Miss Wisabus

Better

Posted on 20 December 2011 | 4 responses

Since I last updated I have been following the doctor’s orders and taking a double dose of the big probiotic and my symptoms are gone.

THANK YOU, LORD!

I was really worried that I might have some lingering problems, but within a day of starting the regimen I was feeling a slight difference and within a few days it was all but gone. It’s been nice not to be afraid to eat.

Thank you all so much for your prayers, kind words, and offers to help me out. I won’t lie — this has been and continues to be a rough holiday season, for reasons other than health issues.

I consider myself pretty empathetic and very understanding of most human behavior, be it behavior that I agree with or not, but sometimes I am stumped. Being an eldest child it is very hard for me to let go of control or to go on living life without knowing what is coming next. This is an area where I see God working on me constantly and I’m not anywhere near learning whatever lessons He has for me, apparently. With that I must say that this is looking like a season where God is teaching me and several other family members to let go and let Him take care of things. It is difficult, but I am trying. My heart aches, I am angry and defensive of my family. I want to lash out at the gossips and their family members that encourage their behavior, I want to say something against the people who call my family names and ridicule us — all of this being done behind a facade. But I can think of no way to do this without making myself or my family look like the instigators and melodramatic teenagers here.

So I hold my tongue. I work on learning the equal importance of nothing said when so many words want to come out. I will let God mend the pieces of my heart — my heart that aches so in the present circumstances. There is something much bigger going on here than my conflicting emotions. In the end, I know all will be right, though I have no idea what the path to that place looks like.

⁶Don’t be fooled by those who try to excuse these sins, for the anger of God will fall on all who disobey him. ⁷ Don’t participate in the things these people do. ⁸ For once you were full of darkness, but now you have light from the Lord. So live as people of light! ⁹For this light within you produces only what is good and right and true.

¹⁰Carefully determine what pleases the Lord. ¹¹ Take no part in the worthless deeds of evil and darkness; instead, expose them. ¹² It is shameful even to talk about the things that ungodly people do in secret. ¹³ But their evil intentions will be exposed when the light shines on them, ¹⁴ for the light makes everything visible. This is why it is said,

“Awake, O sleeper,
rise up from the dead,
and Christ will give you light.”

¹⁵ So be careful how you live. Don’t live like fools, but like those who are wise. ¹⁶ Make the most of every opportunity in these evil days. ¹⁷ Don’t act thoughtlessly, but understand what the Lord wants you to do. ¹⁸ Don’t be drunk with wine, because that will ruin your life. Instead, be filled with the Holy Spirit, ¹⁹ singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, and making music to the Lord in your hearts. ²⁰And give thanks for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

²¹ And further, submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. (Ephesians 5:6-21 NLT)

Overwhelmed

Posted on 13 December 2011 | 11 responses

WARNING: There’s TMI ahead. Talk of bowel issues and various degree of disgusting illness.

I have been sick for a month now. It started when I got back from my little weekend shopping trip with Heather right before my birthday. When I got home I was sick with a sinus infection and it was a bad one. I spent my birthday at our nearest urgent care clinic and at the pharmacy trying to get my medication. The doctor prescribed Augmentin, an antibiotic I had never had before.

MISTAKE.

Stomach upset and diarrhea is a common side effect of this antibiotic and I had it in spades. I spent three uncomfortable days on that medication before calling the doctor and asking for something different. The pharmacist who gave me the new prescription (Cefdinir) was incredibly rude and unsympathetic to what I had been dealing with and basically told me that I should have just stayed on the first antibiotic. The weird thing about that night is that I stood there and looked at the probiotics and debated buying one, but decided against it because we had already coughed up so much cash that week already on prescription meds.

Again, MISTAKE.

I spent the next three days feeling AMAZING. For almost 20 years I have dealt with IBS and this antibiotic seemed to alleviate a lot of the symptoms that I still have. I really got my hopes up that maybe the antibiotic had killed off something that was causing problems. That weekend (one week after my trip) I ran a fever and had flu-like symptoms. Looking back, I should have gone to the doctor or called them back right then. It seemed like the flu or a virus, so I just tried to get rest and stay hydrated. By Monday, the fever was gone, but I was developing other uncomfortable symptoms that landed me in the gynecologist’s office the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. Not your typical post antibiotic yeast infection either, but I’m not going into anymore detail there. My doctor told me she thought it was some irritation from the antibiotics, but that antibiotics are what she would prescribe to fix my current issue. I was instructed to finish out my course of meds and if it did not clear up I was to call her back on Monday after Thanksgiving. It cleared up within a day and once again I was feeling good.

Thanksgiving Day, Friday, and Saturday were fine. On Saturday afternoon I made some soup (and if you follow me on Twitter you already know this) that was questionable. I used some bleu cheese that was a little out of date, but unopened, and from the sources I checked online it should have been fine. When I began vomiting the next day I thought maybe that advice wasn’t the best. I was sick for three days. I have had intermittent symptoms mimicking what I thought was food poisoning ever since. And things have only gotten worse. Every single day since the weekend after Thanksgiving I have been in some form of pain.

This weekend, after symptoms took a bad turn, I got scared. My mind always goes to the worst case scenario and I knew I had to see a doctor. First thing on Monday morning I called to make an appointment with my gastroenterologist. The receptionist said, “His next available appointment is on the 29th at 2:30…want that?” I told her what was going on and she put me on hold. When she came back she said, “We’ll see you tomorrow at 10:15.” Cue mini freak out.

I sat for a long time this morning waiting on the doctor. Praying. Trying not to panic. When he came in I was able to stay calm and explain to him what was going on. I didn’t cry, YAY! (I’m prone to that, you know)

What he told me — he thinks that I had a bad reaction to the antibiotics. It’s likely that some nasty bacteria is camping out in my colon (he throw this name out there and they didn’t do any lab work today, but it sounds like it’s C. diff). And my poor large intestine is so irritated now that it just doesn’t know what to do. I had done the right thing and turned to probiotics, but the one I picked up was not strong enough. I was instructed to get one from the health food store that had at least 10 strains in it. I did that today after work and I hope that it starts doing something soon. One interesting thing about this is how my body was talking to me during this ordeal. I was craving yogurt. Because of dietary restrictions (which, by the way, fly out the window when you are this ill) I never even consider yogurt as an option. But my tummy only wanted yogurt. I think it knew what it needed.

The doctor expects this treatment to clear up whatever is going on. If it does not and symptoms persist I have a follow-up appointment scheduled 3 weeks from now. There is a chance that this infection has thrown me into the beginning stages of colitis. The next step, if I’m still not well, is a colonoscopy.

Groan.

I don’t like to complain. That’s why I have stayed pretty quiet around here. Other people deal with illnesses that are much more serious and debilitating. But I have been absolutely miserable for almost a month and I’m tired. Tonight has been particularly difficult for me.

If you think of it, I would appreciate your prayers. It’s difficult with Christmas coming up and feeling like doing absolutely nothing.

Thanks for reading. I’ll keep you updated.

My Corn-Fed, Deep Fried Okie Romance – Part 17

Posted on 9 December 2011 | 2 responses

If there’s just one thing I can compliment my husband on, it’s his determination. In the earliest stages of our relationship, really the pre-dating part of it, this aspect of his personality served him well. He had a really wide network of friends and acquaintances and it didn’t take him long to find out my name. Which then led him to my Facebook profile where he realized we were already connected there. Out of the blue, without introducing himself (though it was okay because I already knew who he was even if he was having trouble recollecting me), he sent me a message on Facebook. It was September 13, 2006.

are you graduating this may or next december?

Well, just cut to the chase, why don’t we? It started a little conversation about what my plans were. This was exactly what he wanted to know and it turns out that it kind of helped him along in his plans. He was invited to Heather’s birthday party later that week along with the rest of her Facebook friends and he checked on the time that it started with me before showing up.

And show up he did, bald head and all. I had absolutely no intention of dating a guy without any hair on his head. None at all. And let the record show that I never did.

He sat diagonally across from me at the table and moved one of the menus because it was blocking his view of me. This I remember. He stole glances at me all evening long and even though we had been chatting on AOL Instant Messenger a lot, there were few, if any, words between us that night. I didn’t know it, but I was working on developing a case of strep that would leave me sick with lingering effects for weeks. My throat was scratchy and I was in a bad mood, but luckily he didn’t let that dissuade him.

We continued talking over the following weeks. He would randomly show up somewhere that I was and just…hang out. One day I was studying at the BSU and he walked in and took a seat at a table behind me. I was working on an exercise for one of my writing classes where you just write whatever is in your head for a solid chunk of time without stopping. Somewhere in the midst of that he decided to pull the 4th grade version of letting a girl know that you like her — he threw a pencil at me. In that notebook (which is somewhere in this house) I scrawled, I think he just threw a pencil at me. What does this mean?

I turned and asked, “Does this belong to you?” and he grinned.

Chris, Kevin’s mentor, walked up and asked, “Is this man bothering you?”

Anyone who knows Chris knows that that is sort of his line, but I’m sure he had no idea how spot on he was at the time.

–

In the middle of all of this, I had been meeting with Cindy, one of the ministry team leaders at the BSU. As conversations between women are wont to do, the topic turned to boys and how lately I was feeling so absolutely content with where I was in life. How finally the big, white wedding was no longer the huge goal I had in sight. It wasn’t that I had given up on it…it just didn’t define me. I was loving the life that God had blessed me with in this moment — a life full of friends and creativity, writing classes and early morning Pilates, teaching 3 and 4 year olds and living life on God’s terms…not my preconceived notions.

That was where I needed to be. I had to find contentment with where I was in my own life — just between me and God — before I would ever be able to handle someone else in the mix.

–

A month later was my 22nd birthday party, fondly referred to as Liz-A-Palooza. There was mild stalking, a Milk Bone incident, and for the first time in my life, I was going to get asked out on a real date.

So, this is December…

Posted on 2 December 2011 | 2 responses

And I’ll tell you what I’ve done. As you can see I just gave up on NaBloPoMo this year. My first year not complete it in, well, years. But if you follow me on Twitter you know why and I’m not going to rehash the story now.

It’s December. We are now squarely into that part of the year where it’s okay for you crazy people who are so into Christmas that you started listening to tunes of the season in July after you stopped in June to continue doing so without looking like lunatics. No offense. You know who you are!

To ring in the season, every year like I have since 2005, in the Oklahoma style, here is the B.C. Clark jingle spot that Heather and I were on in 2005. As I child I dreamed and hoped that I would someday be on TV singing this, so it was a huge thing to cross off my bucket list. I only wish that I had put it on a list before I did it so I could have had something to cross off. (We’re on at 0:22 — I’m on the right. It’s brief so look close!)