In the ER Again: the Mystery Continues

No...it just comes from CFIDS now! 

I was on such a wonderful roll last week with finally getting back in action and writing posts.  But after this weekend, I feel as if getting back to square one would be an improvement on things.  Always first with the bad news in order to get it out of the way: I ended up in the ER on Saturday for multiple problems. The good news: I didn't need to go there in an ambulance!  Glory be: I almost feel as if I were letting the neighbors down by not having provided them with some entertainment - but then I remember we all have cable.   

Incredibly, the hospital staff was polite, concerned and ran many tests.  Perhaps it helped that my normal BP at home on bed rest runs a high of up to 90/70 but in pain at 120/80 (as documented by the hospital computer, yay!) yet in the ER it was a whopping 151/90.  I was immediately given medication for nausea. When I got to the point that my pain was so severe that I couldn't hold back the tears and asked for pain medication, they  immediately gave me IV pain meds which were documented as working.  Unfortunately, for the first time ever, the Demerol didn't touch the pain. A couple of hours later, another dose was given and I felt relief for a moment then nothing. This scared me. I don't like to think that I'm getting worse, overall, in my CFS/ME saga. 

After much testing we were able to establish that I wasn't dying - or not anytime soon. We were lucky on the one hand to find "nothing."  However, we were still stuck with most of the same symptoms, some getting worse, some remaining the same, and only one better but that's because I'm on complete and total bed rest. 

Ah, but I'm missing the "why" I went to the ER in the first place!  How foolish of me. OK, now get this. I do hope those of you not ill with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and/or fibromyalgia are sitting down and those of you who are ill, are lying down.  We don't want anyone passing out because of my earth-shattering news.  (Yes, I do hope that you know this is meant to be humorous and not a case of being totally self-absorbed!)  So, drums and trumpets, please!

I got so bloated and swollen that I was afraid I was "getting" anasarca again. Those of you not familiar with the term, don't feel badly. I think you really only know the term if  you, or a close loved one, has had it. Even most of the staff at the hospital weren't familiar with the term and I had to keep repeating the word as I was asked, "Ana-what?"  

Basically, anasarca is generalized massive edema, a  fluid build-up in the tissues. It differs from regular edema in that the person gets extremely swollen all over.  It's also most common in patients with heart failure, renal failure and those who are extremely ill. 

Yeah, not fun and yeah, a bit scary - especially when I was told that I had to get two blood transfusions a couple of years ago.  There was fluid around all my vital organs: the heart, the lungs and so forth - pretty heady stuff.  I'd blown up like the Pillsbury Doughboy in less than three days, putting on 50 lbs in that amount of time and wouldn't stop accumulating fluid, on death's door, literally, as all my organs started to shut down. However, after the transfusions, it was quickly under control and I had water leaking out of every part of me that can leak, for months - including my ears.

He was much cuter than me!

Well, I've been swollen and bloated.  I actually took pictures of my feet but they are just too gross to put up. (See, I do have some self-restraint!)  In fact, I couldn't find anything in the closet that would fit, finally hauling out a long dress which was all stretch, so tight it made me look like a cheap hooker.  When I tried to find shoes hubs suggested, "just put your Uggs on!" and I croaked out "are you nuts?"  After trying on about ten pairs of shoes (how I wish I were exaggerating) I went with the Uggs in the back of the closet.  Hubs had to haul them out himself since my swollen body couldn't do much bending and we had trouble getting those on! In the ER I was so embarrassed that I told the doctor that I wasn't actually crazy - that Uggs were created in Australia so that those on the sandy beaches of Sydney would be more comfortable playing volleyball.  She looked at me like I was nuts - and who could blame her?  I don't think her opinion of me changed much when I asked if her last name was Hungarian.  Vhaaaaattt, folks?  It's a legitimate question.  I like to know these things. I'm always curious.

Back to the why I was there. I was so happy that someone finally knew what anasarca was.  That made the doc OK in my book.  My other symptoms were heavy, profuse sweating - like turning-off-the-shower-before-the-towel wet.  A migraine yet again.  And great numbness in my left side affecting ear down through arms and hands, the left leg and foot, getting worse every day.  An EKG was run, blood taken, urine analysis, x-ray ... all of it. Nothing was found to explain the symptoms, though much was ruled out.

So, this was the bad news in the sense that I was stuck without a diagnosis, but it was nonetheless reassuring in the sense that an ER is there to rule out the stuff that will make you drop dead immediately.  (Not too blunt, am I?) The stuff that is chronic really should be explored by a physician who knows you and if he can't find out what's wrong, then he sends you on to a specialist. That's how the system works and as long as everyone is playing by the rules, I'm fine.  I was greatly relieved that I didn't have pneumonia. (Whoops: I didn't mention the congestion, etc., did I?  Well, too much going on!)  I was relieved I wasn't in the midst of a heart attack.  I may have seemed like a hypochondriac but that episode of having pneumonia for two months last year and discovering it only because of a routine chest x-ray before surgery kind of made me realize that I needed to get to the bottom of things sooner rather than later. 

So, where do we stand now?  My rheumy thinks the sweating may be something "subtle."  I wanted to know: in what world is sweating so profusely-that-you're-pouring-down-water-and-can't-move-in-bed-because-you're-so frozen and feel as-if-your-guts-are-falling-out and finally resort to pain pills for something that isn't pain per se, but is just feeling like you-might-die-and-very-much-wish-you-could, be normal or "subtle."   Well, it may be that I'm in withdrawal from the Cybalta and/or the trazadone. 

Yes, it was my decision to get off the Cybalta without tapering. (See this post for more on my Cymbalta adventure.)  We all agreed that I hadn't been on it long enough to have things get too tough - though due to weird circumstances I had taken it longer than I wanted. My doctors observed that I don't appear to have an "addictive personality."  That is, I've never had any withdrawal from any other medications over the past 26 years - I'd started on medications only after I'd been officially diagnosed with CFIDS and fibromyalgia, therefore I write 25 and not 37 years. And so after discussing the mechanisms of how Cymbalta and trazadone tapering off works differently form the way nicotine and opioid withdrawal might work, if I felt OK with stopping suddenly, to go for it. I don't like to draw things out and went off cigarettes cold turkey without any problems after smoking for a few years.  (Do I sound defensive if I say do you have any idea how much reading and writing is done as an English literature student?  LOL!)  I took up smoking once my kids were older and then again stopped cold turkey almost three years ago and had no problems - other than more pain in general that still hasn't stopped.  But the smoking is another story.  I've never had opioid withdrawal at all, knock on wood.

At any rate, yesterday was truly hell and I hope that I'm over the worst of it.  I slept last night after a dreadfully long day full of severe nausea, lessening numbness, moderate migraine and  sweats out the wazoo - my bedding was more drenched than ever, something I thought to be impossible.

My rheumy said that we can all hope that it's withdrawal symptoms and not anything more "serious," so I'll hold out for a bit longer.  Hallelujah for the no sweats upon waking up this morning, just a bit this morning with sweats every once in a while which I can take.  The shaking is gone for the most part.  No migraine, only a bit of a headache that I can tolerate.  My hands are only slightly swollen. Yeehaw!

I also want to know in what world is opioids considered addictive and Cymbalta and other such medications not? But that's for another post.

Do you agree with my rheumy and think what I'm going through now might be withdrawal from the Cymbalta and trazadone?  

As always, hoping everyone out there is feeling their best, only better!  Ciao and paka!



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Friday Tidbits: Blubbering Idiot

Oh heaven help us all, it's Friday and that means "Friday Tidbits," no matter how I feel.  I have a real bugaboo about making promises and not keeping them.  At any rate, I finally had the energy to look at my Facebook page yesterday to let y'all know that I'm still around but that it's been a rough patch I've been going through. And the holidays aren't even here yet!  (Irene bangs her head against the desk surface.)  How DOES the CFIDS/ME/CFS and fibro patient survive the season?  I'm not entirely sure.

But I do have a confession to make about myself: I don't allow myself to cry, though that changed this past week.  I just don't allow myself that luxury.  I do cry every once in a while, especially when I'm really angry about something (which just makes me angrier and then I cry harder, of course) but for the most part I try not to allow myself tears when it comes to being ill.  My feeling is that if I start, how will I stop the flood?  Besides, it feels so manipulative.

I'm pretty strict about the policy too.  In fact, I remember that when the kids were around the 10-years-old mark I'd taken them off to a movie for survival purposes one August day before school started.  Now August truly has the most horrid movies.  I think it's because Hollywood realizes that it's the only time that they can hoist off their stinkers upon poor parents who are desperate for a couple of hours of keeping the kids occupied.  Hollywood's not stupid: it realizes that parents have done every activity known to man by August and everyone is bored silly - consequently, any movie at all will do at that point. Anyway, the movie that afternoon - and who even cares to remember WHAT the movie was - had a scene in it that was funny and sad at the same time and suddenly I looked over and saw three sets of eyes staring at me with mouths open.  I asked what in the world was wrong and they all just kept gasped and one finally said, "Mom!  You're crying! You NEVER cry."  I thought they were nuts but thinking about it for the next week or so (obsessing?) I realized that the little stinkers were absolutely right.  I did try to protect them from the worst parts of my illness and really they only saw the bad stuff when mom was in the hospital and they weren't too sure what went on in there.

But in trying to protect the kids from as much of my illness as I could, I had given off this air of things don't hurt me.  Funny how things can be taken.

The purpose of the story?  I guess I just want someone to know that I've worked really hard on protecting my kids as much as I could, though I often think that THAT has blown up in my face and that they don't REALLY get it.  

And I also wanted anyone out there to know that when I say that I cried more this week than I've probably cried in my entire life, I'm not saying this lightly. The pain has been excruciating but I think I could take it were it not for the fact that I'm just so darned tired of everything going wrong with me every time I turn around.  And you know it's bad when there are two reasons that you don't want to go to the ER: 1) because you haven't bathed in so long and REALLY stink because you've sweat so much and 2) because telling the ER staff what is wrong with you is just beyond what you're capable of doing.  Really?  Are those reasons at all legitimate?

And you know: I should learn to keep my mouth shut sometimes. I had praised our ER in an earlier post.  Well, this time it was a nightmare.  The staff was loud, rude and obnoxious. The lighting was horrid and obviously when the "state of the art" rooms were designed, no one took into consideration anyone coming in with a migraine also in tow.  Actually, my migraine was barely a migraine until I got to the hospital and all the noise - with an empty ER!  I was puzzled for a couple of days as to why my treatment was so night and day compared to the last time I was there and couldn't figure it out. 

And then BINGO!  I got it.  How could I have been so blind?   This time I had come in with an invisible and chronic illness that couldn't be measured.  I was no longer in there with a problem which could be fixed by an operation nor could it be measured by any testing. Ergo, the system which deals so well with acute problems, but extremely poorly with chronic ones, was in full blast mode and then some.  Ah!  Now I realize why one of the nurses that I had during the surgery stay had disliked the ER so much!  

Oh, they were generous with the pain meds - I must give them credit where credit is due.  In fact, they gave me so much that I got to sleep for five hours in which I have NO idea what they did, what all was ruled out, mostly because I didn't make notes when hubs told me and I should have, but really, I just don't care this week.  Furthermore, I do think that if I ask hubby one more question about the ER visit he may choose to risk prison and just shoot me.

But the difference was night and day.  I had back pain, chest pain and breast pain, was nauseated - and fed up with that since I'm the first to admit that I don't do nausea and when it hits I simply can't cope with it.  I always say, give me anything but nausea and a sore throat.  (Do I sound like Forest Gump?)  Actually, I've been dealing with the nausea pretty well, since I've had it almost non-stop for about a year but it's been really hard to control with medication for the last six months and besides, wasn't it supposed to go away when my gall bladder was removed?  And of course, it hurt to talk since the incisions in my abdomen from the gall bladder surgery have gone into full pain mode now.  I guess the part where my immune system has something to fight has given up and decided to turn around and retreat.  So after crying all day, while the painters were in the house trying to be very quiet but it is just so annoying to have anyone around day in and day out and hearing every bit of the sanding that goes on (plus, cough, cough cough!), the pain getting worse each day, by Tuesday I was a blubbering idiot behind closed doors.

And really, is there anything worse than a blubbering idiot who doesn't even know what IS wrong because she has no short-term memory at all?  I had to have sounded loony because it was this and that and this and the other.  Thank heaven hubby was able to give some sort of history - after we debated whether or not we should go to the ER for over 8 hours.  The neuropathy in my foot was giving me a hard time, then my knees would go into a pain where they felt like they'd been glued on backwards then another area would take over.  The anti-inflammatories aren't doing their job and my hand which had the surgery is puffed up all the time and hurts like you-know-what because just think of all the nerve endings in the hand.  It was the entire Civil War going on inside me with several major battles going on simultaneously and with one part of the body going into the off-the-chart pain to another part taking that honored place to another.

After arriving home from the ER we were able to schedule a mammogram (yep - 7 years since the last one) and I found myself almost hoping for cancer.  Why?  Well, anyone with CFIDS, etc will understand: I wanted to be taken seriously.  I didn't want that loud talking from the hospital staff as if I were mentally incapacitated, deaf and/or didn't understand English.  And yes, when I asked if they could please use their "indoor voices," there were quite offended and talked louder - the ER staff, that is.  

After the imaging, the radiologist came in and explained that they found some calcium deposits but nothing else.  Well, I wanted answers.  Where had the pain come from?  I had certainly not imagined it and I wasn't in a mood to be bullied any more.  To give the radiologist credit, he did try to talk to me about that one and he tried to give me reasons for breast pain.  When he mentioned that back pain could be the cause of breast pain, hubs and I were so excited that we both yelled out "Bingo!' at the same time.  The back pain had been so bad that I had even considered allowing my rheumy to give me some trigger point injections - but chickened out.  Nothing else was helping out with any of my meds, so I thought, why even bother going through that "ordeal"?  I have enough shots every day and besides, I was hurting from a phenergan shot that one of the nurses gave me in a very odd place on what I thought was supposed to be my bottom, but kind of missed her target.  No, it was time to go home and continue the tears.

They seemed safer than any hospital or doctor that day and all of this past week.

Hope the rest of you all are doing your best, only better.  It helped to talk.  Thanks for indulging me.  Ciao and paka! 

Autumn Venting!!!

Some days I feel as if I've swallowed a pumpkin whole - you know, as in the whole enchilada!  Let me explain, please!

It's been just over a month since I received word that yet another body part of mine had ceased to function.  I'm now going to have to start taking a count of how many more body parts can go wrong since I don't think there are too many left to spare!  Of course, this has occurred because of my funky CFDIS/CFS/ME and fibromyalgia body.  (We're not going to go into all the other problems this ol' body of mine is going through with the skin problems, sleep problems and so forth, or I'd be here for at least a month listing all the problems I have wrong with me and we ARE trying to keep these posts short, right?)

I finally had an extensive blood workup done again and though only one test has come back thus far, I do know it's the one for hypothyroidism (alone) and shows the thyroid levels being within a "normal" range.  It makes me happy, especially given how much I messed things up in the first week or so, first by not taking enough medication (not my fault as we were trying to find the right dosage), then taking twice the dosage, which WAS my fault since I was taking what I thought was the upped-to double dosage whereas in reality, i managed to double the double dosage (get that???).  Fibro-brain at it's best!  But somehow, we've finally gotten to the part of the blood tests which can accurately (huh!) show me what that thyroid is doing.  Further results are pending.

I must admit that in my naiveté or smugness (your choice!) I never expected such a rough road in fixing this problem. Oh girl, your name is "Hubris"!  I didn't expect this rough a road because hey, I'm an old-timer with new problems that are constantly coming up because of this cruddy illness/syndrome/disease that I'm living with and I've learned to deal with what life throws at me - well, up to a point.  I've long ago thrown up my arms and realized that for the rest of my life we will be working on dealing with the symptoms and trying to keep those under control.  For an old-timer like me, there is so very little hope of getting back an even semi-normal life.  

I absolutely do not mean this as a downer.  Instead, I mean this as a reality check and my life as a cautionary tale, especially for those who are "newly sick."  As I've said before, we accept these illnesses in this house, rarely getting too excited about things except for every few years when the poop really hits the proverbial fan and I go into a health crisis that looks like I may very well NOT survive.  Yet somehow those Bulyga and Lisovsky genes take over (the ones that didn't succumb to Ghengis Khan, Hitler and Stalin - that's pretty heady, hardy and stubborn DNA) and though they continue to not be able to overcome this illness, they nonetheless don't let me expire either.

I sort of look at this DD like a long life of "food poisoning."  If you've ever had food poisoning, you're "reassured" that you won't die. However, boy, at the moment of heaving out your guts, that's quite a curse, because while you're going through it, those are very upsetting words to hear! The last thing you want to hear is that it will not kill you.  I call it "threats" and not reassurances.  I most certainly hope and think that most are not in the "food poisoning" part of this illness: but watch it, or you may get there if things go on too long and if you do not do the sensible thing and REST, REST, REST and let your body heal itself!

With this hypothyroidism, I was, yes, concerned about the condition and it explained a lot of what was going on, but I certainly didn't expect it to take such a huge toll on me.  I thought it was going to be simply an unusual stumbling block on my way to figuring out what "new" thing exactly has gone wrong with me now, "big time," something that happens to me every few years when my body takes another nosedive and doesn't recover much.

Well, the stumbling block has been more like a boulder.  Actually, more than one boulder, as in boulders, in the plural. This well reminds me of boulders that some evil giant might put in front each of the Lincoln tunnel entrances going into NYC and there is simply no way that I am going to move those suckers easily, much less bother to anymore.  After all, why would I want to start messing around with the boulders when all is said and done?  Is going to NYC worth it - metamorphically speaking?   I mean really, you can get just about anything you want and need from all over the world these days via the Internet: food, clothes, movies, books.  Who needs New York anymore?  (Choose your battles!)  The "fly-over" states are still being discounted by the big NY/DC and LA areas but the joke is on them: little do they realize that our lives are richer than those who live in the "big cities," which have so little going for them, especially nowadays.  We are the canaries: why would we want to live in the coal mines???  OK, that was a bit off topic.  Back on track!

At any rate, it's been rough getting used to all the new symptoms, many of which I've NOT read about anywhere, which are a result of my hypothyroidism.   Being a person who infamously doesn't remember what all goes wrong with me throughout the day or weeks, it's kind of hard to notice all the strange little problems that go wrong for a CFIDS/ME and fibromyalger combined with hypothyroidism.  It's not until something knocks me over the head that I start to realize, "hey! THAT"S something new!" and look at poor hubby and say, "why didn't you mention that?" or worse "Oh, you think EVERYTHING is a problems because of the hypothyroidism!!!"  Can hubby win: OF COURSE NOT!!!!  It would be silly to even expect him to get a break!  My suffering is his suffering, whether he wants it or not!

So which are the problems I've had the most difficulty with?  I know I will miss a lot of them but I'm here to let you know some of the ones that REALLY are getting to me.

• Migraines out the wazoo.  I mean my migraine arsenal is not even touching those suckers.  I've given up on most of the migraine meds because, frankly, why poison my system with a medication that's not going to work?

• My "body migraines" are also out the wazoo and I've pretty much gotten used to the pain and no help.  Bummer as they were also helped by some of the meds I had in my arsenal.  Nothing's helping now.

I've been told by one of my doctors to drink more water - that being dehyrated can bring on the migraines.  Guess what!  There isn't enough water to hydrate me.  I am drinking so much water that I feel nauseated (and do I really want to add more nausea to the mix?) and am still having migraines and body migraines.  Some times there's just no winning!

• Nausea: I certainly didn't have a problem with this until the whole hypothyroidism started in, around the time I flew to Malaysia.  I have a feeling that the whole hypothyroidism was a result of the trip: it was just one strain too many for the body.  

• Diet: I also think that Malaysia may have also added to the whole hypothyroidism because I have never done well with sugar and they eat an awful lot of fruit there.  I finally got to the point that if I saw another fruit platter (served with everything you order) I thought that I would heave - quite the trick if you don't have a gag reflex!  And I need animal protein: a lot!  Sorry, but my DNA is Slavic through and through, my ancestors were in the same part of the Ukraine as far back as can be remembered and we ate MEAT!   Don't give me the protein "legumes."  That just makes things worse.  Don't give me the "Mediterranean Diet!"   My ancestors never ate anything remotely Mediterranean.  They ate MEAT!   OK, the fish and no dairy - my ancestors invented the concept of eating vegan - we endure it for the Big Lent before Easter, the smaller Lent before Christmas and a few other minor lents that are scattered around, but once those lents were over, we are hardcore eaters of potatoes and meat.  Herring, thank you very much, is for lent.  Period.  Sugar was honey and little of it at that, none during the lents.  We got our sugar from beets, thank you very much.   So, while hubby needs and calls his spaghetti with red "gravy," "Italian penicillin," I call potatoes and meat "Russian/Ukie penicillin."  Yes, I have some throw-back Mongol blood in me, mixed with Viking blood, but I think they ate their meat too.  So Malaysia was very tough on me diet-wise. 

• I didn't mention this before, but enough time has gone by that I can't stand not mentioning what really happened as a result of O'Hare International Airport in Chicago - twice directly contributing to the mess that helped start me get into this mess, when it made me stay overnight in a hotel and did not:

1. reroute me at least to San Francisco, or a west coast city, getting me closer to my final destination; 
2. did not allow me access to my HGH in the luggage overnight and
3. added yet another leg to the journey, making me arrive a day and a half late to KL after I had paid for a business class ticket in cash (no rewards!) just in order to get decent service.  
4. Then on the way back, again, Chicago was a mess: after a lot of very nice personnel and some lying personnel, which ultimately dumped me into "steerage" from Chicago to Pitt, whereupon landing
5. my cane almost hit my head because the flight attendant put it in the overhead compartment in a way which guaranteed it flying out when the overhead bin was opened (I'd tried to warn him but I was already on their poop list because I pointed out that I was supposed to be in business class and they wouldn't believe me until someone finally looked up the codes and whoops!  Mistake made.  So sorry, but you don't mind - NO, of course I didn't mind, I love throwing away money I don't have and paying 4 times the steerage rate just to sit in steerage!)  A blind woman was sitting one seat away from me - whom I didn't notice because I was THAT sick (behind in my meds because of plane delays, etc.) - and my cane only missed hitting us because we both instinctively jumped when we heard the "whoosh" of the cane coming down. 
6. However, the woman who opened the over-head bin was so startled by the flying cane that she jumped back enough to get a huge momentum going with her VERY heavy bag and hit me along the shoulder and neck area as if I were a ball and her bag were a bat, and then I was hit by various women and their luggage as they came down and kept banging my shoulder/neck/head because they all tried to carry 4 pieces of luggage down very narrow aisles in order to not have to pay for the extra fees for too much check-in luggage.  
7. When I then had the "audacity" to make a complaint about being hit and also about being put into "steerage" that meant that the fire department, paramedics, security, police (with their guns proudly displayed), representatives of the airport (PR and lawyers) and the airlines (PR and lawyers) all descended and tried to get  me to sign a waiver that I was not hurt: were they kidding me???? 
8. I finally called them on it and asked if it was necessary to have guns out when I was obviously not a terrorist but a injured woman in a wheelchair and were the lawyers necessary since I would NOT be signing any statements until my husband arrived and could you please take off the blood pressure cuff because if you look, you'll see my hand has gone purple, and it's my very obviously "crippled hand/arm" and you are definitely too stupid to get a reading off of me (I just thought those last words...I DO know when to stop!)  This was just the beginning of the fiasco which lasted for well over two hours.  Ah yes... don't fly those friendly skies if at all possible.  Even business class gets treated like cattle and if you're in a wheelchair, forgetaboutit!  You aren't even human!  Fact of life!

• My fatigue is worse than ever, which is something I never thought I would ever write or say again: after all, how in the world could I be more "tired" than I was when my body stopped making Human Growth Hormone (HGH) and in the end I was carried out of my daughter's college graduation, just as the graduates were coming in through the doors to their seats?  Later, I ended up falling asleep in the car ride home (8 plus hours) eating something and falling asleep and chocking on my food (oh yeah, that was a fun ride) and having to be hospitalized a day after reaching home for such disgusting things that even I won't go there, all because I was so far gone and everyone was trying to cut through the red tape to get me my HGH in order for me to not die...fun  memories (not!)  Truly, it's a miracle that any of my kids still talk to me!

• My brain is too tired to work.  I'll watch a show with hubby and I've noticed that my brain turns off for a second or two, going who know where and I've lost the plot of the story.  This happens to me several times during each show and were I not trying to distract myself from my "uncontrollable" pain and way beyond the misery-inducing fatigue, I wouldn't be watching at all.  Thank God for DVR's!  

• I'm hungry, I'm not hungry.  Oh, I don't want to eat.  Looking at food just makes me nauseated for the first time in my life.  Thinking of food makes me nauseated.  But I am HUNGRY!  I eat a bit, stop and give back the bowl.  This from a person who finds it impossible NOT to finish everything on her plate.  This is from a person with an iron belly, the only part of me that I could rely on to always work!

• This will sound so vain, but my skin has NO elasticity to it.  My body looks like that of an 80-year old!  This is NOT supposed to happen with my genes and is not acceptable.

• The sweats and chills are in a league of their own: in their own Hall of Fame division.  I thought I had it bad before?  This is ridiculous.  And with drinking all that water, the runs to the bathroom alone are wearing me out.  Is there an Olympian event for CFIDS/CFS/ME and fibromyalgia and drinking water and then running?  Should be. 

However, on the plus side: 

• Maybe the hair and eyebrows that I'd worked on for so long with the Rogaine and other products, which was all unraveled by the hypothyroidism, will start coming back in now that the thyroid is up to the right level!  (And maybe I'm jinxing myself?)

• My frozen ankles, tied in with the neuropathy, are starting to flex again!  This was a first!  I was shuffling along these last few months and couldn't for the life of me figure out why my ankles wouldn't bend.  Looks like it WAS indeed tied into the thyroid problem.  Let's hope so!  

• My hoarse voice tells me that "whoops! You've not taken your thyroid med."  I've found an easy solution!   However, I still can't get the coughing under control at times.

And this is the reason that I feel as if I swallowed a pumpkin, whole.  My hoarse voice, my nausea, my hunger, my being too full, the skin that's no longer elastic...need I go on?

Yep, CFIDS/ME/fibro's a bi-atch.    

In the meanwhile, I hope everyone's feeling their best, only much, much better.  Ciao and paka!