Everyone experiences days where you feel all gung-ho, full of energy and ready to do the things that you need to do for the day. Most people can maintain that energy for the majority of the time that they’re out doing whatever errands that need to be done. Imagine being all ready for action, but, by the time you’ve gotten dressed, painted on the face that the public knows you to have, and have your teeth and hair brushed, being SO drained, that all you want to do is go back to bed. That is my life right now. Keep in mind, this is no pity party or “Oh, poor Christine” moment, it’s just reality for me at this time in my life. Hopefully, it will be God’s will to take this illness away and life can go back to normal for me, but, at this juncture, He has decided that it isn’t meant to be.
I have learned to cope with the sudden onset of “The Sleepies”, but I don’t know if the people around me have yet. So, if I suddenly nod off while we are having a conversation, I apologize in advance. It’s nothing personal, it just means that life has caught up with me and I couldn’t fight it anymore. That happened just yesterday. My mom and I were running errands in Hemet, which, being in Hemet alone would make ANYONE sleepy, and on the drive back home, I just couldn’t fight “The Sleepies” anymore and I dozed off for a couple of minutes; hence my being up at 4:30am. Just a little nod off during the day can throw off my whole sleeping pattern, but at least I went to bed at 10:30, so I got a fair amount of sleep.
My life kind of runs off of sugar highs and sugar lows from these lozenges my mom got me for dry mouth (my meds give me BAD dry mouth), so I usually pep up after having one of the lozenges, but you can tell when they have worn off because then my eyes start to droop and so does my head and then you start to get to see just how pretty God made the top of my head. I mean, considering that my dad likes to rub it in that I was a serious “conehead” when I was born, it’s not so bad now; so if you catch me dozing off, admire it and compliment me later, I’d appreciate it.
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Monday, May 24, 2010
Christine Rachuy’s Amazing Tight Rope Walk and Balancing Act
Some people have witnessed how my mysterious illness has affected balance and the way I walk; it’s really a sight to see. The only way that I can describe the way that I walk is that it alternates between a granny shuffle and a Chinese military march. One second I’ll be shuffling along and then the next thing you know my left leg will suddenly hike itself up into the air and stay there a moment and then plop itself back down to the ground. Axl Rose and his crazy crab walk across the stage has NOTHING over the kind of walking that I do! I would challenge him to a catwalk any day and I would TOTALLY win! But I don’t think that I would want to battle him on the catwalk because he might beat me up afterward! YIKES!
The balance issue, for me, is a lot scarier because it kind of comes and goes and the severity of it is hit-and-miss. One moment I can have my balance completely under control and the next thing you know…TIMBER! And we all know how big I am, so if you see me falling, you had better move or you’ll end up squashed like a bug on the floor! Just this morning, and lucky enough for me it was 6am so Mom was already up, I got up to use the facilities and didn’t use my cane. I left the door cracked open, just in case anything should go awry. I managed all right until I was on my way out the door. When I flipped off the switch to the bathroom, I totally lost all sense of where I was, so I had to call for my mother and she had to come and get me and put me back to bed. Simply switching off the light in the bathroom messed up my balance AND it messed up my ability to walk because I walked like a Chinese soldier all the way (7 whole feet) to my bedroom.
I now get asked frequently if I’ve had a stroke or an aneurysm by perfect strangers, so my symptoms of my mystery illness are becoming more apparent. My speech, at times, gets slurred or I stutter/stumble over my words or cannot formulate a cohesive sentence which is very frustrating for me; but it’s noticeable to people who don’t even know me, so that’s not a good sign. But I’m still plugging along. Like I tell people all the time: I truly am sicker than I come off, it’s just a façade that I am putting up so that I don’t bring people down that are around me.
As an aside: the reason I haven’t blogged in a while is because I recently got hired as a freelance writer, so I’ve been focusing a little more on that because I have a writing quota that I have to meet, but I will do my best to keep up my blogs as well. Thank you all for reading them!
The balance issue, for me, is a lot scarier because it kind of comes and goes and the severity of it is hit-and-miss. One moment I can have my balance completely under control and the next thing you know…TIMBER! And we all know how big I am, so if you see me falling, you had better move or you’ll end up squashed like a bug on the floor! Just this morning, and lucky enough for me it was 6am so Mom was already up, I got up to use the facilities and didn’t use my cane. I left the door cracked open, just in case anything should go awry. I managed all right until I was on my way out the door. When I flipped off the switch to the bathroom, I totally lost all sense of where I was, so I had to call for my mother and she had to come and get me and put me back to bed. Simply switching off the light in the bathroom messed up my balance AND it messed up my ability to walk because I walked like a Chinese soldier all the way (7 whole feet) to my bedroom.
I now get asked frequently if I’ve had a stroke or an aneurysm by perfect strangers, so my symptoms of my mystery illness are becoming more apparent. My speech, at times, gets slurred or I stutter/stumble over my words or cannot formulate a cohesive sentence which is very frustrating for me; but it’s noticeable to people who don’t even know me, so that’s not a good sign. But I’m still plugging along. Like I tell people all the time: I truly am sicker than I come off, it’s just a façade that I am putting up so that I don’t bring people down that are around me.
As an aside: the reason I haven’t blogged in a while is because I recently got hired as a freelance writer, so I’ve been focusing a little more on that because I have a writing quota that I have to meet, but I will do my best to keep up my blogs as well. Thank you all for reading them!
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Who Let In the Insane Butcher?
We all know that I take more medication than my 90 year old grandmother, we’ve established that I’ve reached senior citizenship before I’ve even reached middle age; but, putting that aside, I have been put on a new medication for my “migraines” and, so far, it seems as though it’s doing it’s job. Well, let me qualify that, it seems to be doing it’s job during the day, it’s at night—well, at the wee hours of the morning (4am)—that it loses it’s effectiveness. For the last three nights I have been woken up out of a dead sleep with THE most horrendous stabbing pain in my head that it brings me to tears. It’s like some psycho killer butcher has come into my room with his butcher knife and stabbed me in the left side of my head. It’s the kind of pain that is so bad that you would not wish it on your worst enemy. It leaves me with no choice but to take a strong medication that will knock me out for hours (I don’t end up waking up until after 11am) and it throws off my entire day because I’ve slept away half of the day. It really stinks because it throws off my medication schedule, my daily walk schedule…it just messes everything up, not just for me, but for my whole family because everything has to be scheduled around me. I feel like such a burden sometimes and it makes me really sad…I try not to feel sad because I know that my family knows that I can’t help it, but it’s still really hard not to feel that way.
Today I called my primary doctor to discuss this 4am headache issue and it took all day for her to tell me it’s a Neurology issue, so then I had to call and leave a message with Neurology. He called me back within a few minutes only to tell me that I’ve only been on the meds for a little over a week, so continue taking it like I have been and if the 4am butcher visit continues, then up the dose to 2 pills twice a day and see if that helps, so I pretty much wasted my day waiting for nothing. So, with that in my mind, I am going to bid you all farewell and hope that the 4am butcher stays away and that I will get a good night’s sleep.
Today I called my primary doctor to discuss this 4am headache issue and it took all day for her to tell me it’s a Neurology issue, so then I had to call and leave a message with Neurology. He called me back within a few minutes only to tell me that I’ve only been on the meds for a little over a week, so continue taking it like I have been and if the 4am butcher visit continues, then up the dose to 2 pills twice a day and see if that helps, so I pretty much wasted my day waiting for nothing. So, with that in my mind, I am going to bid you all farewell and hope that the 4am butcher stays away and that I will get a good night’s sleep.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Unfortunately, Sadness Has Caught Up With Me
Throughout this whole ordeal of mine I have not once considered myself depressed. There certainly have been times where I have been sad and a little down but NEVER depressed because I have never felt the need to feel that way, no matter how badly my head hurts; how fast, slow, clockwise, counterclockwise, vertically, or horizontally the room is spinning; no matter how much, frequently, infrequently I throw up I have been able to maintain my personality; but today was different. From the very get go, 6:45am, things were just not going in my favor.
I woke up for a few minutes with my mom at 6:45am just feeling puny—to quote my Aunt Brenda—and then went back to bed. Then at around 7:45 I was woken up out of a dead sleep with the sharpest pain in my head that it brought tears to my eyes! So I took a Tylenol with Codeine and went back to sleep and didn’t wake up until after 11am! Waking up that late just kind of threw my whole day off, but I took a short walk—with the help of a walker and my dog Eden—on my street to the end of the dirt patch that marks the end of my property and back. Then I had a Pure Protein shake and attempted a nap, but that didn’t happen, so I went for another walk with my walker and Eden and this time we went a little bit further past the property line—and I paid the price for going a little bit further—and Eden just had a blast being the Service Dog that she was raised to be! Once I got back in the house I crashed on the couch, except that my brain forgot that when someone “crashes on the couch” it means that they fall asleep, so I never actually got a nap today.
Then I decided to begin the process of trying to become a writer for The Examiner, but I wanted to do a sample of my writing ability on paper first before I typed it out and sent it in, just so that I could make sure that it was grammatically correct, that it had good spelling, that it flowed well, had good content, all the things that you want as a good writer; so I bust out my trusty pen and paper to get started doing that—and we all know that I have PLENTY of both to take care of that business. But as I’m holding the pen in my hand and attempting to write the words on paper, the writing looks NOTHING like my normal writing. I put the paper and pen down and began to cry…writing is so much a part of who I am and to not be able to do it write now because of the weakness from the illness…well, it just breaks my heart. I know that writing doesn’t define who I am, but it is a large part of who I am and to not be able to do it right now really hurts. So, today would be the first time that I would say that I am depressed by the illness that has been plaguing me. Am I going to let it continue making me depressed? HECK NO! But today was definitely a hard day for me.
My normal writing before I got sick:
Writing now:
I woke up for a few minutes with my mom at 6:45am just feeling puny—to quote my Aunt Brenda—and then went back to bed. Then at around 7:45 I was woken up out of a dead sleep with the sharpest pain in my head that it brought tears to my eyes! So I took a Tylenol with Codeine and went back to sleep and didn’t wake up until after 11am! Waking up that late just kind of threw my whole day off, but I took a short walk—with the help of a walker and my dog Eden—on my street to the end of the dirt patch that marks the end of my property and back. Then I had a Pure Protein shake and attempted a nap, but that didn’t happen, so I went for another walk with my walker and Eden and this time we went a little bit further past the property line—and I paid the price for going a little bit further—and Eden just had a blast being the Service Dog that she was raised to be! Once I got back in the house I crashed on the couch, except that my brain forgot that when someone “crashes on the couch” it means that they fall asleep, so I never actually got a nap today.
Then I decided to begin the process of trying to become a writer for The Examiner, but I wanted to do a sample of my writing ability on paper first before I typed it out and sent it in, just so that I could make sure that it was grammatically correct, that it had good spelling, that it flowed well, had good content, all the things that you want as a good writer; so I bust out my trusty pen and paper to get started doing that—and we all know that I have PLENTY of both to take care of that business. But as I’m holding the pen in my hand and attempting to write the words on paper, the writing looks NOTHING like my normal writing. I put the paper and pen down and began to cry…writing is so much a part of who I am and to not be able to do it write now because of the weakness from the illness…well, it just breaks my heart. I know that writing doesn’t define who I am, but it is a large part of who I am and to not be able to do it right now really hurts. So, today would be the first time that I would say that I am depressed by the illness that has been plaguing me. Am I going to let it continue making me depressed? HECK NO! But today was definitely a hard day for me.
My normal writing before I got sick:
Writing now:
Monday, May 17, 2010
That Forrest Gump Guy Had Something Right…
Forrest Gump had it completely right: life is like a box of chocolates; you never know what you’re going to get in life. Sometimes you could luck out and get one of the really good ones, like the chocolate covered peanuts, a caramel, or even a nugget; or you could get a total bummer and end up with one of those nasty ones that are supposed to be strawberry or cherry flavored in the center. But, then there is the worst of the worst: synthetic coconut ::shrill screams of horror::!
As Christians we know that we are never going to be given more than we can handle. The Lord knows the exact amount that we are able to handle before we are going to reach a breaking point. We think that we know when that breaking point is, thus the “Forrest Gump” reference, but it’s ultimately up to God to decide when that point is and what that point consists of. Trust me, the night of Bart Fest 2010 (March 18), I was crying my eyes out, telling my mother that I didn’t think that I could take much more of this because I had been vomiting for about 3 hours straight; but here I am, nearly 2 months later, and not doing all that much better, but I am keeping on because it is by God’s grace and mercy that I am able to keep on living. Believe you me, this is not an existence that I would wish upon my worst enemy—not that I consider myself as having any enemies—but even if I did have any, I wouldn’t wish the life that I am having to live right now upon them.
Here is a tiny peek into a day in my life…
I wake up around 8am and immediately—without even getting out of bed—take 4 pills called Raglan, a medication that is supposed to help move food through my body. Then I grab my pill case that contains the rest of my medication for the morning, my cane, and then proceed cautiously out to the living room where I make myself comfortable for the next 30-45 minutes until the Raglan has worked before I can eat. Then I get up—cautiously—and make my way to the kitchen with my cane and make a shake with fresh strawberries, Activia, and a little bit of milk in a blender (it makes about 16 oz., enough for breakfast and lunch). Once I put everything away, I go make myself comfortable on the couch with one shake in a sipee cup and sip away on the shake for about an hour, take my morning medications, and then fall asleep for the next 3 hours or so. Once I’m awake enough I drink some vitamin water and then drink the second shake, have my afternoon medications, and then fall back to sleep for another couple of hours. Any time I happen to get up to use the facilities, answer the door, or prepare an evening shake; I have to use my cane because I am so off balance I run the risk of falling backward. This morning I tried not using my cane to make my morning shakes and had to grad onto my helper in order to keep myself from falling completely over.
If I don’t use my cane when I walk I do the Christine Shuffle to get from one place to the next, but my helper has now decreed that I use my cane no matter what, so I am no longer allowed to walk anywhere without using it because I am such a fall risk.
So, that is a very brief glimpse into my life as it stands (no pun—well, maybe a little—intended). I often walk like a person who has recently had a stroke, but that has been ruled out as a possibility; but I do have a very strange gait, especially when I don’t use my cane. The important thing is that I am alive, so I am trying to just run with that at the moment
As Christians we know that we are never going to be given more than we can handle. The Lord knows the exact amount that we are able to handle before we are going to reach a breaking point. We think that we know when that breaking point is, thus the “Forrest Gump” reference, but it’s ultimately up to God to decide when that point is and what that point consists of. Trust me, the night of Bart Fest 2010 (March 18), I was crying my eyes out, telling my mother that I didn’t think that I could take much more of this because I had been vomiting for about 3 hours straight; but here I am, nearly 2 months later, and not doing all that much better, but I am keeping on because it is by God’s grace and mercy that I am able to keep on living. Believe you me, this is not an existence that I would wish upon my worst enemy—not that I consider myself as having any enemies—but even if I did have any, I wouldn’t wish the life that I am having to live right now upon them.
Here is a tiny peek into a day in my life…
I wake up around 8am and immediately—without even getting out of bed—take 4 pills called Raglan, a medication that is supposed to help move food through my body. Then I grab my pill case that contains the rest of my medication for the morning, my cane, and then proceed cautiously out to the living room where I make myself comfortable for the next 30-45 minutes until the Raglan has worked before I can eat. Then I get up—cautiously—and make my way to the kitchen with my cane and make a shake with fresh strawberries, Activia, and a little bit of milk in a blender (it makes about 16 oz., enough for breakfast and lunch). Once I put everything away, I go make myself comfortable on the couch with one shake in a sipee cup and sip away on the shake for about an hour, take my morning medications, and then fall asleep for the next 3 hours or so. Once I’m awake enough I drink some vitamin water and then drink the second shake, have my afternoon medications, and then fall back to sleep for another couple of hours. Any time I happen to get up to use the facilities, answer the door, or prepare an evening shake; I have to use my cane because I am so off balance I run the risk of falling backward. This morning I tried not using my cane to make my morning shakes and had to grad onto my helper in order to keep myself from falling completely over.
If I don’t use my cane when I walk I do the Christine Shuffle to get from one place to the next, but my helper has now decreed that I use my cane no matter what, so I am no longer allowed to walk anywhere without using it because I am such a fall risk.
So, that is a very brief glimpse into my life as it stands (no pun—well, maybe a little—intended). I often walk like a person who has recently had a stroke, but that has been ruled out as a possibility; but I do have a very strange gait, especially when I don’t use my cane. The important thing is that I am alive, so I am trying to just run with that at the moment
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Urgent Care Visit #5
As many of you know, I feel as though I have little to no talent at anything. I am what you might call a Jack-of-all-trades, Master of none; however, I think I have finally found something that I am TOTALLY a master at: being sick! I think that I have being ill down to such a science that even doctors don’t know what to do with me! Certainly one of these days I am going to be written up in the American Journal of Medicine with this illness of mine that they cannot seem to put their finger on. By NO means is it fun being sick, but it is kind of interesting having the doctors completely perplexed by what is going on with me.
The entire time I have been ill my labs have been completely normal except for once on the day that I like to refer to as Barf Fest 2010; and even on that day the only thing that was out of whack was that my electrolytes were funky and my sodium was low because I had been throwing up for 3 hours STRAIGHT. But, at the same time, my veins were acting like that of a person who is dehydrated, making me a “hard stick” for the nurses to start an IV or to draw blood. Today at Urgent Care, it was no different.
Today, like yesterday, wasn’t starting out all that great. I was awake almost every hour all night long, so at 8am I gave up and got out of bed and made my way to my bed-away-from-bed (aka. the couch) to begin to fritter away the hours of the day by watching America’s Next Top Model, Cycle 11—don’t poke fun, I like to watch it for the pictures, it gives me inspiration—then I remembered the flat of fresh strawberries my mom bought me before she left for Ohio, so I decided that I would sugar those puppies up and put them, some yogurt, and milk into a blender and make myself a shake. Once everything was sufficiently pureed in the blender and poured into a couple of sippee cups, I settled myself into my bed-away-from-bed and tried to enjoy my breakfast/lunch/snack. Now, understand, my sippee cups hold all of 8 oz. so we’re not talking about a whole lot of anything, so I finished off one and began on another one and about half way through the second one I began to feel queasy (to be polite), so I stopped.
With my stomach churning, I took one of my anti-nausea medications (phenergan) in the hopes that it would knock me out and help keep the nutritional value of the natural shake inside of me. It worked for a while, but shortly after my “babysitter” decided to go lie down for a little nap I couldn’t hold it back any longer and up it came. Now, you have to understand, I had been able to hold in the strawberry shake for probably 4 hours before I actually ended up speaking with Porcelain John. I’m no wiz at science or anything, but I would think that my stomach should have absorbed/digested some of that shake by then…mine didn’t. Porcelain John got every bit of the shake that I did! Knowing my body, I knew that there was nothing good coming so I started chugging water and that was, as they say, the beginning of the end. That’s when I started throwing up every sip of water. I woke up my “babysitter” and informed him that I needed to be taken to urgent care, so off we went.
Once at Urgent Care I got a P.A that I, honestly, don’t care all that much for, but my “babysitter” kind of put his foot down because he wasn’t happy with how I was being treated and the P.A’s demeanor changed quickly. They decided to go ahead and start an IV—naturally in the sorest vein in my hand—and draw some blood from there and give me some IV fluids and medications. From all of the barfing and the dry heaving I had done over the last couple of days I had managed to work myself into a pretty good migraine—not your typical one, of course—so I was given some Zofran for the nausea and some Dilaudid for the migraine. In the mean time, my labs, naturally, came back normal, but he gave me some suggestions on upping the dosage of one of my new medications so that it will help avoid the adverse side effects and then prescribed me something for the headache, should it come during the day between the times when I take the preventative medication. He also sent a voicemail message to my primary doctor letting her know that I had ended up in urgent care with my illness because my “babysitter” insisted that he do it. I asked him to do it, but he was kind of hedging to do it, but when my “babysitter” demanded it, he went ahead and did it and then suddenly became a very obliging P.A. It’s always hard to be assertive and your own advocate when you’re not feeling at the top of your game, so I suggest always taking someone with you when you’re really ill.
Then the “real” fun began. So, I’m totally loopy on Dilaudid, sitting in a wheelchair in the pharmacy waiting for my prescription to come through and I’m TOTALLY nodding off in the chair. I’m sure it had to look HIGH-larious, this chubby, raven-haired, multi-piercing-ed person in a wheelchair dozing off in the pharmacy. Finally, after 45 minutes my meds were ready and we get going. We stop at a drive-thru to get food for my “babysitter” and drive home, only to find our neighbors in full swing of having a party…LOUDLY at 8pm! I’m barely conscious, I feel like a semi-truck just ran me over twice, and now I arrive home to this?! WHAT?! I opened up my car door and screamed, “SHUT UP!”
It should be interesting to see if my doctor calls me, come Monday morning. My mom thinks that there might be a possibility that she will call me and have me come back in to the hospital, but she’s not really sure. This illness of mine has been really strange…strange presentation of symptoms…strange labs….everything has just been strange, but this is Christine that we are talking about, so that should come as NO surprise!
The entire time I have been ill my labs have been completely normal except for once on the day that I like to refer to as Barf Fest 2010; and even on that day the only thing that was out of whack was that my electrolytes were funky and my sodium was low because I had been throwing up for 3 hours STRAIGHT. But, at the same time, my veins were acting like that of a person who is dehydrated, making me a “hard stick” for the nurses to start an IV or to draw blood. Today at Urgent Care, it was no different.
Today, like yesterday, wasn’t starting out all that great. I was awake almost every hour all night long, so at 8am I gave up and got out of bed and made my way to my bed-away-from-bed (aka. the couch) to begin to fritter away the hours of the day by watching America’s Next Top Model, Cycle 11—don’t poke fun, I like to watch it for the pictures, it gives me inspiration—then I remembered the flat of fresh strawberries my mom bought me before she left for Ohio, so I decided that I would sugar those puppies up and put them, some yogurt, and milk into a blender and make myself a shake. Once everything was sufficiently pureed in the blender and poured into a couple of sippee cups, I settled myself into my bed-away-from-bed and tried to enjoy my breakfast/lunch/snack. Now, understand, my sippee cups hold all of 8 oz. so we’re not talking about a whole lot of anything, so I finished off one and began on another one and about half way through the second one I began to feel queasy (to be polite), so I stopped.
With my stomach churning, I took one of my anti-nausea medications (phenergan) in the hopes that it would knock me out and help keep the nutritional value of the natural shake inside of me. It worked for a while, but shortly after my “babysitter” decided to go lie down for a little nap I couldn’t hold it back any longer and up it came. Now, you have to understand, I had been able to hold in the strawberry shake for probably 4 hours before I actually ended up speaking with Porcelain John. I’m no wiz at science or anything, but I would think that my stomach should have absorbed/digested some of that shake by then…mine didn’t. Porcelain John got every bit of the shake that I did! Knowing my body, I knew that there was nothing good coming so I started chugging water and that was, as they say, the beginning of the end. That’s when I started throwing up every sip of water. I woke up my “babysitter” and informed him that I needed to be taken to urgent care, so off we went.
Once at Urgent Care I got a P.A that I, honestly, don’t care all that much for, but my “babysitter” kind of put his foot down because he wasn’t happy with how I was being treated and the P.A’s demeanor changed quickly. They decided to go ahead and start an IV—naturally in the sorest vein in my hand—and draw some blood from there and give me some IV fluids and medications. From all of the barfing and the dry heaving I had done over the last couple of days I had managed to work myself into a pretty good migraine—not your typical one, of course—so I was given some Zofran for the nausea and some Dilaudid for the migraine. In the mean time, my labs, naturally, came back normal, but he gave me some suggestions on upping the dosage of one of my new medications so that it will help avoid the adverse side effects and then prescribed me something for the headache, should it come during the day between the times when I take the preventative medication. He also sent a voicemail message to my primary doctor letting her know that I had ended up in urgent care with my illness because my “babysitter” insisted that he do it. I asked him to do it, but he was kind of hedging to do it, but when my “babysitter” demanded it, he went ahead and did it and then suddenly became a very obliging P.A. It’s always hard to be assertive and your own advocate when you’re not feeling at the top of your game, so I suggest always taking someone with you when you’re really ill.
Then the “real” fun began. So, I’m totally loopy on Dilaudid, sitting in a wheelchair in the pharmacy waiting for my prescription to come through and I’m TOTALLY nodding off in the chair. I’m sure it had to look HIGH-larious, this chubby, raven-haired, multi-piercing-ed person in a wheelchair dozing off in the pharmacy. Finally, after 45 minutes my meds were ready and we get going. We stop at a drive-thru to get food for my “babysitter” and drive home, only to find our neighbors in full swing of having a party…LOUDLY at 8pm! I’m barely conscious, I feel like a semi-truck just ran me over twice, and now I arrive home to this?! WHAT?! I opened up my car door and screamed, “SHUT UP!”
It should be interesting to see if my doctor calls me, come Monday morning. My mom thinks that there might be a possibility that she will call me and have me come back in to the hospital, but she’s not really sure. This illness of mine has been really strange…strange presentation of symptoms…strange labs….everything has just been strange, but this is Christine that we are talking about, so that should come as NO surprise!
Friday, May 14, 2010
Vomiting 101
Here is a list of helpful tips and tricks compiled by me, Christine Rachuy, someone who has become an expert at vomiting, albeit not by her own choice. As with all tips, tricks, and advice, they all may not work for everyone, so proceed with caution and find out which ones work best for you (P.S. I am NOT a professional).
AT HOME:: If you have the stomach flu or some kind of illness that is causing you to vomit frequently here are some tips and tricks that I suggest you try that MIGHT make the experience more “pleasant”.
#1…Make the last thing you eat be chocolate. This is because when you go to expel the contents of your stomach, the chocolate is going to be the strongest tasting thing in your stomach, thus causing it to ultimately be what the barf is going to taste like. Sounds gross, but it actually tastes pretty good.
#2…If the last thing you ate was something kind of chunky like cottage cheese, trail mix, or something of that consistency, DO NOT, under any circumstance, put your face within 6 to 8 inches of the toilet while barfing it back up. There is a WICKED splash-back factor that you will have to contend with afterward, which you don’t want to deal with when you are feeling ill.
#3…Though Jell-O is highly recommended as something someone with the stomach flu should consume while ill, be forewarned that it comes back up EXACTLY the same consistency that it goes in. It isn’t all that easy to get up, so I do not actually recommend it as part of your stomach flu diet.
#4…After every time you vomit, make it a point of going into the kitchen and taking a sip of water, protein drink, or vitamin water in order to replenish what you just waved good-bye to down the toilet. It sucks, I’m not going to lie, because it really is the last thing that you want to do considering what you just did in the bathroom, but it will help keep your nutrition and hydration level high enough to keep your organs out of danger.
IN THE HOSPITAL:: While you are in the hospital you have VERY little say on what you are given as food, especially when you are in there as a hyper-emesis patient, but I still have a couple of suggestions.
#1…Ask for the lemon flavored Italian Ice (Icee) at your mealtimes that way, when/if you vomit it back up (like I was doing), it comes up a lot easier than the orange and cherry flavors AND it gives you fresh breath in the process of yakking it back up; so, at least you’re killing two birds with one stone: throwing up and freshening your breath.
#2…If they have you on an anti-nausea/vomiting medication, ask for it when you are only nauseous NOT when you’re already vomiting because by that time you’ve passed the point of no return.
#3…Ice chips are your friend. They soothe your throat, especially after an especially bad bout of vomiting…it’s even better than drinking water…there’s something about the lingering coldness of the ice chips that soothes the throat, so make sure that your nurse, CNA, LVN, MA, whomever brings you as much of it as you want!
That is my barfing advice for the night. I hope that someone might find it a little helpful. Its mostly meant to be humorous, but I do actually follow these “rules”, so you can take ‘em or leave ‘em.
AT HOME:: If you have the stomach flu or some kind of illness that is causing you to vomit frequently here are some tips and tricks that I suggest you try that MIGHT make the experience more “pleasant”.
#1…Make the last thing you eat be chocolate. This is because when you go to expel the contents of your stomach, the chocolate is going to be the strongest tasting thing in your stomach, thus causing it to ultimately be what the barf is going to taste like. Sounds gross, but it actually tastes pretty good.
#2…If the last thing you ate was something kind of chunky like cottage cheese, trail mix, or something of that consistency, DO NOT, under any circumstance, put your face within 6 to 8 inches of the toilet while barfing it back up. There is a WICKED splash-back factor that you will have to contend with afterward, which you don’t want to deal with when you are feeling ill.
#3…Though Jell-O is highly recommended as something someone with the stomach flu should consume while ill, be forewarned that it comes back up EXACTLY the same consistency that it goes in. It isn’t all that easy to get up, so I do not actually recommend it as part of your stomach flu diet.
#4…After every time you vomit, make it a point of going into the kitchen and taking a sip of water, protein drink, or vitamin water in order to replenish what you just waved good-bye to down the toilet. It sucks, I’m not going to lie, because it really is the last thing that you want to do considering what you just did in the bathroom, but it will help keep your nutrition and hydration level high enough to keep your organs out of danger.
IN THE HOSPITAL:: While you are in the hospital you have VERY little say on what you are given as food, especially when you are in there as a hyper-emesis patient, but I still have a couple of suggestions.
#1…Ask for the lemon flavored Italian Ice (Icee) at your mealtimes that way, when/if you vomit it back up (like I was doing), it comes up a lot easier than the orange and cherry flavors AND it gives you fresh breath in the process of yakking it back up; so, at least you’re killing two birds with one stone: throwing up and freshening your breath.
#2…If they have you on an anti-nausea/vomiting medication, ask for it when you are only nauseous NOT when you’re already vomiting because by that time you’ve passed the point of no return.
#3…Ice chips are your friend. They soothe your throat, especially after an especially bad bout of vomiting…it’s even better than drinking water…there’s something about the lingering coldness of the ice chips that soothes the throat, so make sure that your nurse, CNA, LVN, MA, whomever brings you as much of it as you want!
That is my barfing advice for the night. I hope that someone might find it a little helpful. Its mostly meant to be humorous, but I do actually follow these “rules”, so you can take ‘em or leave ‘em.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
