Friday, September 10, 2010

Recoveries and Excessive Sweating

We are having a great time with my mother in law visiting.
We are dragging her around Florida and showing her everything we can within a week.  

I can't believe it is already Friday; she will be leaving on Sunday.

She recently had a knee replaced and is recovering from surgery. I feel sort of bad.  She is not a complainer ~ I worry that we are wearing her down.   She'll probably need to go home to recover after we are finished with her.  

She watched Maggie the other day as I went to the doctor (it is SOOOO helpful to have one more person around here).  I had X-rays done on my back, hip and chest last week and I needed to go over them.  I was also scheduled for a in-office breathing test.    

The chest x-rays were for the cough I have been messing around with for months and months.  I was convinced I had cancer because, well, my mother introduced that thought into my mind and I ran with it.

Instead, it was a rather ordinary little bout of asthma...something brought on possibly by  Florida allergies.  I have never had allergies before.  

I picked up the inhaler last night at Publix pharmacy.  

I looked on the front of the prescription bag and apparently my insurance "saved me $189.03."  That's out of freaking control.   

 I had a bad attitude about the asthma diagnosis all along, like, "This is stupid.  I don't have asthma.  I just need some more of that wonderful cough medicine that makes me clean my house until it shines!"  

I took three puffs from the inhaler, however, and within ten minutes I didn't feel like I was choking anymore.  It was sort of amazing.  I could breathe.   I turned to my mother-in-law.  "I can breathe," I exclaimed, like a complete geek.   

She just smiled politely.  She has been smiling politiely a lot this week.  

It has just happened that she has visited during a week that I have PMS and has seen me at my absolute worst.  I know she feels a lot of pity for her poor son probably regrets his choice in marrying a raging bitch.  

As I have gotten older,  the PMS has gotten worse, I swear.  I feel like my skin is crawling and I just want to scratch  someone's face off.  That person is usually Chris.   

Every month, I am usually confused about my increasingly crazy  behavior until I get the email notfication from http://monthlyinfo.com/

It is such a sweet little email, too.  It says something like,  "This is a friendly reminder that your period is due in two days."  And I am, like,  "Oooooh....THAT is why I want to stab someone."  

Chris asked if I could add him to that email list, too, so he could stay away from me.  Just to be safe.  

Anywho, I digress.

I also discussed my x-rays, which could be classified up there with one of the most unhelpful conversations I have had in quite a while.  

I have degenerations in the lower back (lumbar region, upper sacrum).  I thought so.   I have some arthritis in my hip.  Yeah, duh.  Oh,  ...I also have quite a bit of degeneration in my thoracic region.  Yes, I KNEW that, too.  I slept on the FLOOR for nine months while Chris was in Iraq because my back was so jacked up.  I went to physical therapy  finally so I could sleep in a real bed.

Let me tell you something:  When you have slept on the floor for 9 months and you finally crawl into a "real" bed for your first night's sleep between soft sheets, a down comforter and soft pillows?  It is the most luxurious, most fabulous feeling ever.  It felt like a cloud.

So, the doctor suggested physical therapy.   I think I'll try chiropractic, first, because I think that scheduling recurring, long-term PT appointments at the moment seems like a nightmare.    And I'll just take a lot of ibuprofen. 

I was also told that yoga helps a lot...so I'll do that too.  At home.  I've seen those yoga chicks coming out of the gym.  And I'm soooo not one of them.  

I am signing up for the Disney Princess 1/2 marathon with a group in February.  It's actually on my birthday, so I think it might be fun.  

I am going to opt out of the Ragnar race in January because I think that might be too much for me and my jacked up body, due to the nature of the whole thing.

So, today we are dragging my mother in law to the Bulow Sugar Mill Ruins and possibly the Washington Oaks Gardens State Parks.

She is a Minnesotan and is not acclimated to the oppressive air of Florida.   We are taking her to everything outdoors and watching her wilt daily.   We are ultra-sensitive that way.  She hasn't put her foot down and said "no" yet, so we  just keep going.

It's all really beautiful and are "can't miss"things to do when one is in the area.  Or at least we think so.

Hopefully I'll have some super-beautiful pics to post later.



  

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Mine is way worse now too, it got exponentially worse after I had Alex. I think age and children make it worse. And husbands, they probably factor in somewhere too!

Same type of thing happened to me though. We had our au pair's family visiting from Germany during PMS week and it was like the worst PMS I've ever had. I know for a fact that they feel badly for their daughter that she ended up with such a psycho bitch of a host mommy LOL! Oh well.

Anonymous said...

This is Mary Ann's Mom-in-law and I wouldn't trade her for anyone else! I have had a ton of fun this week and will miss everyone!! But you are right about one thing, Mary Ann - I am not acclimated to the weather. You'd think I would have sweat off 10-15 pounds, but no.....

The week has gone by toooooo fast!!!!