About sixteen years ago, I met him for the first time. My trainwreck sibling brought home this adorable puppy he had no business adopting because he had not one thing in his life that wasn’t a mess. I was furious at my sibling – he didn’t even take care of himself, how could he drag
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December 26, 2014
FYI: Not all of these LB-related posts will be in real time.
Every day in the first trimester felt like a week, not least because I couldn’t eat… we also couldn’t say anything to anyone about why I was even sicker than usual or what was going on because it still wasn’t “safe” yet. It was only made a bit easier when socializing because I’d stopped drinking a couple years ago, so it wasn’t the immediately obvious red flag.
But we survived the first trimester, huzzah!
On the first day of the 13th week, it was as if the heavens opened up and bestowed upon me the ability to eat without nausea. I can’t emphasize how much I ate for the sheer joy of being able to eat.
Now, each day just whizzes by remarkable only in whether or not we have an appointment this or next week.
Going into the 20th week, our apprehension came back. We have questionable genetics in some respects and are braced to find out that we’re going to be dealing with a repeat of history when Little Bean is here and becoming a person, but there were dozens of serious medical problems that could be detected at that so-important ultrasound. I won’t list them here but the suffice to say, the tech wanted to know if I was *sure* I wanted to hear what they were looking for.
I’m tracking specific things like the baby’s probable size and shape and development much less these months. (Almost not at all.) It seems this isn’t normal, everyone seems to feel I desperately need this or the other app to track Little Bean’s progress. But once we established that all the parts were there, my attention has really been on more practical matters: eating and drinking the right amounts, getting exercise, dealing with all the details that we’ll wish we’d taken care of before the baby arrives. I’m not uninterested by the changes, it’s just that there’s only so much grey matter to go around. All the changes are actually happening Right Here; so my attention is on doing everything I can to influence the outcome.
Occasionally I’m a touch overwhelmed by the need to be done with everything. Occasionally I’m a touch overwhelmed by the fact that I can’t quite bend over to tie my shoes or pick things up and don’t recognize myself in the mirror because WHOA. NELLY.
But it’s also pretty funny, as is the new feeling of a vaulting, spinning, gymnastic Little Bean spiralling from one side of my belly to the other. Enjoy that freedom while it lasts, kiddo, you’re going to run out of room soon.
We’ve got our last bit of travel in under the wire and I have no intentions of stirring more than a few miles from our home base until we actually do something about the new human in the house. Minimal though we may be, Little Bean is likely going to need more than one fun geeky onesie and one nerdtastic toy. I like to pretend that with the right few tools, we will maintain a certain level of order in our lives despite all the changes to come. (Cue hysterical laughter)
December 24, 2014
Merry Christmas Eve!
This might have been more appropriate for a Thanksgiving post, but a little reflection before Christmas isn’t a bad thing.
It hasn’t been an easy year.
Hell, this decade. We’ve had grief piled upon grief, year after year. Stress and stressors are constant, if not consistent, and things aren’t perfect by any stretch.
I still want my body back. It probably won’t ever happen but reality doesn’t stop the yearning.
My 20s, starting in my teens really, were RIDICULOUS. Seemingly only memorable for the slow dissolution of our family, while I forced my career to grow like a hothouse bloom in a desperate bid to save them, all at the expense of my health and wellbeing. There are whole chunks of years I hardly remember because all I did was work + school + work.
There was a move, there was a marriage (and a wedding), and parent loss. Travel, abroad and domestic. Two huge job changes.
Bringing home our “first born”, Doggle. Celebrating our first year with him. Having Thanksgiving with him.
Bringing home Seamus.
Then losing Doggle.
The impending Little Bean.
The family relationships continuing to be crap – it’s not as bad as it’s been but only because it’s been pretty DAMN bad before.
Figuring out how to manage money with a co-pilot. Figuring out how to blog about combined/family money.
Life revolved around money (mostly not having it). Not having it was the fire under my butt to do better. Having it was a watershed moment, and purchased a sense of stability, and security that I haven’t felt since I was too young to worry about the family. (I was around 8, coming home from the library with a stack of books as tall as I, and playing with our first dog, that I last remember not worrying about anything, much less making ends meet.)
For all those years in between, “happiness” didn’t occur to me. Who worries about that when you’re not sure how you’re going to get from one broke month to the next? Or if you’re properly braced for the next emergency?
This year, it’s sunk that we are happy. Part of that’s being low maintenance. Give me a donut and I’m happy for the day. Give PiC an hour to himself, and he’s happy for the day. Clearly, our bar is set pretty low and that’s how we want it.
But more importantly, for the first time, despite all the uncertainty surrounding pregnancy, childbirth, adding a human to the family, not knowing what the heck I’m doing next, despite all the stuff that would normally set me on the starting blocks, ready to bolt somewhere – anywhere – I think I’m also feeling contentment.
Happiness is that thing that’s thrown around all the time. It’s the thing to be pursued. It brings the highs to offset the lows. We’re even Constitutionally Entitled to pursuing it. But happiness feels to me to be an extrinsic thing, so easily influenced by the external things like jobs, weather, family, friends. And once you get it, you almost have to start over and find it again.
Meanwhile, the mellower version, contentment, doesn’t get the good PR that happiness does and it should!
Whether you celebrate Christmas secularly or religiously, or not at all, I wish you all joy, contentment and warm fuzzies
December 23, 2014
As a kid, unprincessy things were my forte. I slew invading insects and marauding spiders, climbed walls, played in the dirt and the trees and insisted on pants with pockets, darn tootin. If I was wearing frills or pink, or Lord help us all, BOTH, you’d know from the look on my face that I was only tolerating it because I was told to.
So M.R. Nelson’s latest, Petunia, The Girl Who Was NOT a Princess, put a smile on my face before I even got into the story. It sent me back to a time and a place when things were so much simpler and gender issues were dismissed with a scowl and a determination to do whatever I wanted even if Dad said that “it’s not suitable for girls”. No one else had the nerve to say that.
But I digress.
Fully expecting to find the kind of story I could relate to (though I suppose I’m long past those days of defiance) and I wasn’t disappointed. This is a story of a kid who unabashedly enjoys playing her way, whether or not she’s quite in line with her compatriots.
It’s a cute romp that touches on being your own person, which is wonderful, and also gently suggests that keeping an open mind can be a great thing.
I’m reviewing this just in time for a last minute Christmas book gift, if you’re needing something light and fun – it’s an e-book available at Amazon!
December 22, 2014
On Day 14
I saw both my OB and a dermatologist after sharing the PUPPPs pain, and lo, it turns out this is the most severe case my OB had ever seen. No wonder it didn’t seem like she had a sense of urgency in offering alternative solutions. All her other patients did fine on hydrocortisone and Benadryl so she didn’t realize how bad it really was.
They snagged us a same day referral (just had to ask, thanks Kaiser!) to the dermatologist because while OB still thought it was just the worst PUPPPs ever, she also wanted the derm to confirm that it wasn’t anything she was missing. We dashed over to the derm who took a look and agreed that it wasn’t likely to be anything else. Lucky me, I’d just been cursed with a horrible case of something they can’t cure, and she told me that most of the cases they see tend to take 4-6 weeks to resolve, no matter when it starts. :O
So we had a couple options: more topical stuff but prescription strength, or actual steroids.
I have done courses of steroids in the past for pain treatment so the side effects weren’t a huge concern for me, but I wasn’t baking a human critter at the time so we all wanted to avoid that option for now.
Mind you, it’s all about the timing. For some reason, on the day of the appointment, the skin had backed down about a notch and a half. If it had been on the actual miserable miserable weekend where I wanted to skin myself, I’d have gone straight for the ‘roids and damn the torpedos. Hell, if I KNEW that inducing would resolve it, I’d have been in a surgical cap and gown and standing just outside the OR tapping on their window. It was that bad.
But having it deescalate from “every MOLECULE of skin hurts or itches or both so that I can’t stand, sit or lay down without something being completely irritated” to the next level of “most skin hurts or itches or both, but there might be one way to sit or lean for a bit” made a huge difference.
Just that maybe 20% reduction in pain and discomfort was enough to make me feel more like a human and actually see straight again. It was much like the first time I was drugged out on narcotics for pain and was barely conscious.
Things did seemed to help
Grandpa Pine Tar Soap
, shower & soap 2-3x/day (I went through 1 bar in 4 days at first)
Prescription Steroid cream, 2x/day, kept refrigerated
Eucerin Eczema Relief Instant Therapy Body Lotion
, 2x/day, kept refrigerated
Aveda All Sensitive lotion, 2x/day, kept refrigerated
Things that might have helped but who knows, so I did it anyway
Drinking V-8 (and otherwise mindfully hydrating)
Generic colloidal oatmeal cream for eczema, basically the generic of Aveeno
Benadryl and Cetirizine, generic for Zyrtec
Things that were totally no good
Gold Bond anti itch lotion, holy moly was the feel of mentholated lotion terrible
Oatmeal bath, I couldn’t tolerate cool water, but the lukewarm water was still too hot and sent my skin into overdrive
Claritin, just didn’t do a thing (then again, the Benadryl just helps make me sleep once in a while)
After 2.5 days on the steroid cream and other routines, I noticed a major reduction in the angry rash look on my belly and hands. There doesn’t seem to be a strong correlation between what it looks like and how it feels though: the belly looks better and is less itchy but the bumps and masses on the hands went down, leaving dark splotches, and they feel three times itchier. And the rash on my legs has both spread and gotten worse. So none of this makes much sense.
It got to the point where I just resolved to stay up and work all night because all I was doing was tossing and turning uncomfortably, replacing ice packs for hours. The theory was that going to bed which focuses the mind intensely on the itch was the reason it was exponentially worse. Turns out, nope. The increased night time discomfort still flared up even though I hadn’t gone to bed. Sleeping an average of 2.5 hours a night sucks.
On the other hand, I got a lot more work done just assuming I wouldn’t sleep til 5 am (I was right) and pottering about accordingly even if I was supremely uncomfortable. And I stopped having to waddle around as an awkward victory penguin, arms raised and held away from my body lest anything touch anything.
Small victories, like being able to take my own plate and glass with my own hands all the way to the table, were duly celebrated and appreciated. It’s sad when that’s a victory but I’ll take it.
/update.
December 17, 2014
Domesticity is cozy.
What’s not to like? Hot dinners, clean kitchen, fresh laundry. Also here’s my semi-regular to indoor plumbing: Ye gods I love indoor plumbing.
Still, I’m old, tired, and lazy and I’m not ashamed to organize my life along those lines. Saving cash is always a bonus but I mostly want to avoid expending energy.
* Funny About Money’s baking soda trick has saved my kitchen-clumsy butt countless times. Seriously, I’m a wreck in the kitchen. There’s always something going wrong: cutting myself, burning myself, scorching pots and pans. I heal but I had to get rid of the evidence and baking soda+boiling water does the trick.
* I finally bought some new sink protectors to replace the really old (ahem, gross) ones we had. Stainless steel, elevated, they look lovely! I waited 3 weeks to buy to save a whole $3 – hah. Of course that’s miniscule but that’s $3 more for that long list of other things we need. I whole-frugal-heartedly love the new things that I don’t have to clean every week.
* Crockpot+Dutch oven love: I’ve gotten incredibly lazy with the kitchen antics. I love one pot meals like chicken+potato+vegetable in the Dutch oven. More for the ease than the taste but PiC professes his love for them so I just keep making ’em!
* No shoes inside rule: This cuts down on the tracked in dirt saving us carpet wear and tear and, more importantly, cuts down the amount of sweeping or vacuuming needed.
* Wrapping stuff and recycled paper: I save all tissue paper and paper stuffed in shipped packages if it’s in decent shape and use that wrap gifts and packages. Saves having to go buy wrapping stuff, saves money (we all know that paper’ll just get torn up and tossed), gives the rescued paper new life for at least one more round. Win win win! Mostly I love the minimal effort of storing the paper we get.
* Contemplating whether I can completely eliminate shower/tub scrubbing with the Scrubbing Bubbles Shower Cleaner. The Automatic cleaner doo-dad doesn’t seem to have great reviews over time, so I’m considering the foam spray? Has anyone used this? My goal is to avoid any scrubbing at all.
*Cleaning the microwave with the power of lemons. I’m trying this tomorrow!
December 16, 2014
Change from November: .63% increase
Change from January: 370% increase
On Money
I’m working away at Swagbucks to earn Amazon money for household, Little Bean, and dog things we need. Feel free to join using my referral link if you like!
***
Our increases in the net worth from the beginning of the year look astronomical but honestly, that has more to do with me having trouble getting all the accounts in order over the first quarter. It’s not ALL actual growth but I didn’t relish going back and figuring out what it REALLY was in January now that I have all the accounts sorted.
Maybe I’ll just zero out the start-of-year counter again for 2015 and call it a day.
***
End of the year money moves
2014 is running out the clock – what else has to be done?
Last charitable donations
Considering: pay the second half of the property tax a couple months early?
Make a usual big lump payment to the mortgage.
*** (more…)
December 15, 2014
Once, I thought, this pregnancy thing is tough!
Once, I thought, it’s so frustrating that I can’t get up without help, eat normally, see my feet or tie my shoes, lie down without getting heartburn or short of breath, or getting the crap kicked out of me by an (always) amped up LB.
Now, I know better. That’s all nothing next the cursed PUPPs. Every centimeter of my skin, from neck to toe, is covered. I am become a walking mass of lumps, bumps and rashes. I feel like a disgusting reptilian leper.
All the formal literature seems to be clear on what we know about PUPPPs, a misleadingly cuddly acronym for basically a skin plague (Pruritic urticarial papules and plaques of pregnancy):
It “usually” strikes women in their first pregnancies, in the 35th week, 70% of cases are in women carrying boys or multiples, the cause is unknown and generally won’t go away until delivery. It’s not supposed to be contagious, and shouldn’t affect the mother or baby long-term or after birth. I guess the fact that PiC hasn’t caught it is evidence that it’s not contagious.
Basically, it’s nearly all completely useless information. I’m glad it’s not contagious of course and even more importantly that it shouldn’t hurt LB but otherwise, who the hell cares if it normally strikes people carrying multiples if you get it and you’ve got a singlet? Or if it normally starts at 35 weeks and you get it much earlier? The more pressing thing is that which we have no answer for: what causes it and how to deal with it!
The very cynical part of me says there’s no formal research on this because it only affects women and has no mortality rate. Never you mind this occurs in 1 of 20 women and has driven those with severe cases to actually induce as early as is safe to seek relief, it’s not warranted a single published study that I could find.
So I’m left digging out forum after forum of anecdotal experiences which tell me that women are experiencing it when they carry girls, that some are afflicted as early as at 12 weeks all the way up to the “usual” 35 weeks, when they’re on their second, third, or fourth pregnancies, that it goes away after a week or two for some people and doesn’t until delivery for others. For still others, horrifyingly, it doesn’t go away for weeks after delivery and even more horrifyingly, some people are getting it after delivery and living with it for MONTHS.
I guess that last one mostly academically horrifies me because I’ve got it now. But as awful as this is now, my imagination is more than up to the task of envisiong being the one for whom delivery doesn’t clear it up and then add a helpless newborn to the mix when I myself am the next thing to useless.
Not so silent suffering
The itching is far more intense than chicken pox. I clearly recall being seven, left lying on the bed during the summer covered in lotion, and being sternly told NOT TO SCRATCH. I did NOT scratch. It was very uncomfortable but the lotion did help the itching, so of my “things that sucked” memories, it was just a crappy experience.
This has reached the level of Utter Despair. It’s comparable to those moments in my late teens where I was trying to get through college and working 100 hours a week. That in itself was crappy but it was the crippling pain in my hands that truly made it Hell.
For years, back then, I only slept a few hours a night because the pain prevented me from falling asleep or woke me from fitful sleeps. For an otherwise anti-emotion teen, more nights than I care to admit were watered by hot, angry tears, arms suspended above my head on ice packs in a futile effort to dull the pain.
At a mere 3, 4, and 5 days into the itch and pain dominated sleep deprivation, I found myself spiraling down that pit again.
ARGH.
My skin has became so sensitive that even air currents are uncomfortable. Most fabrics trigger the urge to scratch on contact, only the softest of cottons were tolerable, and skin to skin contact is the worst trigger of all so lathering the special soap and applying lotion is a special kind of teeth-gritting, do-it-anyway, torment.
Where there’s any skin to skin contact or pressure, say from natural weight from lying down, basically any place that starts to build up warmth at all, the rash flares up angrily. Basically sleep was out for a week while I figured out how to cope. One night, I resorted to standing outside during the storm trying to chill my entire body so that my skin would calm down.
Where LB’s weight presses down on my legs, those happy bumps have merged into MegaZord-sized masses that moved past itching to plain old pain. Minor consolation: it’s so bad that I’m not even tempted to scratch them.
I honestly look like I taunted a few hives of killer bees and hung around for their justice.
I’ve tried everything that the doctor recommended and everything eczema-experienced friends recommended; 3 kinds of antihistamines, 4 kinds of lotions, oatmeal baths, hydrocortisone, 3 showers a day using the anecdotally recommended pine tar soap. Even drinking V8 juice which I don’t like one bit because I don’t even know why that’s supposed to help.
None have brought actual relief, only the oatmeal lotion and Sensitive Skin Aveda lotion seem to keep the burning itch from getting worse. The hydrocortisone occasionally calms the worst on my hands, but can only be used sparingly and where my skin stays cool because it stays greasy and seems to conduct heat, exacerbating the discomfort. It also gets on everything since it doesn’t absorb. Because when everything up to my fingertips are affected, I really want to do a few extra loads of laundry!
My hands are afflicted with the smallest and most densely packed bumps so I’ve got quarter sized bump-clusters on the backs of my hands, on my fingers, between my fingers. This makes typing a hover-above-the-keyboard affair, exhausting to say the least.
The entire belly, Ground Zero for this nastiness, is of course thoroughly cloaked under bumps of all shapes and sizes, as is my back, so leaning on anything in any direction is strongly contraindicated. My legs flare up the most dramatically when they touch each other and that means always staying fully clothed, top to bottom.
Clothes! Another huge frustration. Everything has to be smooth soft cotton, fit but not tightly so it doesn’t shift but doesn’t constrict, no elastic waistbands since the indents from waistbands just provided new tracks for new rashes. I own exactly two shirts that suit and have been trying every pair of pants and shorts in the house to no great success.
COPING
After ten days of trial and error, amid increasing desperation, I’ve found that I can at least sleep if I keep flipping over to the opposite side every 15-30 minute like a rotisserie chicken and “baste” myself with ice packs, tucking them into the sides that have accumulated warmth since the last flip. It means very short naps rather than actual sleep but it’s still better than sleep madness of working and functioning on 1.5 hours of sleep a day.
During the day, I sit incredibly awkwardly on piles of blankets covered with cotton sheets to protect myself and the furniture and am VERY aware of how long I’ve been sitting because of the pressure issue. It stinks.
And of course the regular pain hasn’t let up so I get this great combination of itching+pain+fibro pain and swelling. If I thought I knew what feeling helpless and useless was like before? Sure didn’t.
PiC has had to help me with the most basic of life functions, not just cooking but sometimes feeding me when the swollen from pain and swollen from rash hands were particularly bad. He’s learned the art of applying lotion evenly and keeps me supplied with fresh icepacks day and night.
Normally, by the time I write up something like this, I’ve achieved some sort of sense of positivity but nope. Not this time. Doing the best we can but mostly just trying to get by and leaning way too much on PiC. Poor guy.