Health – Page 4 – Not Content to Crawl

All The Other Things

Posted onAugust 19, 2021August 19, 2021

Figured I’d post a mish mash of things that have happened recently. I really only keep up this blog for my own memories at this point so if you find this boring that’s why.

Sat 8/7 – We tried Wendy’s breakfast for the first time in years because T-Mobile Tuesday had a deal where you get a free breakfast sandwich with any purchase. I got the Maple Bacon Chicken Croissant and a small order of Seasoned Potatoes. I thought the sandwich was pretty good. Reminded me of a chicken version of McDonald’s McGriddles. So good, but not great. But those potatoes were amazing! They remind me so much of the potato wedges KFC used to have. It’s too bad you can only get them during breakfast. I might have to plan ahead so I can get some in the morning, grab some KFC in the afternoon, and reheat the wedges in the air fryer.

Sun 8/8 – Our neighbor came by asking if we’d like to pick some tomatoes from his garden since he had too many. Joe picked four and we used most of them to make the most delicious bruschetta.

Wed 8/11 – The Woodman’s finally opened by us on Tuesday, August 10th, so we headed over there the next day around 8 am to check it out. Observations: there’s no deli (weird), they only take Discover (in addition to debit and cash), the liquor store has a separate entrance but can also be accessed via the store, but you have to pay for everything there separately, their selection is off the charts. Needless to say, we spent an hour going up and down the majority of the aisles. It will definitely be a place we shop at often, particularly because they’re open 24 hours.

Thu 8/12 – Took my Crosstrek to the dealer to address two recalls and was given an Outback loaner. Observations: I like the dual climate control but found the radio annoying to operate, and the fact that all the controls had to be done on the screen other than adjusting the temperature. The Auto Start-Stop feature to conserve gas is hella annoying because the car would jerk when starting back up. If my car had that I’d be disabling it real quick. I did like that the doors automatically locked once the car reached 15 MPH, though, and you could open the door from the inside without having to unlock the door first. That’s the single most annoying thing about my car and I still don’t understand how me having to manually lock and unlock the doors is supposedly a safety feature. It’s stupid!

Sun 8/15 – We got up early to visit Herrick Lake & Danada Equestrian Center in Wheaton. It’s been years since visiting either one.

At Herrick we saw a Tussock Moth caterpillar, a Cedar Waxwing, and heard woodpeckers and blue jays, which I was able to identify with the Merlin Bird ID app. They recently added a feature where you can have it listen to birds in the area and give you a possible match. It’s remarkably accurate.

Most of the horses at Danada were eating in a pasture not really accessible to the public (and had their eyes covered which I thought was interesting; I read it has to do with flies). There were two in the barn that we saw, and we were visited by two curious barn cats too, and saw some barn swallows, although I wasn’t able to get a good photo of them.

Later in the day we decided to make one of the Vito & Nick’s pizza we picked up at Woodman’s and when I tell you that we were blown away by how good it was I am not exaggerating. We’ve never had a better frozen pizza. The amount of toppings they add is insane!

Each slice is very filling even though the crust is thin. We intend to keep one on hand at all times for lazy dinner days.

Tue 8/17 – I met my friend, C, for lunch at Culver’s to catch up. We initially sat outside, at my request, because that Delta variant of COVID has got me worried and I’m not really comfortable being indoors without a mask, and that’s kinda hard to do when you’re eating. Unfortunately, a few bees found our food very interesting, so we were forced to retreat inside to get away from their relentless buzzing around us.

We were planning on visiting my friend, K, today, and we usually get Culver’s, so I decided to have something different than a burger during this visit, and got the Rueben. It looked better than it was, although it wasn’t actually bad. It was average, I’d say. I would eat it again, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to do so.

After we had been at the restaurant 45 minutes I asked my friend if we could go back to my place since I wasn’t comfortable being there any longer (it was getting busier) so we hung out at the house until she left around 3:15. Right before she left we were standing by the patio door hoping to see a hummingbird but none came by. I told her they’ll probably come right after she leaves, and that’s exactly what happened. Not only that, but I pointed out that they don’t seem to like the new red Pentas we recently got, and of course now they do! Are they trying to make me look bad?

Wed 8/18 – We decided to check out Warrenville’s farmer’s market and spent nearly $40 between blackberries ($4), veggies ($5.50), sweet cheese pierogi ($12/dozen), a gigantic cinnamon roll ($4.25), and two rolls ($12 total) from a food truck called Roll With It.

The Oreo roll is on the left and a caprese roll is on the right. We really liked the Oreo one and the other one was ok, but not good enough we’d get again.

I made some icing for the cinnamon roll by mixing powdered sugar, milk, and a little almond extract. It came out delicious, particularly because Joe heated the roll in the air fryer before we added the icing.

We used the poblano and yellow peppers to make southwestern stuffed peppers for dinner. They came out amazing, particularly the poblanos.

We are looking forward to making them again soon.

Today we were supposed to head to K’s house for a puppy play date but Wookie isn’t feeling well so we’re taking it easy and keeping an eye on her. I fed her some canned pumpkin mixed in wither her wet food, which she loved, so hopefully that will help her belly. She’s currently lying on the floor right next to my chair.

General Stuff

My left shoulder is still slowly getting better. I can almost raise my arm all the way up, reach behind my back again, and sleep on it with minimal pain. Crazy how long it’s been since these issues started – a year now, I believe.

We haven’t been using our master tub/shower in the last month because the drain hole is messed up and Joe is having a tough time removing it to replace it. We are planning on using this opportunity to redo the master bathroom. It’s sorely needed – the tub is old, the grout in the wall tile is falling apart and I fear water has gotten behind it and might be harboring mold, and the grout in the floor tile is coming apart even though Joe redid that a few years ago. Might as well do a full gut and install all new stuff. We’ve been dragging our feet on it though because picking out materials is stressful! I can’t decide if I want to do a shower surround or do tile again. Tile would definitely look better, but the wall surround would be easier to keep clean.

Vaccinated

Posted onMay 21, 2021

As of yesterday we are both considered fully vaccinated! Guess we can go back to licking doorknobs now. ;)

We both got the two shot Pfizer vaccines – Joe got his first shot 8 days ahead of mine and I got my last one on May 6th so we are officially as vaccinated as you can get. We feel lucky that our side effects were mild. We both had sore arms at the injection point, and Joe had a little muscle/joint pain after the first shot, but for the most part that was it. We both had some Body Armor waters (like Gatorade) after our shots and I made a point to work out and keep my arm moving too which I think helped. I was worried it might make my tinnitus worse since I stumbled upon a site where many people claimed theirs worsened shortly after their shot, or tinnitus started when they never had it to begin with, but luckily I haven’t noticed a difference.

I’ve read that many people aren’t going back for their second shots which I think is a mistake. I believe it’s because they had concerning side effects after the first shot. Everything I’ve gathered indicates that people who’ve had COVID in the past have worse side effects after the first shot and those who haven’t have worse ones after the second. It checks out with E, at least, because he had COVID last year and felt really crappy after his first shot.

The CDC recently announced new rules around wearing masks, particularly for those who have been vaccinated, but seeing as how no one is requiring proof of vaccination, this is just open season for the anti-mask anti-vax morons to do whatever they please. Many stores, including Costco, Target, and Menards have already changed their policies giving people the option of whether to wear a mask. Luckily so far everyone in our area is still wearing them, and I personally think the CDC is making a big mistake. Unless of course they WANT the liars to catch COVID and possibly die.

I don’t know why they had to make these changes now. We haven’t even reached a 50% vaccination rate in this country yet. Are we ever going to achieve heard immunity? Not at this rate with so many people acting completely stupid about this virus. I never realized how many idiots were in this country until this past year. I honestly thought people were smarter, and less selfish, than they’ve proven themselves to be. It’s really disheartening.

Mystery Illness Recap

Posted onFebruary 15, 2021April 5, 2025

I’ve been promising for awhile to write about my health crisis and how I “recovered”, but I’m not really sure what I can add to some of my previous entries, so this will probably be more of a summary than anything in case anyone is curious or god forbid ever suffers from the same thing.

To recap, back in May 2019 I started having some strange things happen to me, including the most bizarre “panic attack” I’ve ever suffered, while at work no less. I had a brain MRI and neck x-ray, both of which came back unremarkable. I continued to have crazy symptoms that seemed to get worse whenever I was at work. They were stripping and re-staining the wood doors throughout the building at this time. They were doing the work in an unventilated space above the office space and the smell from the fumes was noticeable. I tried my best to work with management, but in the end they wouldn’t allow me to work from home while this project dragged on for months and my health was declining, so in mid June 2019 I quit. My boss seemed shocked/angry the day I came in and gave my notice effective immediately. I really don’t understand what he expected, but I couldn’t give the standard two weeks notice when each moment in that office made me sicker. The company fought my unemployment claim, but in the end I won because I did not willingly leave – they created an environment I could no longer work in.

I subsequently suffered a litany of debilitating symptoms that no doctor or specialist could help me with. I spent SO MUCH MONEY that year pursuing a diagnosis. It was bad enough that I was in pain every day, but my future looked hopeless. Every single day my body was vibrating internally, I had no appetite, I was anxious at a level I’ve never experienced before, and which became worse the second a dose of xanax wore off. I could not go into public places because the lights were too bright, everything sounded too loud, and my body would just start shaking. I’d get in the car and break down crying because I couldn’t understand what was happening to me. I couldn’t sleep because my tinnitus was too bothersome, and on top of that, any pressure to my head/body would result in horrible pain, mostly in my upper back, neck, shoulders, and the back of my head. At one point I was getting less than three hours of sleep at night. I couldn’t concentrate on anything so I had all this time on my hands but no ability to entertain myself. Being in the house all the time felt like torture but going out was even worse so I was stuck. I tried countless combinations of supplements and nothing was making any difference. Nor was adopting a gluten-free, dairy free diet. I literally wanted to die rather than live like that (and I didn’t list even half the symptoms I was having such as muscle twitching, burning feet, hair loss, etc).

I started researching the mind/body connection and how you could talk to your body to make it heal itself. I started doing it nightly. Around this same time (approx. February 2020), I also started taking these three items – Emergen-C, Florastor, and Genius Mushrooms and stopped taking everything else (other than liquid vitamin D). Slowly, between Feb and Mar 2020, I started feeling more and more normal again. I really can’t say whether it was what I was taking, the self-talk and brain-training app I purchased and used daily, or pure coincidence. It certainly wasn’t anything any doctor did because they had no clue what was causing my issues. Around this time I also bought supplements to start self-treating myself for possible lyme disease but never ended up taking them because I was feeling better daily without them. If it aint broke, don’t fix it! I’m still taking those four supplements daily because I’m afraid to stop. I believe the Florastor has helped my reflux and is the main reason I don’t have reflux-triggered panic attacks in the middle of the night anymore. What’s interesting is I took a generic version of Florastor and didn’t reap the same benefits. So while Florastor is expensive, it’s worth it to me (and I do get a little discount by buying a four month supply at once from Costco).

As it stands now, I still have the tinnitus, but it’s more tolerable because my sound sensitivity went away. My ears still sometimes react to noises, but I’m working on treating that with a new ENT who actually knows what she’s doing instead of treating me like my symptoms are crazy. It’s most likely a result of Eustachian tube dysfunction. Just a strange manifestation of it that all the ENTs I saw, including my current one, has never seen. But she took me seriously and figured it out anyway. Yay for thinking outside the box!

My sleep isn’t always great, but it’s way better now, the chronic pain I was dealing with daily completely disappeared, and I haven’t felt any crushing anxiety in nearly a year now. I live in fear that my health will go wonky again out of the blue someday, though. I could have never imagined such things until they actually happened. I’m just so incredibly grateful that I’ve largely recovered from whatever the hell it was that robbed me of nearly a year of my life without any answers and that I can find joys in things again. I’ve also gained back all the weight I lost when I was sick and am back to 130 lbs (whereas I was 103 lbs at my lowest) because I eat whatever I want now and my appetite returned in full force. I have been walking on the treadmill regularly to help combat this, but it’s a struggle. I would rather be overweight and feel normal, though, than ever be that thin yet sick again.

Another thing that came of the mysterious illness is a crushing realization that I’m never going to get the emotional support from my immediate family (parents and siblings) that I crave. I kinda always knew this, but this whole experience drove the point home when no one checked in on me. Same goes for some so-called friends who I opened up to about what was going on with me and never contacted me again. It’s been hard to reconcile how little I mean to these people, but now I just need to focus on how I stop letting it eat me up inside and instead focus on the people who DO care about me and show it (like Joe and a small handful of people).

T-Rex Arm & Boobies

Posted onFebruary 3, 2021February 5, 2021

Monday (2/1) I saw a shoulder surgeon about my range of motion issues with my left arm. I’ve been going to physical therapy but haven’t seen much improvement, although pain wise it has been better. He diagnosed me with a frozen shoulder, which is what everyone suspected all along, but it was good to get confirmation. They took x-rays to rule out arthritis, and he doctor explained that if it was a tear he’d be able to physically manipulate my arm, but he couldn’t because it’s stuck. He said if we focused on stretching that eventually it would unfreeze and I’d get my full range of motion back. It’s a long process, though, that can last upwards of a year. This began in August of last year so who knows when it will be back to normal. The doctor’s assistant, Dan, gave me a cortisone shot in the shoulder to help reduce pain so my PT can stretch me out more without me being in agony. I really like her. Or I guess I should say them since I’ve been going back and forth between two very lovely women, one of which does dry needling on the area too. They have been my main source of in-person socializing. We’re always joking and whatnot. Yesterday they even sent me home with a slice of cookie-cake from a birthday celebration one of their assistants had. It was covered in frosting and very good too!

The shot was painful, but after the trigger point injections I got in 2019 I can tolerate the pain. The only thing I didn’t like was how the doctor lowered his mask twice to speak. Dude, I can hear you fine, damn! The assistant didn’t do that, though, and spent more time with me, so overall it was fine.

Today (2/3) I had to go back to the hospital for a follow-up mammogram and ultrasound because my right breast looked different on the screening mammogram I had last month. My obgyn told me not to worry since this is quite common, so I actually didn’t think about it much. And he was right – it was nothing to worry about. In fact, after doing the second mammogram they decided an ultrasound wasn’t even necessary, so now someone is gonna owe me some money since I paid my out of pocket portion at the hospital this morning in full ($389). I called their billing department when I got home but they don’t have anything in the system yet, so I’ll need to call back on Monday. I’m sure we’ll figure it out but let that be a lesson to me – only pay the deposit next time instead of the full amount due. I guess I wasn’t expecting them to see everything they needed on the new mammogram. Perhaps I wouldn’t have had to come back in had the original woman been more thorough then. Hard to say, though. This new lady took more angles and took her time. She explained too that the doctor who looked at the scans compared them all the way back to 2012 and didn’t see any differences to warrant an ultrasound.

The one thing that stood out to me this week is how in neither scenario was I asked if I could be pregnant, nor did they shield any other part of my body from radiation. Is this suddenly not a standard practice, or is someone dropping the ball? Usually when I’ve gotten x-rays they would at least ask, and have me wear a shielded apron. They had me do it for my mammogram last month, so that is weird. I guess now that I’m 45 it’s like fuck her uterus?

Ok, I actually took a second while typing up this entry to see what the deal might be, and apparently there’s good reason they don’t shield you during scans anymore. This article eases my mind.

Life Update

Posted onDecember 22, 2020

Yikes, it’s been awhile, hasn’t it? I’ve been so busy, haha!

Ok, the crappy stuff out of the way first –

Unemployed
As of January 15th Joe will be officially unemployed. We knew this was coming for months since his company decided to eliminate his department. He will be getting a generous bonus for staying until the end, plus severance which includes his company covering our insurance premiums through May. His company has been good to us so he’s been looking internally but so far nothing has come up. He is also looking externally but between COVID and it being the end of the year he’s heard nothing back from anyone at this point.

Left arm issues
A few months ago my left arm started giving me trouble. Mostly it would just hurt if I tried to grab/reach for something. I figured it would just eventually go away on it’s own. It did not. In fact, it slowly lost it’s range of motion and now I can’t even lift that arm up past my chest or put it behind my back. This has made washing my hair or shaving my armpits difficult. I saw my doctor (really the nurse practitioner since the doctor is always so busy) and she determined it was likely a rotator cuff issue which could progress into frozen shoulder syndrome. Yay!

I’ve been going to physical therapy since the at home exercises I was given by the nurse weren’t making any noticeable difference. PT has been good, especially once another therapist started dry needling the area. The pain is much less since then and even my range of motion has improved ever so slightly. It still blows my mind that I just can’t move that arm normally anymore. Hopefully it’s just a temporary issue. I have to wonder if moving a bunch of cases of water to prep for our spare room makeovers is what started all this.

Ok, now on to the positive stuff –

Master Bedroom Renovation
Our bedroom makeover has been “done” for awhile but I haven’t posted it because we were on the fence on whether to replace all the furniture. It could use a refresh, as it’s 16 years old at this point. Many of the clips in the dresser drawers have long since broken, so if you pull the drawers out too far they fall out of the track. We are tired of how high up the bed is in the frame, plus I am really starting to hate the footboard. We went to IKEA weeks ago but nothing really struck us, nor did Ashley furniture. So we’re at a standstill right now.

We did get a beautiful shag rug and matching runner and small rug for inside the closet. Speaking of, Joe still needs to install our new mirrored closet door. He’s going to install molding around the opening first, though, because the builders left it rough and just did a really crappy job. It will look much nicer when he’s done. I don’t think I have a before photo, though, which is a bummer. We didn’t put the bed back into the frame so that is hanging out in the loft right now. Wookie can get on and off the bed easier with it being closer to the ground which is nice. I predict the bedroom won’t be fully finished until spring. In the meantime, I am loving the lighter colored walls (we went with Sandstone Cove by Behr, which is the same color in the loft). The bedroom is just way more inviting now. During the day it’s so nice and bring in there, particularly because we haven’t put the blackout curtains back up. I tend to wake up at sunrise anyway so there really isn’t a need for them now.

Wookie’s Health
Wookie has had this bile vomiting issue for as long as we can remember. It usually occurred in the mornings and the vet suspected it was tied to her having an empty stomach and the digestive juices upsetting her stomach. We’ve tried changing dry foods and limiting her treats to narrow down the culprit since some things seem to trigger it more than others (such as dental chews, of course). When she had two bouts of mysterious diarrhea this year we noticed when she was on the special canned food diet her vomiting stopped. So we’re in a trial run right now to see if it was a fluke or not. Unfortunately the food is hella expensive (a week’s supply is $23) so if it does the trick we’ll have to see whether it’s just the dry food that’s the issue and see whether we can find a more frugal food. It would be nice to no longer suffer from the anxiety of worrying she’s going to vomit on the nice new rugs or damage the new flooring if she vomits and we don’t notice right away. She seems not too bothered by the vomiting but I’m sure she too would be happier if it stopped.