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Tag Archives: Health


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Flu – #JusJoJan Jot #11

At the risk of sounding like I’m moaning–I never do that, do it?–Alex was home for the day again, still coughing even though it’s been almost two weeks since he came out of hospital with pneumonia.

I assumed they were going to give him his flu shot at school, like they always have, but they’ve stopped doing it. Now I have no idea whether he should get it or if we should wait until he’s completely better.

In all, it was one of those days where you wish you had a parenting owner’s manual. You know those days, right?

Should I send him to school or shouldn’t I? Should I cut him some slack because he might be misbehaving because he’s sick? Or is he pushing my buttons because he got out of going to school and now he’s seeing how much further he can go?

Ugh. Yeah, it was one of those days.

But now he’s at his dad’s, finally. First time since the first week of November. I’m feeling the exhaustion–it’s hitting me like a tonne of bricks. I think I might go to bed. And stay there until Sunday.

Have a good one, my friends.

The prompt “flew/flu/flue,” for today’s post is brought to you by M. Oniker! Thanks, M! To find her latest post, click here.

It’s never too late to participate in Just Jot it January! Click the following link to find out how, and see all the other participants’ links in the comment section. It’s fun! https://lindaghill.com/2019/01/11/jusjojan-2019-daily-prompt-jan-11th/


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#JusJoJan 2018, the 19th – Darkness

I totally dropped the ball on this prompt, and for that I must apologize to Kerry, our very gracious provider of the word of the day for the 19th. You can visit her awesome JusJoJan post here: https://kkherheadache.wordpress.com/2018/01/19/its-all-around-me-jusjojan/ Definitely worth the visit.

My only defense for being so late is I tried. Yet as hard as I tried, I spent most of the day paralyzed with fear that I would get another migraine. I had a headache all morning and well into the afternoon until finally I broke down and took an Advil. The pharmacist told me not to while I’m on a daily dose of ASA, unless I really needed it.

It’s only been since I took the Ibuprofen that I’ve begun to relax, to go back to normal. To calm myself enough to sit in front of the screen and type. Even now though, I’m sitting in darkness with my eyes closed, touch typing and feeling my way through this post.

I hope tomorrow all the anxiety will begin to fade.

I’ve taken all my tests now–ECG, CT scan, ultrasound on my neck, and a fasting blood test–and I have an appointment with the stroke specialist on Tuesday morning. Hopefully I’ll get my driving privileges back and I’ll be able to do my own grocery shopping. In the meantime, I’m making every moment count.

This post is brought to you by Just Jot it January and the prompt of the day; you can find it here: https://lindaghill.com/2018/01/19/jusjojan-daily-prompt-january-19th-2018/ Please visit and check out all the other posts, which you’ll find in the comments!

 


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#JusJoJan 2018, the 18th – Revolt

It seems my brain has revolted against me. I hope the following post makes sense – I’m not entirely sure I’m over it.

It started last night while I was driving to a coffee shop, to work on a short story I plan to submit to a new anthology. I began getting blank spots in my vision–the “s” was missing at the end of the word “McDonald’s,” for instance–which I know is an indication that a migraine is coming. Migraines like this, for me, usually come without pain, so I figured I’d be fine to continue on my way as long as I picked up some Advil. I stopped at the dollar store and walked around for a bit to see if the blind spots would clear, but they only got worse. Yet by the time I found the Advil and got to the checkout, it had completely cleared up. So off I went.

I got something to drink, took my Advil, and sat down to work. I began to get a mild headache, so I held off on writing for a while. Once I felt fine, I got out my notebook, put the pen to the paper, and couldn’t remember what I was going to write. Hmmm… I thought about it for a few seconds and then remembered the word I wanted was “snooze.” I got the S-N-O-O on the page and couldn’t for the life of me envision what the next letter was supposed to be. I was relieved about ten seconds later when I got it. Off to the next sentence.

I vaguely recalled I wanted to write, “I’ve never been much of a dreamer.” It took me a few tries, but I finally got the sentence written on the page. I thought it was a bit weird that I wasn’t able to concentrate, but I wasn’t too concerned. Yet. Seems my letter of the day yesterday was “v.” It was all I really managed. This is what I wrote:

Snoove

“I give have been a dreamer.”

I realized this when I reread it about ten minutes later. I also realized I had to get to the hospital.

Fast forward to 3:10am: I walked home (thank goodness I only live 15 minutes from the hospital–I’m not allowed to drive) with a diagnosis that it may have actually been a migraine, but it could also have been a mini-stroke. The doctor at the emergency said that though I didn’t have any other symptoms, I should treat it like a stroke as a precaution. I’m going for a CT scan and an ultrasound this afternoon (don’t believe what they tell you about wait times that kill people in Canada!) and after I get a blood test, I have to go to a stroke specialist to get an all clear.

Now I’m going to try to get some sleep. Three hours and twenty minutes with 31 minutes awake/restless in between (thanks, Fitbit) wasn’t enough.

This dramatic post is brought to you by Just Jot it January, and in particular, prompted by the word “revolt,” provided by Sandra! Thank you so much, Sandra! She hasn’t written a JusJoJan post yet, but I’ll link her blog again here. Please go and say hi! To participate in the prompt, please visit this post, where you’ll find the rules and you can leave your link in the comments.


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126. Scenes from the Second Seat on the Right

Thursday, January 4th, 3:00pm
Drommen and Francine

 

Francine: Why are you so pissed off at me?

Drommen: (stares at her silently for a moment) I’m picking you up from the hospital and you’re insisting on going back to that hovel you live in. That’s why. Did I not say I’d take care of you?

Francine: I don’t want to be a burden.

Drommen: People you love are never a burden.

Francine: Fine. I’ll move in with you. Is that what you want?

Drommen: Yes.

Francine: (takes his hand) I love you too.

 

Next stop: Friday, January 5th, 4:00pm

Click here to learn all about this series, how it works, and where to find your favourite characters.


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#SoCS – Colds and Hots

When you’ve got a cold, do you ever wonder why you didn’t appreciate being healthy when you were? And then, when you get rid of the cold, you sigh and think, yes – I will always appreciate this feeling of not being sick until, like, the next day when you totally start taking it for granted again.

Why do they call it a cold when it makes you hot?

When it was hot in the summer, my mother used to swear by drinking hot tea. This was back in the days before homes were air conditioned and we just had to live with it. Her theory was that a hot drink made you sweat more, and when you sweated (is that a word? It doesn’t look like a word. Don’t you hate it when that happens?) …anyway, when your body produced sweat (better), the air, though hot, cooled you off more than if you had just been sweating normally. Like you do on a hot day.

My mother may have been crazy. I realize that now.

Yet it means that I don’t shy away from drinking the  hot coffee I crave, nay, need in the middle of summer. Or in stupid temperatures in the fall like we’re having now.

At least I don’t have to turn my heat on.

Stream of Consciousness Saturday is fun, and best of all, it’s free! Click the following link and see how you can join in today! https://lindaghill.com/2017/09/22/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-sept-2317/


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U is for Unceasing

Unceasing. It’s the word I’m stuck with today… Thinking about things that are unceasing.

For me there is a negative connotation to this word – unrelenting, constant, persistent, incessant… then again, to have these qualities may drive us to get what we want in life. Or drive us mad trying.

Even being unceasingly positive can be a negative thing – there must be a balance to everything, even if it’s weighed heavily to one side. Because eventually, it all falls back in the other direction, doesn’t it? How would we have hope in our darkest times otherwise? The phrase – when you’re at rock bottom there’s only one way to go: up – comes to mind and it’s true. Unless you go splat of course.

Wow, that’s depressing.

How about some good news? The unceasing pain in my shoulder is gone. It turns out the tendonitis that caused the frozen shoulder was a blessing in disguise. Having my shoulder frozen meant that I couldn’t aggravate my tendons because I couldn’t move. SO, now that the tendonitis is gone and with it, the excruciating pain, I can move my shoulder more and the more I move it the more unfrozen it gets. Yay!! I’m still going to need physio – I’ve got a long way to go before my arm will move normally and my muscle tone has gone to pot, but it’s a start! I can honestly say I’ll be working relentlessly to get myself back to health. Unceasingly even.

 


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What the medical community doesn’t tell you

Multiple times in the past few months I’ve been to see doctors who haven’t told me the whole story. I suppose there’s a fine line they need to tread – some patients don’t want to know. I, however, do not fall into that category.

The first was my optician. I went for a checkup where I was told I needed to make sure I wear sunglasses when I go out and to make sure I rest my eyes occasionally when I work on the computer. No problem, right? So a few weeks later I bought sunglasses and I during that time walked away from my screen once every couple of hours.

Then I went back to see the optician because I was still having trouble.

“Oh, you have the beginnings of a cataract,” she told me this time.

“I what?!?”

“Yes, that’s why I told you to wear sunglasses and to rest your eyes.”

Had I been told that in the first place, I might have been a little more diligent, don’t you think? I didn’t say those exact words out loud, but the answer to what I did say went something like, “I didn’t want to scare you.”

Right.

Next, my shoulder. As you know if you’ve been reading my blog for a while, I have a rotator cuff injury and tendonitis. I’ve been told by numerous doctors over and over not to push myself past my pain limit. Until today I didn’t know why. Wanna know why?

Apparently if I put too much pressure on my tendons when they’re swollen and inflamed they can snap. Break right in two. Then I’ll have to get into surgery within 24 hours or I can say goodbye to the broken tendon for the rest of my life. I was told by the doctor (a resident working under my family doctor) that if I hear or feel a snap I’ll see my arm swell as the muscle, free of being held in place, runs down my arm and pools at my elbow… Nice, eh?

Had I been told that in the first place…  See above.

Again, I understand there are people in this world who wouldn’t want to know these things about their bodies. But there’s nothing quite like the worst case scenario to keep a person from doing something stupid out of ignorance.

Our physicians’ job is to help us heal. It’s also within their power to protect us from ourselves by either giving us the information we need – or not. Communication is of the utmost importance. If we want to know, we have to tell them and they need to be honest; it goes both ways.

Would you want to know? Because if not, I strongly suggest you follow your doctor’s instructions to the letter. You don’t know what kind of pain you’re in for otherwise.


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In Praise of Carrots

As some of you may have read here in recent months, I’ve been having ups and downs with my eyesight of late. For weeks I get up each morning and have to squint to see the computer screen. On some of those days I found an improvement after a couple of hours but other times it would last all day. Then, suddenly, it would get better for a while and I could see as well as I did a year ago.

Over the weekend my eyesight began to get progressively worse, resulting in yesterday having to wear my distance glasses just to walk around the block so as not to strain my eyes too much. I assumed it had something to do with screen time. But then it occurred to me.

Carrots. I eat them daily for a while but then I stop. So yesterday afternoon, after my paper route was done, I had about half a dozen raw baby carrots, and this morning when I woke up I could see my computer screen. Without squinting!

I always assumed it was an old wives’ tale to get kids to eat their carrots: “Eat ’em,” my mother used to say. “They’re good for your eyes.”

Who knew it was true?! I’m such a happy bunny today! 😀


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Stream of Consciousness Saturday – Without

It doesn’t take me long to run out of resources. Energy, both physical and emotional – hell, even spiritual – seem to dry up when I get to a certain level of stress wherein I’m running around like a daddy longlegs with half of its legs pulled off by a willful child.

When I reach that limit I go blank. Nothing works. I must stop moving, I must force myself to try to stop thinking of everything at once. I have, at these times, so many thoughts in my head that I feel as though I will explode. And then I am without.

Without anything to draw from. My brain fires on the remnants of the sparks of what energy is beginning to build up again but I have no control over which way they shoot. Sometimes it’s anger, seeping from my pores like lava, and sometimes there are tears that threaten never to cease. Rarely, it’s laughter. When it is, I know I’ll be okay again soon.

Without resources I feel useless. I exist on a plane apart from the rest of society. I float (yes, I am even without gravity) an inch above the ground, always in danger of taking off. Not up, but away. If I do, I’m afraid nothing will stop me until I’m lost.

Eventually I can once again focus. But only by focusing on myself, and not all of the people who demand my attention all of the time, can I come back to me. To regain my energy, my emotions, and the spirituality that centers me and keeps me in the moment.

I need a vacation.

 

This post is part of SoCS. Find the rules here, https://lindaghill.wordpress.com/2014/05/23/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-may-2414/ and join in!


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Psychosomatic or Real?

Since my fall on the ice just before Christmas when I received a concussion, I’ve been having pain in my right shoulder. It wakes me up at night, has caused weakness in my right arm, and is generally a pain in the ass upper body.

So about three weeks ago I finally decided to take it to the doctor. He ordered an x-ray and an ultrasound and two weeks later I called him back because I hadn’t heard anything. His secretary said the tests showed there was nothing wrong.

But it still hurt. I made an appointment to see him.

As it turns out, I have a slight case of arthritis between my collarbone and my shoulder blade. (There’s another one of those rocket scientists at work here – not sure if it’s the secretary or the doctor, but I suspect it’s the doctor. He’s always been a bit of a twit.)

The point is, since I found out what the problem really is with my shoulder, it’s been feeling better. Is it possible to be given information that there’s nothing wrong and believe it so much that the symptoms go away? I think it is. But in my case, I’m sticking with the belief that now I know it’s not the joint, I’m no longer afraid of doing more damage. Muscle pain I can live with. I can stretch through it and I can work through it. I know now that if I use my arm more and re-build the muscle, my condition will improve.

I also know I am susceptible to psychosomatic disorders. When I get stressed it affects my skin. I itch. And no matter how much I know this to be a fact, and that there is really nothing wrong with my skin, it happens.

I posed the question above, is it psychosomatic or real, but is a psychosomatic illness any different than a real illness? They say attitude can help with the symptoms of sickness – it works both ways. It’s not all in your head. But some of it is. The mind is a powerful thing.

Have you ever suffered with something you knew was psychosomatic, and yet it persisted?