I’m Baaaack! :)

I’m finally done researching, dealing, and wrapping my brain around everything. It’s been a long few weeks of dieting, medication withdrawals, fighting two bugs, and recovering from a few injuries. At least I stayed busy, right? *laugh* Plus, you should be proud, because we didn’t make the bloody snowman I found instructions for on Pinterest during either of the snow storms that came through in the meantime. *grin* It’s been SO hard to resist the morbid temptation, so I deserve a lot of credit.

First, I am really sorry that it’s taken me so long to respond to those that wrote to me. I hope that I replied to each comment; if I missed yours, it was not intentional!  I want to tell you all that the support shown means the world to me and was a massive help in getting me through to this stage, despite it taking me a while to be able to come back and say so. I have a habit of crawling inside of my mind until I feel like I’m back in control. It’s something I’ve been working to improve, but I’m a work in progress, as they say. *smile* Regardless, thank you so much for the support, encouragement, and just being there.

I found a little light to focus on during my research. I kept researching for a good week after my last post about the possible causes of the liver damage and found that the muscle relaxers that I was on had a very rare instance during two clinical trials of Fibro patients showing liver damage occurring. Very soon after the medication was discontinued and it was fully out of their systems their labs returned to normal. The only thing that had changed in the few months between lab draws was that one of my specialists had doubled the dosage of the muscle relaxer to fully stop most of the involuntary movements and spasms. There is no way to know if I’m in that tiny percentile that may have troubles with anything beyond a minimal dose except by doing exactly what I did – I immediately discontinued the medication, cold turkey (you SO shouldn’t do that without physician approval and I am definitely not recommending it to anyone, but it’s what I needed to do in this situation),  so that I would be able to get labs drawn at my next appointment, which is next week. This visit is to my guru, the one doctor that I fully trust, the one that diagnosed me after so many years of I don’t knows. Plus, he’s a take charge kind of guy. He won’t react like the other doctor’s nurse did and say “I don’t know” when I ask him if it could have been that medication, or what to change in my treatment plan, or how to manage the changes of my treatment plan and lifestyle that the nurse demanded. He won’t leave me on an iceberg in the middle of an ocean of fear. He’s pretty awesome. He’s really great about letting me be involved, and about getting involved when I ask him for help, so I have a good feeling that when I tell him about everything he will run follow up labs after the appointment to see if my counts have changed from discontinuing the medication. Even if they haven’t, it was worth the withdrawals and getting the movements back, because I’ve had a few weeks with hope. If it was the medication that had started to cause liver damage, and it has been reversed, then it reduces the likelihood that I am facing any of the scariest disorders, too. If my labs have improved, then most likely I’m just having reactivation of the EBV with progression of my relapse. I never thought I’d be happy for that, but it sure beats the other possibilities!!

I also need his help to keep up these dietary and lifestyle changes. Changing the diet of a regular person is one thing, but I have so many intolerances that it makes this a bit difficult. Add to it that almost everything has to be cooked from scratch now and with Chronic Fatigue it feels like I’m trying to climb a freaking mountain some days instead of just prepping and cooking a meal. I’ve been getting so sick due to reflux and I’ve had a nonstop bloody nose since my last post (small nasal ulcer from botched septoplasty), which has done an amazing job of making me nauseated about 75% of the time. Meh. Plus, limiting my dairy intake has only caused me to become absolutely obsessed with most things dairy. *laugh* We’ve always been big milk drinkers, although Larry has always drank more than me since I’m more of a sipper. Since I decided to use Slim Fast and Special K to keep the good counts up when I can’t eat, and it is SO much easier to figure up how much of each percentage I’ve had for the day then, I can justify having some milk fairly often. It’s been hard to limit my cheese intake, but I don’t crave it nearly as much as I do the milk. I figure I’ve tried, I made some changes that I can deal with, found out that I have some healthier cooking habits all ready (I’ve always trimmed meats really well, etc.), and found that I just can’t do everything that she demanded of me because my body is way more complicated than she thought or assumed or whatever.   If she feels I didn’t give it enough of a shot I swear to you I’m going to ask her what her advice is for handling vomiting acid from reflux, and then I might just take her down with my cane. Unicorns might fart glitter too, so I figure that means there’s a slight chance that one of the mean thoughts floating around might actually take place some day. *sassy wink* Anyway…lol I am so exhausted, but I’ve been trying really hard. It’s always been pretty much impossible to get Larry excited over eating chicken anyway, so now that it’s a main protein he’s really not too wound up over the latest menus and changes. Thank goodness for Pinterest and the bazillions of chicken recipes that at least make it look and taste a little different every few days. *laugh* I managed to actually get an “it’s all right” for two of the dishes so far, so I’m learning to celebrate the small successes. And I burned out my crockpot. Seriously. It can now cook 4.5 pounds of chicken on low to so done it shreds itself when you try to pick it up with a fork in just over 3 and a half hours! Dude! So I have a new crock pot on the way next week. I splurged and got the fancy kind that even has a probe on it. I figure if it keeps me from overcooking a roast, then it’s made up the cost of the upgrade all ready. *grin* (No matter what I have to have one item of red meat a week – I mean, I’m in the Midwest! It’s impossible to go without red meat fully and it’s also a very cruel form of torture to limit it, too.  Just saying.) By the way, I can’t even fake excitement over another shredded chicken meal. The blahs are worth it to help make meals easier though, since my fatigue has been so insane lately. I trim and prep the chicken breasts when I’m not really bad yet, then the slow cooker cooks them insanely quickly, and now I have precooked protein on hand, so I can get a meal in front of Larry within 20 minutes usually. Someone else will have to prep and clean up if I’m going to have enough energy to make an exciting meal out of it now though. Dishes are only awesome and exciting the first few times when they’re in a small rotation. *laugh*  Maybe my failing crock pot will short out and give me super powers, or at least super energy, in the next week.  Can’t blame a girl, especially a nerdy girl, for hoping.

As you can see from tonight’s post I get cranky and sassy when I don’t have enough red meat, dairy products, and energy. *wink*  I put my crankiness to good use though.  I even came up with super sassy ideas that would have worked as Anti Valentine’s themed products, but now they’re just going to be some fun and tongue-in-cheek items since I got too sick to get them done in time to market. I was going to wait to share, but you’ve read enough about the blahs to get some good stuff tonight! First, you’ll have to understand that I’m just not that into much of anything that’s really mushy, super cheerful, bright, or extra sentimental. I’m even making the “somebody farted” face just thinking about the words. To clarify, I can be all of those things (though if they happened at once I’m pretty sure I’d die, possibly from the shock to my system lol), but those moments are pretty widely distributed over my life and mostly avoided. *laugh* I may get all girly about glitter and pink, but add in anything cutesy and the “fart face” kicks in immediately. It’s totally cool that people are into all of it, but it’s just not for me (or especially Larry). And I found out that there are others that aren’t so into it either! (I even follow some Anti Valentine boards on Pinterest. Friends, trust me, there are some hilarious pins on those boards!) In honor of those that are a little edgier, shall we say, I wanted to make black glitter soaps for Anti Valentine’s Day. Mom and I made a batch of daisy soaps, named “Black Magic”, and a batch of skulls and crossbones, which I amusingly named “Love Bites”. I used a clear soap base, then a little new black sparkle soap bar color, and a few generous puffs of iridescent glitter that shimmers throughout the black soaps. Maraschino Cherry with an undernote of chocolate. I love these soaps so much! I’m not sharing pictures quite yet though. I’m hoping to build a photo tent box tomorrow and take pictures of them then, so I didn’t want to give in to temptation and share blah plain pics that won’t capture them as well. (See, I’ve been productive during my time away! I learned how to do photo tent boxes, took up Tai Chi [although I’ve only made it to fifteen minutes so far – but that’s big progress for a fatigued and hurting person], researched alternative causes for the liver damage, made a list of whimsical product names to invent products for, tried about twenty new recipes, and got quite far into my TBR pile!)

I saved the best for last, too!! Malice & Mayhem. Roll that title around in your mind a few times and delight in the perfection of that name. That is the name of my next batch of soaps. I got a silicone mold during my time away of small pistols. I’m going to sell a duo of pistol soaps packaged together with this name. One in black with glitter (can you tell that I LOVE how that combo turned out? Lol) and the other hopefully in hot pink. Malice & Mayhem here for all your gifting needs. *grin* I’m sure I’ll do later batches in some conventional, male friendly, colors too, especially since they’ll be awesome in the Redneck Combo, but this duo is for those sassy ladies out there. I really hope they go over well because I am so incredibly excited about them. The name, the colors, the mold…I figure I have ten months to experiment with the mold and maybe by next February I can do a sassy themed combo with “Love Bites”, “Malice & Mayhem”, and hopefully a few other whimsical and amusing items.

On that bit of cheerfulness I’m going to end my “return” post. *smile* Again, thank you for the support shown and hopefully I’ll have lots more cheerful things to post about this year like Malice & Mayhem! In the meantime, happy pampering.  🙂