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altarflameThis morning, after I took Grant to the train and Elise to preschool, Aaron woke in terrible pain - crying uncontrollably, even yelling. It was his swollen glands.
Aaron got what was diagnosed as mumps (he was fully vaccinated at this point and there was some argument among professionals) at 3, his face swelled up like a chipmunk, and ever since whenever he gets ill, his glands get big and tender. Throughout the last year or so, though, they seem to swell and feel tender more often - almost continuously at times. It's been hard to decipher what's going on with them since Christmas, since we have had two different illnesses that have lasted weeks and they're often subtly enlarged or slightly sensitive.
Four days ago, though, with all of us better, his glands suddenly got huge like I haven't seen them in a long time. It was a Saturday and I didn't think it was worth the ER. He layed around a lot. Sunday (Easter) was the same - he layed on a couch under a blanket while the rest of us dyed eggs on the deck, and didn't eat much candy since he can barely chew :/ Yesterday it seemed a lot better - they'd gone way down and hurt a bit less. No fever.
Then today, wailing and gnashing of teeth first thing. It takes a LOT for Aaron to act like that. The silver lining in this situation is that it snapped me immediately out of my funk and into focused action. Also, Dr Geraldi was able to see us this morning and Ms Denise didn't mind keeping Elise longer.
My pediatrician - this guy -
He has a bit of a fixation.
(I apologize for my nausea-inducing angles, I didn't really get it until I saw it myself)
And we love him, and he is amazing. He came in, with his gray braided rat tail and his heavily embroidered and colorfully sewn jeans, in his Spiderman lab coat, knowing us well enough on sight to ask about all my other kids by name. This is the guy my Aunt DeeDee used to drive all the way from Key West to see, for my twin cousins, and there was actually someone there from Orlando today. He checks Annie for anemia via nail beds and eye lids rather than doing bloodwork, he diagnosed Isaac's appendicitis in his office, and he's been cheering for Elise from day 1.
So, it's a little disconcerting to see him calling in his assistant, trading notes, looking things up on his iPhone, and hypothesizing.
Anyway his leading theory is that the glands are catching a lot of drainage from the illnesses and Aaron's allergies and they're clogged and possibly now colonizing bacteria the same way our ears can. So we're doing allergy meds, decongestants and antibiotics - and he's gotta stay on ibuprofen and pedialyte around the clock so as not to get super dehydrated, since it was hurting too much for him to eat or drink and that was becoming a problem :/ He goes back Friday.
With all that in him, he was like a new albeit low energy man and wanted to go to TLC like usual.
Again I enjoyed a good day...good as in, I felt like myself and was able to do things and act human. We picked up Elise, filled prescriptions, had pasta and sauce for lunch, went to TLC. I did some dishes and had a dinner plan. I'm enjoying Grant's company.
Somebody last night left a lengthy comment suggesting she thinks I'm bipolar. Having known several bipolar people well over the years, online and IRL, my first instinct was to say "No way", but I do spend an awful lot of time thinking I need to come back and explain how good things actually are and how excited I am about x, y and z, as well as thinking it's important to emphasize just how awful it is and how I can't deal anymore. So for the hell of it, I took an online assessment that seems to be relatively widely accepted and hosted by fairly respectable looking sites, and was like, wtf?! I got a 51 and a 48 the two times I did it, 53 being the highest possible most bipolar score O_o Lots of words like severe and where to start to get help.
I talked with Grant about this for awhile. I know a LOT about bipolar because of the people I've interacted with over the years who suffer from/through it, and if that is me I think that I either have a higher set point, mood-wise, than what I've seen in others, or else I don't have the piggy backing disorders, or it's a newer development...or all three? I'm going to the doctor either way, I had already decided I want my thyroid tested because, truly, I fit that picture to a T as well. Who the hell knows.
Tonight, I want to tell you how incredibly cheap it is to make a big pot of lentil soup for dinner with a bunch of chilled pineapple for dessert. Onions, (tons of) garlic, carrots, celery, chicken and beef broth (cubes for me), tomato juice (I use some from canned tomatoes and then save the actual tomatoes for something else), lentils, water, salt, seasoned salt. It's so delicious! You can garnish it so many ways and serve it with bread or salad or bruschetta or antipasto or nothing. All of my kids tear it up, and a pot big enough for all 7 of us plus lunch for a couple of people the next day is only ~$4 with me buying all the ingredients at BJ's.
Then 3 big cans of pineapple out of a case into the freezer and that's about a $2.50 dessert for all the kids. Ran through the food processor frozen and eaten with a spoon they go crazy.
And I'd like to mention, in case anyone hasn't realized this yet, that you can google image search coupons for any restaurant you're going in, pull them up on your phone, and the waittress/cashier can scan it. The 7 of us consistently do healthy all you can eat at Sweet Tomatoes for $21 this way (it would be about $58 without the coupon deals they keep renewing).
Last, look at my hot husband sweeping the bedroom floor after putting away tons of laundry and making the kids laugh the whole drive home:
Aaron got what was diagnosed as mumps (he was fully vaccinated at this point and there was some argument among professionals) at 3, his face swelled up like a chipmunk, and ever since whenever he gets ill, his glands get big and tender. Throughout the last year or so, though, they seem to swell and feel tender more often - almost continuously at times. It's been hard to decipher what's going on with them since Christmas, since we have had two different illnesses that have lasted weeks and they're often subtly enlarged or slightly sensitive.
Four days ago, though, with all of us better, his glands suddenly got huge like I haven't seen them in a long time. It was a Saturday and I didn't think it was worth the ER. He layed around a lot. Sunday (Easter) was the same - he layed on a couch under a blanket while the rest of us dyed eggs on the deck, and didn't eat much candy since he can barely chew :/ Yesterday it seemed a lot better - they'd gone way down and hurt a bit less. No fever.
Then today, wailing and gnashing of teeth first thing. It takes a LOT for Aaron to act like that. The silver lining in this situation is that it snapped me immediately out of my funk and into focused action. Also, Dr Geraldi was able to see us this morning and Ms Denise didn't mind keeping Elise longer.
My pediatrician - this guy -
He has a bit of a fixation.
(I apologize for my nausea-inducing angles, I didn't really get it until I saw it myself)
And we love him, and he is amazing. He came in, with his gray braided rat tail and his heavily embroidered and colorfully sewn jeans, in his Spiderman lab coat, knowing us well enough on sight to ask about all my other kids by name. This is the guy my Aunt DeeDee used to drive all the way from Key West to see, for my twin cousins, and there was actually someone there from Orlando today. He checks Annie for anemia via nail beds and eye lids rather than doing bloodwork, he diagnosed Isaac's appendicitis in his office, and he's been cheering for Elise from day 1.
So, it's a little disconcerting to see him calling in his assistant, trading notes, looking things up on his iPhone, and hypothesizing.
Anyway his leading theory is that the glands are catching a lot of drainage from the illnesses and Aaron's allergies and they're clogged and possibly now colonizing bacteria the same way our ears can. So we're doing allergy meds, decongestants and antibiotics - and he's gotta stay on ibuprofen and pedialyte around the clock so as not to get super dehydrated, since it was hurting too much for him to eat or drink and that was becoming a problem :/ He goes back Friday.
With all that in him, he was like a new albeit low energy man and wanted to go to TLC like usual.
Again I enjoyed a good day...good as in, I felt like myself and was able to do things and act human. We picked up Elise, filled prescriptions, had pasta and sauce for lunch, went to TLC. I did some dishes and had a dinner plan. I'm enjoying Grant's company.
Somebody last night left a lengthy comment suggesting she thinks I'm bipolar. Having known several bipolar people well over the years, online and IRL, my first instinct was to say "No way", but I do spend an awful lot of time thinking I need to come back and explain how good things actually are and how excited I am about x, y and z, as well as thinking it's important to emphasize just how awful it is and how I can't deal anymore. So for the hell of it, I took an online assessment that seems to be relatively widely accepted and hosted by fairly respectable looking sites, and was like, wtf?! I got a 51 and a 48 the two times I did it, 53 being the highest possible most bipolar score O_o Lots of words like severe and where to start to get help.
I talked with Grant about this for awhile. I know a LOT about bipolar because of the people I've interacted with over the years who suffer from/through it, and if that is me I think that I either have a higher set point, mood-wise, than what I've seen in others, or else I don't have the piggy backing disorders, or it's a newer development...or all three? I'm going to the doctor either way, I had already decided I want my thyroid tested because, truly, I fit that picture to a T as well. Who the hell knows.
Tonight, I want to tell you how incredibly cheap it is to make a big pot of lentil soup for dinner with a bunch of chilled pineapple for dessert. Onions, (tons of) garlic, carrots, celery, chicken and beef broth (cubes for me), tomato juice (I use some from canned tomatoes and then save the actual tomatoes for something else), lentils, water, salt, seasoned salt. It's so delicious! You can garnish it so many ways and serve it with bread or salad or bruschetta or antipasto or nothing. All of my kids tear it up, and a pot big enough for all 7 of us plus lunch for a couple of people the next day is only ~$4 with me buying all the ingredients at BJ's.
Then 3 big cans of pineapple out of a case into the freezer and that's about a $2.50 dessert for all the kids. Ran through the food processor frozen and eaten with a spoon they go crazy.
And I'd like to mention, in case anyone hasn't realized this yet, that you can google image search coupons for any restaurant you're going in, pull them up on your phone, and the waittress/cashier can scan it. The 7 of us consistently do healthy all you can eat at Sweet Tomatoes for $21 this way (it would be about $58 without the coupon deals they keep renewing).
Last, look at my hot husband sweeping the bedroom floor after putting away tons of laundry and making the kids laugh the whole drive home:
no subject
Date: 2012-04-12 01:49 am (UTC)I'm kind of a lurker, but I'm in the health field, so I was interested in the last few entries or so that you wrote. I'm interested in this bipolar stuff.
I have a history of bipolar in my family line, plus I have been through a lot of traumatic stuff with that same family for about the last decade or so. (I'm posting anon because I'm not very well known on here so I'm likely to be a stranger to you guys anyway, AND because I am not on speaking terms with the family and don't really want to be tracked down by them, esp. while I'm talking about them; this is still a tricky issue). It's possible that the reason our family clan is so effed up is BECAUSE of the mental health problems in the ancestry. But anyway.
Anyway, because of having it run in my fam and also having my best friend diagnosed bi-polar after high school (which was a real shock to me), I've often been a little bit paranoid about whether I would have it myself. My sister and I often talk about this.
It sounds like it's working out really well for you to go down this path and it will solve a lot of questions for you, judging from the personal history that you wrote out in the comments. But, I wondered briefly about the details/semantics of one of your first posts on this (about two or maybe three posts back). Understanding that I'm late to the game/discussion here.
Specifically, it's how you said you "try" to be happy and optimistic. Coming from someone who's been sad for about ten years, I often get told to "smile more" "would it hurt you to smile" etc. I have been seriously depressed in my life before, and treated it nutritionally/holistically, but this is more like an ongoing, sometimes low grade sense of grief over the family. I realized recently, coming into a more happy time of my life, finally, how really sad I have been for so long, without realizing it. I haven't had crippling depression or inability to do things for years and years. I got through school, I work, I function, etc., but when I smile, it's fake and forced sometimes. (Other times, I have genuinely happy social times with close friends.)
It's hard to explain to strangers, and I don't want to. With that said, sometimes I put on a big cheery smile and try to get all "YAY" for people on social networking, just because I don't want questions. This is kind of meta, because what I'm saying is that it's like I'm *faking a mania* because people expect a woman to be more cheerful and sappy about her life. I actually get criticized constantly for not being more peppy. Is that relevant?
Do you think you've just been depressed/traumatized, and then try to put on the happy mommy/friend/social butterfly face? Because that's what I wonder about myself. I'm sorry that this got really super long and confusing. LOL. ;) And maybe that is the mania phase--having anxiety that you have to do it for other people?
Maybe I have a mood disorder too. I had ruled out actual bipolar, but I hadn't thought about the other types of problems. It might be helpful to look into. Maybe I'll take that test that you did.
Thanks for reading, if you do read this. ;)