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.

  

Hypochrondia and Puppy Parties

The external temperature reading on my dashboard read 99 degrees Fahrenheit today.

The temperature on the inside of the car was pretty darn close to 99 degrees, too. This was because my air conditioning is currently broken. It hasn't worked since the end of last summer.

This pretty much sucks monkey butt because a.) we live in Florida, b.) it's blazing hot here, c.) and it is July, which means it is never less than 90 degrees.

I have completely given up trying to look even remotely cute, like, ever. I'm resigned to being a big, sweaty slob.

I guess that's okay. I'm not trying to impress anyone.

The heat feels hideous because I have picked up a sick bug...again.

I am hacking in a very un-ladylike fashion and my throat feels like I swallowed a small kitten that didn't give up easily.

This "new" coughing thing ticks me off because I just got over a cough last week. The "old" cough was a side effect of a blood pressure medication, so I was switched to a new one.

It took weeks to get the first wicked junk out of my system. Every time I coughed ~ not even kidding ~ I pissed myself and my brain bounced around inside my skull. It thought my eyeballs were going to fall out at the end.

The only good thing brought about the entire debacle was the cough syrup. It made me pleasantly zingy and tres productive. I could understand why people became crack heads.

So, I literally had a two days reprieve from my side effect cough.

Then my husband got sick. He shuffled his butt to the doctor and I was all, like, "Thank Gawd that ain't me, y'all! Yeee-hawwww"

I woke up with a wicked sore throat the next morning.

Then I started coughing. Last night, I coughed so hard and long that I wet my pants.

I think that I am just going to give in and buy some of those Poise or Serenity pads. I don't care any more, as must be apparent to you all as you peruse my blog and note my obsession with bodily functions.

I dragged my butt to the doctor this morning.

I heart that I PAY this dude to listen to my hypochondriac tendencies, whereas my husband merely tells me that I am a hypochondriac, then tells me what I need to change. It's all very un-fun to be told what one needs to change. Sometimes you just want someone to smile, nod and humor you.

Oh, and also my doctor can actually order scientific tests and gnarly stuff like that. He can tell me if there is a physiological reason that I am fat. And I'm certain it is physiological.

Perhaps ~ just perhaps ~ it isn't the bottles of wine I "occasionally" enjoy in the evenings. Maybe there is something jacked up with my hormones which can be fixed with medicine. I loooove it when things can be fixed with medicine.

"I think there is something wrong with me," I said to my doctor this morning. "Like, other than my sore throat and cough."

"Oh, now, what do you mean," he asked, all concerned-like. He coddles, instead of dismisses me like someone I know. I love it. I need a live-in person to coddle me, nod and look concerned. Like someone "on staff." That would be radical.

I explained that I am up to running almost three and a half miles 3-4 times a week. I'm kicking it on the Bridge to 10 K program on my way to a half marathon. I asked to have some more blood work done, including thyroid and hormone levels.

Because I'm eating boat loads of vegetables which is causing explosive diarrhea. On our last grocery run we bought three to five pound bags of frozen fish. I don't even like fish; I have spent weeks trying to make fish taste better. I also spent about twenty bucks on cans of low sodium tuna, which I DO like. I could ~ and do ~ eat tuna every day. All of my problems with blood pressure and cholesterol will be solved soon, I'm sure, when I die of mercury poisoning.

Something I just don't understand is why all of this "low sodium" crap COSTS more? My low sodium tomato soup ~mmmm~ and low sodium tuna is waaaaaaay more expensive than the normal stuff. I mean, they take some of the salt out...so wouldn't it be cheaper? It makes me angry.

I hope there is some easy explanation for this whole thing, because I think that I am the hardest-working, healthiest-eating fat girl on the planet.

After my appointment at which I was sufficiently coddled, we took Ragnar to the puppy party.

It was interesting to see him come out of his shell around the other puppies. The other puppies all happened to be females, which was an added bonus for Sir Ragnar. He attempted to hump every single one of them. Good boy.

We also heard him bark for the very first time today.

He has a very deep bark that will hopefully be very intimidating if we can train him to only bark when the doorbell rings

I'm so psyched; it's a very satisfying bark ~ like that of a big, beefy truck horn. Hopefully he will make a very good watch dog. We have an alarm system, but it will just be good to have extra protection in a town where the most prevalent crime is burglaries.

We drove home in the blazing heat. The thermometer read 101 degrees.

I got home, put the tot to bed, the puppy in the kennel and ripped off my clothes and laid in bed under the ceiling fan. I slept for the rest of the afternoon. I didn't go out again because to do so would be cruel and inhumane. I thought about those people who work outside in the heat every day and said a pray of thankfulness for our blessings.

It is thoughts like these that make me NOT want to get my air conditioning fixed. It is a good lesson to me ~ a great reality check ~ that we have it so good.

Fifty percent of our cars have air conditioning. Our house is air conditioned. We HAVE a house. My husband has three jobs and we can pay our bills. We HAVE our health (with only minor, fixable and cosmetic issues going on). We have food in the pantry and the fridge. We have clean water.

I think I will choose not to fix the air conditioning in my car, just to stay aware of all of the issues above. God has given us so many blessings and we often take them for granted. Perhaps if we don't have something and it results in a little bit of temporary discomfort, it will help remind us of what we DO have...which is a lot.

We are most definitely blessed.