I feel like a 7-layer mexican salad. No, wait, let me explain. This is not a brain-fog deluded ranting, although I can happily do that for you, too, if you like. This is more of a description of how it feels to be a few years into the auto-immune life. It's taken me a few years to get this way, because it creeps up on you. It struck me this weekend that I no longer have a simple answer to the question, "what's wrong?" when people realize I am not feeling well. The answer now is long, complicated, involved and as mixed up and bad for you as a sour cream/guacamole/refried bean concoction that I simply adore - and now emulate. As an example, let me explain how this weekend went....
Of course, we were entering a holiday weekend. So, of course, my body just KNEW it was time to break down and ....well, breakdown. After seeing my darling daughter and precious granddaughter last week while my daughter had a terrible headcold, it never occurred to me that - yes, surprise! - Iwould pick that up from her. Just in time for the holiday weekend. At my in-laws. With my kids in tow. Okay....so I load up with antihistamines and Motrin. Step 1.
As I am packing, I realize the skin on the side of my face is starting to feel prickly and sensitive. This isn't because of any reaction to the molar I just had removed (which healed beautifully,relieved mucho pain and was just MARVELOUS, thank you GOD!!!), but because the stress of the new school year and a new cold starting kicked off chronic facial herpes simplex I. Wonderful. We have meds for that, so gulp some down and throw them in the bag and go.
Okay, so we are set, ready and medicated. I feel the beginning of the autoimmune "fatigue of death" beginning, but just settle into the front seat of car hoping to rest for 3 hours and head off the worst of it. Not bad. We get to our destination, unpack, visit a while and go to sleep. So far, so good. At this point, I am just wrestling with three issues - sort of normal when you're 3 years after diagnosis, right?
Sunday morning goes great. I load the hubby, the kids and cough drops into the car and we have a surprisingly easy time at church. Head home, change clothes, pick up pain meds for my slipped vertebra (oh, I didn't mention that?....had that for 2 years and gearing up for the spinal fusion it is obvious I will need) and head out to the local ethnic festival. Lots of good Slavic food, beer and fun. Well, sort of, if you can have any with two headstrong young boys in tow. The first pain meds work great - for two hours, as usual. At their regular time, they wear off and I drag my leg around in agony for a while until it is time to re-up the meds. Except this time, I miscalculated something. Looking back, maybe it was combining it with the cold meds I took in the morning. Or maybe I took too high a dose - or too close together. I don't know because I use them so sparingly and never more than one dose a day....but they say I can use them every 4-6 hours and I'm having a good time.....well, let's say that the rest of the day went downhill from there. Spent the next four hours sleeping until bedtime, then dragged myself upstairs when my 5-year-old when to bed and joined him happily. Until 4am. Woke with an insane headache. Rebound headache - oh, no! Then, the stomach gets queasy. I either mis-combined or over-dosed or the cold and the meds don't mix. Either way, I lose all my great Slavic food down the great porcelain gullet that night and after sleeping on the bathroom floor for a while, head back to bed and sleep off the rest.
Monday morning. Hubby's brother calls and asks why we didn't come down to the nighttime festivities of the Ethnic festival. Hubby starts to explain and gets it all wrong - but who can blame him? Isn't it insane to have to say, "well, she has a bad cold and her autoimmune was acting up and felt bad for that, so she took cold medicine, then pain meds for her bad back, then slept all evening and threw up all night....so we were pretty much stuck here"...?
I feel like a 7-layer-salad of pain and monstrosity....or maybe a lasagna? Hmmm...come to think of it, I'm hungry again....
