I was poisoned on Thanksgiving. I’ve been utterly sick and completely useless for at least six days because of this. I was given something contaminated with gluten, and I went through a pretty decent Hell because of it.

Thursday, day 1: Within 5 minutes of eating the contaminated food I was nauseated, cramping, and having brainfog and overall numbness. My fine motor skills were entirely shot and I was shaking so hard you could hear it in my voice. I couldn’t think to save my life; I spent the rest of the day on the couch under a blanket, playing easy DS games and watching mindless DVDs.

Friday, day 2 of severe glutenation: Nausea, migraine, shaking, stomach pain, fatigue and muscle weakness. Also, some paranoia. I was on my feet a total of eight times that day — once from the bed to the couch, three restroom trips, and once back to the bed from the couch.. It’s a short walk that took me about 5 minutes each way; my legs were so weak I can barely stand.

I could not drive, or walk, or stand up for an extended period. Early in the day I could not even hold a crochet hook because my wrists and arms hurt so badly.

Saturday, day 3: Still nauseated, weak and tired. I remember that this was the first day I was even strong enough to sit up unaided or without being propped up by pillows. That stunning achievement was reached midday, for several minutes at a time.

I was not able to walk or drive for any length of time. Thank gods a good friend of ours was able to come by and take the husband out to get groceries and other needful things for us.

Sunday, day 4: Still flu-like symptoms, short temper, still very weak. I did however have the strength (by the end of the day) to stand up long enough to take my first shower since the glutening. If you do the math, it’s not pretty.

Monday, day 5: My immune system and digestive tract are fired. Woke up sore all over; weak and in pain. I went to my doctor who made soothing noises (she is a joy and a comfort) and gave me steroids to stop the over-reactive immune response. My herbalist (also a joy and a comfort) gave me oregano to prevent a fungal infection — steroids have that effect sometimes — and peppermint oil for my ongoing nausea. All the driving nearly did me in, however. Went to bed early and happy about it.

Tuesday, day 6: Stuffed full of steroids. About 60% back to “normal”. Head hurt, thoughts racing, and crying jags like whoa. Fun! I think I made the right decision to stay home, no matter how worried about money I am. When a scene from “Death to Smoochy” makes me tear up, I’m in no condition to deal with the outside world.

Wednesday, day 7: Went to work, like the brave little toaster I am. Still pretty sore. Pretty nauseated (but the peppermint oil does certainly help). My head does weird things if I move it too quickly. I’m tired and I have no appetite — probably for the good.

All this peppermint is making me want Mint Chocolate ice cream, though.

It sounds so incredibly simple and trite when I write it all out like this. Nothing can describe a full week of feeling like I’m in a tumble-dryer full of rocks for hours on end.

And I can’t do this anymore. Luckily I will get paid for the holiday, but missing 3 days of work is a substantial amount and I can’t afford repeats of this happy little adventure. I’ve got to keep my food safely under my control. If that means not eating with family or not eating out at restaurants or not eating at work functions or parties with friends… then so be it. Any amount of transient personal embarrassment or even a little hardship between me and other people not as supportive of my condition is worth it rather than face a week of hell and another 4-7 days of discomfort.

I’m amazed that some people think that celiacs are doing this “just for attention”. I would like to give such ignorant savages some attention in return.

With a baseball bat. For a few hours.

Tags: crochet, gluten, illness, life, sleep

Sorry for the no posty for a bit; I was extremely poisoned at Thanksgiving. More on that tomorrow, but in the mean time I’d like to go ahead and include two cute links:

Well, you know how I love cats…15 Fascinating Facts about Cats. I especially like this one: “Both humans and cats have identical regions in the brain responsible for emotion.” I am glad to have it validated (by Random Internet Website with no References, however much that is worth) that my cats feel emotions in the same way I do. Much of the time with my cats I feel like I’m not a human having a relationship with an animal, but a thinking creature having a body-language interaction with another thinking creature who does not understand (for the most part) my spoken language.

Also, this link: Baby Rabbits in the Back Yard. This is a video whose title should be self explanatory. There’s no way I can describe in words how adorable this is. It’s head-explodingly cute.

Actual real content tomorrow and some updates of *GASP* the crochet I’ve been doing lately.

Tags: gluten, illness, links

I heard somewhere on the intarwebs that DST started as a joke by Benjamin Franklin. I think I can believe that, knowing the brilliant old rake had a biting and subtle sense of humor. As someone with Fibromyalgia, I absolutely despise Springing Forward — but oh, how I love to Fall Back!

The week before springing forward holds serious dread for me. I’m about to lose a precious, precious hour of sleep, and it will be darker when I wake up, which makes it more difficult for me TO wake up. And for the week after springing forward I walk around like a zombie, always wanting to go to bed one hour later than I do; always needing to sleep one hour longer than I will. Eventually I get used to the modified schedule, my body adjusts to the different sleep hours, and life goes on. I’ve always meant to do what has been suggested by various Fibro websites, which is to adjust my sleep time by 15 minutes every night for 4-5 days before DST but frankly I’m just not that organized when it comes to sleep and I wind up paying the price.

I couldn’t wait to fall back this time around. I’m beginning to believe I may have a touch of seasonal affective disorder — getting out of bed while the sky is dark seems almost impossible. I actually felt well rested on Sunday morning when I woke up and the sky was bright; since then it’s been easy to go to sleep at night (what with feeling like it’s later than it actually is) and then when I wake up the sun is shining through the curtains and is helping to burn away the sleepies of the night.

In Gluten-Free Triumph News, I tried a new GF food today that actually TASTED like what it was supposed to be. I’ve got a box of Kinnikinnick GF glazed donuts in the freezer and heated one up in the microwave and it was heavenly. Very spongy, and the glazing was perfect. Made me actually crave funnel cake, which I haven’t had since I went GF. We may have to work out a recipe.

Here’s what I’m *nominally* working on, all at once:

Pyramid Head
Bronx
SOMETHINGVERYPINK
Anubis
Set
Isis
Light Rook
Several quilt squares
A beautiful granny square jacket (for a change!)
An afghan for myself for the couch.

And here’s hoping I can finish up more commissions this weekend, in between doing some overtime for the RealJob(TM) and driving the husband to his weekly dose of swordfighting.

Tags: commissions, fibro, food, gluten, illness, life, sleep

I started the year being poisoned, and it’s pretty much continued that way.

All of 2008 was good; I don’t think I was glutenated even once that year. I was rarely sick at all. January of 2009 I did start some new supplements — an omega 3, I do believe.

This taught me the lesson: “Don’t buy cheap supplements from LocalMart.” The bottle was on sale… woe betide me for looking to save a few bucks. I thought it was serendipity but my little voice inside was trying to warn me. It didn’t say whether or not the pills themselves have gluten in them on the bottle. The manufacturer’s website didn’t have this specific type of product on it. Not to mention the website itself looked kinda sketchy.

The skin pain, the ongoing cold that never quits, the deep pain in my upper arm muscles and the bones/tendons of my hands, the tenderpoints — and the moods. FUN!

February and March of 2009, I caught the stomach flu on the beginning and the end of its cycle through my office. Let me tell you, that was HILARIOUS.

From April through August, because my immune system was so buggered, I had a bacterial sinus infection. My genprac said “Oh, we usually only see those in people with very compromised immune systems, like AIDS patients or people undergoing chemo.” Yeah, really? I said. I don’t have AIDS (I promise), I don’t have cancer (that I’m aware of) — but I do have Fibromyalgia, most likely caused by celiac/gluten intolerance.

And then, I discovered (from Friday’s excitement) that one of my new meds was glutenating me. I quit that yesterday, and woke up feeling better than I had since… since, well, Thursday.

And I promptly went to the RealJob(TM), all prim and proper.

And while there, I ate a cup of yogurt. It said “May Contain Traces”.

What do you know, it sure did!

Yah, I’d been a bit foolish in thinking that a “trace” of gluten would be okay, and that I could gamble with it. Vox is occasionally an ignorant and naive Vox.

Gods, I came home and it was awful. A short list of my symptoms today, thirty minutes after THE GLUTENING:

hot and cold flashes
acid stomach
bile/mucus in throat
IBS
back pain
sinuses running
headache, mini-migraine size
face numbness
“Fibro-fog”
gas (burping)
depression and irritation
light and sound sensitivity
eyebrow hairs falling out easily

But, the gods of luck had glanced in my direction — for, as the husband and I were returning from the clinic ($20 and some runaround but finally convinced the nurse on duty that YES, I am experiencing this, YES, I do know what it is, NO, I am not going to break out in hives/swell up and suffocate/burst into flames, etc), we find a box containing Glutenease in our mail.

Now, I’m not going to say that this little bottle will enable me to eat at Long John Silvers (my secret unreachable food lust is a 3 chicken plank dinner with fries and crumblies, yumm), but it did deal with about half the symptoms of the glutening. So I’m not going to start eating regular toast and pizza, but at least I’ll have something to help when the awful thing happens.

So that’s where I am right now; still feeling like microwaved poo, laying on the couch under a blanket and two cats. Maybe I can work on some stuff for Finished Object Friday. Here’s to trying, even when laboring under what is *still* a mostly invisible disease.

Tags: gluten, illness, medicines

I’ve decided that every Tuesday I’m going to go back and reread an issue of Transmetropolitan. It seems appropriate, what with my stream of brain medications and my endless frustration with the planet. If you’ve not read Transmet you need to, even if you’re not perhaps fans of comic books. It rocks the world. Think Hunter S. Thompson in a crazy future with more exciting drugs and more interesting weapons, bringing the light (and the chairleg) of TRUTH into the City.

So here’s my notes on Issue 1: The Summer of the Year.

I love the dead mouse wrapped in the “buy more bullets” $5 bill.
And then he shoots the phone but nothing happens. I’d not realized that.
His bumper sticker says “Jesus is my Best Friend… but he won’t loan me money…”
Gods, what I wouldn’t give to have a rocket launcher with the words “Eat Me” on it.
Everybody’s in the city that would want to be in the city, and no one ever really leaves; that figures.
There needs to be a band called “Marijuana and Cherries”.
“Dissenting lovers on the run from a Chinese culture reservation, kissing their way to a new revolution.”
Thank god he got rid of all that hair, although the arse shot was nice.
I love it that his shades were produced by a Maker on drugs.
Our first view of Fred Christ, alien love messiah!

I’m also now playing an exciting game called “Guess which of my medications are poisoning me at the moment?” I’m thinking that one of them has Ninja Gluten in it, but I’m not sure which one. Out of FOUR exciting brain meds my shrinkdoc has given me, I’ve managed to clear 2 and mostly rule out 1… it’s the last that may still be giving me poison.

Everybody go check out A Page A Day — tomorrow I’m going to start giving away my Octopus Pattern!

Tags: gluten, hunter s. thompson, illness, Spider Jerusalem

I thought Friday was going to be like any other Friday. Get up, go to work, crochet like a madwoman on my breaks, come home, do some more crochet, maybe have a glass of wine. You know, the regular.

My innards decided today was going to be MORE EXCITING.

Those that are already familiar with me know that I am gluten intolerant. It’s not like racial intolerance — I really do LIKE wheat and bread and pasta and pizza crust and breaded fried chicken and… *sighs longingly*

I *love* them.

But they don’t love me anymore.

So I have to stay away from them. And I do my best. But even an invisible smear of something with gluten in it can poison me all day, and apparently has done so once more.

We figure either a dish didn’t get fully washed (my dishwasher is 33 years old, and sometimes he can miss a spot. He still heats up like he’s supposed to, though!) or else I started kissing one of the cats right after they ate. It was probably the younger one; Dusk eats with such whole-hearted abandon that we often call him “food face”. And I think their food does have flour or something in it.

Bottom line, I think I was poisoned.

So I went to work, even though I was rumbling like a badly designed distillery.

An hour in, I knew the folly of my determination. And never am I more reminded of the fact that human beings are basically a coiled tube with 4 appendages and a brain, than when I have been “glutenated”.

Without getting gross, I was given sufficient evidence by my body that the course of wisdom would be to LEAVE work and go to a clinic and get a doctor’s note, even though I figured there was nothing that could be done.

So the nice girl at the clinic heard my list of symptoms, and very firmly told me (after the bulk of the appointment) that I should go to the Urgent Care clinic. I confirmed the location of the nearest one.

Now, I am no stranger to emergency rooms. There was a year (the same year I later discovered I was gluten intolerant, actually) that I went to the emergency room a record FIVE TIMES. I figured the intermediate step might be at least half as bad, with the wait and the boredom and the screaming small children. So we stopped by the house for me to load up on yarn and books before we went over to the grand ol’ UC.

I walked in and didn’t see anyone wearing a mask, which was great — with my crappy immune system, piggy flu would pretty much leave my bacon utterly FRIED. I didn’t see any children either, screaming or not; closest thing that might count would be the emo 16 year old in with his mom. We put in my information, and we paid the $45 copay, and we sat for an hour or so, and then amazingly we were escorted to a back room wherein I was weighed and measured and kindly asked whatever could be wrong with me.

And I told them. And they said, oh, we don’t do that here.

I said that the girl at the clinic thought they did.

And they said no, they don’t handle “abdominal pain” any more extensive than UTI’s, which I (thankfully) don’t have. Should I have a hurt ankle or a wound that needed stitching they were *definitely* my widget, but unfortunately in my current position they could do me no great service.

And then they politely returned my copay, and a nurse that was interested in my crochet work took a business card (Hi, Melody!), and the husband and I packed up and left.

All in all, I think that was the most pleasant ER experience I’ve ever had. I was not poked with anything sharp; I was not bombarded by screaming infants; I did not have to pay $100-$400 for the joy of waiting 6 hours to be seen by a random idiot who won’t listen to my concerns and who will occasionally shoot me full of MORPHINE without any sort of warning, not even an accompanying cigar. If they had cured my fibro and washed my car, I would be moving into a room there.

I think I’m okay now; glutenation is something to be endured, not cured. And I’ll go to the “real” ER should something else stupid happen with my intestines. But that’s my harrowing tale of woe. What’s worst? What with all the shenanigans and goings on I couldn’t get any serious knotwork done!

Tags: gluten, illness, life