I'll just write til I run out of time.

[altarflame]

My kids are being so funny, just cracking me up. Today for instance Jake (who will be THREE in a couple of weeks, of all the insanity) told me he had to go outside to get his "journal out of the van". I thought I heard him wrong; "Your journal, out of the van?" "Yes!". We let him go look, he found nothing. I thought he might be going after a spiral notebook or something? Then a little while later we figured it out - their Diego megablocks have a tiny little laptop computer that you can stick on a megablock, and the sticker portion that used to show nonsense text on the itty bitty monitor had come off of it. That (the sticker representing words on a computer) is what he was calling his journal O_o I had no idea he was even aware I blogged :p

During homeschool today Aaron asked me, "What did the phonics workbook say to the math workbook? ...It said, 'You've got problems!'"

And as we finished up with dinner, Isaac cleared his space and then started running back and forth across the entire house, waving his hands around over his head yelling "I'm the cops! I'm the cops! I'm the cops!"

I can only imagine the state we'd be in if there was more tv around here ;)

---

My latest health worry is my heart. I've had chest pains probably...I don't know...5 or 6 times, maybe more, since last Fall. And, when I first got out of the hospital, I would get really freaked out sometimes because it seemed as though anytime I was laying down, I could feel my heart just pounding and racing in my back. It was very similar to how it feels in late pregnancy when you have all that extra blood, for those of you who know how that is, but you know...I wasn't pregnant, so it was weird. I've had two instances of numb and tingling arm and hand. This all sounds very alarming but spread out over 11 months, feeling otherwise ok, and in and amongst being only 26 and recently really feeling as though I was dying - because I WAS - I don't know, it just seemed easy to let go. It still does, really. But.
-For the past few weeks I've been having increasing shortness of breath. I feel sometimes like I did after I got out of that last bout of general anesthesia, when I couldn't pass the breath test and it was a struggle to talk. It's not usually that bad, but it IS usually something I'm aware of. At first I attributed it to gaining weight and still having to wear this sausage casing-like girdle thing for my ab muscles as it gets EVEN TIGHTER...but I've admitted in the past 10 days or so that I still feel like that even when I don't have the thing on. Then today I found out at my therapist's office reading WebMD magazine that unexplained shortness of breath is one of several symptom of impending heart attack. Along with...
-indigestion. Now, I have been attributing the really weird indigestion I always seem to have since I was released, and never had before, to having an NG tube shoved down because I know that can mess up your stomach lining and at least once it really was forceably shoved down...I woke up flipping out fighting with a nurse from some weird drugged out dream :x Anyway, now I wonder if it is another heart thing, because...
-my heart had to deal with being at 120-150bpm (with me laying semi-conscious no less) for, like...3 solid days. I am only 26, but that complication can make it a whole other ballgame, you know, and...
-I've heard some horrendous shit in the past couple of years around ye olde internet about back to back pregnancies messing up peoples' hearts. There's actually an initiative called "Three to Five Saves Lives" that talks about how women develop blood clots and swollen hearts and all kinds of junk from the rapid, extreme fluctuations in blood volume. I thought this was a lot of bull hockey when I initially heard it but now it's conveniently chiming in with the rest of this cheerful little list.
-And I have and have always had very poor circulation, which is another risk factor.
-And a weird irrational feeling that maybe I don't end up going through labor because God is saving me from certain death as my heart couldn't handle it due to some unknown factor. Eh.

Anyway, yeah, this isn't, like, consuming me, but I am going to make an appointment just to lay it to rest one way or the other. In the meantime I am determinedly NOT googling one damn thing about any of it because, frankly, I'm not up for that kind of anxiety. It's not good for my heart ;)

---

Sarah Palin has gone, in my personal perspective, from absentee mother, to great AP'ing-in-office mother, to intriguing cadidate, to HOLY SHIT THIS WOMAN CANNOT BE IN OFFICE.
She is beautiful, and charismatic, and it's great that she has a big family and is not afraid to be honest about her extreme beliefs, as so many politicians are. But...she is so ignorant, so naive, so anti-environment, so ready to set off a nuclear holocaust...I am just really not about it. She is also, the more I dig for information, very small-town politics in the sense of favoritism, leaning her weight on people under her, negative consequences for anyone who tries to get in her way...it's scary. The anti-Palin protests going on in Alaska are really something. The library censorship and book junk? Over the freaking top.

I also learned about things with McCain and his first wife that I didn't know. I am trying not to let it interfere with my opinion of him as a candidate, but it is hard.

More and more I feel like Obama is what the whole world wants to see, NEEDS to see, to like and trust our country again. Obama is what a WHOLE lot of minorities and poor people need to see, to be patriotic and love our nation for the first time in their lives. He's what all the jaded-anti Bush peeps need to rally together, crying over speeches like we haven't since Kennedy. There are things about him I don't like. I am not passionately for Obama the way some people are. But I'm starting to see the "greater good" it will do for our place in this world, for the spirits of the downtrodden, as dramatic as that sounds, and for peacekeeping. Because, let's face it, it doesn't really do the unborn babies any good to be carried to term in a world destroyed by bombs :/

Anyway, that is where I'm at with that, and the McCain/Palin signs I see all over town are starting to frighten me more than anything else. I don't think that the conservative people who are so happy to see their values expressed on the campaign trail are stopping to think about the incredible unrest and anger and upheaval that will be felt throughout not just the left behind in this country, but around the world - from terrorists to governments to medias - when they see what they will perceive as Bush 2.0 elected. I just...can't deal with it. I really think there is potential for the end of the world, through either WW3 or complete environmental decimation. Probably both.

---

I had a 2 hour therapy session today. It helped some. The drive up and back, alone, thinking about what I would talk about and what we did talk about, and then rehashing it all tearfully with Grant, were more helpful, but would somehow not be possible without the therapy itself in between, so there you go. "You" being my $200.

---

One good perk of being afraid for my heart is the easier time eating better. I'm seriously cutting saturated fats and animal products and it's way simpler than it was just 2 days ago when I was like, "Oh I'm so fat, I have to eat better to lose weight om NOM NOM CHOCOLATE".

---

I am far past out of time, and need to get with the getting.

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_delphiki_/]

I am going to suggest, gently, that perhaps this chest pain/shortness of breath, ect is stress. I promise I am not belittling your pain at all. I went to the doc not too long ago- certain I was going to have a heart attack because it felt like someone stabbed my heart. It was severe stress.

I agree about Sarah Palin. I haven't loathed a candidate the way I loathe her.

[altarflame.livejournal.com]

I don't see it as belittling anything, if anything you're validating my stress levels ;)

Really, though, I don't know. The incidents I'm referencing have mostly been in VERY low stress, happy times. Who knows. I guess I'll find out either way.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_delphiki_/]

Mine did too. I thought it was the strangest thing. I had an EKG and my heart was normal. I was fine but the worst pain I had was when I was washing my hands, which is obviously not stressful and I felt fine emotionally.

It's better now, as my stress levels are lowering. Little by little.

[pikefish.livejournal.com]

medical crap is frustrating and I think that sometimes the net and stuff we read doesn't help at all.

tell me again what the condition you have that requires the sausage casing girdle?? I need one too !

[altarflame.livejournal.com]

I have a severe diastasis, which is the separation of the abdominal muscles. Lots of women have a minor or moderate one after pregnancies with large babies, c-sections, and/or one pregnancy after the other. They're supposed to close on their own, but those situations I mentioned sometimes keep them from doing so. Mine was caused - or at least the severity of it was caused - by my most recent surgery, which was much higher on my body than the cesareans had been, and more invasive (if that is even possible :p).

Basically I look like I'm very pregnant with a mutant, unless I push in the weird protruding ball of muscles, and then I look normal. Not wearing the thing, in addition to being semi-mortifying and causing a lot of back pain, increases my risk of herniation and makes it worse.

[pikefish.livejournal.com]

how is it diagnosed?

[altarflame.livejournal.com]

Mine was diagnosed when I was terrified of this huge lump jutting out of my stomach like a deformity, and rushed back to my surgeon, and he felt around on my abdomen. But mine is, uh...special :x

Most minor ones can be checked for on your own - if you google it there are instructions all over the net, and if it isn't too extreme it can be possible to close with special excercises over time.

Minor or severe, you should never do any traditional ab excercises if you have one, because it makes it way, way worse.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm wondering that too, and hasn't that banned book list been debunked by...everyone? Palin has a very high approval rating in Alaska.

Ah, this election is so entertaining.

[altarflame.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen any debunking. But I haven't searched for that either. Everything I've read seems to be confirming it, maybe I'm looking at biased sources.

[pernwebgoddess.livejournal.com]

No books were ever banned... however, she asked, pointedly, several times how she would do that. And of course her approval rating is high... she just handed everyone in alaska a check to cover the cost of gas (I think to the tune of $1200 per person? Something like that.) "Fiscal conservative" my ass.

[aranel.livejournal.com]

But Alaska is different from most states (and the country) in that it actually has a budget surplus.

[altarflame.livejournal.com]

Maybe adrenal fatigue? I don't have many of the other symptoms. It's nice that there are so many proactive, non-medical things you can apparently do to help with that.

She and McCain both seem very heavy with the whole pre-emptive strikes thing, and she in particular almost seems to be trying to offend and anger foreign countries when she talks about them...I don't know, man, picturing Vladimir Putin watching that overplayed interview she just did last week was kind of terrifying.

[erinmdmd.livejournal.com]

I was going to email you, but since Paige already suggested it...

adrenal fatigue. Now first, let me acknowledge that my own experience with it tends to make me see the symptoms in everyone.

Stress, good or bad, can tax the adrenals. You've had five pregnancies, six major surgeries, three NICU babies, new home buying, managing five kids day-to-day, need I go on?

I personally feel winded/hot/racing heart as if I have just run a mile from very little physical exertion. Its not that I'm in bad shape, or that I'm expecting too much (quite the opposite on both counts), its that my adrenals can't figure out how much adrenaline or cortisol they need to crank out when I walk up the stairs carrying my toddler (something I do multiple times daily). I have extreme reactions to things like sudden bright lights or loud noises. I can't reliably tell if I am hungry or thirsty. I can't get to sleep at night and I can't wake up in the morning.

My situation is pretty bad, but adrenal fatigue in the earlier stages can just be limited to some symptoms occasionally when you are particularly stressed or tired or worn out.

[altarflame.livejournal.com]

I don't really get winded from exertion...it's hard to explain. I take a walk with the double stroller every day, usually a 30 minute to an hour brisk walk, and it doesn't wind me...I'm up and down all day long, cleaning and chasing and cooking and this and that...it's these weird times when I'm sitting totally still, but can't breathe, that are bothering me. I'll just be standing there talking to Grant or sitting down reading a book to Jake and all of a sudden it's like, whoa, what the hell, where did my lung capacity go? I am not panting or trying to catch my breath, it's like I can't draw a deep enough breath to satisfy myself. I sit there calmly concentrating, wondering why I have to make an effort to pull air ALL THE WAY DOWN or else my breathing is so shallow that it's, like...ineffective or something. I don't know how to explain it, I guess.

Bright lights and loud noises don't bother me at all, I mean beyond the obvious I don't like sun glaring in my eyes as I drive or prolonged kid screaming in my ear.

I could very well have an early stage thing, and will probably ask about that when I go - the sleep stuff is certainly dead on...I think I am just also sort of cynical about any sort of self or e-diagnosis at this point because last year commenters and google had me, like, 100% SURE I was having thyroid problems...when really I was suffering from "sponge" and dying of sepsis. My full blood panel last Fall came back with totally normal levels for the thyroid hormones I've since forgotten the names of - although, of course, while that was after Elise and in the midst of my near death bs, it was still before, oh...

-ICU stay
-major surgery again
-repeated terror of relapse
-cat being killed by dog pack
-mother having serious meningitis in hospital
-mother having small stroke
-being diagnosed with ptsd and starting therapy
-Isaac's appendicitis
-mother moving in with me

ETFUCKINGCETERA.

*shrug*

I will try to get it all checked out. I like my female, open minded, very well researched doctor so hopefully we'll root something out.

In general throughout the day I don't feel especially stressed. I have so much help with the kids these days that sometimes I feel like I've done almost nothing with them but drive people around. I laugh a lot, and have plenty of sex drive, and a huge appetite. But the stress I do feel can be really extreme, i.e., when I am trying to fall asleep at night and thinking in graphic detail about the reparative surgery I'll need to have one day.

[babyslime.livejournal.com]

Kathryn also has adrenal fatigue and similar symptoms.

Also, the three to five initiative is aimed at women in poverty stricken countries/ares who are really dying from it.

[altarflame.livejournal.com]

See comment to erinmdmd about the af.

I didn't know that, about the initiative aims. It's been brought up to me on messageboards and in comment threads as some sort of dire nonsense that means I'm lucky I'm not dead yet. I've never really researched it further.

[superflippy.livejournal.com]

I really think there is potential for the end of the world, through either WW3 or complete environmental decimation. Probably both.

Not to stress you out even more, but in their books Generations and The Fourth Turning Howe and Strauss, two historians, present a cyclical view of history. They show how over the past few centuries we go through the cycle of High, Awakening, Unraveling, and Crisis periods.

According to their theories, we should hit the Crisis period any time now. That's one thing I'm keeping in mind when I try to decide how to vote: who would be the best leader in a crisis? Who would help get us through it in one piece?

It's also something I try to keep in mind as far as lifestyle: don't be too extravagant, save a little for the future just in case. But then, you're already doing that!

OK, off my crazy soapbox. I hope your doctor is able to give you some good answers about the symptoms you're feeling. Not knowing what's going on can be frustrating and scary.