bears vs. BPAs

Have you noticed how every time you turn around, there’s something else that’s been deemed a health hazard, or at least potentially so?

Yeah, us too.

After perusing a couple of informative and uplifting articles this evening about various dangers lurking in the corners of our lives, the MPM, canned tomatoes in hand, strode to his desk.

“I’m going to log on to my cancer-causing laptop computer now, to see if my organic tomatoes are giving me cancer. [pause]. At least I don’t live in the wild and have to worry about getting eaten by bears.“

It’s not a great choice, but living in the wild would mean doing without all my favorite mod cons. BPAs it is.

But maybe I’ll ditch the microwave popcorn.

[sigh]

reframed

Whew, y’all. I am a touch frazzled. The timing of this time of year is always tricky for us. There’s Megan’s birthday, and then we have our traditional trek to Ohio for some portion of the week around Thanksgiving. Last year I threw a lil Saturday half-marathon race into the mix just for the heck of it, but a wiser head, not to mention weaker legs, prevailed and that’s not happening in ‘09.

So instead, because there’s some karmic even strain to maintain, yesterday I got a full-on sick kid. Megan’s midnight earache for the second time in her history led to multiple vomiting episodes as well, despite no fever. Go figure.

And today? Today, when she got herself up and dressed with no alarm, when I should have and deserve and Desperately Freakin Need a full complement of kid-free hours? She has early dismissal.

Which I think means that she’ll be helping me make her class birthday cupcakes. That’s fun bonding mommy time, right, and not a heartless thing to do to the almost-birthday girl. Right? Right.

Because I’m all about the reframing, yes I am. Yesterday I sat in her couch “nest” in the living room with her for a good bit of the day and snuggled and read to her and managed to successfully ignore the one-quarter-painted walls and the clashing window treatments and the rolled-up rug to be returned to Overstock.

Because I remembered, just as I was about to stress out about all that “needed” to get done, what it is that being an at-home mom is really about. And remembered, not too slowly, to be grateful for the opportunity.

And I imagine that what needs getting done in the next couple days will get done. And a lot of stuff that doesn’t, well, won’t. Cos that’s how it works, isn’t it?

And the stuff in the middle that gnaws at me at three a.m.? Ah, heck. Who needs all that sleep anyway?

this could save your life.

If you ride a bike regularly, chances are at some point you’re going to get stung by a bee.  There’s the classic bee-flies-in-your-helmet number — sometimes it flies out with no further ado, but more often it gets pissed off at your head for being in its way — and there’s my experience a few years ago of one smacking into my quadricep as I was travelling 40 or so mph on a descent.  I don’t know if the stinger was driven in especially far due to the speed at impact or what, but my leg swelled up like a football.  Very attractive.

And then there was my Sunday ride.  Three of my favorite people to ride with, a gorgeous route, perfect weather…  and one little buzzy thing drilling my buddy Frank dead between the eyes just before we started the long descent into the small crossroads town that marks about halfway.

He was stoic, but we could tell it wasn’t your average honeybee-in-the-clover sting.  We’d planned to stop at the small local gas station/convenience store anyway, so we pulled in to get him some relief in the form of an ice cube or two.

It was locked up tight, but happily after a few minutes of waiting the owner pulled in and said sure, he’d open a little early for us, and we got snax and ice and such and sat chatting.

And after a few minutes Frank mentioned that it was the weirdest thing, but he was starting to feel sort of itchy.

Well then.  We got some Benadryl in him, and rode somewhat sedately the rest of the way home.

Now.  Here comes the soapbox.  My blog, my box.

A decade or so ago I personally witnessed full-blown anaphylactic shock in a sizeable adult male, which I can tell you is an experience that will stick with you for the rest of your days.    And I will tell you too what the docs at the ER told me in the aftermath of that event.

If you are stung by something and you swell up big as a football, but it is AT THE SITE of the sting, do not fret yourself.

If you are stung and you get a reaction, no matter how seemingly innocuous, that involves any part of your body AWAY FROM THE SITE of the sting, know that this is your kind, gentle WARNING.  Call your doc immediately and Do Not Pass Go as you run, not walk, to the nearest drugstore for your very own Epi-pen.

Because that reaction — some hives on your stomach, itching of your hands or feet, or groin (sorry, Frank), or head — is letting you know that your body is reacting SYSTEMICALLY to that venom.  And that, friends, is a problem.  Because each time you are stung, your reaction will almost certainly escalate.   (We’ll step aside from discussion of the various types of stings and venoms and sensitivities, and just go with the take-home lesson here).

Take that man whose full-blown reaction I saw.   Fact:   He is alive and fully functioning today ONLY because by the grace of god and/or sheer serendipity (take your pick) someone at a party going on next door had an Epi-pen.   Fact:   His only prior reaction — which he’d never even thought of again — had been that his head itched after he was stung.

Am I writing that clearly enough?  Sting #1:  Itchy head.  Sting #2, years later:  Full collapse and airway failure.  In minutes.  In a six-foot-four, 200-pound male.  Requiring the Epi-pen, and, when the ambulance finally arrived, two additional shots of adrenaline.

Know too that a life-threatening anaphylactic reaction may very well take place at a dizzying speed.  You will not have time to drive home to your medicine chest, find your Epi-pen and take it out of its box.  In fact, you may not have time to go to your car and remove it from the glovebox.  Carry it with you.  Everywhere.

Really.

Addendum: Don’t miss the exciting GIVEAWAY — see the reply to Becky’s comment, below, and then leave your own to enter the random drawing!

another day in illville

For a few weeks now I’ve had one girl who can’t seem to hear much of anything I say to her, and one girl who can hear fine but ignores my pleas to her to quit the dance and go potty before either a) I lose my mind, or b) she loses control all over the rug. “I don’t hafta go,” she says. Right up until. You know this game; it’s such a FUN one!

Moving along to this morning, I had one near-inconsolable girl with earache (DOH!), sick-visit appointment still 5 hours distant, seated on my lap, as upright as I could make her, ear against the heating pad on my chest. And one halfway down the stairs, commencing the non-verbal pips and squeaks that instantly launch Mom Code Red.

I levitate off the couch, trying to gently-yet-immediately set Megan down still propped upright/heated, and am up the stairs in a single bound by the time the siren starts: “IGOTTAPOOP!! IGOTTAPOOP!!”

And into the bathroom, onto the potty, but no, of course not in time. Of course not. No, it’s everywhere: panties, pants, socks, toilet, floor, and of course Kira’s entire backside. She, Princess Privacy, is screeching “Go WAY!! SHUT THE DOOR!! GO WAY!!” And Megan is screeching from the living room, lamenting my absence and attending to anything but her and her discomfort. I’m wiping with all possible haste, but it’s the pasty sort of undertaking that nothing but full-on ablution will fix.

Completely out of character, I trash the panties. Wipe, wipe, wipe. Scrub, scrub, scrub. The phone rings. I have to answer it, because I know it is the nurse calling back to find out where I want the topical pain scrip called in, and this is virtually the only thing with any chance at all of improving my life in the immediate future. The cacophony of screeching and ringing continues while I attempt to press a button and hold the phone to my ear without actually touching it in any way with my hands.

Phone answered, Kira/bathroom swabbed, Megan re-snuggled, I call the cavalry, in the form of wonderful friend B, who is home and willing to pick up said prescription. She does, it’s administered, and I breathe a sigh of relief as it takes hold.

And the rest of the story should be: We go to the doctor, we get our drugs, we go home, Megan and Kira watch a video together as a Big-Sissy’s-home-sick-from-school treat, and I make a scrumptious dinner to commemorate the return of my sense of smell and taste, and plan an extravagant biking outing for the morrow. BECAUSE I DESERVE IT.

It should NOT be: Megan, completely out of character, snoozes on the way home from the doctor, sleeps more after we arrive home, and then commemorates the return of my sense of smell by throwing up. Well into the evening hours. Because this would be the sort of ending to the story that would feel contrived, unduly melodramatic, and sympathy-seeking, perhaps even reaching the level of pathos. It would stretch the confines of believability. BECAUSE I DO NOT DESERVE THIS.

And just a heads-up, dear readers, that if I get that throw-up bug myself? This blog may be permanently unmanned. Because I’m not sure I’ll have internet access on the locked ward.

in sickness and health

I slept with my husband last night for the first time in almost a week. It was just gone 10 when we climbed between the flannel sheets and he snuggled up to me. “Oh, you’re hot,” he said, caressing my neck.

It’s wonderful to have a husband who will not only say but genuinely believe something like that when I’m winsomely attired in an ancient T-shirt (it says 1995 Main Street Cup Regatta right on it, so no escaping the vintage) and haven’t shaved my legs in who only knows how long, at least in part because I’m afraid the sinus pressure created from bending over to do so would make me pass out and crack my head open on the edge of the tub.

However.

Me: “Oh, love, I don’t think tonight is…”

Him, interrupting: “No, honey, you’re HOT. Your SKIN is hot.”

Ah. Yes. That would be the 101.8 temperature I finally got around to measuring this afternoon. I’d been wondering why I felt so lethargic and generally crap-like and was toying with the notion that I’d just fallen into the habit — they say it takes about a month to create a new habit, right, and honestly I think it’s been about that long since I’ve seen perky health — of sitting, lying, or, in fits of energy, perhaps puttering around the house or pegging out a load of laundry.

Then I got out the thermometer and was actually relieved, for a moment, to see I hadn’t undergone subtle transmogrification into a couch potato. Then depressed, almost to tears, to contemplate that after this many days in the ring with the botts I’m still spiking a fever. What is WRONG with me??

But, digression aside, I actually slept in the marital bed, as opposed to in the sick guest room, and, fever or no, was reminded of how much I cherish curling up with my husband. Although I do run shuffle downstairs to hide in our guest room when I have the worst of the sniffling-sneezing-nighttime-coughing going on, preferring to to hack and honk and snuffle and sneeze in solitude, I love that part of marriage, the nightly slumber-party-with-best-friend part. Even Kira played along, sleeping the whole night through.

All that to the good, I will say that it’s been a frustrating month, given that every time I think I’m turning the corner, seems there’s a brick wall there instead for me to run my clogged-up head into. Sorry if it seems I’ve ridden this post pony half to death, but as goes my life, so goes my blog.

Inshallah, I’ll be on to new material soon.

Thursday thanks

You know, I’ve noticed that when I write about how crappy I feel, people really make a point of taking the time to say something nice, and/or offer advice. Sometimes they call, sometimes they email, sometimes they comment — but overall there’s a flow of feel-good that I never would have imagined.

Of course, as nice as that is, I’d take NOT feeling crappy over all the well wishes. Just seems I haven’t had that choice lately.

It’s late enough now that I’m not going to tell the story from today about taking a bath with Kira because I had the sore-all-over thing going and a steamy hot soak just sounded so good. Suffice it to say that bathing with a two-and-a-half-year-old didn’t exactly soothe my aching bod. But it did feed my soul, and my giggle bank.

I will however tell the story about being intrigued with one reader’s suggestion to “buy and use a netti pot religiously.” I’d seen netti (also neti) pots in like some of the freebie mags that end up in my cart at the co-op, but I’ll confess I lumped them in with, I don’t know, ayurvedic medicine maybe, which, while it may well be exactly what works for you, isn’t my deal. So I’d given a big nyet on the netti pot fad.

But since I don’t have this reader pegged as the crystal-totin’ type — not that there’s anything wrong with that — I got online after reading his comment and saw that in fact there is a reasonable faction of folks out there, spread across the medical-provider spectrum, who stand behind sinus irrigation.

Well. My sinuses were clearly in need of SOMETHING. However, about the last thing I felt like doing this morning, save for perhaps scrubbing the catbox, was heading out in search of a netti pot. After viewing a couple of YouTube productions, it occurred to me that I could probably fashion one out of something around the house, optimally something with a preexisting sort of spoutish device… yes.

So I cast about in the closets and crannies for an item filling the above description, and suffice it to say that desperation is the mother of innovation, and Kira’s really past the sippy-cup phase anyway.

Sorry. But, you know, my sinuses really DO feel better. And after the second ablution, this afternoon, the gunk coming out afterward no longer bore any resemblance to split-pea soup, so I’m thinking that’s all to the good.

We’ll have to wait on the religious aspect of it, which I think means doing it regularly as opposed to, like, on random religious holidays that we might or might not celebrate here at Casa Fraught. But I’m going to give it a try, because if it can make a difference in my health going forward, that, my friends, is beyond priceless.

Heck, I might even invest in an actual netti pot.

Wednesday whine

Well, guess what?

I’ve got the crud. Again. Yes, AGAIN, for fuck’s sake. I rather wish someone had been keeping track for me, because this has got to be some kind of record. I’ve been sick, at an absolute minimum, once a month since September. I think it’s more, but it’s simply too depressing to calculate how many days of the last 6 months I have merely existed through if it were, say, not once but twice a month. So we’ll go with once. And I won’t go back and look to see if my postings indicate otherwise, if you won’t. And if you do, and it is, well, god, don’t tell me.

When we flew south in January, I realized I was fighting something off, and I promptly began a full-out campaign of Zicam and Vitamin C and Airborne and Emergen-C, which is what I do to give myself some delusion illusion of control over getting full-on sick. In fact, that particular bug never fully took hold, for which I was grateful, but it still put a bit of a damper on my experience of our Florida vacation, curtailing the length of my runs on the glorious beach steps away from our door, for example.

While we were there, Megan had her own thing going, in the form of a nasty, nasty cough, albeit with no other symptoms. A deep, chesty, productive-sounding cough, the sort that makes you wonder exactly what’s going to appear at the end of it. And it lasted the entire week we were there.

We got back to home and our routine, she eventually stopped barking, and then on along about the third week in January I developed a close personal relationship with that same cough. After two solid weeks I began joking about my closet pack-a-day habit; as it wore into the third week, the joke seemed to lose some of its luster. It’s damn difficult to run and cough up a lung simultaneously, but I really did feel okay otherwise, so I did just that on a number of occasions.

And now, as of Monday evening, still holding firm to the hack, lovely and productive, I’ve managed to piggyback a breathtaking head cold, also brought home by Megan.

I clearly have zero immunity. None. Zilch. Why, I can’t fathom: On the surface of it one would observe that I eat quite well, get mostly enough sleep, exercise, and wash my hands regularly. And then one would observe me doubled over hacking, with tears running down my face, spewing phlegm and frustration in equal measures as my sinuses threaten to squeeze my brain out my ears. And one would wonder. I sure as hell do.

Can I say, it’s been in the high 60s this week, and yet I have spent most of yesterday and today both inactive and I-N-S-I-D-E. Which makes me I-N-S-A-N-E. Yes indeed, I am completely and utterly OVER being sick.

Except I’m not, of course.

That’s my whine. Be nice to me or I’ll come spread the love your way. Every time.

how Saturday went down

Woke to the thermometer reading 19 degrees, along with a kicky little breeze, leading to internal debate on a number of things like what to wear and how to get to the start line, which is all of one almost-entirely-downhill mile from my house.  It seemed a little pathetic to drive, but then again! While I know up north 19 degrees is tennis weather, we here in the mid-Atlantic region consider it ass-freezing cold. Come on, it was like 70F two weeks ago.

So when the phone rang and it was friend K saying she could pick me up, I said Yes before she even finished offering. We’d planned to run together too as long as that worked for both of us, so it was perfect. We got there not many minutes before the gun, and that was perfect too — long enough to say Hi to various friends and get situated; not long enough for bone chill to set in.  (For me at least; K has about 7% body fat, so she was at a disadvantage).

I came in just a hair under 1:54, an 8:43/mi pace.  Not as fast as I would have liked, but faster than I had any right to expect, given the overall dearth of miles in my training log and the untimely arrival of my period the evening before (yick).  And the MPM had walked down to the finish line with the girls, snugly tucked in the Chariot, so I even had a cheering section. How great is that?

Looked for K at the finish area but somehow missed her, so started walking home with the fam. Made it about a quarter-mile before some wicked nasty stomach cramps settled in and I realized the uphill trudge home wasn’t happening. Detoured past friends’ house (she of the 6-months-pregnant 1:39 finish time) and settled in on their cozy chair to wait for the MPM to return with vehicular conveyance.

Arrived home to discover that we’d been ransacked. Or maybe just that the MPM had made waffles in the kitchen while the girls played with every toy they could find. And that the short list of Must-Do I’d left for the party prep hadn’t exactly been gotten to. Showered, a blessed hot sauna-like thing, and came downstairs to survey. Ugly. No other word for it. Two hours to party time, and the MPM off to the hardware store with girls to find a fuse to, hopefully, get the heat pump running again.

And as happens, what needed to get done got done, and the first kids to arrive had a total blast taking over the crepe-paper streamer decorating. Very artful indeed. It was 2.5 hours of bedlam and general chaos, and we made it through and everyone seemed to have a good time. After dinner — Megan was so exhausted I ended up literally feeding her in her bed — and party cleanup, I simply couldn’t face doing a major packing for our Sunday a.m. departure, so I settled for getting my list in order and putting most of Kira’s things in a bag, resolving to wake early and rested and knock out the rest of it.

Woke instead at 3a to the horribly unwelcome realization that I’d not escaped the stomach bug that’s making its way through the ‘hood. No indeed. Scratch Sunday departure. Spend entire day in bed. Eat one small bowl brothy soup 8p. Go back to bed.

So what to do? It’s a distinct possibility that should we choose to travel, we’ll be bringing not holiday cheer but disease vectors into my brother and his lovely wife’s lives… and she has spent enough of the last months in a state of unhealth that the last, the very last thing she needs is another botts. I’m thinking we’ll hunker down here, and plan that trek for December.

Heck, maybe we’ll even cook a turkey, since Megan won one in a drawing last week at our Natural Foods Co-op. Anyone free for Thanksgiving?