Well, she here…

And already completely attached to Hub.

That’s Hub’s elbow there as he’s napping on the couch since he barely slept last night. Also, 10+ hour drive yesterday to pick her up. So overnight we put her in a crate, but he was paranoid that she was going to chew the plastic crate pan because her owners said she chews and eats everything! (she did not chew or eat the crate pan overnight.)

Good grief, every time he adjusts on the couch her head pops up. Yeesh.

She’s been ok so far, but if we try to confine her out of view of Hub, she breaks out (with the exception of the crate, but we don’t want her confined to a crate except for the time being as we learn her and she learns her boundaries). So at the moment, she’s on a leash–which I am monitoring–as she tries to nap next to Hub napping. Good news is, she’s gentle and sweet, no jumping or barking (yet), and she really has very little interest so far with Butthead.

On the other hand, our goofy and playful Butthead has turned into my grumpy old lady. She’s been kind of growly at Jujube (not her real name) and we haven’t yet figured out why. Twice today outside she tried to do a little bit of a playful pounce, but in the house she’s definitely wary and growly. Jujube doesn’t even respond to the growls yet, so that’s good. But again, everything is VERRRY new for all of us. It’s going to take adjustment, as Hub and I are aware. He’s pretty upset that she won’t really talk to me but I’m okay with it. I am definitely slower to adjust and attach than Hub…he was attached as soon as he met her. It’s both a good thing and a bad thing, but we are committed to this girl so right now it’s all good. I know that change is difficult for me, stresses me out, and already I have had some migraine flares due to all the stress. So I move slowly and I kind of marinate in the changes before I really can take them in.

Plus, she’s not exactly what I expected. She’s short and fat and stubby…not what I understood Bernese Mountain dogs to be. But apparently she’s all kinds of “non-compliant” with the breed standard, so…whatev. Anyway, she’s got short legs, a round body, kind of looks like an inflated cocker spaniel to me…and I expected (and wanted) a big dog like all our previous dogs. So I have some disappointment, which Hub is very upset to hear. Eventually it will be fine, I’ll adjust and find my way and so will she. We’ll be a family unit and all will be well. Based on my blogging of Butthead, that should happen in, oh, about four months. LOL

Aaaanyway, there she is. Did I mention she’s fat? Our vet is going to have a shit-fit when he sees her. And really, she does need to lose some pounds, even I–who like fat dogs–think she’s a big too fat for her frame. I don’t judge, but I do worry about her joints because already at 2 1/2 we know she has some mild elbow dysplasia and I saw that her hips have some “irregularities”. So we’re gonna do our best to trim her down a bit…she has a long life ahead and is starting behind the eight-ball with her joints.

Also you can’t see in the photo above, but she has a really big forehead. What’s UP with that. Here…

Well, there’s the news. More to come, I’m sure. She’s toileting outside appropriately, which was a surprise to us, and really wants to be in the house…also a surprise since she was mostly an outdoor dog with access to a kennel. Hopefully the good housetraining continues!

 

This is why I came back

Y’all, this is Jujube (not her actual name, of course). By the time this post is published, said fruity snack will be here in our home.

Le Moo left us the first week of January. I had real reservations about getting another dog because after Butthead (OMG I read back through my posts about when she arrived and the stress and strain and etc) I wasn’t sure I could go through all that again. I’m old, I’ve turned 50, do I want to have to house train another dog and clean up after it and get acquainted and integrate with Butthead and our lives. And everything changes…schedules, habits, normal life. Ugh. So I really had to give it thought…

But the truth is, part of my purpose here is to love dogs that need love. To take care of dogs who don’t have other options. To save an animal that needs saving. Sure that sounds dramatic, and to that animal it is. So with trepidation, I started looking at petfinder and adoptadog, and I went to the rescues we’ve had success with before and put in applications…and I went to a few breed rescues that are affiliated with certain breeds. I’d love another newfoundland, particularly the landseer (like Butthead), and like her, I have no issues with getting a mixed breed. All of our dogs have been mixed breed dogs and I love them no matter what. The other breed we enjoy are Great Pyrenees, of which Le Moo was a mix. I’m soooo interested in Leonbergers and I signed up for their rescue but, uh, they don’t really get dogs who need rescuing. Leonbergers are pretty rare and their owners are a pretty tight group. And it’s damn hard to even get a purebred Leonberger even if you were willing to pay for a puppy…so I knew a rescue was not likely to happen. The last breed I have wanted for many years is a Bernese Mountain dog. Sweet Pea with a Berner mix, and I’ve always wanted another. Bernese are also relatively rare (in comparison to like, a labrador) and rescues are also rare. One of the most involved Bernese rescues basically says they get 50 dogs for rescue per year…and THOUSANDS of applications a year. UGH. I wasn’t even finding that many Berner mixes (and of course you never know if they guess right on the breed, unless they see momma/poppa dog). I was seeing that most of the Bernese rescues were coming from backyard or puppymill breeders. They use up the poor momma then dump her on the street or in a shelter, and then the breed rescues scoop them up and save them and place them in good, patient homes.

But the idea of looking into a breeder who might be retiring a dog led me down a different path. Very accidentally I found a breeder who was looking to rehome their 2 1/2 year old female because she has birthed 2 litters that both all died. They didn’t want to bother breeding her again because they felt there was something wrong with her. I got in touch with them and while investigating the idea of rescuing a retired or “rejected” breeding dog, I found out this place was a “Doodler”. They basically just breed different breed females with their Poodle studs. They call them “designer dogs”, but in reality they are mixed breed dogs. The person I spoke to at this doodle ranch seemed nice enough, but when I asked about vet records and getting a health certificate (which is required by federal law for crossing state lines so as not to spread disease), the person lied and said it wasn’t necessary. Which sort of told me the dog probably never had actual veterinary care. I already knew they were not a good breeder, and I couldn’t risk moving a dog cross many state lines illegally…and what if she was sick and brought something into my house and infected Butthead? Or Cray Cray Lab? So I told them we had changed our mind and I went back to the search via petfinder, etc.

There are SO MANY DOGS who need homes. Puppies for days. It’s incredibly sad to spend weeks or months looking at websites where you start to recognize pictures. It hurt my heart. I was feeling depressed and full of heartache. I would stop looking for a day or so, but then I would go back because I had major FOMO. I was so worried that the “right” dog would come and I would miss her.

I found a listing by a family looking to rehome their Bernese because they were moving and couldn’t take her. And they were almost local, so I got very excited. I emailed back and forth with them for a week or two, but they were always slow to respond and they were noncommittal. I finally gave up on them and again went back to petfinder and adoptadog. I also joined a local facebook group for the Bernese breed and I asked around about anyone knowing of a dog who needed rescue or rehoming. I had a couple of people respond and one who said she had a dog for me. So I contacted her and we talked via facebook for a day or so. I asked tons of questions about the dog–who was retired and about 4 years old–and Hub and I got very excited. So the breeder said she would send me a questionnaire to make sure we were appropriate for her girl. I got the email, opened it, and found that the woman wanted to sell us her dog for several thousand dollars. I could have spent less and gotten a puppy from a legit breeder…I thought I was rescuing a retired dog who needed her own family to spoil her and love her. The breeder thought we were desperate for a dog so she was willing to consider letting one of hers go. I could see she was trying to be kind, but it wasn’t the situation I wanted. So I said as much, that I wanted a dog who needed us, and her dog had someone to love her.

But the idea of a retired breeding dog was still in the back of my head. I looked around to see if there were any breeders in our state, but oddly there weren’t many for Bernese. On the other hand, Pennsylvania is generally filled with breeders, often in the Amish communities. And generally not the best breeders, though I am sure there are many good ones.

Anyway, I found a breeder who actually was looking to rehome a rejected breeding dog, due to bad joints and bloodwork showing she carried a hereditary disease (but didn’t actually have the disease). I just stumbled onto her site and saw the almost brand-new post about rehoming her dog. I contacted the breeder and we talked in email for quite some time. The dog has some issues–being that she lives in a kennel (and often outdoors), is not house trained, not socialized to people other than the people on the farm, and hasn’t had any training or really any attention. I asked for videos of the dog…she’s a chonky monkey, which is exactly the way Hub and I like our dogs. She’s adorable and seems very happy, even though she has no training and little socialization. So Hub and my brother, B3, are picking her up this weekend (the day before this posting), because I still can’t be in the car for extended periods. And this is a multi-hour trip, one way. We’ve already talked to a trainer to get some suggestions and insight into helping a dog like this, since we’ve not really dealt with an outside and unsocialized dog before.

I hope to blog through this experience like I did with Butthead (and somewhat with Le Moo), so that one day I can come back and see that we managed to live through it. Beforehand it seems so overwhelming and like it’s going to be hell on earth. And probably sometimes during it does feel that way, but looking back I know we were able to manage. And we were able to give this dog–who is basically a stray “feral” dog who had regular access to food, water, and shelter–an amazing life. Like those who came before her. And I’ll be reminded that part of my purposes is just that…to give an animal an amazing life with us. Saving one at a time.

This time, it’s a chonky almost 3 year old Bernese Mountain dog.

 

I don’t know why

I’m not entirely sure why I stopped blogging, besides being sick. Once I started feeling better, I could have come back and resumed my journaling. Part of me knows that since last June we have been dealing with Le Moo’s decline. And I didn’t want to talk about it. I didn’t want to admit it, even though I admitted it in my reality. Maybe not writing it made it not as catastrophic as it really was? Or maybe I just needed the time to be with her because I knew the time was running down.

Le Moo is gone. It’s still devastates me to say or write that. We miss her so much I cannot even find words for it. My Sweet Pea, she was my heart dog…she was pretty attached to me and when she passed a piece of my heart tore away and went with her. It was like losing a limb, and I grieved her so hard that for the first time in my life I actually allowed myself to go to therapy. I had wanted to go to therapy but felt that I would be wasting money on myself. But after SP, I needed help and I went for it. Le Moo was my soul dog. I attached with her in a different way, and I felt that connection down in my soul. When we had her humanely euthanized here at home, my soul tore and left a gaping hole so deep inside that it will never be whole again. Le Moo was an old soul.

Le Moo was having many physical and mental issues. She had severe arthritis in her leg joints, her spine, and her hips. We tried to keep her comfortable with medication and laser therapy, but it benefits seemed to wane. She also started having doggie dementia, which is an actual thing (canine cognitive disfunction–CCD), which left her anxious and distressed a lot of the time. The symptoms got worse and worse, and her physical decline continued to the point where we had to help her get up from a laying position even when she had good traction. Our girl was strong and stubborn, and we could see she didn’t want to leave us because she knew how it would hurt us. But we knew it was her time, so we had a vet service who does only at-home euthanasia come in to the house. The vet came in and explained everything (even though we have been through this before) and he was very kind. Hub and I were ready with forbidden fruits for Le Moo–M&Ms and homemade chocolate chocolate chip cookies (my mother’s recipe/specialty)–so when the vet gave her the first sedative, we gave her the treat. She ate FOUR chocolate chocolate chip cookies with gusto, and snatched up every M&M hub had. When she finished the treats, her head began to slowly lower and I held her face in my hands. I told her she was amazing and that we loved her bigger than the sky and deeper than the ocean. And that it was time for her to move to the next world where she wouldn’t have a physical body to slow her down. I just kept talking to her as she fell asleep, and I had my body curled over hers as the vet gave her the last medicine. My beautiful, stubborn, amazing, loving, soulful girl went to the next world with cookie crumbs on her face.

We had her cremated–something I’ve never had done before–because I had seen these glass memorials where they take some of the ashes and create a work of art. We had that done and now this glass memorial, sprinkled with ashes–sits on top of a rotating platform, lit with led lights from below–is here with us. It’s a beautiful handblown piece of art, and it was one of the best decisions I have ever made.

We had devoted lots of time and energy to Le Moo over the last year. For the last three months of her life, Hub was basically sleeping a couple of hours in bed, then a couple of hours downstairs with Le Moo because her dementia made her restless and need to go outside to pace. We rarely left her alone, and when she became anxious or distressed, one of us went to her to reassure her. We were extremely lucky that she didn’t forget who we were but I have heard that does happen. Doggie dementia is a terrible, heart-breaking disease. There is no rationalizing with your dog, no way to explain anything…and for us there was no medication that made any difference. Nothing to stop or slow the disease, and nothing to alleviate the symptoms. We tried everything available but nothing worked. We couldn’t even help with her anxiety.

So, she’s gone. We thought Butthead would be panicking and looking for Le Moo. We let her see Le Moo after the procedure and before the vet took her body away. Only once that afternoon did Butthead wander in and out of all the rooms looking for Le Moo, but then she seemed resigned. She’s been extra clingy and depressed, but we really thought she would freak out. She used to freak out when Le Moo would leave the house for appointments or to get walkies without Butthead. But none of that happened. I’m grateful, but I see how the loss has changed all three of us.

Our lives will never be the same.

 

What the fu…?

I’m closing in on fifty. Hub is about 2 years behind me. I’m the youngest in my family, he’s the oldest in his. This means my parents are definitely older than his. And it also means his mother (and aunt) are older than us. His half-brother is younger, but very much an adult in age. He has 2 children, he will soon be divorced from his first wife, he’s currently in a relationship (and cohabitating) with a new girlfriend.

Adults.

Just setting the scene.

We had his family over for a barbeque on Sunday. I haven’t seen them in probably close to 2 years due to COVID and my migraine disease. I’m not really able to be in the car for the hour plus it takes to get to their house, and they rarely come here. But they came on Sunday, after some concerns about last minute cancelation because their dog was in the ER for an infection due to a bite wound. Turns out the ER was not ready to release their dog so they came over as scheduled.

In preparation for this family get-together, Hub and I baked desserts (cake and cookies and rice crispie treats) and made ice cream (for his mom and aunt, a favorite flavor they often request). We also went shopping for barbeque foods, bought/made and grilled hot dogs, hamburgers (homemade), and chicken breasts. Hub bought several bags of chips, we made roasted veggies, boiled fresh sweet corn on the cob, etc.

We baked the desserts because I had a (brief) conversation with his mother on Facebook about whether I would be up to baking for the get-together because I had just baked a TON of desserts for our local crisis shelter residents and staff. I promised I would come up with something since seeing them all was such a special occasion after almost two years. I baked the chocolate fudge cake from scratch, frosted it with homemade frosting, Hub decorated the top. I helped him bake special giant fun cookies from scratch, I helped him make the ice cream from scratch, and I made the rice crispies treats drizzled with melted white chocolate chips and butterscotch chips (this was for me since I can’t eat any of the other desserts).

So we were ready for a food-filled day, lots of which were homemade and special for his family.

His family arrived, we put out the chips for snacking (which they ate a lot of), they brought (non-alcoholic) drinks for them and the kids (Hub and I basically drink water/hot tea/coffee). There was much hugging and lots of “how are yous?” and “it’s been so long!” exclamations. I had a puzzle setup in the dining room so they migrated in to check it out and try to put some pieces in (after asking if they could). Hub and I were cooking food, putting condiments on the table, etc. Conversation turned to whether or not I had been up to baking for them, so Hub gently grabbed his mother and guided her into the pantry where we had the desserts waiting for later.

You would have thought none of these people had eaten in the last two years. Hub left the pantry to go check on the grill, so the rest of his family raced into the pantry and began exclaiming over the desserts. Then they opened the containers that the desserts were in and started taking them and shoving the food into their mouths.

WHAT THE FUCK.

Adults. Like goddamn children who had never been taught manners. OPENED MY CLOSED FOOD CONTAINERS AND BEGAN GRABBING FOOD WITH THEIR HANDS AND SHOVING IT IN THEIR MOUTHS. I guess I should have been grateful that they didn’t start digging their fingers into the cake and jamming it in their food-holes with their hands. They were laughing at my anger, completely ignoring how upset I was. And you couldn’t miss it, I did not hide my emotional state.

I was so appalled…and enraged. I stomped into the pantry and yelled at them to get out. Then I closed the door behind us. My mother-in-law had TWO rice crispie treats in her hands, marshmallow goo on her fingers and all around her mouth, and she’s cackling and chewing and screaming with her mouth open, “I didn’t take anything!” Haw haw haw. His brother had taken one of the giant cookies and (I was informed an hour later that he had only taken ONE cookie and everyone else had snatched pieces of his stolen cookie) and was eating it heartily. FINALLY, he said, they had been able to eat some of the delicious desserts they had been seeing posted on Facebook (mostly that I have donated to local charities/the fire department/the police station).

I was so angry my vision had turned red. Angry, disgusted, disrespected. I went back to whatever I had been doing at my kitchen island, preparing food for them (I literally ate chicken and roasted veggies, and that was it). They were discussing that maybe there were MORE treats hidden somewhere. Like was there ICE CREAM IN THE FREEZER.

Y’all, they went back into my pantry and began moving the desserts off the chest freezer so they could open my fucking freezer to see if there was homemade ice cream inside.

Are you goddamn kidding me? ADULTS.

I went right back in there, nearly slammed the freezer top shut (just barely removing a child’s hand from the way first) and shrieked at them to get out of the room. I grabbed the dessert containers and put them back on top of the chest freezer, returned the cake to the top of the freezer, and pushed them out of the room once more.

They’re laughing, grinning, so excited at their discoveries. How fun for them!

I made it through dinner without any felonies. They ate meat, meat, and buns. A couple of ears of corn, two or three people ate a pittance of the roasted veggies. We cleaned up, re-set the table for dessert, and we set out the remainder of the desserts which included the afore mentioned homemade ice cream, plus several other flavors of store-bought ice cream, caramel and fudge sauce, and whipped cream. Hub cut the cake and served it to those who requested a piece. They ate a bunch of the big cookies, ate more of my rice crispies treats than I would have preferred, ate only the homemade ice cream…and then left tons of the food on their plates because they were so full from pre-dinner theft and chips grazing and meat/bread at dinner.

We began cleaning up, piling dessert dishes in the sink for later, running the dishwasher from dinner, making sure all the food was wrapped and put away. I made some doggie bags for Hub’s mother and aunt, his brother packed himself some cookies without asking. Once the kitchen was in order (at least for the time being), we moved into the family room to sit and talk and pet the dogs. I actually stepped outside for a bit with one of the dogs to try to recover some of my energy…I could have stayed out there for the remainder of the evening, but I didn’t. They hung out as Hub showed off some of his new electronic toys, and generally spent time. When they were ready to leave, we handed out the doggie bags, made sure everyone had everything, then saw them off. For me, it was time to get back to the kitchen to do a better clean and organize what remained from the evening food-wise. It also meant throwing things away and taking out the full trashbags from the kitchen. And then I found it…

Someone threw out an entire uneaten piece of cake by shoving it into my kitchen trashcan–missing the bag so that the chocolate cake was smeared down the inside of the can. And the mess was covered with a large wad of paper towels. Who did they think was going to clean that up when they went to empty the trash later? The maid? Who was going to empty the trash and miss the entire piece of chocolate cake with frosting smashed in there?

I mean sure, you didn’t have enough room? DON’T TAKE AN ENTIRE PIECE OF CAKE along with the cookies and rice crispies treats and ice cream. Didn’t like the cake? That’s fine, I’m not insulted…don’t jam it carelessly into the trashcan and leave me an extra fucking mess to clean up after I’d been on my feet prepping and cooking and setting up since 9am that morning for them. Don’t be so goddamn rude and disrespectful in my home. MY HOME. Repeatedly. Obnoxiously.

I would NEVER behave like any of that in someone else’s home, let alone my husband’s family’s home. Or my family. Never. Not even as a CHILD would I have been that obnoxious in someone else’s home, family or otherwise. NEVER. I knew better.

Later that evening, I sent my therapist, T, a message.

What do you do when the rude and inconsiderate people you would like to cut out of your life for your sanity are your in-laws?
Asking for a friend.
And can the friend bar these people from ever coming back to their home?

The end result of that conversation was that it was my house and my rules. No yelling–because that means you know your voice isn’t being heard–just stating the rules and keeping the rules of the house. As if they were obvious rules. (Which they should have been.) And that there doesn’t need to be black or white. I don’t have to bar them from the house, but I certainly don’t have to be there if they come to visit. I can do whatever I want–bar them from the house, don’t go to their house, don’t ever see them again–but make those decisions with a conscious understanding of the consequences.

I would never hurt my husband by never seeing his family again. I would never hurt him by telling him he couldn’t invite them to our house. I would never hurt him by treating them disrespectfully.

And I’m never going to let them treat me the way they treat him (they are so shitty to him, no joke I have complained about this for more years than I can remember). My house, my rules. Don’t like it? Don’t come over.

I would also NEVER disrespect them the way they disrespected me in my own home. NEVER. Not even after what they’ve done to me in my home.

Hub knows and understands how I feel. He agreed that it was disrespectful, but I don’t think he feels as strongly as I do about it. That’s okay, the fact that he acknowledged my feelings about it is good enough for me.

I’m still recovering from the evening, which is about par for the course for me. It’s a lot of physical work and standing and moving…and it’s a lot of mental energy of just participating. And not committing any felonies.

 

Fauci Ouchie #2

I’m writing this blog a few days before shot #2 of Pfizer’s COVID vaccine. By the time this posts, I should not only be done with the actual ouchie (the shot doesn’t actually hurt, but the term for it is too cute to not use), but I should also be done with any side effects or reactions.

Hub got his 2nd Moderna shot yesterday at lunchtime. A few hours later he had a small headache that he staved off with Advil. As the rest of the day wore on, he started getting body aches, which he also was able to manage with Advil. Before bed he took an Advil for the aches, and then again this morning for the same. His arm hurts a lot, but that also happened the first time for him. I hope the aches go away soon…I know people say the side effects don’t actually last too long, so we’ll see.

At the moment, I’m holed up in our “media room” which has no media but is an actual “room”. (ha ha). We expected to make it a full-on media room when we built the house…it has yet to come to pass. It’s mostly a room where the dogs sleep and we have a couple of recliners and old couches. We bought the recliners in expectation of the media room, but they just sit in here empty except when Hub has a work meeting and doesn’t feel like going upstairs to his office. So I’m in here, sitting in a recliner I HATE (it’s fake leather and is electric) hiding from our cleaning people. We stopped using them at the height of the pandemic and went about six months without them. It was fine, I’ve been feeling better and so keeping the house relatively clean wasn’t too bad. But man, we missed their deep clean of our bathrooms and our kitchen…and all the dog drool on the tile floors. When we felt comfortable enough, we started back on a regular schedule (they come every three weeks to do their excellent cleaning, and we keep the house in between) because it’s something we can afford to pay someone else to deal with. I don’t have to hurt myself cleaning the bathrooms or kitchen when they need scrubbing, Hub doesn’t have yet another chore on his list, and we are contributing to a small business and to keeping their employees paid. I know it sounds like a weird thing to think of, but we are able to afford to pay them (they are actually VERY reasonable with their rates) and we are putting money back into our community. I’m grateful to be able to do so.

However, since the pandemic, they have new restrictions in place to keep their staff healthy and to keep us healthy. We are not allowed to be in the same space as them, and they wear booties and gloves and facemasks to clean. Since this room is the easiest to close off and easy to keep clean, this is where I hide while they are working. We have changed out this room for another so we didn’t have to pay them any less and we still get our full clean. Generally we don’t have them clean the whole house because there are some rooms that really get no use. Instead of cleaning this room they have been alternating cleaning two of the upstairs bathrooms. We have a hall bath that Hub uses occasionally when he’s in his office (it’s next door), and we also have a bathroom in the guest bedroom–which rarely gets used. However we have used it to bathe the dogs on occasion. Why am I telling you all this? NO CLUE.

Back to my post…so this morning as we’re preparing for the cleaning people to come (picking up stuff sitting around so they don’t have to move our junk around), I asked Hub if he thought one day soon we wouldn’t have to hide while they are cleaning (he goes in the basement with the dogs). I said in 2 weeks he and I would be fully vaccinated, but the owner of the cleaning company has not told us if her staff is fully vaccinated. Don’t you think that would be a big announcement for her to make? She has not said anything yet, so I’m assuming they are not quite all fully vaccinated. I mean, I’m fine to hang out in here while they are cleaning, but at some point I’m hoping to feel more normal and be able to move about the house while they are here.

I had lots of nerves before the first shot. I expect I will also have lots of nerves before the second, because this is the one with after-effects. The first one I was worried about a reaction to the shot…this one I am worrying about how bad the side effects will be. Lots of people in my migraine support group had bad migraine attacks and some had vertigo attacks. I am prone to both, so feeling distressed that I might have to deal with either or both. Of course lots of people in the support group also had light, few, or no side effects at all. I keep telling myself that I will manage whatever it is, and hopefully it will be short-lived, but…ugh. I just want it to be over with so I don’t have to keep thinking about it.

SOON! Hope you are on your way to be vaccinated as well.

 

Flubba-skip-dubba

About two years ago, my neurologist added propranolol (a beta blocker for lowering blood pressure) to my cocktail for my migraine attacks. It was also added because the original medication I was on (nortriptyline) was causing my heart rate to go up a bit at rest. The propranolol has brought down my heart rate, regulated my blood pressure (which wasn’t terribly high, but was on the top end of normal), and helped my migraine attacks…and it does give me some feeling of calm for my anxiety, since it lowers my heart rate. I used to be in the 80s at rest, I’m now in the low 60s at rest.

An incidental result of being on the propranolol? My PVCs (premature ventricular contractions) all but disappeared. For almost the full two years, I would maybe get a PVC here or there, in times of stress or anxiety. Prior to the propranolol, they would be kind of regular…I had forgotten what it felt like to have them happen multiple times in a day. Multiple times in an hour. Multiple times within a few minutes. It’s irritating, anxiety-inducing, and it makes me lose my breath and cough so my throat is always irritated.

Saturday Hub and I went to do some trail hiking so we could go back to the rapids we visited over our anniversary. It was overcast, barely 60 degrees, and very comfortable. We did our hike, we hung out, walked a bit to some areas we hadn’t seen before, then made our way back to our car. Then we ran some errands and went home. I knew I was a bit dehydrated, but otherwise I actually felt fine. Even my legs were okay, which was surprising considering the hills we were taking on the trail. Sunday I also felt okay, although now I could feel the muscles in my calves kind of complaining. We ran a few more errands in the morning, but then we were hanging out and resting most of the day.

Later in the evening, after dinner, I was crocheting a blanket I’m making for a family member. I was in bed with the blanket spread out (it’s huge, y’all), concentrating on a piece of the pattern, and …flubba-pause-dubba.

Hunh.

Back to the pattern, counting to make sure I’m doing the right stitch in the right order. More PVCs come on, like every 30 seconds or so. I’m irritated at the interruption, but not yet anxious about it. It’s just a couple…only been a few minutes. It’ll probably go away.

Nope. There they are again. Multiple times in a minute, but not technically one right after another. Feels like my heart is skipping every other beat or so. Ugh. Not anxious yet, but starting to wonder why this popped up out of the blue. It’s been so long, why is it happening now? Am I dehydrated from the hike the previous day? They continue and I get nervous. It’s Sunday night, there’s no one to call, and really no reason as I KNOW that my PVCs are benign. I lived with them for many many years, but I had become accustomed to NOT having them. I’d forgotten what it really felt like to live with them. I start wondering if I can get my propranolol increased to make them go away again.

I warn my husband what’s happening, then tell him I’m going to take a klonopin so that I can try to sleep. I’m hoping it knocks me out enough to not feel the PVCs. Fortunately, it actually works.

Monday morning, the PVCs are going as soon as I wake up. Same as the night before…multiple in a minute. I cough and get up to start my day. Within an hour I’m mildly anxious and very irritated, so I call my cardiologist’s office to make an appointment. I am hoping to talk him into increasing my propranolol. I have enjoyed living my life without the PVCs. I’m expecting to wait a week or two to get an appointment, but they can see me the next day. I ask Hub to change his work schedule so he can drive me and he readily agrees. He’s a good man.

Monday I have the PVCs all morning. I take my propranolol with lunch and…the PVCs go away. I am drinking water as much as possible, in case it’s dehydration causing the PVCs. I hate drinking a lot of water, it makes my stomach hurt, but if it makes the flubba-dubba’s go away, I’ll take the stomach discomfort. But shortly before dinner the PVCs come back. The propranolol didn’t really help and neither did the extra water. Nuts.

My appointment was first thing this morning, and in the end I didn’t even get to see the cardiologist. I really like him, but apparently he was overbooked. His Physician’s Assistant came in to see me after the nurse did my routine EKG. She explained he was still in with another patient and if she could just get started, we could move the appointment along. I agreed and we talked about what was happening. She kept calling the PVCs “palpitations”, as if they might be something OTHER than PVCs. I told her I’d had them for years, the cardiologist knew about it (and saw them on a holter monitor I’d worn for 24 hours a few years ago), and they’d gone away with my propranolol. She did her exam, then told my EKG was the same “kind of off” waves that I’d had in previous EKGs. No change, good news, did I really need to see the cardiologist? I said no, but I was hoping to figure out how to make these PVCs go away again, as they really interrupt my daily living. Of course, I hadn’t had a PVC yet that morning, but…

So she set me up with another heart monitor, but these new fangled devices are small, adhere right to your chest, and don’t have any wires. After the first 24 hours you can even shower with them. The old ones connected with multiple wires and you had to haul a big pack around with you. The monitor is on as we speak, for three days, and she ordered blood work and an echocardiogram. I did the blood work before I left the building (the labcorp we use regularly is right down the hall), scheduled my echo for the end of MAY (first opening–YEESH), and headed home with my fancy contraption.

So far today (it’s nearing dinner time IRL), not one single solitary damn PVC. I’m supposed to push a button on the machine when I get a PVC and then record it in an app. NOT ONE PVC ALL DAY. I mean, yeah, that’s good news. But the doctor’s going to think I’m a hypochondriac. sigh

You can barely see the monitor sticking up out of my shirt. It’s hardly noticeable. Although I changed shirts later in the day and you can actually see the little plastic compartment holding all the electronics, but I’m fine with it.

Here’s the old style:

So here I am, all bionic and stuff, just waiting for the PVCs. Hanging out here, not flubba-skip-dubba’ing. Hopefully I can sleep okay with it…and it doesn’t try to come off. The PA wanted to do a week and I had made a noise (cuz I was picturing the old unit), but she settled with three days. When I’m done, I just put the whole thing into a pre-paid box and ship it off to the manufacturer. They print out reports and send them back to my doctor for review.

Bing-bang-boom. Flubba-dubba.

 

The blame game

I guess this month (or two) is going to be about my father. It’s all up in my face since I’m half his caregiver and all his scheduler/assistant/phone answerer/organizational tool.

So far my father has seen several in-home modalities–the visiting nurse, occupational therapy, physical therapy–and with each of them he ended up angry and sputtering…he didn’t want this surgery, he never had any symptoms, and the cardiologist overreacted. He’s out there blaming everyone and everything for his current post-bypass recovery…everyone except himself. No one made him do the surgery, he had the opportunity to say no. His cardiologist told him if you don’t have the surgery you are very likely to have a heart attack. You might die, you might survive, but it’s either that or the bypass. It was my father’s decision as to have the bypass or not. He chose to have the bypass because he would have preferred to not have a heart attack and die. Now he’s telling everyone he wished he had done nothing because dying had to be less distressing than his current state of recovery.

Let me be clear, my father was pretty damn independent before the surgery. There was very little he didn’t do for himself, except maybe grocery shop or pay bills online. Post surgery, despite him being 79 years old with high blood pressure, high cholesterol, type 2 diabetes, peripheral neuropathy, sciatica, spinal stenosis, cataracts, and some mild dementia…he’s doing nearly 80% of what he was doing before. He can’t get in and out of bed on his own (most of the time, but sometimes he can) and he can’t shower on his own, and he can’t put on his own compression socks. Seriously, those are the things he can’t do. Also, he can’t drive, but that’s because he can’t use his chest or arm muscles until his sternum heals. OK. Occupational therapy said they barely had anything for him to do, physical therapy said they’d help him get his stamina back and build up his core muscles so he can get in and out of bed on his own. But he’s pissed off he can’t function on his own and he’s looking to place blame somewhere else.

Fortunately for him, he’s not trying to push it on me, because I’d be out. I don’t baby him, I tell him the choices he makes are his and so are the consequences. I don’t follow him around and I don’t hover…two things he abhors. I told him he has to let me know if he needs my help and otherwise I will leave him alone. I’m in the house and available if he needs me, but it has to be his decision to ask for help. It’s odd for me because it’s very different from how I took care of my mother. She wanted me to be with her, she wanted my company and my distraction. She appreciated my heart and my compassion and my affection. My father gives me the shit he doesn’t want to deal with and rejects my emotional support. I understand why, but it makes me feel like I’m not giving my all. I don’t have the same compassion for my father that I had for my mother. My relationship with my mother wasn’t perfect and I have things I’m still working on resolving from it. My father, I have anger from my childhood and my adulthood and from when my mother was sick. I don’t hate him, but I don’t necessarily have unconditional love for him. I’m not sure what it is. A very deep, mean part of me thinks he has gotten what he has deserved with this surgery. He’s damn lucky he didn’t have a massive heart attack and he isn’t worse off. My mother died from stupid cancer that she couldn’t have prevented, my father smoked for 70 years, ate terribly, refused to take care of himself and didn’t get help 2 years ago when he should have…this is his consequence.

Even writing these things makes me feel small and mean and shameful. Listening to him be pissed off at the doctors who repaired him, at the doctors who cared about him and advised him like they would have their own father…it makes me so angry. All of these people–and his children–they all care more about him than he cares about himself. Why do we all bother? Just so he can moan and yell and lay blame?

So much word vomit from so much emotional vomit. It’s been a very long week and for me (irl) it’s only Monday. Oy.

* Okay, so I’m not neglecting him or treating him poorly despite what I have said. These are innermost thoughts and feelings. I would never neglect or mistreat anyone I am caring for. 💛

 

Attack out of the blue

Technically speaking, it wasn’t out of the blue, and at the time we had no idea it was an actual heart attack.

Remember this post? Yeah, me too. In fact, it’s been running around in my brain most of the last three days. FORTUNATELY, at the moment, my father is okay. So that’s out of the way.

But this past weekend, B1–who lives with my father–texted me to ask me to come over because my father was having trouble breathing. This isn’t entirely new…he’s had several similar episodes over the past 18 months or so? Maybe over the last 2 years…time is f’d up for me these days. The first time he had an episode he went to the ER at our urging. Then after several hours or waiting around, he signed himself out AMA and went home. And ignored that his cardiac enzymes were up. And ignored his doctor’s urging to see a cardiologist. He said if it was his time, it was his time. We argued with him to no avail, and this was when I started learning that he was going to make his own decisions and it was in my best interest to accept those decisions. He’s still of his right mind and it’s his choice to do what he wants. After that first episode, he had a few others…trouble catching his breath, sometimes a little dizzy, heart rate spiked. Most of the episodes were the same.

Saturday, it was similar…but not. No dizziness, no sweating, no pain. Increase in heart rate, trouble breathing, mild feeling of heaviness on his chest but not BAD. I suggested he call 911, he politely told me to stuff it. I suggested he call his hmo’s nurse line, so he did that. They suggested he get himself to their urgent care facility about 20 minutes away. B1 took him but had to wait in the car because COVID. They took an ekg–which showed “changes” from the one the previous year–and wanted to do blood work and xrays. But they wanted him to stay for several hours and he said NAW and came home AMA. Monday morning he went to his regular facility and got xrays and blood work. The xrays were clean (for a freaking 60+ year smoker, WTF) so no pneumonia and no cancer. His blood work came back later in the day and it was…bad. His cardiac enzymes were kind of off the charts. There was a flurry of phone calls back and forth with his primary and the on-call cardiologist. They felt he could wait and get an appointment in the next day or so for angioplasty and potentially a stent. His cardiologist disagreed and told him to get to the hospital ASAP.

Things sped up and slowed down. B1 drove him again, but had to drop him off. My father refused to take clean clothes or anything for the overnight stay they said he would need. And B1 gave him the wrong phone charger soooo…bleh. He tried to stay in touch overnight but he was stuck in the emergency department because they did some tests but didn’t have a bed for him for his overnight stay. They put him on blood thinners and at some point late in the night they moved him to a room outside of the ED. He was supposed to get more blood thinners and see the doctor first thing in the morning. Then it was off to the angioplasty (and possible stent). The doctor didn’t show up as expected…for hours. Which I guess is kind of expected, eh? So a different doctor showed up and took him for an angiogram–an xray with some kind of nuclear light-up? To check his arteries. And everything ground to a halt. That speed up/slow down again.

The arteries were very very blocked, and there were many blockages. Too many of everything to do an angioplasty. Suddenly we were talking bypass. Getting information out of my father is difficult on a good day. He can’t remember things people say, he can’t recall numbers or medication names, and he doesn’t ask questions. Probably because he forgets to ask them, and he gets easily overwhelmed…and I knew he was pretty frightened. I finally was able to talk to the cardiologist after the angiogram. The guy was really nice and took the time to explain everything to me and let me ask my questions. My last question was, “is there anything I haven’t asked–because I don’t know anything about this–that you think I should have asked and/or need to know?” I apparently caught him off guard, and he said he searched his mind but came up with nothing else.

The good news… despite the heart attack, there was no permanent damage to his heart, and it’s functioning normally. The not so great news…he needs a triple bypass and he has to be moved to another hospital an hour away. The good news, the surgeon said my father is in “good health” and his prognosis is excellent for recovery. The bad news, he’s going to be in surgery and will have to stay over for at least five days. Good news, his doctor says the surgeons waiting for him at the other hospital are top notch and he would use them for his own family members. Bad news, my father is going for a fucking triple bypass and only ONE of us–his four kids–can see him for the entire time he is in the hospital. The hospital is allowing limited visitors, which means for the 5-7 days my father is in the hospital, one of us can be there with him during visiting hours. For the whole time he’s in the hospital, only one of us can visit him.

The hospital is an hour away, and I don’t drive. Hub would have to drive me back and forth every day. If I go, I’m putting myself in the path of COVID, which also means if I get sick then I can’t take care of him once he’s home. B2 is apparently very busy and probably can’t get loose for all 5-7 days…plus his drive is 2 1/2 hours each way unless he gets a hotel room nearby. Probably do-able, but he hasn’t volunteered. B3 has a young baby at home and is in a relatively new job, so I’m not sure he can be there all 5-7 days. B1 could probably go and be there but if HE gets COVID what the hell do we do with him because he lives with my father and would have to go elsewhere so as not to pass COVID to any of us in our bubble.

We all hate that my father had to be alone overnight in the local hospital, and now we have the chance to not leave him alone…and no one is volunteering. If we could trade out days it would be a no-brainer, but that’s not an option. I don’t know what to do. Hub is sure I’m going to end up going, and he has even volunteered to go in my stead but I don’t want HIM to get sick either.

By the time you read this, it will all be over and we will have figured out what to do. And hopefully my father will be home and on his way to recovery. Fingers crossed none of us gets sick and surgery is as successful as the doctor has proclaimed.

 

Good enough

Growing up, I was the “good” child. I was a goody-two-shoes, both at home and in school. My siblings made fun of me for following all the household rules as if I were in the military. No questions asked, no back-talk given, I did what I was told. In school, other students called me “teacher’s pet” and said I was a smarty-pants. I listened to my teachers, I did my homework and turned it in on time, I followed the school’s rules. All through elementary school I was like this, both at home and in school. I never wanted to step out of line for fear of getting attention for the wrong reasons. Teachers favored me, telling me how smart I was and how good a student I was. My parents praised me for getting good grades, good reports from the teachers, and for doing what I was told. But truthfully, I was left mostly to do my own thing because I could be trusted to do the right thing.

At the age of 12–in middle school–I started a small and understated rebellion. I was bored in class and angry that the more rambunctious kids got attention. Teachers barely paid attention to me because I was one of the “good” students. There were many times that I thought my teachers didn’t bother to look at anything I turned in because they didn’t have to worry about me as a student. They assumed that I was doing things correctly and that I would deserve an “A” on my work…and that’s generally what I got. Between the boredom and the lack of attention, I was so irritated that I started skipping classes. Sometimes I would just wander around the building and other times I would go hang out in the guidance counselor’s office or the secretary’s office. I never left the building so I wasn’t technically truant, but I was out of the actual classrooms. I think there was a lot of time that my parents didn’t even realize that I was “skipping” class because I stayed on school grounds.

Then when the guidance counselor told me that I could no longer hang out in her office, I had to come up with some other idea. And I realized if I said I was sick, I would not only be dismissed from class but I would be relieved of other obligations. Being sick gave me a kind of freedom from being the good kid…from responsibilities and expectations that came along with being the “good student”. And if I said I was sick, I was able to go home in the middle of the school day. Both my parents worked full time at that point, so I either walked home, or if I had money I took a cab. At home I was free to do what I wanted until someone else came home…either one of my siblings or my parents. And since I was a “good kid” my parents didn’t question if I was actually sick…they assumed if I said I was sick then I was telling the truth.

Eventually my parents saw my quiet rebellion and things came to a halt. I was told in no uncertain terms that I was to return to my formerly good student/child life…period. I was too afraid to say no, so as I moved into high school, I left my small rebellion behind. Instead of being bored and pouting about it, I turned everything around and flew through high school. I took as few classes in the day as I could and still graduate. When I wasn’t in school I was working part time retail. I saw the brass ring hanging out there and I wanted it. My last year of high school I was only in school for three classes, then I left in time to go to my job where I was earning money for my car and for gas and insurance.

As expected by my parents, I went to college. I took classes that looked easy and I breezed through most of them. I was still working while I was in college, and I think my parents felt relief that their “good kid” was on track. Unfortunately, in college I ran into the same kind of inattention/disinterest from professors. After the first few assignments of each class–when the teachers realized that I was smart and knew what I was doing–they stopped reading my work. I know this because I started turning in shitty work and still got A’s. It was disappointing and frustrating. I was left aside for students who needed more assistance. To this day I feel I missed out on a lot of education, but at the time I didn’t do anything about it. If I’d been a better person, maybe I would have stood up and asked for more attention, but I hated being the center of attention or “rocking the boat”. So I skated through and graduated without much issue.

During my junior and senior years of college, I started working full time and going to class part time. I found a career path that had nothing to do with my schooling but had everything to do with things that interested me. Technology. I excelled at my job(s) and took pride in my work. As I moved up through the ranks of my technology job(s), I began to feel the imposter syndrome. I had grown up feeling as if I weren’t good enough, and that ingrained feeling led me right into feeling as if I were an imposter in my job…and essentially in my life. I felt I didn’t deserve any of the things that I had.

I met a young man while I was in college. Our early relationship was online, but then we began dating (irl). I didn’t date in high school or even mostly in college. I felt like I didn’t deserve to have a boyfriend. And when I got a boyfriend, I never felt good enough for him. It wasn’t that he was better than me in some way, it was my old baggage of never feeling good enough for anyone…or anything.

Being a good employee, a good wife, a good daughter, a good sister…I didn’t feel good enough. So my body resorted to what had worked for me as a pre-teen. It made me sick to release me from all those feelings of not good enough. If I was sick, I didn’t feel like I had the obligation or responsibility of trying to be good enough. Or doing things that were good enough. I had several vague illnesses that had no real source. I had labels put on me by different doctors that amounted to different “syndromes”, which really is just a collection of symptoms that couldn’t be attributed to anything specific. I had pain symptoms, fatigue, dizziness, balance issues, gastric issues. I went through a lot of doctors and a lot of tests, but I was never really given any concrete answers. Doctors attempted to help me resolve symptoms, but they were unable to give me the reason why I was sick. And I was really sick…a lot of times I couldn’t get out of bed. I was too fatigued and painful, I took a leave of absence from my job to deal with my ill health. After almost nine months, I was released from my job because I could not return in a timely fashion. I was sick in this way for close to 8 years, although at one point I was writing (and publishing) books. During this specific time I felt very involved in a community and my symptoms waned. They were still with me, but it was manageable. But for the most part my symptoms ranged in severity and specifics over the years. I was unable to hold a job during those 8 years. Most of my family and my husband understood my limitations, and rarely did they ask too much of me. If they did and I could not meet their expectations, they always made sure to tell me that it was no big deal. I wasn’t ever looking for attention when I was sick…I hated the ongoing doctor’s appointments and tests, so it wasn’t that I was seeking attention. I now think I was seeking a break from my own expectations for myself…if I wasn’t well then I didn’t have to strive for the perfection I expected of myself.

A few years later, I actually started feeling better and was able to do more in my life. My home circumstances changed, my parents were living very close by and I was spending more time with them. My husband continued to pursue his technology career and we finally felt more financially stable. Although I still felt badly that I was not bringing in any income, my husband was fine with the situation. My body began to heal, my mind felt comfortable, my spirit was buoyed. I was living in a way that was working for my body. I didn’t push myself too much, and yet when I needed my strength it was there. I felt at peace with my health even though it wasn’t perfect.

And then my mother was diagnosed with cancer. A relatively rare and aggressive cancer. My life changed…and so did my purpose. I became my mother’s cheerleader, her caretaker, her confidant, her friend. I was her secretary during doctor’s appointments–I took copious notes to review later–and I helped keep her calendar. I was with her all the time, keeping her occupied, keeping her on schedule, keeping her fed (this from the child/person who never cooked or baked because she knew in her heart her food would never be as good as her mother’s food)… I had flashes of doubt and impersonator syndrome, but it usually ended up being drowned out by the things I needed to do for my mother. My health stabilized and I found energy and strength that I didn’t know I possessed anymore. Taking care of my mom was not an obligation or responsibility…it was love. That was why my body allowed me to do that. I WAS good enough to love her that way.

After my mother’s two year battle and her passing, I grieved terribly. Other than my husband, my mother was my best friend. During the two years she lived with this terrible cancer, I spent almost every free minute with her. Losing her left me devastated…and lost. For two years I had a job, a purpose, and despite having no experience with caring for a sick person or dealing with cancer, I had been good at it. No one asked me to do the things I did or act the way I did, I just did it. I didn’t worry if what I was doing was good enough (until the end) because I was too involved in participating in my mother’s life and fight. But afterward I floundered. I looked for charities and volunteer opportunities to find a new purpose. But about a year and a half after my mother died, my body rebelled again. Thinking about it now I would not call it a rebellion, I would call it a rescue.

I had a very severe case of classic and vestibular migraine disease. There were months in the beginning where I could not leave my bed. Months where I could not walk, months when I had to go to doctor’s appointments in a wheelchair with dark glasses on even indoors. It took me close to two years to even begin to find recovery with medications, diet, supplements, vestibular therapy, and exercise. And then 2020 hit, and any of the plans I had to participate more fully in life fell away. I was given the opportunity to really focus on my mental health, on my healing, and on my transformation. My physical recovery continued–sometimes slowly and sometimes in leaps and bounds–and I focused my mental recovery on becoming who I wanted to be. And along the way, I have made some pretty surprising discoveries.

This discovery about my physical body and the illnesses that plague it, came unintended. I was going to work on a blog about a different discovery I’d had in therapy over 2020, and a whole different set of words came out. About my health, and how it has affected my life, mentally and emotionally.

My body tried to save me from the torment of feeling not good enough. Of the daily mental and emotional torture of feeling not good enough. When my career became “too much” and I began suffering with imposter syndrome and endless feelings of “not good enough”, my body introduced an illness that took over my life and my focus. I had years of “a break” from those “not good enough” feelings while I was sick because I didn’t have to feel not good enough when I was sick. Because all I had to do was exist. Obligations and responsibilities fell away during both lengthy illnesses…I allowed myself to put away concerns of “am I good enough” because surviving was good enough.

This realization was actually quite difficult for me. My first instinct was to be embarrassed that I “made myself sick” to avoid obligations and responsibilities (even if the obligations, responsibilities, and expectations were from myself). How do I tell my husband that I (or my body) made me sick so I didn’t have to deal with guilt or shame or criticism or judgement over whether or not I was good enough for…anything? Fortunately, my work in therapy came into play and I reminded myself that I did not consciously make the choice to be sick, that it was an autonomic response. And then I reminded myself that without that person–the one who was sick on and off for many years–I would not be the person I am today.

And thanks to my therapy, I am choosing to have compassion for the young girl and the young woman whose body did its best to shield and relieve her of the ongoing mental and emotional pain that would have beat her down in an ongoing fashion for all the years she was sick. I am grateful for the sacrifice that my body made for my psychological health, even if it felt like a struggle to survive during those years.

*I would like to note here that my chronic illnesses have been and are 100% real and sometimes physically disabling. I have not had a miraculous recovery since coming to understand that there might be at least partly psychological reasons for why I was and am sick. I have no idea what recovery might look and feel like, and I am not suggesting that anyone else’s chronic illnesses are not physiological.

 

The body electric…

Thursday night I started feeling unwell around bedtime. As we all know, I’m not keen on medication and I use it sparingly. But I really wasn’t feeling right so I took some Tylenol and tried to go to sleep. It’s also not unusual to have trouble sleeping, and I suffered with that until about 2am. I finally fell asleep, but through the night I woke up feeling headachy and feverish. It’s pretty rare for me to have a fever, but common for me to feel flushed and hot without any fever registering. I did my best to go back to sleep. Increasingly I was waking up every 30 minutes feeling hot and achy…muscle aches, body aches. No longer just a headache, my whole body felt icky.

When I woke up that morning, I didn’t want to move from my bed. I felt exhausted and yet I literally had just woken up. I pushed myself to get out of bed, to go to the bathroom and wash my face. I got dressed and went downstairs even though everything in me wanted to crawl back into bed. I still felt hot, flushed, achy, and as I moved around I realized I was nauseated. After about an hour of sitting upright in my recliner, I took a zofran pill which is a prescribed anti-emetic (which reduces nausea). I couldn’t concentrate on anything, I didn’t open my iPad or turn on the tv. I sat in my recliner, wrapped in my blanket, and rocked in the recliner. Hub brought me our touchless thermometer thingie and I checked my temperature on my forehead. It was normal but I felt feverish. I checked the temperature on my cheek–which felt like it was on fire–and it read 100.1. Everywhere else registered normal except my cheek. I was becoming increasingly concerned that I was starting to show symptoms of Covid-19.

Over the past month or so, since I’d been feeling better migraine-wise, I had been trying to get out more often. I was joining Hub on grocery trips–as well as the farmer’s market on Sundays–even though I wasn’t always going into the stores with him. On some errand trips I would wait in the car while he ran in to the stores. It was getting me out of the house a bit and giving Hub some relief from doing all the shopping alone. We were still careful, we wore our masks and using antibacterial hand wipes when we got back into the car. We didn’t stand or linger near other people in the stores, and we still shopped quickly. I knew I was putting myself at a slightly higher risk, but Hub had been doing the same for almost all of the pandemic and he’d been spared any infection. He actually has more risk factors than I do, but he’s also always recovered faster from things than I do.

Anyway, I sat in my recliner all Friday, feeling like crap, fatigued, exhausted, feverish, chills, and achy. I ate crackers and drank water but the thought of any food at all made me feel gross. When I went upstairs after Hub ate dinner, I took my temperature with an oral thermometer and found I did have a fever. It was 99.5, but for me that’s pretty high. I usually log in at 97.1, so although I wasn’t over 100, it was a pretty big increase for me. More and more I was becoming concerned that it was Covid-19. And I got a really bad feeling when Hub admitted he, too, was experiencing a rather unusual headache. He said he wasn’t feverish, but still… He took ibuprofen and said it cleared up the headache for him. We spent about an hour trying to figure out how I could get tested on a Saturday, and after a phone call with my doctor cousin we had a tentative plan. I checked my temperature again before bed and found it was 99.8. I took two Tylenol and crawled into bed. I was anxious about potentially having Covid-19, and even moreso that Hub and I might have it at the same time.

Saturday morning I had a telehealth with a new neurologist–so I could move to the new organization where my neuro nurse practitioner moved to–so Hub and I spent about an hour trying to set an appointment for Covid testing. No luck, really, as most places don’t do appointments or drive-throughs on the weekend. I had my telehealth appointment–10 minutes–having waited longer for the appointment than it actually took to have the appointment. I checked my temperature twice that morning–both normal for me–and we took care of the dogs and headed for a walk-in testing site. When we got there they said they weren’t sure if they were accepting more patients as they’d already seen and tested 100 people (it was 11am). So we waited for them to make a decision, and when the decision was YES they would be testing more people, I filled out paperwork and the tech said to come back at 2pm. So we turned around and headed home to take care of the dogs and try to eat something. We had just finished lunch at 12:30pm when Hub got a text from the clinic that they were ready for us…and the text was about 8 minutes old (Hub missed the buzz). So we rushed back out the door and back to the clinic. I checked in and was ushered into the waiting room, which had about 12-15 chairs, but was only seating four people at a time. I didn’t have to wait long and was moved into a room where I sat for another 15 minutes or so. The doctor came in–masked of course–looking overworked and underslept. He asked me a few question, said someone would be in to do both the rapid test and the more intensive PCR test. He was gone and replaced by a nurse shortly thereafter. She shoved one Q-tip up in my nose, then followed that by shoving another Q-tip up in my nose immediately after. It was fast and not painful, just weird. She said the doctor would call me in about an hour for the rapid test, and that I needed to sign up for their portal for the PCR test that would take 2-3 days to turn around.

Within an hour the tired doctor called and said my rapid test was negative. He told me to continue to quarantine until after I’d gotten the results from the PCR test. That was Saturday afternoon…today is Monday. I got the results from the more accurate PCR test that also came back negative. It’s wholly possible that I went too early for testing and the results were a false negative. It’s also possible they are correct (my symptoms have not worsened and the fever and headaches are gone, but the chills and achiness and incredible fatigue linger) and I had/have something else going on. Or I went too early for the virus to show up, also a possibility. Nothing I can do now except go forward. I’ll try to stay away from the stores again and keep my risk as low as possible. I’m not upset for myself about that, I just hate that everything always falls to Hub. He doesn’t complain but it’s a lot of constant ongoing responsibility for him.

This Covid-19 shit is the pits. Today the vaccines hit the public and I watched the frontline workers get the first shots. I hope it works for them and keeps them safe. When it trickles down to our “group” I will take it. I’ve never had a flu shot until this year as my health anxiety has kept me from trusting the universe. I took it this year, I had no issues (except long-term bruising), and I will take the Covid-19 vaccine when it’s offered. I’m grateful to have had a negative test, and grateful to be as well as I am.

I hope you are all healthy. Sending out good health vibes to you all.