i’d be on the help desk rather than circ for the foreseeable future. unfortunately, i have to fill out an ada form and maybe fmla. when i told sohei, he said absolutely not, and that it’s just as bad as filing for worker’s comp as far as future employment goes. he said to just suck it up and do my job.

i called my doctor yesterday to try to make an appointment, so i can at least find out what’s wrong with my shoulder, but she can’t/won’t see me before she goes on vacation. she’ll be gone til july 7th. so i’m going to try to get an appointment with the guy i saw last time. in fact, if he’s accepting new patients, i’m going to start going to him instead. my current doctor’s office staff is mostly incompetent, and i’m pretty irritated that she can’t fit me in for five minutes before she leaves next tuesday. i explained the situation to the nurse, and she was apologetic, but i would have to wait til next month. i’m going to call the other guy this morning and see if his office will at least fax an extension on my rest order.

since i can’t file the ada paperwork, though, doctor’s notes and stuff are largely moot, since we can’t be put on different tasks for extended periods without the forms.

i’m home again today, but at least i made it to the doctor. repetitive stress injury. no using left arm for one week. i’ll be useless at work, but at least i’ll be there. i declined offers of pain meds and muscle relaxants, but picked up some tylenol arthritis medicine on the way home. (it had the highest dose of acetaminophen.) i’m feeling a little stupid because my shoulder still hurts like hell, but the doctor agreed that if i get pregnant, i should just take tylenol. i’m going to go rest now, because the medicine already wore off, and i can’t have more til 9:00.

so i got wii fit the other day. it’s really fun, so far. i’ve been playing every day, and it’s easy to lose track of time. i don’t think it’s like some kind of workout miracle or anything, but it’s made me more active than usual. and i’ve apparently lost a pound or so, so far. i’m still into the whole fat acceptance thing, so i’m not going to stress if i don’t lose weight. but it is good to get some exercise and have fun.

on the first day, i tested at a fitness age of 27, and sohei tested at 44 (!) despite being “normal weight” vs. my “obese” label. we both think it’s pretty funny that i’m more technically fit than he is despite the weight discrepancy, though i know that there are women out there that weigh more than i do that are way more in shape. my balance and flexibility are good, but i still get out of breath way too easily.

anyway, it’s pretty cool. i’ve never looked forward to exercising after work every day until now.

(btw, sohei’s age has been dropping every day. i don’t want him to get mad at me for telling the world about his score.)

hah. t-sensei came up to the desk and wanted to know what i was doing there, and i told him, and he told me he’d find someone else, so i got to leave. he said, in future, i should never have to be on the desk for more than four hours, and i shouldn’t be on the desk four hours except for very rare occasions. he said tomorrow i should tell the supervisor to change the schedule for me to be on for three hours instead. and he’s going to take me to lunch one of these days. hah!

also, i usually confine this sort of thing to the baby blog, but i need any help i can get. (i have yet to find a pregnancy-related forum that doesn’t irritate or sicken me.) i’ve been taking prenatal vitamins for a few days, and on a couple days i was fine after taking them. the other two days, it was awful. i was incredibly nauseous, and last night my stomach actually hurt. like stabbey hurt. i know these things cause nausea and stuff, but i’m thinking that consuming anything that makes me feel that bad can’t possibly be good for me. or a fetus. (at least there’s no fetus that i know of yet, but better safe than sorry.) on the other hand, i hear terrible things happen if you don’t take them. thoughts?

there is not one lenscrafters within a 30 mile radius of this godforsaken town. so i guess i’ll try to make a doctor appointment and see if she’ll send me to an eye doctor. if she does, maybe my insurance will cover it. i hate hmos… of course, maybe i’ll get lucky and she’ll say there’s nothing wrong with me and send me home. i’m definitely opting for the ppo when open enrollment time comes around, even if there’s a deductible.

my eye is still driving me nuts. i assume it’s one of those floaty things, and i think they dissolve. right? it wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t in my good eye, because i rely pretty heavily on it. what with the other one hardly working and all. and, in other health news, apparently, i won’t be able to take my meds anymore. one of them may cause limb defects if taken during the first trimester. (hope i didn’t get knocked up in tampa! heh. ) but i’ll freak out about that in the baby blog.

and poor brumby’s been sick. he’s eating and drinking like mad, and wet the bed the night before last, which he’s only done once before, as a puppy. he also peed on the living room floor at some point yesterday. i’m hoping it’s just a uti and can be fixed with some antibiotics. (though a uti wouldn’t explain the voracious appetite and diarrhea.) he’s going to the vet this afternoon to see what the problem might be. he had to sleep in his crate last night, which we brought upstairs so he could at least sleep in the same room as us. i missed cuddling him, and i don’t think he slept too well. i didn’t sleep well, either, because his collar was jangling through the night. poor little dog. i hope he’s okay.

i guess i’d better get back to work. blah.

i’m a mess right now. the pain in my shoulder/neck is mostly gone, but i got a sunburn last saturday while out and about in the convertible. i was only out for half an hour before getting sunscreen, but i got really burnt anyway, and am now itchy and peeling. then i woke up at 5:00 yesterday morning with a charley horse that somehow managed to radiate all the way from my calf to my butt. i’m still a tiny bit gimpy from that. i’m looking forward to feeling somewhat normal again, that’s for sure.

i’ve been sick in bed with stomach flu since late saturday/early sunday. i tried to go to work this morning, but only lasted a couple hours. so i’m pretty much going to stay in bed and rest til i’m feeling better. so that’s why no updates.

i’ve been trying to get into the body acceptance/health at every size thing, but it’s damn hard. not because i can’t get past being fat, and i think i’m hideous. i actually think i look alright most of the time. the thing is, i fucking hate my body because it doesn’t work.

this morning, i was sick to my stomach. not that this is unusual, but it happens most often after i’ve eaten something. which is why i don’t eat breakfast. nope, it hurt for no goddamn reason. and when that happens, it infuriates me. i couldn’t miss work today. i have this important project estimate to get to t-sensei, and some other thing for someone else. i took my meds, but didn’t stop being sick. the pain was really bad, too. i’ve learned to live with abdominal pain over time, but it will probably never become something i can completely ignore. i took yet more meds (back to o.d.ing on them, and i’m sure feeling it as i type this), screamed obscenities, and kicked things on my way to the door. then i got in the car and cried tearlessly (this is a valuable skill for someone who wears as much eye makeup as i do) and wished i’d just fucking die already.

i hate my body. i try to take care of it, but it doesn’t matter. if i eat healthy, i get sick. if i eat junk, i get sick. i try to maintain some sort of balance, where i don’t eat or drink anything before going somewhere, take enough meds that i don’t get sick but the side effects aren’t too bad, and try to avoid stress. and i still fucking get sick. i still end up doubled over in pain, wishing the hurting would just fucking pass already. and, on mornings like this, i sit in the subbasement, hunched over my laptop, suffering from the pain and the side effects from the meds at the same time.

so i don’t accept my body. i will never learn to love this useless sack of guts and fat and pain. it is pretty much the center of all my worldly misery. if i can escape it by eating myself into a diabetic coma or smoking my lungs into blackened oblivion, fine. i will never be healthy, i will never feel normal, and i’m done trying to pretend that if i just do [insert new waste of time here] i will magically be fine. why the fuck would i want to prolong this?

(no, i didn’t start smoking again, though i’m damn close.)

head… ow… not work good. i stayed home from work today and pretty much slept a lot. and despite it being nine o’ clock, i’m going back to bed soon. the only thing keeping me downstairs on the couch right now is that sohei’s watching the skinny puppy concert dvd, and i can’t seem to tear my eyes away from ogre. if there’s a more attractive human being on the planet, i don’t know who it is. i don’t usually dig on famous people, but god damn, is that man sexay. he makes filth look gooood. i wish we had the dvd from when dwayne was still alive, because he’s a pretty close second.

ugh, et tu, guts?

okay, enough ogre worship i guess. i go sleep more now. or not. i know i’m a hypochondriac and all, but i don’t seem at all well lately. for reals. usually, i have some disease to associate with my psychosomatic symptoms, but not this time. also, i usually get all scared. i’m not afraid. i just hurt really bad in a lot of places pretty much all the damn time and i can’t stop sleeping. it’s kind of like being very depressed, but without the feelings of sad. also, like having a broken rib and stony gall bladder and pancreatitis and cramps and headache and legs and feet hurt hurt hurt. and it makes me so tired. i think i’m not scared of being sick anymore because i kind of wish i’d just never be sick again, you know? like if one of these things were it, that would be fine.

enough of that. i’m tired of sounding emo or whatever. i was wishing i were dead before it was cool, fuckers.

i can’t keep going on like this. i’m so tired. the abdominal pain is getting so bad it’s overshadowing the rib/thoracic pain. add to that the everyday aches and pains that go with my job, and it’s more than i can stand. i briefly dislocated the knuckle of my middle finger yesterday (it wasn’t from over-use – this time.) and today the area between my middle and index finger is bruised and swollen. my new shoes have been giving me blisters, too. and i’m just exhausted.

school started this week, and aside from doing some of the readings, i haven’t got much else done. what with fighting with sohei after work the last two nights, i didn’t have the time or inclination to do any of it. and of course things aren’t going very well at work, either. i’m really close to just dropping this stupid volunteer program. i was supposed to “fire” this moron yesterday, but he only has a couple weeks to finish his hours for probation or whatever. i should have told him to go fuck himself and that it’s not my problem, but i couldn’t. so instead i told him to just hurry up and finish before t-sensei gets back next thursday. when i told one of the supervisors about it yesterday, i could tell he was kind of disappointed with me for not being more firm, and i know a couple of my coworkers won’t be happy about this, either. which sucks, because i really like them. so i know i fucked up, but i can’t really go and fire him now, as i already told him he could finish his hours here.

i’m going to have to manage people when i’m a librarian, you know? and i’m fucking terrible at it. i can’t tell people what to do with any kind of authority, and i can’t fire them. not that it’ll matter much anyway, because there’s no work back home right now. it won’t matter how bad i am at managing if i have no one to manage.

ugh, the coke is doing nothing but making me sick. i’m still falling asleep sitting up, but now with impending sick gut noises. i wish i’d just stroke out and die already. know what would help that right along? smoking.

will this fucking cold ever go away?? bloody hell. i have to go to work tomorrow, too, no matter what, so it’d better. sohei seems to be coming down with it now, too. i guess, as long as it doesn’t turn into pneumonia, i should just be thankful it didn’t happen over the holidays. still, i haven’t done any christmas shopping, and i have a bunch of other stuff to do before i leave that i don’t feel like.

also, i’ve been waiting all day for my damn grade. he said it’d be out today, but nothing. after the close call in my other class, i’d really like to see what i got.

just went to double check and i got an a- for the semester. which is good, because i don’t think i could stand it if i had to put up with more shit right now.

i apparently didn’t have as much sick time as i thought, though. i don’t know what this means, but t-sensei didn’t make it sound like i was in trouble. hard to tell with him, though, as he’s one of those people who doesn’t like to yell or be the bearer of bad news. crap. well it’s not my fucking fault i got sick. maybe if people actually stayed home instead of coughing all over everyone else, it wouldn’t be an issue.

next week had better go a lot more smoothly than this one, or i’m going to lose it. i suspect hormones, on top of being sick, have a lot to do with my current shit attitude, but that doesn’t make it feel any better.

it’s been a day of fantasy and fun. and by that, i mean that i’ve been either sleeping, watching tv, or coughing my lungs up. at 5:00 this morning (after finally falling asleep around 2ish) my cough was so bad that my throat started bleeding and i couldn’t breathe. so i figured a trip to cvs was in order. i got mucinex, cough syrup, and more useless cold medicine, and went home. i took the mucinex with a full glass of water per instruction, and promptly barfed it up everywhere, along with the chili cheese fries i was stupid enough to eat for dinner last night. nothing’s better than cleaning up sick on three hours’ sleep. unless it’s cleaning up someone else’s sick, right, mum? aaaanyway… so i wasn’t sure i should take more mucinex since a) it might have been the cause of the hurling and b) it’s heavy-duty stuff, and i wasn’t sure how much actually made it into my system. i ended up taking some cough syrup and fell asleep again around 7:00. i managed to sleep until around 10:00, then went downstairs to keep from waking sohei. after reading for about an hour, i fell asleep again and woke up at 1:00 when sohei came down, grumbling because i’d let him sleep too late. i’ve pretty much been watching tv and suffering since. no writing today, i don’t think. i need to lay down again.

man, i hate being sick. at least i got sick the week before my vacation. i’ve been getting a lot of writing done, though, coz i had to stay home from work yesterday. and i drove sohei to a party last night, which i didn’t attend because, unlike some people, i don’t like spreading my germs all over the fucking place. he got a ride home, so i didn’t have to drag my ass out for the rest of the night. and today it’s too rainy to go anywhere, even if i wanted to. though i reckon i’ll have to run to the convenience store for more smokes. i’m so glad i’m quitting soon. addictions suck. if i didn’t feel the need to suck down around a pack a day, i wouldn’t have to go anywhere.

and sohei is downstairs sulking and playing his new video game. he’s mad because, instead of ignoring me in the same room, he has to ignore me long distance. whatevs. i get way more done without his game going on in the background.

ooh, i just had a wickedly disgusting idea for later in my story. i love when that happens. it had nothing to do with what i was just talking about, which is typical. i jotted it down, so hopefully i won’t forget it later.

you know what’s marginally worse than a sore throat? snotting everywhere. i hope i feel better tomorrow, coz i need to get my hair cut and pick up some presents for people.

none of this is particularly interesting, so i guess i’ll get back to work.

oh, but one more thing, i forgot to mention. my review at work was really good. but my grades are kind of bad. i got a b- in one of my classes, which is about the worst grade i think i got in library school so far. it was very close to a c, and, as we all know, two c’s and yer out. as long as i got a b in my law class, i should be alright. just one more semester to go without flunking out…

so, what’s gish been up to lately, you ask? or not.

on wednesday, i went to the doctor for my yearly. here’s what i learned: my cholesterol and blood sugars are borderline, my good cholesterol is low, i don’t have syphilis (she says they test everyone for that. i’m suspicious. ), urine tests aren’t particularly helpful when you’re menstruating, and my joints are very flexible. (i actually knew most of that.) she said my blood sugar and cholesterol situation should improve if i walk for 30 minutes every day. and if that doesn’t work, she’ll send me to a nutritionist. i’ve been going to the same doctor for a year, and this is the first time she mentioned my weight, which i totally appreciate. she wasn’t shitty to me about it, either. and she didn’t try throwing pills at me. i really like this doctor. oh, also, i haven’t gained any weight. but eating whatever i want apparently isn’t great for my blood, so maybe i should tone it down a little.

things are going alright on the work front. i’m back to my old project. this is nice because i don’t want to fall asleep the minute i get home, and the soreness is going away. this is slightly bad because i’m back to seeing t-sensei for a couple minutes a day, if that. since my work friend has been working the finals night shift all week, we haven’t really been able to chat, so i guess i’m feeling kind of lonely. i wish i’d volunteered for the all night thing, coz it might’ve been fun. maybe i will for spring, if i’m not too busy.

also, i got a new computer with monitor, and the guy that installed it moved all my stuff over to the new computer, and put my flair on the new monitor when he was done setting up. (i had a lei from the summer luau hanging on it, and a plastic bat on top from the halloween fair.) now that’s service! it has been my experience that, when tech guys come to replace equipment, your flair can end up either tossed aside on your desk or maybe on the floor. i was so thrilled with my new setup that i cleaned my keyboard, key by key. seriously. whoever had it before me obviously never did, because it was covered with green dust. it looked like pollen or something.

anyway, i’d better get back to work. i won’t continue being beloved if i goof off too much. besides, i have a dessert cook-off to enjoy this afternoon.

i hate trying to blog on this stupid computer. the internet always goes out and i lost my post entirely yesterday. anyway…

so the whole peeing in a cup thing went as badly as i thought it would, if not slightly worse. and my arm hurts where the needle was, which is rather unusual. instead of the huge bruise i usually get, i have this painful blue bump. it looks (and feels) like the vein itself is swollen. i would much rather have the bruise because it not only looks cool, but it doesn’t hurt. this freaking hurts. even when i’m not touching it.

and, of course, because my arm hurts, i’m getting put on a new project today that involves a lot of lifting and carrying of things. i can’t just sit here and put things in a spreadsheet like i have been for the past couple of months. no, that would be too easy. and it would sound pretty stupid if i said i can’t do it today because i got my blood drawn. because i doubt it usually makes your arm hurt. it never made mine hurt til today. of course.

this new project is going to totally suck. i have to take all the state gov docs off the shelves in the basement and re-shelve them in the subbasement. this means a lot of dust, a lot of lifting, and a lot of frustration when you discover nothing was shelved right to begin with and a lot of it isn’t even labeled. i don’t know why the student workers and volunteers can’t do this…

i guess i’d better finish what i was doing before my supervisor gets here and i have to stop to work on the shifting project.

i have to get a bunch of tests tomorrow, so no food or anything for 12 hours. and no freaking smoking, either, apparently. i can’t find the instruction i wrote down when i made the appointment six months ago, so i used the internets to find out what i’m supposed to do. apparently, small amounts of water are okay, though i remember this one time i went to have a test done, and the lady flipped out because i’d drank a little water after midnight, thereby making the test results void somehow. so, to be on the safe side, i’m going to take my acidophilus with a tiny bit of water, well before midnight, and that’s it. i didn’t see anything about brushing my teeth, but if chewing gum and smoking are bad, i’m wondering if toothpaste is a no-no, too. what’s really irritating about this is that i know they’re going to want me to pee in a freaking cup (which we all know i hate anyway) but how the hell am i supposed to pee if i haven’t had anything to drink for 12 hours?? and i can’t just not go when i get up, either, unless i want to risk a nasty accident.

in other news, i found this neat website yesterday. warning, though, it’s really addictive. if you’re a vocab nerd. which i am. anyway, you guess what words mean and for each correct answer, you accumulate rice, which will eventually be sent to starving people. so it’s a good cause, you learn something new (maybe), and it’s just fun. i got a bunch of people at work to try it, and now we’re a geeky legion of free-rice-playing zombies. my best score so far was 46/50. i’m a little bit sad that it’s not better, but whatevs.

sobbbbbbbb. i am so close to losing it. four days is far too long to be working on one stupid assignment. i’m going to need a break when this is over, but no such luck. i have to go back to work tomorrow. and i have to go get labwork done on wednesday. hopefully, there won’t be anything amiss, because if anyone tells me to diet, i’m going to have to kill them. (and my yearly is the week after that. yay.) what a fantastic week this is going to be. i hope it at least goes quickly. but, i just remembered my other term paper is due the monday after next weekend, so it’s not like i’m going to get much of a break then, either. this is insane! two weekends without a goddamn break of any kind?? i may ask for this coming friday off, because i don’t think two days is going to be enough time to get this next one done. especially if this term paper is any indication. i am so over this. i wish christmas break would just fucking get here, because i sure need it.

it’s another paper writing day. sohei’s at the law review barbecue, but i’m at home. it’s just as well since my back started seizing up and i feel like crap. i guess i got into a particularly dusty stack of documents yesterday, coz my eyes and nose were really itchy, and now i have a sore throat as well. hooray nasal drainage.

brumby’s hanging out with me, though, so it’s alright. and at least my stomach’s not acting up now. on thursday night i had a flare-up that was the worst i’ve had in about a year. i was in so much pain… god, i sound like i’m 80. whatever.

i did start on that free association thing yesterday, and it was kind of neat, but the internet died and i lost the post. arg.

i guess i’d better get to work.

well, as ahnold once said (and i’ve said, many times), it’s not a tumor. don’t ask how i know, because it’s pretty gross. but everything’s almost back to normal, gum-wise. however, i’m kind of irritated that i had another hypochondria episode for no apparent reason. my social anxiety has been really bad lately, too. but i so don’t want to go back on buspar. i know it’s chemicals and not a matter of willpower, but i’ve been doing so well. i don’t like it when i’m crazy. and i thought that as long as i was working and not stuck at home, i’d be okay. but despite having a job i love, i’m turning into a total weirdo again.

other than going crazy, things are going alright. sohei and i have been getting along, and his trip to tampa may have actually gone well. and things are mostly good at work, aside from the usual lazy coworker stuff.

i want to keep reading though. harry potter is totally addictive and i’m supposed to have this paper written by monday. and the library picnic is tomorrow, so i’d better get my goofing off out of the way. (we all know that i won’t actually get any work done til tonight, anyway.)

i haven’t had a hypochondria episode in a while, so it’s about time for one, right? well, that thing in the back of my mouth, where my wisdom tooth wound used to be, is getting more swollen. in fact, it’s so swollen that when i close my mouth, a tooth on the top touches it. so, being the idiot that i obviously am, i googled oral cancer, and found a picture that looks a lot like what’s going on with my gums right now. i can’t link to the picture, so i stole it and shall upload it here.

mine isn’t quite as large, and is slightly more rounded, so i’m kind of hoping it’s just a cyst. still, it’s annoying, and because i’m always aware of it, i can’t help but dwell on my imminent deformity/doom. i guess that’s what i get for smoking this summer.

holy fuck, my teeth hurt. every time i eat! i flossed and flossed and rinsed and it still hurts. i don’t really have time to go to the dentist now, and will have to wait until i earn a sick day and get my new dental insurance at the library. which should be a about a month from now. ahhh damn. the worst is always at the very back on the bottom right side. this has happened before, too. it comes and goes. it’s obviously getting more persistent, though, so i’m going to have to get it checked out. ibuprofen isn’t helping either… arg.

bloody hell, i feel like crap. i’m at work today, hacking up my lungs. and i can’t stop daydreaming and yawning and i’m so tired. and after i ate, my mouth hurt again. i’m not smoking anymore. at least, not when sohei’s not around. if he smokes this weekend, i’ll probably do it, too, but not by myself. the cough is cold-related, but the smoking ain’t helping. besides, my mouth isn’t usually this painful and irritating (except to others) so maybe that has something to do with it, too. owwwwugggghhhhhh this sucks. smoking, i loathe thee.

i’m home sick today, and bored, so feel free to ignore this. just musing.

reading junkfood science has given me some food for thought. (hoorf hoorf.) i thought about my family history and how it compares to all the studies that come out all the time about the next big thing that’ll kill you.

let’s start with my dad’s side. i know next to nothing about my great grandparents. i think one of them had parkinsons. i also seem to remember that they lived to be quite old, regardless. then there’s my paternal grandfather, who died soon after helping to conceive my dad, when a tractor fell on him. grandma then married one of grandpa’s friends, who adopted my dad as his own. (dad wasn’t aware of this until he was 13.) though his genes have nothing to do with me, i’ll just point out that he has alzheimers and is in his late 70s/80s. he’s not fat and, to my knowledge, never has been, though one of his favorite sayings was “it’s 5:00 somewhere” before downing a drink. and there’s my paternal grandmother, who died in her 50s – i think – from cancer. no one’s sure where the cancer actually started, but by the time she passed away, it was systemic. she was always relatively petite, but, like grandpa, she liked to drink. being a 1950’s housewife will do that to you, or so i’ve heard. (i blame my digestive problems on her, as my aunt and i have them, too.) what have my paternal grandparents taught me? don’t drink too much. and stay the hell away from tractors.

then there’s dad. after a lifetime of outdoor living and multiple sunburns that have stained his skin red, he developed skin cancer in his late 40s. it was in a mole on his neck and successfully removed, though he never went back for a follow up, so we can only assume he’s cancer-free. he also has high blood pressure and maybe high cholesterol, which he’s on meds for. he quit smoking less than five years ago and still drinks a lot of coffee. and chews nicotine gum like a madman. he gained some weight and was fat for about a year, but dropped the weight by getting back to his old jock habits of working out for two hours a day. (i don’t remember how he gained the weight to begin with. maybe a failed smoking cessation attempt.) he eats a lot. his love for dairy is renowned. as a college student, he had a job driving a route for a dairy company, and one of the perks was that he could eat or drink whatever he wanted from the stock for free. he would drink entire containers of milkshake mix. when i lived at home, he would eat twice as much as the rest of us, then finished whatever we didn’t want to eat. and managed to stay thin, somehow. nowadays, i think he looks a bit too thin. probably because he’s always been kind of muscular, and now he’s mostly just skinny. (doing cardio as opposed to much weight-lifting, i guess.) he’s in his mid-fifties now, and seems to be doing alright. i hope he’ll be around for a long time.

now for mum’s side. the only great grandparent i know much about is her grandfather. he was a farmer, which meant lots of exercise, lots of sun. to my knowledge, he never developed anything like skin cancer – or any cancer at all. he was always thin and lanky, despite bacon fat being a staple of his diet. (nothing better that sopping up bacon grease with biscuits as far as he was concerned.) he died when he was in his 90s of “natural causes” which i guess means his body just gave out. the only problem he really had, i think, was senility. but that’ll happen when you’re 90. mum’s dad died in his early 50s from a heart attack. he smoked, and i don’t know about his diet or drinking habits. he wasn’t fat, either, though. (i bet, if you’re actually reading this, you’re starting to wonder how it is that i’m basically the only fat person in my family. i wonder that, too.) anyway, like mum, he died relatively young. my maternal grandmother is still alive, and, i believe, in her 80s. she is the only other person i know of in my family who’s obese. but that came with age. she was always pretty thin until she got older. she has a heart condition and has had a stroke. she’s also borderline hypothyroid, and i may be, too. but she’s outlived two husbands and a child, and seems to be doing alright post-stroke. though i think she forgets things sometimes. (sohei’s dad is the same way, though, and he’s in his 50s.)

as for mum, she was “chubby” as a kid (not by my standards), but was pretty thin throughout her adulthood. in fact, one of the reasons she didn’t want to quit smoking was that she didn’t want to be fat. it worked, i guess. she was plenty skinny when she passed away. so, obviously, she smoked. she had a bit of a drinking problem when i was a teenager, but didn’t hardly drink at all by the time i moved out. her health seemed pretty good except for the chronic smokers cough. i don’t think she had blood pressure or cholesterol or heart problems. she took a preventative aspirin every day, and she was on meds for arthritis, and i think that’s it. then she was diagnosed with lung cancer, and the blood clots she had were though to be caused by the cancer. though smoking causes them, too, so that probably exacerbated it. she ultimately died when one of the blood clots broke lose and caused a stroke.

and then there’s me. my old doctor was convinced that i had borderline high blood pressure, though every other doctor and specialist i go to says it’s perfect. and though my blood tests always came back fine, he was also certain that i could be stricken with diabetes and put me on these stupid diets i could never stick to. so my blood pressure’s good, my cholesterol is borderline bad (though i only got a test for it once, by my old doctor, who seemed to think i was at death’s door all the time coz i was fat.) and my blood sugar was fine the last it got checked. no one in my family, to my knowledge, has ever had diabetes. none of them were what you’d call fat, either, except my maternal grandmother, so it remains to be seen what’ll happen later. though i’m out of shape (i admit to getting winded embarrassingly easily) my lung capacity has been described as excellent. my guts are definitely a problem, but the disease hasn’t been found to cause cancer or any other deadly disease. so it hurts and stops me from living a normal life, but it won’t kill me. so, basically, i’m young and in decent health aside from my guts. and i need to stay away from excessive drinking, smoking (i’ll be quitting again when sohei gets home), and motorized vehicles. but we all already knew that.

a brief glance at sohei’s family is also telling, to me. his paternal grandparents, who smoked and drank a lot, died of cancer. i think they were in their late 50s/early 60s? i never met them, but neither of them looked particularly overweight to me. his maternal grandfather died relatively young, and i think it was also cancer. i don’t know that much about him. but his maternal grandmother is still alive and mostly well, in her 80s, with a heart problem. she, like my grandmother, is obese. sohei’s dad is also obese, and smokes and drinks, but seems to be pretty healthy nonetheless. and sohei’s mum, who is thin like my mum was, is a cancer survivor and has been healthy since being cancer-free for ten years.

in my personal experience, smoking will make you die far too young, and drinking isn’t great for you either. but you can be skinny and still have high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and circulatory problems. for instance, my supervisor is almost half my weight, and her cholesterol is way, way worse than mine. she’s also nearly ten years older than i am. it seems, to me, like age and smoking are probably the biggest indicators of an early death. there will always be weird instances like sudden aneurysms, accidents, etc. oh, and being male isn’t too great, either, for some reason. i don’t even know where to begin to hypothesize about that. but weight, ultimately, seems to have very little to do with any of it. this is what many of ms. szwarc’s posts point to, and from looking at my family’s history and people i know, she seems to be spot on. anecdotal evidence should be discounted, yes, but a lot of studies seem to ultimately support what i’ve seen from experience. you just never hear about them, or the convenient bits are presented in such a way as to distort the study entirely. her blog has taught me to further view media reports – about anything – with a critical eye.

well, it was interesting to me.

i know it’s hard to believe, but i’m determined to be happy. i have so much to feel good about right now. i was reading my new favorite blog, and saw this post. it made me tear up a little. i want to find this woman and hug her. and while this isn’t the kind of music i listen to, mika’s song, big girl (you are beautiful), put a big smile on my face.

i quit dieting about a year ago. i just gave up. i tried so many diets for so long, and it left me 70 pounds heavier than i was when i started. (and i was just fine when i started, too.) in the past year, without dieting, i’ve lost three pounds. while you usually lose that much in a week on most diets, i now just consider it a pleasant surprise when i step on the doctor’s scale. (my scale is still packed away in a box somewhere, and there it shall stay.) at this point, i think my body’s trying to stabilize my screwed up metabolism and maybe level out my weight as well. i’m just going to eat what i want to eat and when, and let my body do it’s thing.

part of the reason i used to diet was because i felt i was letting sohei down. but he made it quite clear on my last visit that my weight doesn’t bother him that much. i tend to shrink away when he tries to touch my belly. (from what i’ve seen on chubby chicks i’m not the only one.) but i’m not going to do that anymore. when he first saw me last weekend, he couldn’t stop touching me. at one point, he tweaked my stomach like he does, and said, “i love my big girl.” and it didn’t make me feel bad. the way he said it and the look on his face didn’t make it feel derogatory; it felt like praise. when i look in the mirror, i’m happy with myself. yeah, i’d be hurt if he called me a fat pig or something, but i am big. i’m fat. (but not a pig, thank you.) and, like some of the ladies in the chubby chicks community, i think we need to start taking some of these words and making them ours. i’m tired of feeling like some kind of lazy failure over something i can’t control. no one should have to starve themselves or suffer because of the way they look. besides, you could be a supermodel and get disfigured somehow, and then where would you be? if you base your entire self-worth on your looks, you’ll have a pretty hard time of it when you get older. we all get wrinkly and, often, pudgy with age. and, frankly, old women whose faces are so tight that their eyes slant, look more ridiculous than a woman with crow’s feet and laugh lines. and botox? sure, make my face expressionless. i’m just here to look at. who cares how i feel about anything?

ms. szwarc is right. fat people get heart attacks and diabetes, but skinny people do, too. we’re all going to age and get sick, but no amount of surgery or lipo is going to make you live forever. and yo-yo dieting (is there any other kind?) can make these diseases worse. i think i’ll just enjoy life and not continue to inflict damage on my organs, even if that means that some people don’t find me attractive.

why is it that just about every time i go to write something positive on here, something shitty happens?

juchan just imed me to let me know that she has a tumor. it may be basal cell carcinoma, between her nose and eye. after the surgeon butchered her damn jaw, i’m not sure i trust anyone there to operate on her face. i don’t even know what to think right now. and i guess i don’t feel like talking about it. i don’t even know whether it would help anything, but i just wish she’d come home.

holy. shit.

i was going to write about this blog over the weekend, but i was in too much of a funk. then, this morning, i read the article i linked to above. i would recommend checking out her blog anyway, but this article is a must-read.

and now, a little backstory on why this upsets me so much:

i have never, ever – even at my most thin – been within “normal” range on the bmi scale. ever. there was even a short period of time during which i was considered “hot” among the male populace, having achieved a weight they considered attractive. even then, i was “overweight” according to the bmi. i’ve always been fat, to some degree or another. when i was a kid, my mum was incredibly strict about having junk food in the house. soda was not allowed at all, except on special occassions. as far as snack food, we got a few chips (sometimes) and one little debbie snack cake packed in our lunch, along with a thermos of 2% milk, fruit, and a sandwich. that was it. we probably ate dessert about once a month, if that. our meals were always home-cooked and healthy. i doubt we went out to eat more than four times a year. dinners were composed of a meat, a veg, and a starch, and we had milk or water to drink. and, except for dad, who ate at least twice as much as anyone else, portions were normal. i would come home from school and watch an hour of cartoons, then, if it wasn’t raining, go outside and play until dinnertime. my eating and exercise habits were what just about anyone would consider healthy for a growing child, and i was still fat. sure, i guess mum could’ve stopped putting snack cakes in my lunch, but would it really have made that much difference? mum was upset about my being fat as long as i can remember.

but at least she didn’t put me on my first diet until i was 14.

the ama committee apparently not only wants to put children outside the normal range on diets, but wants to force compliance on the parents of these children! this isn’t entirely new, of course. i’ve read before about parents being charged with child abuse for letting their kid get too fat. but this particular article creeps me the fuck out because i think you’d have had to literally starve me to get me to a “normal” weight. i was practically starving the first year i lived with chris – and, of course, at my most attractive weight – but was still “overweight.” if this plan had been set into motion when i was a child, i could have been forced onto medication and made to have surgery? this is insane!

i know everyone says that all you have to do to not be fat is eat less and exercise. well guess what? that doesn’t fucking work. i didn’t eat all that much as a child, and hardly any of it was junk. and i played outside all the time, running and climbing trees and riding my bike. and now, as an adult, i eat one meal a day, and it’s not usually that big. i’m not as good about the exercise as i was when i was a kid, but i still try to at least take walks and stuff. and, as far as junk, i have ice cream that’s been sitting in my freezer for a few months now, untouched. my diet’s been mostly convenience food crap while sohei’s away, but it’s not bad when i have to cook for him. i bet if i started a calorie/food diary like i did when i used to diet, i’d find that i’m consuming less than 1200 calories a day. (that’s a little less than what’s typically allowed on a diet. at my weight, on most diets, i’m allowed 1400-1600 calories per day.)

aaand breaking: we’re going to declare bankruptcy, apparently. so i don’t really feel like finishing my thoughts on this. in fact, i feel like shooting myself in the face. you can come to your own conclusions on this absolute fuckery.

my doctor visit actually turned out really well. i didn’t get lost, which was a good start. i was thrilled to learn that i wouldn’t be seeing the scary-looking doctor whose profile i glanced at online last night. i would be seeing the nurse practitioner. and she was awesome! now there’s good news and bad news. the good news is, she’s basically willing to prescribe me just about anything. in the time i was there, i was offered painkillers, psych drugs, etc. as well as her direct line, so i could call for more at any time if need be. they’re lucky i hate drugs, coz i told sohei i could be well on my way to being a junkie. i agreed to the painkillers, however, and that’s where the bad news comes in. there is no medication that will make me “better.” there are things i can take to help with the symptoms, but this will never stop. i will wake up with this every morning for the rest of my life. and a lot of the meds that will help me will also make it difficult for me to work. are you supposed to drive while taking darvocet, because it doesn’t seem like a good idea. i’ve had this problem since i was a kid, but it just seems to get worse as i get older.

but i’m actually kind of proud of myself. i do have a job. a full-time job. i’ve gone to work while in a lot of pain, and just sucked it up and did what i needed to. because i have to. without my paycheck, we’d be in a lot of trouble. gone are the days when i’d get pissed off and walk out, or call in sick because my tummy hurt. i’ve gone to work and put up with abuse while coughing my lungs up or dizzy or in pain. and i showed up to my mandatory classes in tampa, despite having one of the worst flare-ups i’ve had in years. i guess i’m bragging, but i have reason to be proud. i’ve grown up quite a bit. just over a year ago, sohei couldn’t have left me alone for a week, let alone two and a half months. i can drive myself just about anywhere. i can be trusted to go to work everyday. i can buy my own groceries and run my own errands. yeah, it really sucked not having meds of any kind while on my three month probationary period, when i had no insurance, but i did it. and it was worth it. because, even if this never goes away, at least i can manage it, and i don’t have to rely on anyone else to do so.

today at work, i was looking at a map of florida, since i have to drive myself to tampa in a couple weeks. (after the gainesville trip, i’m feeling better about it, even though it’s over twice as long. but i’ve driven this route before.) i’m going to be taking the highway rather than the interstate, so i was mapping the route. because apparently stupid google maps has never heard of a highway. anyway, as i was tracing it, i felt pretty confident. i can totally do this! the only tricky part will be getting from 19 to brandon, but i know i can do it. i’m sure i’ll get a case of nerves as the time approaches but, today, i feel like i can do anything.

i was going to complain that i have to drive myself somewhere new tomorrow morning, alone. but then i realized that sohei wouldn’t have taken me anyway. so.

i hate going to specialists. i’m sure he’ll want to put me through all the damn tests i’ve already been through. i’m pretty easy-going, but when my last gastroenterologist tried to get me to have a bunch of tests done on my upper digestive tract, i had to put my foot down. it’s hard for me to say no, but i don’t have a lot of time or money to waste, and there’s one test i refuse to go through again until i’m 40, as promised by my former specialist. i wish i could just get some medicine that freaking works and be done with it. i already know what’s wrong with me. it’s the same thing that’s been wrong with me since i was born. and sometimes it gets worse, and i can’t leave the house, so i miss work. i can’t miss any more work, so i need a slightly stronger medicine for those times when a safe dosage of my current medicine doesn’t do the job. for fuck’s sake, could it be any clearer? i don’t even know why i have to see a specialist about this. i’m getting kind of tired of doctors acting like i’m an idiot, only to find that, after myriad expensive tests, i was fucking right. ya know, i just remembered that, to keep getting my meds to begin with, i had to have a bunch of awful tests. what a bunch of bullshit. the doctor who first prescribed it didn’t do any tests. she actually listened to me, then gave me the damn medicine. every time i have to go to a new doctor, i’m forced to prove i have what i say i do. it’s not like i’m asking for painkillers or something addictive. arg.

today was my first day without sohei and, unfortunately, it sucked. i woke up at 5:00 this morning, sick as a dog. in addition to my usual, er, lower digestive troubles, my stomach and, what i assume is my small intestine area, felt like they were being stabbed all day. i ran out of ammo, as it were, around 2:00, but am still incredibly weak. i haven’t eaten (and don’t plan to) and have only had a glass of gatorade to drink. my legs are cramping and i have a headache thanks to dehydration.

poor sohei ended up waking up with me at 5ish, but made it to tampa safely with brumby in tow. i miss them already, though i generally like to be alone when i’m sick like this. i had been trying to get excited about being on my own over the weekend, but kind of fell apart this morning. i’d like to blame it on being sick, but when actually faced with a summer sans my guys, i got pretty upset.

i’ll have to finish my post later. my whole body hurts so badly i can’t sit up or type anymore. thankfully, i finally have an appointment with a specialist on the 23rd.

i wish i could say the trip to tampa was nice, but it totally wasn’t. well, parts of it were, i guess. but i’ve been sick since wednesday, and traveling seemed to make it worse. and i think i’d have enjoyed the two days of class more if my stomach hadn’t hurt so bad. the presentations went well enough, though after the second one, the professor said my prototype probably would work better for older kids. which basically meant that most of the work i’ve done all semester is pretty much useless, and now i have less than a week to do an overhaul on it. i think, instead, i’ll just append the work i have with proof that the interface will work with elementary-aged kids. coz there’s no way i can do that much work by friday. besides, she had all semester to point that out, and waiting till this late in the game just isn’t on. i spent the majority of my time back home either working on stuff for my presentations or in class. or getting sick. so i wasn’t able to visit any friends or anything. i did get to spend a couple of hours with my mother-in-law, though, which was nice. i really miss my family. we didn’t get to see my father-in-law, though we did stay at his house. he was at a conference up north.

ughhhhh i just tried to eat lunch, and it’s not really working out. since wednesday, i’ve been eating something small and bland-ish once a day, and even that i can’t handle. i feel nauseous most of the time, but then i get really hungry after not eating for about 24 hours and decide to give it another go. maybe if i don’t try to eat for the rest of the day, i’ll be able to make it through a whole day of work tomorrow. because i got yelled at during my six month review for missing too much work. this is stupid on many levels. 1) until the recent unreasonable onslaught of accounts due to being understaffed, i was keeping up with all my work just fine. in fact, i’m still doing alright, and i’m the only one in my department who’s received their bonus every month. 2) i work through lunch almost every damn day (because i can’t eat) and don’t put it on my time sheet. i have more than made up for the hours i’ve missed, and i’m not even getting paid for any of it, including sick time. 3) i have a valid medical problem and i do the best i can in spite of it.

i’ve been up for almost three hours now. my stomach is still causing me agony, and i keep breaking fevers and sweating like mad. i think i might be able to put up with this if my guts weren’t making this constant, disgusting noise. it’s really loud and makes me feel even more sick, if that’s possible.

i’m hoping that all the shit i’ve been putting up with lately will be worth it when we go on our final house hunt this weekend. (we’re going even if i have to be wheeled around on a fucking gurney with an i.v. in my arm.) i think i have found the perfect house, and i’m seriously considering just putting an offer on it, because apparently you can do that and pull out within ten days without penalty. though i’m not completely sure i believe that, which is why i haven’t done it yet. it doesn’t seem like a good idea to offer to buy something that expensive without at least looking at it first. so i risk it being gone by the time i get there. in fact, there is a pretty good chance it will be under contract by this saturday, considering the way things go up there.

wow, i’m getting really dizzy and sweaty so i guess i should go back to bed, even if i can’t sleep.

i still feel like shit. but at least my temperature isn’t 103 anymore.

i got an email from my supervisor yesterday telling me that i’ve missed too much work since she’s been there. (she says three days in three months.) she sent the email to the big boss as well, which was completely unnecessary. so i happily made use of the “reply all” function to point out that she was full of shit, for the benefit of our boss. i took the liberty of copying her email and my reply, below. (my notes are in brackets [ ] .)

(more…)

15 years without vomiting, and i manage to do it in front of 100 people. let’s just say i did not make it to the msi concert. and i was up all night throwing up. and now i’m really tired and dehydrated. and sohei is mad at me because we missed the concert and i gave him the bug, coz he’s throwing up this morning. and it rained on our damn picnic yesterday afternoon, and pretty much rained the whole time we were supposed to be away during the useless open house.

i’m getting really, really tired of absolutely nothing going right in my life, ever.

ever since i started this diet (yesterday) any time i eat something sweet without eating anything else, the first bite makes my mouth hurt. like my tongue/salivary gland area. i’m not sure whether it has anything to do with the diet, but it’s the only life change i’ve made since yesterday.

oh, and i lost three pounds. in one day. i’m thinking perhaps the scale must have been reacting to atmospheric conditions or something, because there’s no way i could have lost that much weight at once. i’m going to weigh in before i head off to tally tomorrow and see if it was a fluke.

by the way, i guess i won’t be checking in til i get back, so no updates til friday night or saturday or so. unless it’s a phone pic post or we actually have wireless internet at the hotel. we won’t have my poor darling puppy, i know that. he’s staying at his own hotel this time. sohei insists he’ll have fun, but i know the employees won’t, as i’ll be calling every ten minutes or so to check on him.

i should get depressed more often. i keep having these great dreams about hot musicians. last night i had a too short visit from jim marcus. well, we all know how i get in the springtime.

i finally just went out and bought the shangri-la diet book, since there isn’t a library in all of florida that would send it to me. it took an afternoon to read, and i’m drinking my sugar water as i speak. type. whatever. i’m going to go out and buy the oil soon, but i’m waiting to hear back from sohei so i can finish our loan application. this is probably the weirdest diet i’ve ever tried. nothing else has worked, though, so we’ll see what happens.

the past few days have sucked pretty hard. i’m still in a lot of pain, thanks to one of my wounds getting infected. over the weekend, i was in so much pain i wanted to cry. i felt like i was going to throw up. i haven’t been sleeping well, and on sunday night i didn’t sleep at all. so first thing monday morning i called the dentist and went in right away. the lower right extraction site was looking pretty ugly so he irrigated it and sent me home with new prescriptions for painkillers and antibiotics. because the antibiotics i was still taking weren’t working. it’s funny how about half the antibiotics i take don’t work. i’m probably going to die of a simple infection one of these days… so i’m only supposed to be taking four of the new painkillers per day, but it’s been more like six. i typically follow prescription directions to the letter, but i’m already in agony half the time as it is. i reckon if this is how badly they’re working, they’re not hardcore enough to seriously injure me. and, besides the pain, my mouth feels all funky from rinsing with salt water all the damn time, and i still have bruises on my cheeks/jawline. this fucking sucks, and if it doesn’t get better soon, i’m going to flip the fuck out. the stitches have pretty much all dissolved, too, so i’m assuming the remaining pain is due to lingering infection. at first i thought it was dry socket, but the dentist didn’t think so. i’m going back on thursday for a checkup, so we’ll see what the hell is going on in there.

anyway, i’ve also been staying home from work, which is kind of good, because i’ve had a lot of stuff due in school. i had a big paper with presentation due on monday. i spent days on it, instead of an afternoon, because i couldn’t concentrate. besides the subject being shite, i was in so much pain that i just wanted to sleep. on monday evening, still working on the fucking thing, i finally just lost it. i hadn’t slept at all the night before, the painkillers weren’t working (as usual), and i knew the paper was terrible, but it was due in a few hours and i couldn’t start over. so i just closed it and turned it in, as-is. so much for my straight-a record, but if i manage a ‘c’ in that class thanks to that idiot paper, i’ll be happy just to pass. i’m not even going to talk about the presentation aspect. then today i had this weird final project that would have been fun if i wasn’t constantly wishing i was dead. so my finals are kind of half-over now. i have to do some kind of participation thing for three classes, a paper, and a final exam. i will be so, so glad when next friday is over. it will be the end of the semester, and hopefully i’ll be back to feeling halfway normal by then.

anyway, i have to pop more pills and lie down before i lose it and put myself out of my misery.

jaw hurts sooo bad. sooo hot. sooo swollen. but sooo sick of not eating solid food…

i’m really, really stressed.

yesterday, i got the news that my job’s been made redundant. the woman they’re hiring to take over for my supervisor, is, in fact, taking over for everyone. the morning guy is leaving anyway, but the two evening girls are s.o.l. the big boss called me into his office to discuss the possibility of my working from 4-7 or 5-8 monday through thursday. in other words, my hours have been cut in half. of course, right in the middle of telling me this, he gets a call and sits on the phone for ten minutes, leaving me to wonder what the hell is going on and whether i’ll still have a job or not when all is said and done. after he finished his call, he asked whether i’d be staying on, and i said i’d have to ask my husband. frankly, i wanted to just leave, go back to the library to get my bag, and tell my immediate boss/supervisor, whose leaving has caused this mess, thanks and go to hell for not bothering to give me any sort of warning about this. i did question him when i got back, and he insisted he’d had no idea about it. so i left early (it was at the end of the day, anyway, so it was only by about 10 minutes) and talked to sohei when i got home. he told me to just stick it out coz it’ll look good on my resume to stay at the same job longer than six months. so i was going to tell the big boss today that i’m staying, and ask a couple of questions, but he couldn’t be bothered to meet with me once in the four hours i was at work today. i left a post-it on his door and came in early and everything but i guess he had more important things to do than talk to me for two minutes.

usually, i’d make such a post private, but i really don’t give a fuck. i’ve put a lot into this job, i’m the only one that can actually do anything (how fucking hard is it to check books in and out for fuck’s sake??) but it doesn’t matter. this is the same place that insists on six weeks’ notice when you’re going to leave, but it’s okay for them to just drag you into an office, out of nowhere, and inform you that your hours are literally being cut in half, and your co-workers laid off entirely? after you – and the other assistants – were told specifically in an email that the supervisor leaving would have no impact on your employment? well i knew from the minute he handed in his resignation that it would fuck everything up. i told sohei that new boss = mass layoffs, which he already knows from experience. i guess i’m lucky to have a job at all, but i’m wondering if it’s even worth the damn gas money. i’ll keep it, because my resume already looks like shit thanks to the fact i can only ever manage to keep a job 3-4 months. but i feel like i’ve been completely screwed over and lied to, and i feel awful for the evening girls.

on top of all of this, i still have to go to the dentist tomorrow to get my teeth pulled. sohei told me that the pill i’m taking before i go in will make me so woozy that i won’t even remember being at the dentist. this did not make me feel better. there’s a reason i’ve never done anything stronger than pot (except the one time): i like to remember being places and doing things. i do not like not being in control. i don’t like having entire gaps of time where i have no idea what’s happened. it’s bad enough that i’ll be iv sedated during the procedure, but to not remember the trip there or anything? no, i do not like it, sir. i also don’t like that i’ll already look like a moron, thanks to not being allowed to wear makeup, besides bumbling around like a sleepy, stoned idiot. wonderful. i guess i should be thankful that i won’t remember any of it, but i’m really not. and i don’t even want to think about the pain i’ll be in when it’s all over, assuming everything even goes right. with the way things have been going recently, i’m not counting on anything.

and i’m not even going to say much about school. except that i picked a really, really bad time for my surgery. what with having a bunch of huge projects and finals going on for the next couple of weeks, including a major project due on monday and another one that’s only available between tomorrow and monday/tuesday. it’s not like i’m procrastinating for the monday project, for once. i just can’t think of a decent topic related to medical informatics that i could write 15 pages on. with slide show. or whatever. if i could just think of a damn topic, i could probably have it done in an afternoon or so. well shit.

and i won’t talk about getting ready to move at all.

i need a fucking vacation. now.

i’ve avoided talking about this, but it’s starting to stress me out, and sohei won’t even let me mention it around him. but i have to get it off my chest somehow… i have an appointment with my gynecologist on monday afternoon to find out why i haven’t had an, erm, visit, in three months. (well, actually, i kind of spotted during that week the first two months, but last month nothing happened at all.) there are a lot of reasons this could happen: stress, medication, etc… it’s pretty irrational to think that i could be pregnant. but if i am… what then? sohei probably won’t be able to go to law school. i may not be able to finish my degree. not to mention, in the past three months, i’ve been taking prescription meds, cold meds, and sporadically drinking. i know it’s silly to worry about something that only happens about 1% of the time to people like me. but when you can’t talk about something, it seems to make it feel worse and more worrisome. (and before you ask why the hell i haven’t just picked up a test from the store, i begged sohei to let me get one after my second irregular month, and he said to just have the doctor test me.) anyway, i guess it’s not like i worry about it constantly, but when i think about it, i start going through all the possible scenarios. i’d be lying if i said i didn’t want it. even though it’s really not a good time. (gee, too bad i have a choice. i wish the government would hurry up and start making all my decisions for me. then i wouldn’t have to worry over it at all. ) oh well. now that i’ve actually talked about it, i can probably be more rational now. if it turns out that the near-impossible has happened, i’ll just worry about it then. either way, i’ll know on monday.