Dammit, why is it everything I like either makes me sick or is discontinued?

My husband wanders in while I'm asleep today and says "some contact lens solution is causing people to get eye infections". So, I figure, it's got to be the one I use. And on the five o'clock new there's a tiny little story that yes, Bausch & Lomb ReNu with Moistureloc (hit your refresh button if this doesn't load) has been voluntarily pulled after reports of people getting fungal corneal eye infections. And apparently this has been going on for over a month overseas...

Crap, why are we hearing about this just now? I've been using this product since I started wearing contact lenses (again) last fall. And I have an already damaged and infection-prone cornea (from RK surgery), and have been having even worse blurred vision than usual since I began wearing contacts, which my optometrist explains is most likely from my overly sensitive corneas.

I've got so many things wrong with my vision that one more problem doesn't make me run to the doctors office, though one of the people at the optometrist mentioned I should try ClearCare if I'm prone to eye infections. It's good, and easy to use, and I already have a bottle around and coincidentally just got my new box of contacts in yesterday, so today is a new pair. But ReNu is so good for dry eyes. And their eyedrops are fabulous, I wonder if they're pulling them too?

But then again, I wonder if any of this is even real. I used to hate conspiracy theories, but so many are true now that when I hear anything bad about a company I have to start wondering about their competition. I don't trust anyone anymore, it's very sad.

I sat and watched Prozac Nation this evening, Sparky taped it for me ages ago, but I was in a weird mood and wanted to watch something dark and dramatic tonight, maybe to make myself feel better, and I'm 'sort of' caught up on my Ebay work so I thought what the hell.

We have HBO right now, and Sparky was bored himself yesterday and sat and watched Spanglish on TV, expecting a comedy, which he decided was a huge mistake afterwards. He said it was a depressing film about miserable people and it had a very unhappy ending.

Prozac Nation was also about miserable, depressing people but it had a somewhat abrupt kind of happy ending, she got on Prozac and, after a suicide attempt, she got better. I had never read the book, but I had thought it was more about her experiences with taking the medicine, but most of the film she's in psychotherapy, which looked about as boring and un-useful as the short period that I went through. I only went because in the early 90's my insurance required me to receive my prescription from an actual medical psychiatrist, and required a minimum number of office visits.

Now you could probably get anti-depressants from your veterinarian... or at least your OB/GYN doc. Which is not necessarily a good thing. Prozac can be a great medicine, or it can really wreak havoc with your mind and body. Or it can do both. It's done both to me, but I'm not sure I could completely do without it. I have managed to back off from 40 mg a day to 10-15 (I actually dump half of the 10 mg capsule out, don't try this at home). All without medical supervision, because I do not have insurance, and even when I did the doctors I've dealt with have proven to be both uncaring and irresponsible about prescribing medicine, though I can see their viewpoint also - they see hundreds of people a week, they are overworked and understaffed, and the pharmaceutical companies are constantly marketing products to them, and they cannot keep up on all of the required reading. But don't get me started on the evils of the pharmaceutical companies.

But after a year or so of taking 40 mg of Prozac daily, I realized that I was actually feeling worse than I was at lower doses, and I was having lots of weird physiological side effects - such as feeling numb internally. Which was making it hard to do things like use the bathroom, I actually had lost my sense of feeling and could not use my internal muscles. Of course, the numbness could be sort of pleasant also, it masked some of the pain from my MS, but after my doctor gave me yet another medicine to help me be able to use the bathroom (Bethanechol aka Urecholine), I realized that this whole situation was terribly warped. Also the new medicine was horrifically expensive, which prompted me to reevaluate what I was taking and start hunting for side effects.

Back when I could take antihistamines (they cause an allergic reaction on me now, see 300 things) I used to take the super-allergy med Seldane. My allergist was giving it to me up to twice a day (it was a once a day drug), along with another daily new allergy medicine called Hismanal. I started having heart palpitations, so I went to my GP doc, who sent me in to have heart testing, I even wore a holter monitor for 24 hours, and they couldn't find anything other than my mitral valve prolapse. No one ever questioned what I was taking daily as a possible cause. But then one day I stumbled upon a sheet of Seldane side effects and - wow - heart palpitations were up high on the list. I backed off on using it, and the palpitations went away. Seldane was pulled from the market not long afterwards because patients were having serious heart problems. And I was taking a triple dosage each day under the advice of my doctor. So I'm not very trusting of most doctor's standardized prescriptions and opinions, I don't fit the standardized patient mold.

But I've been carefully backing off on the Prozac, trying to keep it to the 10-15 mg level. I was very lethargic a few weeks ago and I jumped back to 20 mg and it made me pretty manic, so I went back to 10. Physically things seem to be working a little better, though everything does hurt more. But my brain is a little clearer, my OCD is still tormenting me, but I care more about things. The higher dosage made me feel very mentally numb also, I lost interest in a lot of things. I thought I was just getting older and more jaded, but I know a lot of it was the Prozac turning the volume down on everything. Which, like I said, can be nice at times. If it weren't for my stomach problems I could very easily become addicted to things like painkillers just to NOT feel all of the weird signals my body is sending out constantly. But painkillers make my stomach hurt and make me feel like I need to be eating all the time, which is not good.

The other thing I noticed immediately was that time seemed to move at a normal speed again. It was actually quite slow now. I had a lot more time in my day to get things done. Almost too much time. Before, life just kind of whirred past me in a blur, I would spend whole days getting nothing accomplished yet feeling like I was always busy, just really ineffective. So that's one of the ways I'm judging if I'm on the right dosage now, if time seems to be passing at the correct speed. I'm wondering if I'm a little bipolar, though. I have times where I can get lots done and other times when I just feel paralyzed and can't seem to get anything done, can't even start. Like typing entries in my weblog, or even answering emails from friends. I need to find a balance between the all or nothing mentality. Logically I know it's a problem, and my conscience will make me do things I have to do when I'm feeling paralyzed, but it's hard. My poor husband has been wondering why he sometimes gets some really weird choices for dinner and at other times I just dive in and cook something, but when I'm paralyzed even thinking of what I'd like to eat is nearly impossible, let alone shopping for it and cooking it.

But it's probably just my Obsessive Compulsive Disorder acting up, I don't get the euphoria that people that are truly bipolar describe, I just feel like I need to work and get as much done as I can before I crash again. Or it might be my Multiple Sclerosis, that messes with your brain also. When you've got so many things going on at once it's hard to single things out as individual problems. But I've been eating some seriously crappy food lately, I know I need to work on that problem. And I need to do something to move my body more. My latest healthy obsession is with Shakira and her music. Listening to her (and watching her perform) is very inspiring and is hitting someplace deep inside me that remembers I used to love to dance.

Speaking of the most depressing day of the year, what did Oprah choose to show that day - what you need to know about Bird Flu. Ok, I had my pencil and notepad nearby to take notes, and the only thing I wrote down was 'have five weeks of food and medicine stockpiled'.

Soooo... the expert she interviewed basically said in a nutshell:

a. This epidemic (or a similar one) is eventually going to spread all over the world
b. There will be no effective vaccine available in time to help anyone
c. The vaccines we have today are useless

and

d. There's nothing we can do about it and thousands, possibly millions of people are going to die.

Well crap, I guess that's actually an appropriate show for the Most Depressing Day. Poor Oprah, she honestly thought the guy was going to tell us something useful or slightly hopeful, even she looked depressed by the end of the show.

The show the day before was What You Need to Know About Terrorism, which was surprisingly more upbeat and hopeful. The three experts on that show actually saw a light at the end of the tunnel (and more eventual attacks), but living in America was actually estimated to be safer than living elsewhere in the world due to the fact that most Americans are still really defensive and pissed off about 9/11 and will beat the crap out of anyone that tries to light his shoe on fire in an airplane.

And personally, I haven't flown in years, I don't hang out in large crowds or particularly popular places, so my own chances of being blown up by a suicide bomber are pretty low. My husband and I are hermits, we like our home, it's a hassle to leave it, and we'd rather stay in most nights.

But the whole health scare, global pandemic thing does sort of freak me out because my immune system is shot already, and my doctors can't solve the seemingly simple problems (like reflux and allergy) that are making my life a living hell already, can you imagine what would happen in a real health crisis? Like New Orleans, only much bigger?

The only useful thing the Bird Flu guy did say is that we need to harrass the govenment and ask them to do something. I guess the 2006 elections will be a good start. I'd like to ask them to leave and let someone else try and fix their mess, anyone, my cat could do a better job...

Writing offline... because my damn cable modem has been mostly offline the last few days, and this evening has been basically an exercise in not trying to pull my hair out. I'm so tired of watching little spinning symbols. Damn, there are so many things I can't do without an internet connection, and I had a bunch of auctions end this evening. Can't look up or research anything, can't print postage, can't send invoices or emails, can't answer questions, can't list anything for auction. And lots more auctions tomorrow, here's hoping Time Warner gets their shit together. Ebay also, the few times I was up tonight, Ebay was almost always down.

Well, I've made an initial commitment to picking my contact lenses - I'm trying three different presciptions as a start. All are bifocals with the "high" add. I found my brain won't let me do one low and one high, which is what the doc kept trying on me in different variations. One strength works pretty decent for driving and running around to the grocery store, etc., and I'm basically testing the other two for reading and computer work. Kind of fun, I can put 2.5+ in both eyes (I've got two of them on hand), or a 2.5+ and 2.75, or a 2.75+ and a 3.0+ for when I'm really blind. I'm SO bad at the "better... worse?" thing, they all look fuzzy to me, dammit. So I'm going to get to experiment on my own now. And when I get my three boxes of contacts in, I'm going to try two 2.75s for reading. And the eye shop I'm going to say they would meet the prices of Sam's Club - which will save me $20 a box on refills.

On another note, I need to remember to do things like color my hair before it gets cold. We have a 1950's tile bathroom and the thought of standing around naked waiting for color to develop is not very appealing when it's 40 degrees outside. We don't get much winter here in Houston, but I'm such a sissy. I have to force myself to take showers and washing my hands is just plain painful at times. I share a circulation problem with my mom, the name of it slips my mind right now (ah, Google is working - it's Raynaud's Syndrome), but any cold weather at all is intensely painful. RIght now I can't feel my nose, my toes are cold in my fuzzy Dearfoams, and my hands are icy and numb. And it's like 70 degrees inside the house right now. I need to start eating ginger root again, it helped with my stomach problems and one of the nice side effects was it kept me warm. Either that or have a shot of port...

Been battling a sinus infection all week which literally started the day the weather turned cold. I always get sick around the holidays, whether I stay inside and hide or not. We've been invited to my parents and the inlaws to be stuffed twice this Thursday. I may make Sparky drive for the dinner invite to his mom's, she's across town and I have this weird tendency to fall asleep after eating at her house already, after two turkey meals I'm probably not going to be real perky.

My mom asked me to bring a dessert (I love bringing dessert, I'm actually good at that), and Sparky's mom asked for a veggie so I'm doing green bean casserole. I was going to use fresh beans, but they didn't look too healthy in the store the other day. I'm not good at transporting food in cars (or on cafeteria trays, etc.), but I'll give it a try. I haven't turned our oven on since last Christmas (annual Xmas scones for my dad). Now I've got to start thinking about Christmas (and three holiday birthday, four including mine) gifts.

I think I've stalled as long as I can, I'd better go shower, brrr. Oops, can't go yet, the eight minute extended version of Donna Summer's "Last Dance" just cycled onto my iTunes :-)

P.S. I've got comments turned on to Moderate right now (I have to approve them). Apparently MT 3.2 isn't as efficient as Blacklist was. Or I don't have it tweaked correctly, who knows. I tried to "preapprove" my regular commentors, so hopefully it won't affect any of you. Too many damn spammers. Someone has picked up one of my parked domains and has been spending tons of emails all over the place using my domain name, I'm getting like 400 bounces a day from their antics, I hope it stops soon, how annoying.

Last Wednesday I finally got up the nerve (and money) and walked into a local optometrist office and asked if they could give me an exam for contact lenses.

Reader's digest history:

* I was born with 20/400 vision, hated glasses as a kid (ugly, inconvenient, made me dizzy)
* Got contacts in high school when soft contacts became readily available
* By my mid-twenties could barely wear them anymore due to allergies and dry eyes (they kept sticking to my eyes!) so I had the old-fashioned RK surgery
* It gave me bad night vision and weakened by close-up vision but it worked OK till my late 30's
* Then my close-up vision got steadily worse till I had to start wearing reading glasses, which didn't work well and made me dizzy
* Then my distance vision started getting fuzzy and I developed double vision in my right eye
* My stupid opthalmologist basically told me between my MS and the RK side effects I'd never see well so I should just wear cheapie reading glasses and suffer
* I went to an different optometrist who managed to give me a set of halfway decent presciptions for distance and reading glasses, which took forever to get used to and helped a little
* I still hate wearing glasses - they still make me dizzy, I'm tormented by glare because of the RK scars, and I feel like I'm looking at the world between bars or out of a tiny window, they actually made me really irritable and gave me panic attacks

So I finally decided what the hell, Halloween was in a few days, I would be wearing a ton of eye makeup, and contacts had to be better than glasses, even if I couldn't get near 20/20. And I know I could never handle bifocal glasses, my depth perception is non-existant with regular glasses.

So I plunked down my $260 and have been experimenting with different combinations of contact lenses. I had read that I would probably need RGP contacts (mega expensive) but the doctor has been trying B&L Multifocal soft contact lenses instead. Bifocal contacts? Wow, who'd of thunk it...

My only problem has been balancing the driving and walking around part of my world with the reading books and staring at a computer all night part. He tried making my right eye do distance and my left eye do reading, but my right eye wouldn't allow the left eye to be stronger without giving me a piercing headache. So he changed them up and gave me a third contact for my right eye to try and use for closeup work. Still giving me headaches, though, I think it's too strong. I'm trying not to be a pesky patient but I don't think I can handle using it till my next Wednesday appointment, I'm probably going to go in and bug them this weekend and see if I can get a somewhat less intense reading lense, the variation between the two is just not working.

The non-reading set is actually pretty good, though. It's wonderful to be able to drive around with my normal sunglasses, walk through stores and look at price tags without having to pull out my reading glasses, and just not feel like I'm looking at the world through a fricking window. And not to have to contantly worry about getting smudges on my glasses. My cat loves it, she can get right in my face without bumping into a piece of metal.

I know it supposed to take several weeks at the minimum to adjust to multifocal contacts, and I'm trying to be patient and let my brain adjust. The worst part so far, though, is when I take them out, my vision is severely blurred for several hours afterwards. Like my eyes have been dilated. I can't even see with my reading glasses on. Apparently my cornea was so messed up by the RK surgery that it's easily distorted even by soft contacts. So no more reading in bed for me (sigh). I hope that side effect fades over time, but I've got a bad feeling it won't.

But I keep telling myself... it's better than glasses. And I understand in the UK they've almost got the whole corneal lens implant thing perfected.

Royal at Esplanade Street -- click image for larger view

OK, I think the digestive problems I had the other day were not caused by food poisoning but by an accumulation of nerves and stress. I have a hiatal hernia and my entire upper abdomen has been swollen, painful and feels like there is a large rock in there, especially when I am moving around. I haven't had problems much in that area lately and I'm trying to remember what the hell to take for it. I used to take a generic anti-spasmodic called Hyoscyamine (sp?) but I think when I went to the doctor for my physical last I got a version with Belladonna in it, which I took once and had head to toe hives afterward so I dunno... It's been hurting for three days now, I might call my stranded friend and see if her husband can call me the old prescription in... I hate to bug him for something silly like that, but he's helped me out with antibiotics and things before.

Speaking of, I haven't talked to my friend Mary today. We tend to be late night chatters and I hate to think I'm going to wake up her baby, husband, and other relatives by calling too late. She's been mostly using her cellphone, but since her former household is all in one room now I think I'll let her call me.

I made a grocery store run tonight, we were starting to run out of "important" things like Sparky's Diet Mountain Dew and popcorn. And I was down to one minibag of Watermelon Jelly Bellies, my current sugar addiction. I actually like the Buttered Popcorn flavored ones better, but the little kiosk in my grocery store has only had Watermelon, Cinnamon and now Licorice (and several little multiflavor bags, I may have to get one of the Tropical Asst. next). I've falled off the sugar and candy wagon again... I'd like to start drinking again but I've been having too many bladder related problems and really don't want to deal with that right now.

I went to the store after dinner because I had to get some DVDs up on Ebay if I want to have any money at all this weekend (my commission people need to be paid), and I didn't get hardly anything done this past week. The store was full of unfamiliar faces, and a few yuppies trying to get their stuff and get out as fast as possible. I have to admit to one actual moment of being a little worried when a group of black teenagers got a little too excited in the back of the store, which I was headed to. They didn't sound violent, just way too excited to be in a grocery store at 10 pm on a Monday night. There were lots of young people shopping tonight, not at all the normal clientele. And some of the young men who worked there were discussing an episode of someone being robbed for flashing too much money, nice...

Last week's shopping trip was actually much more dangerous, and that was several days before the storm even hit. A young woman was robbed at gunpoint while I was in the store shopping, and because the way the place is laid out (it's a huge maze after a recent remodel, bad idea guys), all I could hear was someone screaming and cursing and them a lot of banging around. When I got back up towards the front of the store, I saw a young black female bodybuilder that I had passed earlier (she was beautiful, you had to notice her), pacing back and forth at the front of the store, screaming into her cellphone, and there were some displays of bicycles and things laying on their sides in her wake, which would explain the crashing sound. I had to sideline one of the sackers to escort me out to get the story of what actually happened.

I got an escort out tonight too. Besides feeling like crap (I had to load and unload all of the groceries once already), Sparky had heard some stories from the convenience store in our neighborhood that they were going to such extremes as not selling money orders after 4:00 pm for the safety of their customers and themselves, because there were a lot more people than normal walking around the area. So as my sacker is helping me out the door, and I'm trying to balance the cart (I stuff as much as possible into it each time, I hate to grocery shop) three police cars with lights and sirens fly down the street, in a huge fricking hurry. When I was a few blocks from my turn-in, I saw where they all were... right at the end of my street, great. There must have been eight police cars, two ambulances and I'm sure some wreckers in the melee, I turned in a few blocks early because it appeared the street was blocked in both directions. They were all out there for about an hour, so it was probably an auto accident.

There's just too much drama, I hate drama. I could live the rest of my life without any more drama, but there's just no way to avoid it. I think I'm going to channel some of my energy into ransacking my wardrobe and looking for things to give to charity. It looks like there are a few clothing donation centers that aren't too far away that I can give clothing to the hurricane victims, Star of Hope and Goodwill. I used to give to the Houston Women's Center a lot, but they stopped accepting donations directly. Purging with a cause makes me feel better, and I still have a lot more clothes than I wear working at home. I've given several cash donations to the Red Cross, Noah's Wish, the Houston Humane Society, and the Houston Humane Society (which I give to fairly regularly anyway), every little bit helps.

Last night was going along quite well until I got out of the shower and noticed that my vision was even stranger than usual... there were shimmering lights everywhere, growing brighter as I watched.

Hmmm... is it my eyes or my brain? Close one eye... flashing away. Close the other eye... yep still there. Must be migraine time. Nothing hurts yet, damn Sparky wants his dinner soon, guess it will be delivery tonight after all. I tend to get migraines during that wonderful PMS time, which I'm sort of in now because I've been screwing around with my birth control pills (didn't want to have headaches during my road trip or the week after with my dad having surgery). I'd take them non-stop, but the doctor bitches about it and I don't want to run out before my 12 months are up. I only go 3 or 4 days off anyway, nothing happens except the damn migraines (I seem to have reached perimenopause).

Luckily I have a large supply of Maxalt tablets, Merck will send them to you free if you don't have insurance and are poor enough, bless their black little pharmaceutical giant hearts. They cost about $16 a pill, so that's one less thing to worry about. I also get my Singulair from them, which retails around $100 a bottle, so two less things. I wish the Ambien people has a patient assistance program (can't sleep... clown will eat me...), that's my only other hovering around $100 a month prescription.

So I took a pill and lay down on the bed till dinner came (Chinese, isn't that a brilliant choice with a migraine!) watching the as the lights went from SpiroGraph frenetics to a tolerable pulsing. The Maxalt makes you kind of woozy by iteslef, and I don't usually even take one till I've been in pain for a day or so already, but the aura or halo lights really freak me out. I've had migraines for years, but this is only like the fourth time I've had the aura warning. Last time was after getting out of the shower also...

So it was sort of a forcibly calm evening for me. I do now believe the vision problem in my right eye (varying degrees of double vision and presbyopia) really is neurological (MS, optic neuritis related) and not as much actually a physical problem (from RK surgery in the 80's to correct my vision) because my vision got noticeably clearer after taking the Maxalt. Still not real good, but not a complete blur like it's been doing lately.

No headache by bedtime. I was going to go over to my parents to help my dad out with his spinal implant remote control (that was the afore-mentioned surgery, more on that to come) today but when I called at 1:30 (had to set an alarm to wake up that early) to see if the rep was still coming at 2:00, my mom told me she was already there, came early, and was almost finished. I lay there a few minutes accessing my situation, felt a pain behind my left eye and decided since I could go back to sleep for a few more hours I may as well take another Maxalt to knock out round two of the migraine.

Several groggy hours later I finally got up, and have been having another quiet evening. Actually made Sparky his spaghetti tonight (I need to go grocery shopping, dammit). I had one of my weird concotions - cranberry chicken salad from Sam's Club, with spring salad mix, strawberries, raspberries and walnuts wrapped in a flour tortilla. I've been on an "everything tastes better in a tortilla" craze lately, I even put my chinese food in there last night (I'm not a big rice fan).

It's time to take another shower before bed and now I have a slight throbbing beginning behind my right eye, hopefully I'll sleep decent tonight and wake up feeling better tomorrow. I don't really want to spend another day in woozy druggy land. I haven't been sleeping worth a damn the last few days, most likely also a hormonal problem. Can we just bring on the menopause and get this whole thing over with? I think the perimenopause thing has been going on about four or five years now. Oh well, I think I'll go test the hot shower theory again now. Vision's still pretty good, maybe I can read for a few minutes before bed too.

Hey, it's my 300th entry! And I feel like crap! Oh well. Last Friday I had some sort of spell of severe lower abdominal pain that was immediately followed by what seemed to be a Urinary Tract Infection, so I've had a yucky week so far. Friday afternoon (of course never on a Monday) I suddenly got this horrendous stabbing pain in my lower abdomen/pelvic area and (according to my husband) turned completely gray, started sweating like crazy and then both my arms and legs went completely numb. It felt like electric shocks were running down my arms and legs, I could not even move my hands. I seriously thought either my appendix had burst or I was having some sort of stroke or something. Scared my husband so badly he took me to the local emergency room.

But after we'd sat in the waiting room for about an hour (and they hinted it would be another four or five hours until I could be admitted) the pain subsided to bearable and all I wanted to do was go home, so we did. Then during the weekend I started having all of the classic bladder infection signs, so I took some of my all purpose Keflex and called for a Monday appointment. By Monday, though, I tested negative because I'd taken antibiotics, but the nice lady doctor gave me the requisite Bactrim and the analgesic that gives you neon urine.

So I'm winding up day three of five of my Bactrim treatment and it's helping with the UTI, but I've been feeling just totally wiped all week. Shaky and braindead, headaches, and I've been having some sort of weird non-stop acid reflux, which is a great appetite supressant -- maybe I'll lose some weight this week. I actually have a little burst of energy right now because it's been like 12 hours since I took my pill (next one's at bedtime).

So I grab my handy dandy Pill Book and look it up:

Side effects: Allergic reaction (itching, rash, hives, edema), drug fever, nausea, stomach upset, vomiting, abdominal pain, headache, tingling in the arms and/or legs, depression, hallucinations, ringing in the ears, dizziness, difficulty sleeping, tiredness, weakness, nervousness and FEELING OF APATHY.

What, no suicidal tendencies? Weirdly enough I haven't gotten my normal case of hives and swollen eyes that I usually get with almost any drug these days (I'm hyperreactive) but I sat on the couch all evening literally unable to move. And I had eBay auctions ending tonight, it felt like rocket science just trying to answer all my emails. Yeah, I'd call it a feeling of apathy. And I've been shaky, wek and nervous, had a headache, lots of stomach upset, and some additional abdominal pain. I'm already chronically depressed and I really don't need anything to increase my tinnitus.

But at least I know it's just the medicine, just two more days, bleechh. And then we have a dinner party and out of town guests coming in, I SO hope I feel better by the weekend. I haven't had a serious UTI in years, when I was younger I think they just gave me some sort of megadose of drugs (usually at the doctors office) and it just went right away. Must be old age (sigh). My poor mom had some sort of UTI for literally almost a year, so she was very sympathetic. I hope that's all this is, Halloween is coming up and I've got lots to do.

But my husband has been exceptionally sympathetic this week, and I verbally walked him through making his own dinner tonight. I wasn't hungry or up to standing in the kitchen for half an hour inhaling tomato sauce (which I'm allergic to) so he actually made his own favorite dinner - spaghetti and meatballs! I was so proud! He likes to say how quick and easy it is for me to make spaghetti for him but he got to spend a solid half hour hovering around the stove, stirring things to keep them from burning, and he dished it up himself. He'd go stir and then wander off and sit down to watch TV and I'd shoo him back to the kitchen to stir some more. I think he understands now why the sauce burns so easily (we have a crappy stove that doesn't maintain a steady heat level).

I'm trying to think of something to eat, all I've had today was a croissant and a sandwich. I do have a hiatal hernia so I'm a little paranoid about things backing up on me. But I've got to eat something before bed cause I've got to take another damn pill. But enough whining, just wanted to get that whole scenario out of my head.

OK, I was about to pass out but I'm having a little burst of mental energy, so one more entry before bed...

Due to lack of finances (not by choice) I was off of my Ambien for an entire month. I tried really hard to sleep each night, I just took my "normal" Lorazapam and things like Fiorinal, calcium, magnesium, and even some Valium I had around the house, but I still didn't sleep. My husband tried keeping the cat out of the bedroom during the day while I tossed and turned. She'll nap with me which is actually very nice, but she'll also come in and try to get into the windows and bang the blinds around which will wake up even a sound sleeper, which I am not.

Monday afternoon Sparky was making the bed after I abandoned it for the day when he suddenly let out a yelp. The fitted sheet at the bottom of my side of the bed was shredded! Of course, he blamed it on me, even though he has the toenails of death and I usually wear socks to bed. I'm still wondering if the kitty had anything to do with it because there were two parallel rips, but I honestly think it just gave out from age. We have a California king and he'll yank on the sides to try and tuck them in.

Since it was Labor Day, and my Foley's bill was due in a week or so anyway, I decided to grab the coupons out of the paper and drive across town (to the "nice" mall) and get another sheet set. I worked in retail most of my life so I do at least know how and when to buy linens. For $80+ bucks I got a top and bottom sheet (it would have been $130+ regular priced), but alas, no new pillowcases. I'm not real keen on replacing my pillowcases, though, because they're SOO soft and my skin is hypersensitive. I had to touch test all of the sheets at the store and ended up with some Wamsutta 300 count cotton sheets in a nice colonial blue. And I found the comforter set I'd been looking for for the past ten years (seriously). It's by Ralph Lauren and called Putney Paisley. Finding a cobalt blue paisley comforter is next to impossible, so I'm going to really work on getting this one. Our drapes are royal blue and most of the bedding I find is either navy (which looks like crap) or mostly white with a little blue. My two big goals for the bedroom are to paint the walls blue and replace the burgundy comforter set with a nice blue paisley one. So another $250 for a new comforter, $110 for a bedskirt, $80 for pillow shams (sigh).

So I came home, washed the sheets and added some fabric softener and we remade the bed. All of the damn sheets at the store were "extra deep" so it's still too wide (besides being a CA king, we have a Tempurpedic mattress which is not very deep), but it'll work.

But that night I lay in bed for like an hour, tossing and turning, and finally I actually got out of bed and tiptoed into my office, found the receipt for my Ambien and called it into the pharmacy so I could pick it up when I got up that afternoon. I just couldn't stand it anymore. I've never been good at sleeping and now I have additional stupid health problems that cause insomnia so I caved and spent another $80 to get a month's worth of sleeping pills. Even with them, I don't always sleep well, but at least the odds are in my favor again.

The final episode for awhile? I hope so (as does Sparky), but I'm supposed to give the mystery tooth another month and check back in if it's still hurting. (And the crown still has temporary cement on it) I got my final crown put on today, ouch. I was worried when I went in because I had such a bad reaction last time to the shot, so we tried pulling the temporary crown off without any anesthesia, which I wouldn't recommend.

So he gave me a lightweight shot, which didn't do a damn thing, it still hurt like hell. It's all metal sensitivity, I wouldn't mind having root canals on all of my molars just to kill all of the over sensitivity in my teeth. It's throbbing even now. Looks pretty, though, it's porcelain over gold. So now you can only see like four gold crowns when I open my mouth, three are all on one side which looks kind of strange but oh well. For some reason my front teeth have been really sensitive the last few days, just to air and cold, I may have to get some Sensodyne to use for a little while.

So other than the aching mystery tooth, the only thing I'd like to get done to my teeth is filling in some gaps in the front teeth that I've acquired from grinding. Besides sucking in air when I drink it looks a little too Madonna-esque. I really need to get my teeth re-straightened but after spending all of my teens in braces just to have them all move back forward it hardly seems worth it. Damn, I forgot to take my old nightguard in to show him. It's very close to fitting even though it's like five years old, except for one crown my last dentist put on a cuspid that made it bigger "to make my smile look better", which I didn't know till after he'd done it. (His work is what I've been having repaired and redone the last few months) But I've had several nightguards and can't keep any of them in, they drive me nuts but it's getting expensive replacing my crowns every 4 or 5 years from the grinding.

I was looking at websites recently and came across b4rb.com (ooh, she's changed her webdesign again, here is the very cool pic she had up last time), which has a very busy but interesting design, it's hard to load in some of my browsers. Opera is not loading the new design (though it worked with the last one), Netscape is loading it OK, now defunct Explorer for Mac won't load it at all. But the reference I'm trying to make is she has a problem with having a smaller than normal lower jaw (which gives her problems such as sleep apnea, see her June 16th entry, can't link to it for some reason) and after reading it and looking at some of her photos I realized I have that problem also. She does have me beat, though. I always thought it was just my overbite but I actually do have a small mouth and small lower jaw also. I also have TMJ so I can't open my mouth very wide (no jokes please, Sparky makes enough already). I think she's British, again no jokes please, I'm Irish-British-German and have the teeth and thin skin to prove it also ;-)

I remember when I was a teen and we'd have family photos done I'd always try and slide my lower jaw forward for the photos to try and look a little better, which actually made for a few very odd looking photos. I was editing some photos from one of our parties this weekend and noticed all of the photogenic girls have wide mouths and big smiles with lots of teeth, I have neither (sigh). At least I have cheekbones still.. I wonder if I have sleep apnea? I've never slept worth a damn in my life, and my husband claims I do snore some. Now he actually DOES have sleep apnea, I listen to him snore until he wakes himself up each night. He has to sleep most of the night sitting up, I can't sleep like that...

I need a caricature, though I really like my angel and spooky little girl logos I'm using on my site now a lot. I used to be an artist, you'd think I could do that sort of thing easily enough myself... Sparky just snored himself awake. Usually about this time of night he'll talk in his sleep, which is always unnerving. I used to sleepwalk as a kid but I've never talked in my sleep. I haven't been able to afford my Ambien the last week, so my sleep has suffered, though I've done better the last two days because Sparky has deliberately been keeping my bedroom doors closed (they're usually cracked to let the cat in and out), and he's been trying to restrain himself from coming in and telling me things when I'm sound asleep. He's actually brought newspaper articles in and read them off to me with a flashlight. I keep telling him besides waking me up, I don't remember anything he told me later. He went off to see a movie today (AVP) and the kitty woke me up at noon scratching at the door. I like having her in the bedroom when she'll lay down and sleep with me, but when she's hyper she tries to get in the blinds and plays with the cords for the draperies.

Someone please tell me why anyone would spend like two hours leaving 144 spam comments on a weblog and not even put the correct URL for their website? Good grief, like I'm not going to notice that many new comments...

We went out to eat with my parents tonight, it's nice being able to chauffeur them in my own car. Especially right now, my mom is recovering from a pelvic fracture from fainting from too much blood pressure medicine and my dad's back is just giving him hell. He's going to go to a pain management guy starting this week, he's had several back surgeries and a hip replacement in recent years and is not getting any help from his orthopedic doc, he also got overmedicated and was having dizzy spells. This new guy is an anaesthesiologist who can try some different things. I printed a bunch of literature for him on neurostimulation, which we're all hoping will work.

PLEASE let us get a President who is "interested in science" in office, and who is not a lackey to the drug companies. I'm trying to figure out this week how I'm going to pay for my four prescriptions, which even at Sam's Club's discount pharmacy prices are still going to be about $150. Sparky is telling me to just "do without" some of my medicines, especially my Ambien (which is $80 a month), but I'm not sleeping hardly at all with it so without it really scares me. I've tried several times to go without it for a week or so and I basically didn't sleep at all. I've never been a good sleeper, I think it's mostly the MS causing the problems, but any help at all is a blessing. My parents are paying a fortune for their medicines even with Medicare, and a gap policy. I think between the two of them they are also going to see a doctor about 2-3 times a week which ain't cheap either.

The last time one of my prescriptions expired the doctor tried to get me to come in for an $85 visit (even though I just had my physical a few months ago), and it took three phone calls to get her to renew the damn thing over the phone. I have about 8 prescriptions that I've been taking for years now, it's not like I'm asking for anything new and exciting. And I think I've just realized when I switched pharmacies last time that the new pharmacy is not giving me Fiorinal with codeine, just Fiorinal, which might explain why it hasn't really been working as well. Of course, that's the one I had to fight for over the phone, my doctor has a bad habit of not writing things exactly correct. I also need to see if I can get my Prozac split into two 20 mg pills a day instead of one 40 mg, I think the giant dose is making me sleepy.

However, I did find one way to save on two of my really mega-expensive medicines. Merck, who makes my migraine medicine (Maxalt) and the only allergy medicine I can take that doesn't contain an antihistamine (Singulair) has a patient assistance program that actually works. Because we are both self-employed and don't have insurance or Medicare, I am actually eligible for free medicine from them! And I really, honestly got it, three months worth of each. Maxalt is about $100 for 6 tablets (which is considered one months worth) and the Singulair is over $100 for a months worth. I wish the Ambien people has a program ;-) The most expensive medicine I ever got was some weekly self-administered (shudder) shots for my MS, which were about $2000 a month (I had real insurance at the time). Lucky for my finances, they didn't help me and actually made me feel worse.

My dental bills (and Sparky's soon-to-come ones, he's not in pain so he's spacing his visits further apart) are going to be the price of a semi-decent used car I'm afraid. Or a really killer Mac setup with all the bells and whistles. I'm thinking now the dentist must have hit a nerve or something with the injection on my last visit because the area he worked on is STILL numb and tender. I need to call his office again and see if there's anything they can do about this. And the mystery tooth is still worrying me.

My 30 day Carmax warranty is about to expire and I need to call them like today to get a few little things checked. Supposedly I still have part of the original manufacturer's warranty left also, it was 3 years and the car is a 2002, but the salesman wasn't sure how many months were actually left on it. One of my windshield washers isn't squirting, the light in my glove box is not working, and I think my headlights might be a bit out of alignment. It has Xenon headlights, even brighter than halogen, so I don't want to blind people. They're very nice with my night vision problems, though (which are mostly RK related), driving at night isn't as much of a nightmare anymore. I need to post my review of the car, just to get it out of my head. And speaking of cars, my first pricey insurance payment is due on Monday (gulp), I was paying just liability on the antique car but upped it to collision on this one. At least I have a good driving record, knock on wood.

I've almost gone through my first tank of gas, I think the tripometer is at 200+ miles or so, so even with the bigger V6 I seem to be getting much better gas mileage than my old 4 cylinder car did, which is nice. I haven't even tried the remote gas lid release yet, I guess I should do that before I take it in for service.

Excitement for today - I leaned on the panic button on my remote accidentally tonight while the car was in the garage still, scared the living crap out of both of us.

Geez, what a pain... I can't believe my face is still numb and swollen after almost a week, this is just SO not fair. I went to the grocery store tonight and got more soft food, flan, ice cream, danish... all the things I really need to be eating. And the mystery tooth on the opposite side is still hurting, my mouth feels so weird. Something must be infected. I'd like to know what it's like to not be in major pain or discomfort for just one bloody day, whine, whine, whine.

It's a full moon tonight and I have PMS also. Even the cat's feeling bad tonight, one of her eyes is red and itchy, poor thing. I've wiped her eye and face several times but she's still squinty. The grocery store had just two checkout lanes open and was packed. They have several self-checkout lanes open, but they all had very confused people standing in them waiting for assistance and I had a tomato and an onion to buy with no UPC bars and wasn't quite sure how to do that and didn't want to be one of the confused flashing light people. (Turns out you can self-checkout with produce, I'll have to try next time because I usually get along pretty well with the self-service lane). I wanted to get some Glyoxide (that sweet peroxide gel) for my mouth but they didn't have any. I'm tired of salt water, maybe I'll just swish some regular peroxide tonight. It's one of my "cure everything" remedies. I put it on wounds (warning, it can make scarring worse), I put it in my ears when they are aching and making me dizzy (probably not a good idea either), and have even gargled with it (just don't swallow the stuff!).

I was expecting over $100 worth of eBay payments in my PO box today, but only got $30, the big one is sitting at the post office waiting on a signature. It's registered and arrived on a Saturday so I can't claim it till Monday, oh well. Some idiot in a wrecker flashed his fancy strobing headlights at me tonight on the way home because he thought I had my high beams on, my new car has some sort of super bright headlights which I'm sure are really annoying to other drivers. I would have flashed him back, but I had a psycho in a wrecker chase me once for like 5 solid minutes because he thought I gave him the bird (I actually waved thanks at him after I had to cut in front of him because of sudden street construction) so I try not to piss wrecker drivers off. I used to have to work with them a lot as a security officer and they tend to be sort of defensive. And carry things like shotguns and crowbars with them. Not that I blame them.

I've actually never given anyone the finger, it's a very weird gesture to me. I'll curse at them, I'll honk at people (only if they do something really stupid, I'm not suicidal), but the whole finger thing is not a normal reflex for me. I'm not really coordinated fingerwise anyway, I could never play the guitar well. I can give you the Vulcan peace sign without thinking about it, but I'm a geek ;-)

The last two weeks in a large rambling, third-person nutshell...

When last we saw our heroine she had three temporary crowns and was awaiting yet another that hadn't been started on yet. And she was still having the same horrid dull ache in the area of the mystery tooth - which had had a root canal done three years ago (by another dentist), yet never felt quite right for years then turned grey out of nowhere one day beneath the composite white crown. So she went to her new dentist, who thought it might be a faulty root canal (too short), and he referred her to an endodontist, who discovered the tooth in front of that one was in dire need of a root canal and the mystery tooth was sort of forgotten. Except that the new dentist then removed the three year old crown and found there was decay beneath the tooth, which was removed and a new lovely smooth porcelain crown was ordered up to replace the yucky composite crown, which our heroine thought might be causing the aching because it was rough and not very hard (she grinds her teeth incessantly).

So in she goes when the three new crowns are ready, but has the foresight to warn the dentist that the mystery tooth still does not feel right, so he agrees to put the crown on with temporary cement and "wait and see" how it feels. And the newest root canal tooth gets it's tiny porcelain crown. But then it comes time to put the gold crown on the back upper molar (which had a gold crown on it but she had ground it down to a jagged mess). With so much going on in that area (all three teeth are on the back left) she didn't think she had any sensitivity in that tooth, but when the dentist cemented it on she just about came up out of the chair as a jolt of lightning went through that tooth. "It must be the cement", the dentist proposed, "sometimes it causes extra sensitivity".

One week passed and it was time for the next visit, but our heroine accidentally gave herself food poisoning with some tainted Alfredo sauce so the visit was put off another week after an uncomfortable sleepless night. The gold crown's sensitivity seemed to be lessening with time, but the mystery tooth still ached. So this past Monday it was time for the next appointment, which was supposed to be to replace a third destroyed crown (grinding, grrr) and fix a small filling on a front tooth. The dentist fought with and succeeded in removing the old damaged crown and discovered that not only was there major decay beneath it, but also on the edge of the tooth behind it (sigh). So he went to work on the newly discovered problem tooth, having to do a build-up on it before he could do molds for the new crown, which he had to also do a build-up on because of all the decay beneath the old crown.

In between taking molds of her mouth, he decided to work on the front tooth, but since it had been over an hour since he gave her a shot in the front of her mouth (he had been busy on the unexpected tooth), when he began drilling the old filling out, she screamed in pain. Oops, not numb anymore, needs another shot... He tries once, twice, hmmm, something's wrong with the needle, gets a new one from his assistant. So more anaesthetic, now her nose, face and tongue are numb. Killing time, he decides to do the upper mold. Which makes her gag, and is of a new material which did NOT want to come out without taking some of her front teeth (at least it felt that way).

But after almost three hours of forcing her TMJ-ridden jaw to stay open, and get yanked on with pliers, sawed at, drilled and other indignities, the two fillings were finally done, and the temporary crown was in place. Since her hubby had his gums scraped that morning at the same locale, she stopped and got ice cream on the way home for both of them, then passed out in bed for a few hours.

And awoke with the whole side of her facen swollen. Holy crap it hurt! All the way from her eye socket to the bottom of her jaw it's tender. That's weird, the only allergic reactions she usually gets from the shots are itchy hands. Maybe it's because she fell asleep on it, maybe she accidentally bruised it by laying on it... The ice cream came in very handy.

But the next day it's still swollen, and the day after that her gums are swollen also, this can't be good. She calls the dentist but he's out of town, "try warm salt water and Advil" she's advised and "call us in the morning if it's not better". But she's a bit more concerned about it than just the discomfort, what if a sinus is infected? Maybe something nasty got in her system from the defective needle... Three days and it's getting worse not better. And the irony is her husband had major gum work the same day and he was perfectly fine the next morning, no soreness or swelling at all. And the mystery tooth on the opposite side of her mouth still hurts so her jaws are sore from trying to eat and not injure herself any further (sigh).

Tune in tomorrow for the next episode, will the swelling be gone or will she be rushed to the emergency room in a hallucogenic fever? One thing is for certain, though, she will NOT be awake by noon Friday morning when her dentist office closes so it should be an interesting weekend.

Damn, I was thinking I didn't have to go back in till later this week... Well, another tooth down, several more to go. We did the molar next to the one I just got a new root canal on last week, so I got yet another temp crown for the left side. My poor jaw had not recovered from last week yet, I stopped by the grocery store on the way home today to get more soft food I shouldn't be having on my diet. At least the ice cream is sugar free ;-)

The tooth today was a pretty recent white composite crown that had been done about three years ago (by another dentist...) to cover a root canal and keep my tooth full of old silver fillings from crumbling. Unfortunately the last dentist left the silver in the tooth, and did a weird job of the crown (it was apparently pressing on the surrounding gum, no wonder it hurt so much), and the area where the silver was had started to decay making the bottom of the tooth turn grey.

I had told the dentist before we started that the local injections he gave me last week had made my hand swell up, but he dismissed that, and gave me several more of the same today. So after I came home and took a nap, I awoke with both hands full of hives and bumps and swelling quickly (sigh). They hurt worse than the tooth, dammit, and last week they took about three days to go back down... I'm glad it's only Monday, we're going to a friend's wedding this weekend.

What does one wear to a casual indoor/outdoor wedding in June here in the swamplands? The invite said "no shorts please", but I don't think I even own a skirt and I'm unsure whether even nice jeans would be appropriate. I don't want to get too formal, it's bloody hot outside, most of my "nice" things are not for June...

Because of my lack of eating full meals last week I actually lost some weight, despite the fact that I was literally force-feeding myself to keep from getting too run down (or nauseous from the medicine). I did get a few weird bursts of energy, though, dusted the bedroom one night, filed some stuff... so the week wasn't a total bust.

My morning/afternoon... drifting in and out, I can hear the TV in the den, Sparky moving around, car keys jangling... Weird dreams, for some reason my cat is suddenly part ferret and a woman is threatening to call the police on her because she got out of the house unattended for a few minutes... I can't find a toilet that has a door on the stall, recurring dream, means I gotta pee...

Awake! Why am I propped half up on two pillows? What time is it? Ow, my jaw hurts... oh yeah, dental surgery yesterday. Or is it still yesterday? The sun appears to be up, the clock says it's 1:10, wow. Slowly turn the dimmer on the lamp up... Why is my glass case open and sitting on top of the alarm clock, I only put it there when I'm reading in bed... Why aren't my glasses in it? Crap, where are my glasses? Last waking memory - I was reading, Sookie had just rescued her boyfriend from the vampires who were holding him hostage and she was driving out of the plantation, trying to sweet talk the werewolf who was guarding the gate, zzzzzzz.... Oh! I fell asleep reading, dammit.

My book is on the shelf on my nightstand, but where are my glasses? Move slowly, they might be in bed with me still. At least this is just one of many backup pairs I have and not one of my prescription pairs. They're not on the nightstand, not on the ottoman next to the bed, hmmm. Sit up, put my feet carefully onto the floor... There they are!... in my house shoe? Usually the only thing I find in my shoes are stuffed mice, whatever, at least they're not broken.

I was just joking about passing out, but apparently I actually did. I rarely fall asleep reading, and never suddenly like that, I usually at least am alert enough to turn the light out and put my things on the nightstand. Sparky, on the other hand, can fall asleep mid-sentence with the TV blaring. He's snoring away right now. But if I turn the TV off, he'll wake up immediately.

My hands are still swollen, actually mostly my left hand, so I think the dental injections must be the culprit there since all the work was done on my left side. I stupidly then went back to bed, and spent several more hours tossing and turning restlessly. But that's what I do when I feel bad, sleep, or at least lay in bed. It usually makes the time pass faster and encourages healing, but this afternoon seemed three times as long as it actually was. My neck is all stiff today, not sure if that's from sleeping in such a weird position or from trying to hold my head in one position for hours at a time yesterday, probably both.

I ate more two chicken salad sandwiches for breakfast/dinner so far today. We watched MSNBC while we ate (Sparky had spaghetti left over from last night), listened to the newest 9/11 tapes, Jesus, that's a whole new entry, not today, though... I need to get some work done tonight, even with the swollen hand(s). I've only taken one codeine pill so far today, I'm trying to cut back, I think I was probably getting addicted to them because of the constant pain in my jaw. Hopefully, when the soreness wears off most of that will be gone, even though I still have several more teeth to be done. OK, typing is too hard right now, but my brain is still too sluggish to do much of anything useful...

OK, working on knocking another major "to do" off my list, getting my teeth back in a state of repair. I thought it had only been two years since I went to the dentist (i.e. when our dental insurance ran out), but it has actually been three years (gulp). I called to make an appointment to have mine and Sparky's teeth cleaned at the same time, but since I was in pain they agreed to see me earlier.

So Monday afternoon I go in to see my new dentist, who is endorsed by my mother and only like a mile from out house, unlike my last dentist, who was about 18 miles away (hubby's family dentist). Nice offices, nice staff, nice dentist. So far, so good. Got an exam, lots of x-rays, and was told to come back the next morning for my cleaning, come in early Wednesday to get started on the construction work, and to see his endodontic specialist to check a root canal to see if it was causing the pain on my left side.

Got the cleaning the next morning (only got like 3 hours sleep, had to be there at 9am), they didn't have nitrous! Oh well, that's the best part and keeps me from clenching my entire body while they are scraping metal objects on my sensitive teeth. But it wasn't bad after all, even for three years of plaque. The hygienist used an ultrasonic cleaner and then only actually scraped a little bit and my teeth were actually whiter looking for the first time in my life. Got home, called the endodontist, they have an opening the next day... at 8:30 am. OK, gotta take it, get this crap all over with ASAP. Then I napped for several hours, my poor jaw aching from TMJ from keeping my mouth open just for the cleaning.

Got up at 7:30 am today, the cat actually woke me just before she stepped on my alarm clock and turned it off. I was only 10 minutes late to the endodontist's office (that's good for me), really ritzy place, nice view, very quiet... His assistant gets me situated and takes an x-ray of the bad side, which then immediately pops up on a 19 inch computer monitor, I'm impressed. They don't have nitrous either, dammit, soemthing about an OSHA regulation about having to vent the area, grrrr.. The doctor comes in, thumps on my teeth, doesn't get a good enough reaction so he takes a little metal rod and sprays it to freeze it and tells me to let him know it I feel anything when he touches my teeth. I actually came about halfway out of my chair, found the problem!

Not the tooth with the three year old root canal, but the bicuspid in front of it.... The suspected tooth (with recent root canal and crown) is decaying beneath the lovely white crown, though, which explains why the bottom has turned grey. But only one root canal is needed instead of having to redo the molar's existing root canal, which I guess is a good thing. Eventually I will have no roots left in any of my teeth (hey, no pain!).

So I asked if he should do the new root canal or my dentist, same price, he's can do it right now, so I let the specialist do it. Quick and easy, only one canal, done in less than an hour. $750 bites the dust... Then back home for an hour, and off to my other dentist, who seems a bit peeved that the other doc got to do the root canal, but hey, he referred me. He got me back, though, the next exciting event was drilling out the temporary filling the endodontist has just put in like an hour before. Then he went to work on the upper tooth just above it, a gold crown which I had chewed through and was also apparently rapidly decaying beneath the crown. I really do brush every day, I just also grind my teeth and have bad genetics, must be the British part of my DNA...

So several hours and another $1900 later, I've got two temporary crowns and get to go back next week to work on both my lower left and upper right sides to replace two more useless crowns (sigh), more money down the drain. Hopefully the new crowns will last more than three years... Jeez, xylocaine injections in both sides of my mouth, that should be attractive. I came home and went to bed again after todays ordeals were finished, only to awake with all of my codeine worn off and the root canal area throbbing. But since all I'd had to eat all day was an Atkins shake, I had to maneuver another one down before I could take any more meds. After a few hours (and several more pills), I actually managed to eat some soy ice cream and chicken salad with success. I did plan ahead and make sure I had liquid and some soft food available. The throbbing stopped pretty quickly, thank goodness, years ago, back when they had to do root canals in two stages, I thought I was going to die from the throbbing when the local anaesthesia wore off. And I didn't have any actual narcotics at the time, I plan ahead now, just in case...

My jaw is still semi-locked, I've bitten the crap out of the inside of my mouth, my hands have swollen up and are itching like crazy (probably from the dozen or so injections I got today), but at least I'm halfway there. "Three to four weeks" before my crowns come in, but I'm hoping I've gotten rid of what was most likely a major source of the pain in my jaw (and probably some of my ear & sinus problems on that side). So what else did I do after I got up this evening? Watched TV and then decided to file a bag full of dusty papers in my bedroom. No, I don't know why either and it was not easy with my hands swollen, but filing is comforting to me and it distracted me for a few hours. And got my major bedroom dusting obstacle up and off the floor, which made me feel better :-)

After the teeth are finished, on to working on my vision (RGP contacts are the plan so far), then maybe my poor car (if Sparky hasn't divorced me yet, I can't help it... at least HE has good teeth). Getting loopy now, must go shower before I pass out...

OK, I admit I'm rambling tonight, I still feel like my brains are not all assembled in the same room. And now my hands ache, I got my Yamuna Body Rolling Balls in the mail today and just spent the last hour or so inflating them. The little green one wasn't too bad, you have to use a hand pump (sold separately) to inflate them, they are shipped flattened, but I didn't think I'd ever get the larger red ball inflated. I'm still not quite sure if I've done them correctly, the book said not to overinflate them and I have no memory of how to properly deflate rubber balls, though it says you can flatten them and bring them with you when you travel. Right now neither is perfectly round but a bit more oval, I'm just waiting for my husband to walk by and say "Hey you didn't inflate these all the way!".

I'm glad I invested in the name brand therapy balls, though, instead of getting a similar cheaper one I saw on eBay. These really are very good quality and heavy duty. I also have a strange fear of things bursting, I hate balloons, and the one on eBay said "no pump needed, inflates with a straw" which doesn't sound either safe or logical.

I did finally take a step towards fixing my poor teeth, I made an appointment for my husband and myself to go in for a cleaning (together, so I can hold his hand). They couldn't see us at the same time till the end of the month, though, so I mentioned I had a couple of teeth that were painful (the magic word for dentists) and I get to go in to be looked over this Monday. We're trying a new dentist that my mother has used, and is two miles from the house vs. 20 miles, where my husband's family dentist is. He's the reason my teeth are currently so messed up, he replaced several gold crowns with pretty white resin crowns and my molars have felt "off" ever since to the point where I've ground through at least two of my upper gold crowns. Also the resin feels rough to me, despite his attempts at smoothing them, which is a constant irritant.

I hope the new dentist is good, and has nitrous. I actually have a very high pain tolerance, and have had enough major dental work to make most people faint at the thought, but I also have super sensitive teeth when it comes to cold and pressure and the nitrous keeps me from inadvertantly biting the poor dentist. Plus it's the only time in my life I've ever actually felt relaxed. I agreed to let the last guy do a gingivectomy while under it's influence, it must be pretty good stuff.

Well, I sat down to type that I was sick as a dog all day yesterday and today I'm feeling better... and then I sneezed (duh, duh, duhhh!). So I went into the bedroom and got my arsenal of nose sprays and took a Singulair, which is the only type of oral medicine I can take (I'm allergic to antihistamines). And got a new box of kleenex from the garage, I went through an entire box yesterday.

I've had bad allergies my entire life, and a couple of times a year I'll just start sneezing non-stop and I know I'm coming down with a sinus infection. Lucky for me, my best friend's husband is a doctor and he gives me a prescription for a season's worth of antibiotics at a time so I can head them off when I feel one coming on. I need to use my nasal saline more often, I've found that's one of the best deterrants to getting sick.

So I spent the entire day yesterday basically sneezing, blowing my nose, and coughing, which makes it difficult to do much of anything else. I managed to wrap all of my packages for eBay so Sparky could bring them in today, but I stayed up till 7am doing so and was too tired (and dizzy) to even take a shower by that point. So I took lots of Keflex last night and before bed, used some Afrin to make my nose temporarily stop dripping, took a couple of codeine for the headache and coughing, and half a valium to make sure I actually slept because that's the only way my body knows to heal. And I did feel much better when I woke up, thank goodness. Still stuffy nose and ears, swollen lymph nodes, sore throat and sore ribs but so far only one sneeze (knock on wood).

And to compound matters last night, my postage program, Endicia, which makes my life SO much easier, was down for monthly maintenance and was supposed to be back up at 4 am CST, and didn't come up till 6:30 am (grumble). So no packing tonight, I think I'm going to be lazy and go watch TLC's "What Not to Wear". I hope they're doing a girl, the guys are no fun at all...

I feel somewhat caught up (and slightly broke) after taking care of business the last few days. I try really hard whenever I get a bit ahead financially to actually buy things I need and that are on my wishlist instead of things I didn't know I needed. It seems like when I does have money, I can't think of anything I really need, but as soon as I get low it's really obvious.

I had bought a second book on Body Rolling, which required a different sized ball than the ones I already have (they sell them online, of course), but the exercises are completely different in the first book I got. So I ended up buying two of the balls from Yamuna Zake's website, I saw some on eBay that were similar and cheaper, but didn't really want to chance it. Had to buy a damn pump too, but I guess it's a good thing to have. The Miracle Balls I've been using have really been wonderful, great for both my fibromyalgia and the muscle tension from my MS. And they don't cost $60 an hour ;-) Back when I was rich (ha!) from working two jobs, I would try and go to a massage therapist every two weeks or so, but I'm one of those people that is so tight that it never really did a lot of good. But I'm having a lot of fun and getting good results from rolling, and who wouldn't like an exercise you do primarily laying down.

What else... got semi caught up on meds and groceries today, at least the refrigerator is full and Sparky has lunchmeat, bread, Diet Mountain Dew and bottled water, so he's happy. Sam's Club had more of my favorite Tropical Chicken Salad, they haven't discontinued it yet as I feared, awesome stuff to snack on! Plus an easy dinner for tonight, cold shrimp and potato salad, an all-time favorite with both of us. And a case of canned green beans, which should hold us for awhile (I'm a lazy cook, BTW).

Also ran into Old Navy today to try and find a belt for my poor jeans that won't stay up (maybe I really am losing weight, but I think it's more of a Lycra issue), and ended up also buying half a dozen of their Perfect Fit tees (two for $15!) which are actually sized big enough that adults can wear them and they are thick enough that they don't look like underwear. I even got some that weren't black. I wanted some Navy ones but they were sold out of anything above Medium, just looked online and they're out too, dammit. With the weather so hot I'm already tired of walking around in long oversized tees. I also got a couple more pair of their Just Lounge Capris (only the long ones are on their website but these look like just like the Capris), which hit me at the ankle and are great around the house (also on sale, yippee!). I used to buy their Yoga Capris but they're making them shorter now. They're really comfy for around the house, but they wear out pretty quickly, but for $15 what the heck. Did get belt, I wanted a leather one, but found a black and white brocade fabric belt that is very adjustable, plus comfy and attractive and got it.

And I paid Sparky back for the last few weeks of utility bills, and bought more mailing supplies. And... I bought a new curling iron (see next entry for info!).

Why is my current mood displayed as "pained" you might ask? Well, Sunday when I was over visiting my mom the right side of my lower back kept giving me those little weird twinges that hint that something's about to go terribly wrong and last night it did. Out of nowhere the entire right side of my body from the waist down just sort of gave out. I could barely sit up in a chair, I couldn't walk at all, and even laying down to sleep hurt. I don't know if it has to do with my MS, the fact that I'm double jointed and my hip does go out from time to time (but usually doesn't hurt like this), or a number of stupid things I've done lately. Carrying laundry on my hip, reaching up in the closet to get a box down. And, oh yes, jumping up and down at the grocery store Saturday trying to knock things off the top shelf so I could actually purchase them. (I'm 5'1") I don't know who the tall, sadistic bastard is that designed my grocery store, but he made the three foot deep shelves over 6' high, and he always puts the last couple of bottles of Evian at the very back of the shelf. If I ever meet him I'm going to kick him in the shins...

So I'm suffering like hell now. Could be totally unrelated to my high jumping attempts, but that couldn't have helped. I need to buy one of those little reacher thingies to take grocery shopping. Or just a long stick. And to add insult to injury, I had to go in for my mammogram today and it rained the entire day, actually even flooded. I was a few miles away, on a road that parallels a huge bayou and the rain started sheeting. So when I got to the clinic I got drenched and stepped in about four inches of water in my good shoes. And then got to sit around with a hospital gown that wouldn't stay closed in wet jeans. Oh, and then got my boobs put in a cold metal clamp while I tried to keep standing in one place with throbbing back for way too long while the technician reset the machine because the power had gone out just before I arrived. The only good thing that happened was because the power had blinked the clinic's computers were offline so they're going to have to bill us for the test. We just got the bills in the mail for the labwork from our physicals in today, for a change his exam was more expensive, being an over 40 white male they seem to be taking his health and extra weight more seriously than they do mine.

Speaking of, Sparky's back went out this weekend and I gave him a couple of Soma and now he's fine. I hope I'm fine in two days. My Fiorinal is doing nothing for the pain and the Soma just made me kind of woozy but I may take one anyway before bed. The kitty came down with an upper respiratory infection last week (sneezing, sluggish cat!) and we've been squirting antibiotics in her mouth twice a day. She doesn't like it, but she's smart enough to get over it in a few minutes. And I've been hand feeding her turkey baby food afterwards which helps the proverbial medicine go down. She wasn't eating properly for about a week after her physical, but until she started sneezing we weren't quite sure what to make of her lethargy since she'd also received two shots at the same time. But she seems to have her appetite back now, and is murring and running though the house again.

Only I could pick up a piece of paper from my printer and slash myself across the face with it [sigh]. I've always been very talented at strange self-injuries. So now I have a cut on my upper lip that hopefully will not swell up and look nasty. On the good side, I didn't hit myself in the eye...

Sparky wanted spaghetti for dinner. I'm allergic to tomatoes and really dislike spaghetti as a pasta so I decided to make him happy and I would have a "low carb" day. I was thinking of just drinking several Atkins shakes all day, but I ended up drinking two and making myself two sandwiches with my tropical chicken salad, which I'm starting to get a little tired of now. Too much celery. Now my stomach is rebelling and gurgling and I've had to take a Prilosec. We're supposed to go out with friends and have Mexican food tomorrow night, coincidentally on Cinco de Mayo (ya think we'll have to stand in line???), so I figure between the two they'll average out. I just have to watch the chips and tortillas.

I've managed to lose about 7 pounds so far doing the low carb thing (again) and cut my snacking down to next to nothing. I've been living on a diet of salads, liquid yoghurt, chicken salad, Slimfast low carb bars and Atkins canned shakes. Stay tuned to see if I develop an eating disorder in my quest to lose weight and get my cholesterol below 300...

Stumbled across a neat low carb information site today, the whole world has gone low carb now, it's funny. I've been doing it on and off for about 6 years, lost 10 pounds the first time I did it and got my cholesterol below 200 for the first time in my adult life. They're coming out with a low carb Coke, cool! I wish they'd make more things with Splenda, it's the only artificial sweetener I can tolerate.

Busy week, too much drama, but I'll not go into that... We took Phoebe in for her annual physical this week and because she was so itchy. The vet didn't find anything wrong with her skin, decided it was probably food allergies and switched her to an allergen free diet, IV Green Peas and Duck, which is what she was on when we got her. But she doesn't really like it, though, so I'm still mixing the old food in with it. And the bag of Hill's Sensitive Skin food that I'd ordered a week ago still hadn't arrived so I emailed them to see if I could return it and they hadn't even sent it out yet (!). Geez, they charged my card the day I ordered it, but now they're supposed to be crediting me for the whole order, which included some feather toys too.

I'm afraid I've been giving her too much people food lately, letting her lick the bottle of my yoghurt, etc., which is like her favorite thing to do. And I give her too many treats. The vet gave her a steroid shot for the allergies, he had suggested we give her oral steroids for a week instead and now I kind of wish we'd taken done that instead of the shot. She's been so mellow and calm all week, poor thing, not herself at all. She's hardly played at all and has mostly been sitting on the floor watching us and purring quietly. She seems to slowly be getting some of her energy back, we played a little tonight. But she's not itching and her skin is healing nicely.

And the last couple of days I've been feeling really uncomfortable in my skin for some unknown reason. Wednesday night we went out and I ate pasta for the first time in like a month, maybe it's some side effect of that. I just feel really jumpy and sort of PMSy, though I shouldn't be yet. I read an article saying that the low carb diet worked better if you took a day off once or twice a month and ate semi-normal so I rationalized it that way. I also had a migraine coming on Wednesday morning and took a Maxalt, which for some reason made me really druggy feeling all day to the point where I couldn't even drive. I don't know if it's the change in diet, birth control pills, or Prozac but medicines seem to be affecting me really adversely lately. I've just been a lump. I hate this feeling and I not knowing what's causing it pisses me off. Part of it is my mitral valve prolapse, which causes my heart to beat irregularly sometimes out of nowhere, which it's doing now, but I still have that creepy crawly feeling. And I dreamed about being invaded by bugs last night, which doesn't help at all.

My attempt at running errands Friday was just an exercise in aggravation. I made it through the post office quickly, but then needed to make a deposit at my bank with a real person instead of the ATM and had to wait like 15 minutes just to get through the line of cars. Then I stupidly went out on Braeswood, enroute to Sam's Club by the Dome, straight shot, eh? Made it through Hillcroft, no problem, than bam, all the traffic stops about a block before Chimney Rock. And goes nowhere... OK, I know afternoon traffic is bad but something was definitely wrong here. Is a car broken down, what?

Oh! I get close enough to the light that I can see through the SUV in front of me's window, and the light seems to be cycling funny. Oh crap, not funny at all, the two lights that are like 100 feet apart are out of sync. First light turns green just as the second light is turning red. So three cars get to scoot up each time, hanging out into the intersection, aaagghh! Luckily I was in the first slot when it was my turn and I shot all the way through. In any kind of race I've always been able to get the "out the gate" advantage, I have to make myself stop and wait until I'm sure no one is running a light coming at me because I have had the front end of my car knocked off by an idiot doing just that. But after that it was easy, even the loop didn't back up until I got off just after Fannin. Then I got to stand in line to get my prescription at Sam's, by that time I was pretty much a zombie.

And I was starting to get really hungry, it was dinner time. A lady was giving out samples of something that smelled really good and turned out to be a chimichanga. "It's very hot", she warned, "hold it a little while". It was hot, but after about four minutes of trying to steer a giant shopping cart with one hand while my stomach grumbled out loud, I succumbed. And burnt the crap out of the roof of my mouth. I have an overbite so I'm used to having injured gums, but burned and injured, oww... But it was tasty.

I was going to put "fishy" as my current mood for tonight, but it wasn't an option. I went out and bought stuff for dinner this weekend that's not pasta, and succumbed to the pre-cooked cold boiled shrimp at Kroger's. It was really good, and easy, I just bought some potato salad and bread for Sparky to go with it, but I've had that fishy feel on my hands all night and in my mouth. I love seafood, but I don't like fish. (Huh?) Really, I like shellfish but not fish-fish, too bland and fishy tasting.

I've really got to look at some cookbooks and magazines and figure out more interesting stuff to eat than chicken breast and steak. Our nearby grocery stores are really uninspiring, I'd give anything to have a Whole Foods or Central Market nearby, just to be able to buy pre-made, healthy food that's semi-interesting. I get bored really easily with food, though I can eat the same thing over and over till I get burned out on it. I've been checking out a healthy food delivery place for my parents to possibly use while my mom heals. if I had more money I'd love to use a service like that. It would make it really easy to lose weight also. I've lost about 5 pounds so far (in about 3 weeks?), and I do feel better and am not craving sweets and carbs like I was. I've been taking two 600mg calcium supplements a day also, which is supposed to help burn fat and cut cravings, and seems to be working. If nothing else, I'll have healthy bones :-)

Mad Mad House tonight was dramatic, it's down to the point where I don't really like any of the contestants, but I'm kind of leaning toward Nichole. Eric is so manipulative, as was Leona, whose kharmic energy came back and bit her on the ass tonight. She was such a princess, even though she won some trials, she was too unwilling to try new things. Jamie seems like such a blank slate, and she was a stripper so she's not easily embarrassed, but she doesn't even seem to be trying, I kind of thought she'd be the one to go next. I think she has that "deer in the headlights" look that the producers must like. I hated Eric the first time I saw him, he seemed like such a smart ass and a player, but I have more respect for him now. My favorite was Bonnie, but she was too openminded for her own good to win. Next week is the two hour finale, I wonder how they're going to cut it down to one when there are three people left? Looks like the eliminated guests will be making an appearance, including my least two favorites, Tim and Kelly, the loudmouthed drama queens of the group. I kind of wish I'd been taping these, but I'm sure they'll come out in a nice little DVD box set after season one is over. Glad to know they're already working on season two but I'm going to miss the current Alts.

Finally made it to Sam's Club to pick up my $100+ worth of prescriptions that I dropped off earlier this week. I had told my doctor I wanted to up my Prozac from 30 mg a day (3x10) for 40mg (2x20) and she wrote the prescription out for one 40mg pill a day, yikes... I thought the pharmacy had shorted me when I checked the receipt because it was only $11 and for 30 pills, but no, apparently 30 40mg pills are less than half the price of 90 10mg pills, huh?? Well, OK, I figured they would cost more but who's complaining?

Got a new birth control pill too, decided to switch to LoEstrin from LoOvral (which I've been on for like 15 years) after seeing the following on the Family Practice Notebook's website (which is fabulous, BTW):

Indications to switch to Loestrin 1.5/30

1. Breast Tenderness (lower Estrogen)
2. Headaches (lower Estrogen)
3. Moodiness (less Estrogen or more Progestin)
4. Weight gain (less Estrogen or more Progestin)
5. Libido decreased (more androgen)

OK... I can do without all of the above and it said LoEstrin is better for women over 40 so I'll let you know how it works out, I'm starting it up tomorrow night and am going to try skipping my period for the three months on/one week off deal since I'm not having a period anyway, just lots of migraines in my week off.

We went out to eat tonight and I blew my high protein diet at IHOP with french toast, but at least I had eggs and bacon with it. I couldn't finish the french toast, though, which is a good sign. I was going to have an omelette but my eyes were itching already (I'm allergic to eggs) and I want to see Kill Bill Vol. 2 tonight so I figured I'd better not chance more than one scrambled egg. I've lost about four pounds so far since I've dropped my carbs again, though, so I'm trying to behave.

My mom made it back to the doctor for another x-ray and apparently her hip is not fractured just bruised badly, thank goodness. We went to Luby's last night and got take out and brought it to them so she could have something other than Chinese delivery food, my dad's not the greatest cook and he can't stand for very long and now she can't either. I feel like I'm not doing enough for them, but I couldn't think of anything else to do, if I was a good cook I would have brought her a casserole... She says it feels a little better so maybe it's starting to heal.

Annoying item for tonight... I was watching Oprah today and saw Chris Rock and Jon Stewart and they also had SNL's Maya Rudolph on, who is Minnie Riperton's daughter, which would explain why she's so good at playing black ladies. So after the show, Sparky whips out one of his 70's Number One Hits albums and starts playing "Lovin' You" over and over. Sort of a frightening thing to have stuck in your head, especially at bedtime. Oprah mentioned that she was "the late" Minnie Riperton, which makes the song both annoying and sad at the same time if you know the lyrics, which, unfortunately, I do. Her fansite said she died of breast cancer in 1979, at 32 years old, even sadder, I did not know that. Apparently she was a pioneer in breast cancer awareness, damn, where was I in 1979? Oh, yeah, in high school, unaware and self-absorbed. I probably heard about it at the time but my memory is shot now. But Maya does look like her and certainly has her pipes ;-) The site says "Lovin' You" started out as a lullaby for Maya, I was thinking earlier today, weirdly enough, that perhaps it devoted to her husband or children, but that chorus might be a little alarming. [She says as the piercing sound echoes through her brain, over and over...]

Well, as usual we didn't do anything of significance over the weekend, we're not church goers and don't have kids. It rained from Saturday afternoon on through Sunday and actually got pretty chilly. so I didn't even want to get out of bed today when I woke up.

My dad called last night to let me know they had spent five hours in the emergency room because my mother had fallen the day before and they wanted to make sure her hip wasn't broken. I wish they'd let me know when things happen instead of after, we only live like a mile away. Her stupid doctor changed her blood pressure medicine (again) and she said when she woke up in the middle of the night to go the bathroom she blacked out when she sent to stand up and fell. Which is exactly what my dad was going through about a month ago and the reason was exactly the same. I hate doctors. But she was smart enough to switch back to her old medicine right after that happened and is, at least, not feeling faint anymore.

Her x-ray didn't show anything and they wanted her to wait around another few hours for an MRI, but after five hours in an ER full of screaming children she decided to just go to her regular doctor to get one done later this week. I hope she hasn't damaged anything, she bruises really easily, I told her that Sunday would be the worse day, being three days after, and she called me today to tell my I was right. Luckily, my parents are like me and stockpile pharmaceuticals for emergencies, so they already had some Vicodin for her to take.

Being flat footed, hyperactive and then having coordination problems due to MS, I've injured myself so many times it's not funny. I also worked under hazardous conditions working security for most of my twenties, it's amazing I never broke anything (knock on wood). Just last night I had to go out to run an errand in the rain and a huge wind came up out of nowhere and slammed my umbrella into my forehead, but things like that happen to me. I was at a Pagan fest with some friends a few years ago and had opened a bottle of essential oil to smell it and when I put the stopper back on a drop of it flew up and hit me right in the eyeball. I seriously think I'm cursed sometimes, I used to blame it on my ex-husband (who really was cursed with having serious freak accidents) but I think it's probably just me, because I've been tripping and falling since I was a kid.

I did well yesterday with my eating, but dinner tonight was ravioli, which we'd already bought and is one of my favorites. I looked at the back of the package and almost fainted myself when I saw how many servings there were in each package (we buy it at Sam's Club). I had four Pepperidge Farm cookies left that I'd bought, I made Sparky split them with me to get rid of them. I've been trying to ignore two packages of the "two bite scones" that I've been addicted to for about six months now, hoping they'll just go bad on their own. I've been trying to add some yoghurt into my diet the past few months, I like the little tiny Dannon Light & Fit Smoothies the best, they're just the right size but I had a coupon for the bigger Yoplait Nouriche smoothies and bought three last time I went shopping. I started off Saturday by drinking one for breakfast and then ended up burping up iron all day, it had added vitamins, which sounds like a good thing, but doesn't taste good (bleecch). And I have two more in different flavors, I think I'll stick with the Dannon from now on, coupon or not.

I felt all shaky after eating the pasta tonight, even though I only ate half of what I usually eat. I've noticed carbs tend to make me either nervous & irritable or sleepy. We're trying to figure out what to eat nightly that's not made of pasta, if I had a chef or we could eat out every night it would be easier, I don't mind eating meat every night, I just don't like having to cook it. We have a George Foreman grill, but there's only so many ways to make chicken and steak before I get really bored. And most of the vegetables I like I'm either allergic to or they have lots of carbs. Sam's Club has some wonderful tropical chicken salad right now that I've been buying, it tastes good and seems healthy, if I could figure out a way to freeze it I'd stock up on it because I know they won't have it too long (sigh). I like meat with fruit, which completely grosses Sparky out.

2 am, I've spent the entire night listing eBay stuff (you want a tan? check my auctions!), hope it sells well. I think I'm going to take the rest of the night off to work on my website and then pack everything to mail tomorrow, I'm pooped! I'm in between novels, just finshed Charlaine Harris's Living Dead in Dallas (fun Southern vampire romance mystery) and haven't gotten the third novel in the series Club Dead yet, so I'm still debating between vampires and werewolves to start as my next before bed book. I've pulled Dr. Phil's weight loss book out (that I bought like six months ago, also at Sam's), I probably ought to start on it too ;-)

On a more serious note, I'm afraid I've gotten a real wake-up call medically. I've always had bad health. so I'm sort of just used to it and accept it, but after my physical last week I discovered:

I now have some uterine fibroids for the first time (ultrasound next week) I've gained weight since last year's physical :-( And my cholesterol has exceeded 300 (gulp)

I've had a tendency to have high cholesterol for about 15 years now, but it usually never goes over about 260 and my HDL (good) is usually pretty high. I'm adopted so new health problems are always a surprise to me, my mom has been battling high cholesterol and hypertension for most of her adult life and I don't want to have to do the same thing. The only time I've ever been able to get my number below 200 was when I had been seriously following the Atkins diet for several months. I'm supposed to still be on it, but I've fallen way off the wagon the last six months or so, eating way too much bread and sugar. I was on a low fat diet for years and my cholesterol kept going up, so I'm going to have to try the low carb route again. Apparently I'm insulin resistant. My husband is proportionately as or more overweight than I am, and his reading is 169. He's lucky to have great g