#i did this with benadryl a bunch of times in my past

[raincamp]

does anyone else od on random otc pills to s/h or is that just a me thing?

[mandana-the-service-pup]

The long post.

We had a great time visiting friends and family. Mandana exceeded everyones expectations. She’s a really cool dog. Everyone loved her and she was thriving with all the attention she was getting.

We had a bunch of people over all night and she handled it really well. Most of her time was spent going person to person for scritches. She chose my older brother as her favorite. He was dressed like Hubbins and saved her from a bug on the floor so she will forever love him for that 😂 When it was way past her bedtime she laid down and periodically groaned so everyone knew she was tired. We’ve been home for a while now and all she wants to do is sleep lol

When we visited with my grandmother her demeanor completely changed. She was very calm and gentle. Rather than pushing her for scritches like she does everyone else she just laid down at her feet and took a nap. She got to run around my grandmothers beautiful yard and would periodically check in with her with a gentle nuzzle before wandering off again. When we were leaving her house she did a really nice blood pressure alert and my grandmother got to witness it which was nice because it reassures her that I’m being taken care of. I’m not sure when I’ll be able to see my elderly grandmother again so I’m glad we had such a nice visit.

Speaking of yards, she got to explore several different ones (video is from the Airbnb) and didn’t have an allergic reaction (besides the bug bite at the gas station) until we got home. Within an hour of sniffing the plants outside and going potty she had an allergic reaction around her eyes and that was with Benadryl and an immediate bath afterwards. Combine that with the extreme reaction she had from the bug bite and it has me worried. I’m going to have to talk to my vet about maybe carrying an epipen for her. @doomspaniels brought up recently that maybe it’s mast cell related and I think that’s something I need to seriously consider. It’s also concerning because if this environmental exposure is causing her so many problems it’s probably having an effect on us to some extent as well.

Anyways she did really well on this trip. She had her first bus ride, first plane ride, first night away from home, first real restaurant experience, first time visiting with so many new people. She only made a couple of mistakes the whole trip. Both of which had to do with other dogs. At one point she barked at my in-laws dog who was barking at her behind a glass door but otherwise ignored her. The other time she barked was actually in public access so that was stressful.

We went to a restaurant and she did an amazing alert. She completely ignored the crowded pizzeria/arcade and did some intelligent disobedience by alerting for nearly half an hour nonstop until I finally asked her if it was a blood sugar alert (which is was) and then immediately settled once I was taken care of and feeling better. I was shaking and confused so it took me some time to realize why she was staring at me without breaking eye contact for so long (as seen in the picture below) but she was doing her job perfectly I just wasn’t interpreting her alerts correctly. I need to teach her a different behavior for blood sugar that she can use outside the home so she doesn’t have to wait for me to ask her if it’s blood sugar. Her second mistake this trip (and the biggest) was when we were leaving the restaurant and a large/elderly/overweight dog walked in right when we were walking out. It was super crowded and she saw the dog before I did. She let out a single playful bark and then a second one when I turned to leave through a different door. It was within the bounds of what ADA allows because I was able to get her under control and we were already leaving anyways but it was still a huge mistake and a bummer after she had done such a good job.

I knew this trip was asking A LOT of her. We didn’t have much of a choice. Realistically it was our only chance to get the replacement car. Now that we have a second car we can start going to the training center again to work her around dogs. She never barks at dogs while we are training/working unless she is within about 10ft of them and even then she can usually ignore them unless she is heavily trigger stacked. Besides that, the barking is always in the tone of an invitation to play not an aggressive reaction. It shouldn’t be too hard to work through she just needs practice.

My other biggest concern for this trip was her back issue. She didn’t have any pain when we started our trip and surprisingly remained pretty much pain-free. She was cramped in a plane for hours, she was running and playing in yards, she was tied down in the car while we were in town and then rode in a XL Ruffland the entire 9 hour (realistically 13hr) drive home. Her response to the XL RLK was particularly revealing. A while back she outgrew the Large RLK we have at home. She can still fit but she would rather brace herself in a hunched sitting position than try lying down. I thought it was because of her back pain but in reality it might be what was causing it. Her behavior is completely different with the XL. She is eager to get in, she lays down the whole time she’s in it and comes out happily wagging her tail. When I “asked” her about it she said she really likes the “big car crate”. I’m still waiting for the second opinion from the orthopedic surgeon but my vet was surprised she was having any back pain at all since the abnormality is so small. Her opinion is that we shouldn’t have even noticed it to begin with let alone have so much pain. Now I’m wondering if having her in a crate after activities that was a little too small was causing the problem all along. (Mind you it fit when we bought it she just continued to grow past what we expected. We’ve been meaning to get an XL to replace it and this was the perfect opportunity to pick one up from a reseller)

So now the real adventure begins. Mandana has proven on this trip that she has what it takes to be a service dog and now we have the ability to train and explore in ways we were never able to do before. I still want to put her health and well-being before everything else but I’m starting to think that she might not be retiring soon after all.

[bakurapika]

hey quick update, i got hives (or something??? internet said it might be eczema but ive never had eczema like this in particular. but i also have no new allergen exposure) the other day and i have been gradually going mad from the itching!

ive been taking benadryl and ibuprofen every 4 hours and just did an online dr visit during my lunch break to get prednisone , but it has not been as fast acting as i hoped, and i dont think im supposed to use my hydrocortizone alongside it

like im sure anyone who saw me out and about these past couple days think i have some big time acne and im not like vain about that but it fuckiiiin itchesssss and none of my One Weird Tricks are fixing that. and it only gets worse overnight because i scratch in my sleep and don't wake up. (it is almost 100% in the parts of my body that are unclothed and easily reachable). im p sure im gonna have a bunch of little scars after all this 😩

[bouffees]

Hi, im in the process of figuring out a heart condition & I kinda need to vent/ if anyone has advice it would be appreciated?

So idk where to begin and it kinda might be long. Last year i was diagnosed with an arrhythmia and tachycardia. I take 40mg of Propranolol every am and it has helped a lot tbh. I had these palpitation episodes for years but assumed it was due to trauma/my anxiety for a long time. I was also a drug addict due to said issues but as of this past July 5th I am 5 years clean . Unfortunately i know that did its fair share of damage as well. Anyways in the past 5 years ive done a lot of therapy and as i finally became an adjusted member of society one would assume those palpitations would have gotten better but they did not. They increased, were random, without physical exertion or stress. Every time it began the same; my heart would miss a beat, like if you skipped a step going down the stairs, it felt like my heart was being squeezed and i had stabbing pain when I took a breath. Then it would go away after like a min or two. Last year right before i was put on the Propranolol (i had switched primary care doctors and she was concerned with my weight loss and tachycardia) the episodes were happening more and i was starting to notice other symptoms, then I had a really scary episode in September. Now, being an MA/nursing student i realize just how bad it actually was and how idiotic I was for not going to the ER. I was playing a video game with my bf and the episode came on, i tried to ignore it/held my breath except this time it didnt go away. At the time I hadnt graduated my program yet and had all my equipment at home so i grabbed my pulse oximeter. The reading was 140 at first and i was like okay lets try breathing exercises etc. But it jumped to 162 and at this point i was starting to feel numb in my left leg, my fingertips and was getting dizzy. So i was like um ok this is not ignorable any longer and got up to get my mom who is a retired nurse. I could barely get downstairs, i felt sick, dizzy, my limbs were FREEZING but my chest felt on fire and i was sweating. My mom panicked when i showed her my bpm and listen I dont blame her she has a TBI and although shes still very smart it kinda affected her emotional control so it was a mess. I went into self preservation mode and was like i gotta get my bpm down so i took a bunch of benadryl and one of my moms anxiety prns and laid under the fan with my head back and my legs up. Eventually it finally evened out. Next day i went to my dr and she immediately put me on a beta blocker snd did lab work, my lipid profile wasnt great tbh. But the Propranolol helped once we had tweaked it a bit and I didn't experience the episodes for a while. I still have weird symptoms like numbness in my left arm or leg, no appetite, once in a while palpitations but not rhe same intensity they were before. When im hot/stressed ive experienced dizziness/tingling feeling in my head/fingers. Im not really sure what to do moving forward, i know i probably need a cardiologist. Heart disease runs deep iny genes, both my moms parents had cardiovascular issues, and their parents etc. I also had substance abuse issues and ptsd. And the more time i spend in medical field rhe more aware i become. I just feel like its hard for doctors to take me seriously, i do have trauma/psych/substance problems in my file. A few years ago i had a very dismissive dr and although he tried to be sympathetic it made me feel like i was crazy and so i stopped trying to figure out these weird symptoms and told myself it was anxiety/trauma but obviously it got worse and now here we are. I just want to know whats actually wrong not just basicallt being told your heart rhythm is whack and it beats to fast? Im nervous and dont know where to begin/continue. And i just really needed to get it off my chest so thanks for everyone who actually read it through

submitted by /u/korinmuffin [link] [comments] from For issues related to heart disease, cardiac health and cholesterol control https://ift.tt/4chLKOQ

[posts-from-a-scarier-timeline]

So I'm in a coastal town I'm not going to name because I'm terrified but I think something really bad is happening.

Like 5 days ago we all got a series of emergency alerts on our phones from the police, followed by more emergency alerts from the Coast Guard and a few other branches of government. They all said the same thing: whatever we heard, whatever we saw, whatever we felt, DO NOT GO OUTSIDE. Then the TVs stopped working. Everybody was freaking out on the Facebook page for our town because we could only get the local news station and all they were telling us was that we couldn't go outside due to some unspecified emergency. Shortly after, we started experiencing massive earthquakes. I mean, I used to live in California, these are BAD. It's like every half an hour or so for ten minutes the Earth is moving like an ocean. My mom is away on a work conference a few towns over so my big sister and I ended up shoving all our furniture into one room and closing the door so it wasn't a danger to us, because like the cabinets and stuff were falling down.

Four days ago the power got cut completely. Our only communication has been our cell phones, where we can't text anyone or use the internet, but we're still getting alerts. People in armored cars keep driving by and knocking on doors. They're all in uniform but not one we recognize.

My cat got out yesterday and I've had her since I was a baby so I had to go get her. Since the shaking and the armored cars were on a pretty regular schedule I snuck out. I did find her and she's okay, just a little scratched up, which is the good news. But nothing in my town looks the same, it's all messed up. Like first of all, it's really really dark. I literally left at 9 a.m. and it was like walking around in dusk. There was also this thick dust everywhere and it got all over me and I'm all scratched up. A lot of the trees are dead and the leaves are gone which doesn't make sense. Every road I saw past the park has roadblocks.

There's also a bunch of sharp rocks everywhere, like spiky. All over the ground. They're also all wet and sticky. Overall, just gross and painful. The biggest rock was shiny and it had spikes but they were really small spikes everywhere instead of like one or two large spikes, and it was on top of the statue of our town's founder. It looks like a giant round boulder. I think normally I'd be worried about a normal boulder on top of that statue because that statue has had broken parts multiple times and I wouldn't trust it to hold up a boulder anyway but I also got this like, really intense weird feeling that scared me really bad when I came close to it, so I ended up leaving the park and trying to walk faster to my house. And I couldn't stop glancing behind me. Like the boulder was gonna follow me or something. IDK just really paranoid.

When I was speedwalking back to our house with the cat, all the dust in the air was making it really hard to breathe and I was thirsty. I'm not proud of this but the door to my friend's dad's little store was open and there was no one there so I drank a bunch of water bottles and carried a few more back home. I also took some toilet paper and some cologne and shaving cream because we don't have running water at home and I think me and my sister are both starting to stink.

I was totally going to pay my friend's dad back later but I ended up getting caught by this guy in uniform who yelled at me for being out. And I tried to explain, because, hello, my cat, but he just kept lecturing me. Then some lady in the same uniform came in and was asking if there was a problem. When she saw me she started swearing and then told the guy we had to report me to the superiors, and then they started arguing in another language. I was really tired at that point so I tried to sneak out but I started feeling really sluggish and weird. The guy caught up to me like 8 blocks later without his girlfriend or whatever and insisted on giving me a ride to my house, which was good because my house was like 20 blocks away. I threw up in his armored car and then I fell asleep for a couple minutes.

He ended up helping me up the steps and we got me and the cat inside but then I had to lay down on the couch. I've been really sick ever since I got home and so has my cat. We keep getting all hot and swollen and red and throwing up yellow powdery stuff. I haven't left the couch since last night.

The guy who brought me home is making me call him his badge number and is insisting on staying with us "until everything gets cleared up." He says we shouldn't have to stay alone because we're just kids. (Which is stupid because we're 15 and 17. We've been managing.) But he has been entertaining us by telling us stories and stuff, and he's been giving me off-brand Benadryl, so at least there's that.

I'm just really scared, honestly. He says it's gonna be a while before anyone can go in or out of the town or out of our houses. And he's been using his radio to communicate with people out of town but he can't get ahold of our mom, or any of our family. And no one outside of town knows what's happening because of a "media blackout." He says the uniforms are the good guys, that's why he's staying with us so I can heal up.

I hate not knowing exactly what's going on. And I hate being sick! I just feel so scared and alone and I keep hearing helicopters. I wish he'd tell us how long a while is...

lately you've been putting more effort into my blog than I have and it's been great stuff every time. Everyone thank @judefranknoir right now for pretty much co-running this blog at this point lol 👏👏👏

[chimaeracabra]

I am having some trouble focusing right now. I wanna do this assignment that is due next Tuesday so I can ask my professor questions about it during class tomorrow. I feel sad about my loved ones. Neither of my sisters are happy, and Nick is struggling. He called me almost three hours ago. It was the first I've heard from him since he went into the ED on Monday night. He sounded really out of it. He is somewhere safer than where I worked when I was in psychiatric care, which I'm glad for. He also said they let you keep your cell phone on the unit where he is. He told me that today he had images of skinning himself. I can't imagine what it's like to have these constant and sudden malevolent thoughts of self-harm 24/7. I wish he had never had TBI as a teen (he was mugged twice). Perhaps he wouldn't be having this problem now. He told me he saw the psychiatrist for the first time today and they recommended therapy. He has expressed before that he doesn't like therapy and doesn't really want to do it, unless it's CBT or DBT (he recently bought a bunch of psych books and a book about healthy coping skills. I wish he had brought that one with him to the hospital). I think he is preventing himself from even having a chance of improvement with his automatic negative thoughts. So, I hope when he gets out of the hospital, he will actually do therapy and stick with it. A few weeks ago, I felt like something bad was going to happen. I knew it was just a matter of time...

I have been having insomnia for a few days now. Probably because I am just worried about Nick and I'm worried about my twin. Fitbit says I slept for 4 hours and 54 minutes last night. And that was with Benadryl. Maybe tonight I will take Benadryl and my trazodone. I don't really like trazodone too much. I think it increases my chances of having an episode of sleep paralysis, which I really don't enjoy. But I seriously think some of the reason I constantly have so much foot pain is because I don't sleep at a normal hour, or long enough for my body to experience restorative sleep.

I woke up around 8:40AM today and was going to go straight to the gym but felt like crap, so I went back to sleep until 10:46AM. I would love to be on a schedule where I am asleep no later than 12:30AM and waking up around 8:30AM. I have been needing to reset my biological clock basically since I was in high school. Some days it is far worse. For a while, 2AM was my regular bedtime, but I am finding myself awake at 4:30AM, sometimes longer than that. Tuesday, I logged 3 hours and 44 minutes of sleep from 2:02-10:22am. Fuck all.

This morning, the gynecologist who inserted my first IUD back in January called me back about the ultrasound I had on Friday. Apparently, I have a 0.9cm polyp in my uterus that the IUD may be rubbing against. And she said that probably explains the breakthrough bleeding I sometimes have. I am annoyed as FUCK about it, because now I have to go in for her to take out my second IUD and biopsy the friggen polyp to try and remove it all. And if she can't get it all blind in the office with me on painkillers, I might require surgery. I'm a little worried, but she said she does not think it's cancerous. She also said my IUD is tilted somewhat diagonally, so I should use condoms until we can sort this shit out.

I'll be really upset if I can't use this form of birth control. If the copper IUD is in the right place, it's at least 99% effective. Nick and I can't stand how expensive our favorite condoms are (I cannot fuckin' do latex because it burns me), and I was looking forward to never having to worry about condoms.

The only thing I have done today that has made me happy so far was work out. I finally got back in my gym. Now that I'm a few weeks out from full vaccination, I feel a little less worried about contracting COVID-19. I only ran for about 23 minutes. First I did weights. I did the pull-down machine I like. I was pleasantly surprised to see that I can still pull down more than half my weight. I have been doing at-home strength training 3-5 days a week with all my dumb bells. I want to get my middle skinnier again, like it was about 3-4 years ago when I was running a shit ton. But I also don't want to lose my ass. I really see and feel how I have put muscle mass onto my butt, hips, and legs in general. I did my ankle weights after I came home.

I need to try and do at least some work. Then I want to write a story and I will try to have Benadryl and traz tonight and sleep before it's 2AM.

My mom is going on a date on the weekend, and I will finally be able to join her to go to NH to look at a place for my twin to stay during her residency. I also plan to make a batch of basil soap so I can send more to my mentor and my friends. Which reminds me, my dear friend Rueben is getting married soon. I got the formal invitation in the mail today. I was there when he met his fiancée (Rue and I were at the Museum of Fine Arts for an event, just trying to be social, and they struck up a conversation). I'm genuinely happy for him. We don't talk much these days, but he has been such a good friend to me over the past 7 or so years.

I hold the people I care about in such high esteem, and close to my heart. I just want everyone I love to be happy. The past 6 months with Nick have been some of the absolute happiest of my life so far. I hope that things can just keep getting better from here on out...

[devil-changmin]

Alright here’s the tea about things that “make you sleep”

I’m not even putting it in the tags cuz I hate it here

Alright so step right up welcome to the circus of insomnia (that should be my blog title honestly)

Caffeine has always been a weird one for me. Sometimes I drink it and I get so tired I have to take a nap. Sometimes I don’t feet anytning at all. Sometimes I get the like shivers or whatever like my hands shake and my heart leaves my body. I don’t know if that says anytning to you about anything.

So melatonin. We can just cross it right off the list I think we all know the drawbacks of melatonin. If you want to sleep for 4 hours and then wake up like sandy cheeks waking up from her hibernation, melatonin is your friend. I had a stash of a bunch of melatonin and yes it did help me fall asleep but I got annoyed because I would sleep for like exactly 4 hours and wake up again.

This evil thing. Diphenhydramine. You may know this classic from its presence in Benadryl. Benadryl and Dramamine and stuff that if meant to make you drowsy has never really made me drowsy or like not enough to make me actually go to sleep. I should have known right? My friend and I both had jobs that started early and I was staying at her house so we got some of this stuff to make us actually go to sleep. Right? Wrong. She was like “u know some people say this makes it harder for them to go to sleep.” I was like...no...please...don’t let me be “some people.” 20 minutes later she was fast asleep and I was laying in her bed slowly realizing that of course, of course, my brain could not accept sleep so easily. We don’t really need to go into the hallucinations but I did hallucinate and I did cry and I was very disoriented all day at work so I was not a fan of that.

Risperidone. What’s that? You say it’s not a sleep aid? You’re right. It’s not. One side effect is drowsiness (my phone tried to autocorrect to dreamcatcher so lol) but for me it only made me drowsy for the first few days I took it and then I was totally fine after my dose at noon to go to class and stuff. However this is somehow the most effective sleep aid on my list because I think I got more sleep while I was on this medication than I have during the past 6 months and I am not doing ANYTHING right now and I was a full time student then so I guess taking away your hallucinations really does help you sleep haha

Cannabinoids. Alright so my dad is a stoner. Like mega stoner. My mom hates weed but she’s been taking these pot gummies for help her sleep or whatever and they both keep trying to get me to do that too so fun ya okay. I tried my mom’s and it basically did nothing and then I took two and like also kinda nothing. So we went and got some that are like actually for sleep. Basically it’s 5mg of THC and 1mg of CBN okay lit right. The first night I took one of these like what even happened we don’t know. Basically, welcome back to hallucination. So then the next night I took half of one. It did nothing 🤩. The next night I took 3/4. It did nothing. I took 3/4 again the next night and slept for a solid 2 hours. The night after that I said fuck it let’s do a whole one again. WOW amazing I slept for the whole night 9 hours I love my life. Tonight I took one and omg wow. Nothing. I feel nothing. So now I’m just here.

I can’t even begin to tell you how much I hate it here. Yes I’m just complaining but like I just want to sleep and especially to sleep during the night because I just want people to stop being upset with me for not being able to sleep or be a real person or whatever. I have followed like every suggestion ever on how to sleep not just the ones I listed above and so many things people will recommend to me and I’ll try it for a while and I’m just like “it really doesn’t work” and they’re like oh :/ it works for me I don’t know what’s wrong and I JUST want to know whag it is about sleeping that my brain hates so much like we know it is bad I’ve literally sat on my floor crying from frustration multiple nights a week because the morning is COMING and I know I’m gonna be TIRED later because oh no I only have 3 hours and I can’t sleep and I JUST WANT TO SLEEP and then I fail school and I miss class cuz I was asleep and people are just like why the FUCK can’t you be fucking normal what is wrong with you and All I want is to sleep that’s all I want olease just let me do it teach me how it’s done I don’t even remember when I used to actually go to sleep and be like rested I have been doing this since I was like 13 I don’t even remember I just want it TO END PLEASE

And all of my friends who also stayed up late and stuff are like “oh I don’t know one day I just started waking up at 9 every day it’s so weird like I don’t even need an alarm” or like “I just evened out my sleep schedule” and they’re all like “omg we’re worried about you why are you still like this?” And I’m like i DONT KNOW please give me the grow up hormones or whatever that make you wake up I don’t want to do the no sleep/4 hours sleep/2hours/16 hours week anymore I don’t want to be a failure I just want to live

[swampgallows]

last night in the emergency room awaiting my test results i got really scared suddenly and i started crying. i really felt like, shit, i dont want to die, and i know im going to have to die one day, and what a miserable way to go by being hooked up to a bunch of tubes from a needle in my arm and a sata cable dangling from a bandage on my finger. i had to call the nurse to disconnect me just to get up and piss. 

i thought about how my papou died not from his blockage but from his surgery, how he never came back mentally from that fog, and how he pleaded with me to get him out of the hospital. “I’ve never done anything to anybody,” he said, and i sat there last night crying and feeling that same kind of desperation even though i had a feeling i would be fine. i was completely at the mercy of strangers. i was kind and jovial with them, and they were to me too, but obviously we don’t know each other. and i had the best case scenario: nothing was “actually” wrong with me and i even got to go home. but sitting there for that hour, motionless in a hospital bed, trying to distract myself from all the beeping and chatter outside my curtain, i felt like i was in purgatory.

i felt so frustrated. my mental health has been so abysmal that ive been rooted in stasis for so long, but that was nothing compared to the physical tether of a needle in my veins hooking me up to a machine. i did knock out for about 20 minutes after they administered the benadryl + compazine cocktail intravenously but it wasn’t restful. all i thought was, please god, let me go home. i just want to go back to my bed. and i know that’s all my grandfather wanted too. sitting there, waiting to find out if i had a mild stroke or an aneurysm or what, i was so unnerved. i’d never had a cat scan before. i’ve never been taken to a hospital bed before. ive never had to stay overnight at a hospital before. i just wanted to go home. 

i cursed myself a bit thinking shit, if i had just let this play out and taken the chance of it being just a migraine (which it was, thank god), i wouldn’t have to be here right now. i didnt have to tell my mom. i could have been home. but now im stuck here. and that’s my same fear of calling the hospital back up. “if i just ignore my mental health issues, they won’t throw me in the slammer. there’s no risk of being institutionalized if they don’t know.” i already fucked up once by telling them the severity of my mental health problems. though it’s quite dystopian to have to downplay your own conditions for fear that they will “overextend” their arm of assistance. i don’t want to be punished for seeking help, but that’s really how it felt.

and i know they can’t be saccharine to me. i know, as an adult, that the nurses can’t assuage me with “don’t worry, you’re fine” if the test results come back and i’m very much not fine. so when i was being wheeled to my bed from the cat scan and i asked, “do i have to stay overnight?” the nurse was being honest when he said, “it depends on your results.” these are just people doing their jobs. i know. and i know they must get sympathy fatigue too, especially working late hours in the emergency room. they can’t be fazed by anything. they were a stellar staff though and treated me wonderfully. still, as nice as they were, the entire situation is dreadful. literally, dreading the news of what your results will be, just sitting there wondering “will i go blind again? will i become blind permanently? am i dying? did something rupture in my brain? is it a tumor?”

i worry too because i sustained whiplash from the semi accident in 2013. my neck has been stiff and cracks all the time now, especially in the last few years, and im worried it might be a larger issue. and because ive been having to wear the same glasses since that accident with a huge gouge out of the middle, i think my right eye has gotten “lazy” to see past the scratch. im really hoping that when i get new glasses (i’m told this weekend, i hope it’s true) that my eye will perk back up again, but perhaps the damage has been done.

i’m really shitty at taking care of myself, and my mental health is a huge reason for that. most days i just don’t see the point, and then some days when i muster up enough self-preservation, i don’t know how. or, if i know how, i can’t. if i come home with something, it becomes, “Why didn’t you just ask me?” again, i’m punished for seeking help. i’m tired of needing permission for anything i want to do.

when we stepped into the waiting room, the first thing out of my mother’s mouth was that i was her baby. that i will always be her baby. that, no matter what, i’m still her baby. i know what she means. but with the station i’m at, being 29 years old, it doesn’t come across as charming and matronly. it’s infantilizing. it reminds me that no matter what, i’m still a helpless child who cannot do anything for herself and that my mother wants to keep it so. because if i still need her, then she’s still needed, and then she won’t be useless. meanwhile, i’m useless.

i want to have a job. i want to contribute to the world around me. i want to sustain my own life and take care of myself. i want to be a self-actualized person. i want to live my truths instead of hiding them online and having them fester in my body for fear of being punished by the people around me. i want to move out and live in my own place. i want a direction. i want a destiny.

but my world still feels so very small, and i very small within it. i have been trained to be invisible and small unless i am being boasted about to make someone else look good. i read and draw because it keeps me quiet, and i make jokes so that i’m listened to, so that i’m not making useless noise. i must be providing for someone always, and it doesn’t count when that person is myself. i let myself rot and go hungry because otherwise i take up space. otherwise i’m in the way. otherwise, i want for things, and i am demanding and a burden. otherwise, i’m selfish. 

sartre said in nausea that we are always in the way. even in death, in the way. our blood on the stones, in the way. 

no matter how small i make myself, there’s just no goddamn place where i fit. 

[loreweaver-universe]

All right, all right, people are started to get annoyed rather than laughing, so let’s cut this short.  Here’s the story of how my mom accidentally poisoned me!

So I have asthma.  This went undiagnosed until I enlisted in the Air Force in 2007 and subsequently passed out in formation less than a week in.  (It went undiagnosed, interestingly, because in the words of the Air Force medic who tested me, I have the lung capacity of a lifelong wind instrument player or long-distance runner--so it all muddled out to slightly worse than average, and we thought I just got winded easily.  Nope!  I’m a weird mutant whose weird mutation just doesn’t work.  Go figure.)  People with asthma, it turns out, are quite often allergic to aspirin--something I didn’t take once in my entire runup to my twenties.

The first time I took an aspirin, because I’d run out of ibuprofen (the stuff in Advil) and decided to try something else, I just kinda wheezed a little and didn’t think much of it.

The second time I took aspirin, it was worse, and I realized I was having some kind of weird reaction, so I stopped taking it.  Then I found out I was allergic because asthma, went to the store, bought a five hundred pill candybottle of ibuprofen, put it on my shelf, and didn’t have another headache for four months.

The next time I had a headache, the ibuprofen gave me a pretty rough asthma attack.  Because!  Guess what!  There’s a whole class of what’s called Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs, or NSAIDs, that are perfectly fine for asthmatic people to take...until they trigger their aspirin allergy.

After that, they’re poison.

At this point, I do a bunch of research and discover that nearly every over-the-counter painkiller available to me is ibuprofen-based.  The stuff that I’m told is safe for me to take is acetaminophen, the stuff in Tylenol.  Half the acetaminophen-based painkillers out there have ibuprofen in them, too.  It’s a nightmare finding stuff safe for me to take, and around this time my sinus polyps are really getting going and I’m suffering daily pressure headaches which is a whole other ball of fun let me tell you.  So I get in the habit of buying 500-pill candybottles of generic 500mg Tylenol tablets, keep a general eye out for safety’s sake, and otherwise largely leave the whole thing on the shelf.

I make it to my second year of college without another incident.

Spring of 2014, my mother’s in Bangor, picking me up so we can have dinner out, and I complain about headaches when I get in the car.  (I had surgery to remove the sinus polyps!  They’re growing back by this point.)  She hems and haws, because she has a couple Aleve in a plastic baggie that she keeps around for her personal painkilling needs, and she can’t remember whether they’re ibuprofen or not.  We look it up--there’s no ibuprofen or aspirin in it, hooray!  It’s got something called naproxen sodium instead.

At this point, we aren’t aware that acetaminophen isn’t just safe for me to take, it’s the only safe painkiller for me to take.  Naproxen sodium is another NSAID, and I’m in for a rough night, because I pop that sucker in my mouth like it’s the cure for nose cancer and we head off to Chili’s to try them out for dinner.

I’m pretty much okay when we walk in the door.  We order appetizers--I get a little dish with soft pretzel sticks in it--and we get to chatting about life.  As the conversation goes on, I get a little coughy, and a little snotty, and then I have to excuse myself to the bathroom a few times to blow my nose, because at this point my respiratory system is trying to strangle itself.  The pretzel sticks come and I’m starting to wheeze, but I barely care because I tried one of those bastards and they were goddamn incredible.  My mother starts to get scared, despite my insistence that this has happened before, and she and I eventually get up to leave because she wants to drive me to the emergency room.  While she’s apologizing to the restaurant manager (who insists on turning down her offer to pay for the food we ordered), I dash back to the table and grab the five remaining pretzel sticks, because screw leaving those behind.

So begins the most memorable car ride of my entire life.

Mom’s driving through downtown Bangor, starting to panic, because at this point I am audibly choking on my own throat, but I’m on cloud nine because these god damn pretzel sticks, man, holy shit.  I’m snarfing them down, and babbling about how good they are--and anyone who’s spent any amount of time around my mother and I at the same time knows my absolute favorite game is making her laugh--and generally doing my best (somewhat on purpose, even) to distract her from the fact that her son is suffocating in the passenger’s seat.  She, meanwhile, is doing her damnedest not to swerve off the road, because she’s alternating between hysterical tears of terror and hysterical tears of laughter.  She rolls down the window so I can get some fresh air, and I alternate between gulping down oxygen and suffocating myself with pretzel sticks because why are these so goddamn good.

Mom’s losing her shit laughing when we pull up to the hospital, and I’m red-faced, pretzel-less, and starting to slow down, so she pulls up to the ambulance door and runs inside.  After being directed by a very annoyed desk clerk to pull around the side, we go inside, and while I make a few more half-hearted efforts to tell jokes, I spend most of the rest of my wait red-faced and desperately dragging breaths through my closing windpipe.  I’m in a bad way, guys.  Mom finally gets them to bring me in ahead of some people who aren’t suffocating to death, and they pump me full of some kind of Benadryl cocktail, which makes me loopy and high and sleepy.  I spend a few hours drifting in and out of consciousness, high off my ass (and boy howdy do I hate being high) and at one point, because I’m in no state of mind to do social math, I tease Mom about getting me that Dave Strider figurine I wanted.  Then i go back to sleep.

Eventually, I’m good to go.  I get sent off with some information about my condition, plus the knowledge that this particular allergic reaction gets worse every time it happens.  The next time it happens, I may die before I get to the hospital.  Mom takes me to a pharmacy, buys me a pair of epi-pens I never wind up needing because I get religious about being careful what I put in my mouth (I still have ‘em, because I’m not throwing away three h u n d r e d dollars of medicine, what the hell is wrong with you) and...well, honestly, the night past that point is a bit of a blur, because I’m loopy from the meds and just had a near-death experience.

A couple weeks later, though, I got a surprise in the mail!

This is Dave Strider!  I almost died to get him.  Literally!

To this day, Mom and I tease each other about how she spent my entire childhood not murdering my insufferable mug, only to almost kill me by accident once I was out of her hair.  I’ve been sending her screenshots of your reblogs and tags and discord messages and she has been laughing her ass off.

So, I’m sorry I strung you all along for that long, but I did say my favorite game was making my mother laugh.

[regalgorgon]

On the “Raw Diet”

I’m really happy I get to put my dogs on the raw diet (BARF model). A 10 LB bag of raw chicken quarters ranges between $5 to $6 when on sale in my area. You can get chicken gizzards (hearts, livers, lungs, etc.) for like $1, and the most expensive thing would PROBABLY just be the veggies due to how you just get a bunch at a time but you don’t need a bunch (freeze them I suppose for later) (kale/spinach) that you steam anyway and give in very small portions (the muscle and bone content with lean meat consists of 75% of the meal while veggies and fruits and nuts are 15% and you give in tiny amounts).

I have 3 dogs, which can range between 1 bag and maybe 1/4 a week. So that’s $20 a week, bringing it to about $60 a month which is still cheaper than buying kibble that won’t give your dog cancer.

Giving your dog that $20 bag of Purina may seem cheap and good in the long run with no adverse side effects on your dog, but just like how grain-free is being investigated for heart failure, the cheap “affordable” dog food that has fillers and other stuff in it (when it is cooked into the biscuit form, it loses most if not almost all nutritional value) to keep a shelf life.

So a 23 lb bag of Blue Wilderness (the premium brand of Blue Buffalo) is about $58. Meanwhile you get 40 pounds of chicken on the BARF version of the raw diet for a month, for three dogs. Versus the $58 on the premium Blue Wilderness that you have to get another bag every 2 weeks.

Then you look at even the regular large bags of kibble for $20 to $25. You may be paying the same amount a month, which begs me to believe it is more worth it to swap them to the healthier diet with the same dime. You CAN afford it if you look at stuff that’s on sale and buy in bulk, or buy when you can afford it if you have a small freezer like I do (but we plan to buy in bulk when we move and have a huge freezer).

Honestly, while it may take your dog a day or two to adjust, if you have a dog that would benefit from the raw diet (again, there are several different types of raw because not every dog can chew through bone and they need different things based on size and specific nutritional needs- german shepherds need protein and fat, for instance, and need every part of the animal so it includes gizzards, chicken necks or bones, etc.)

Why did I switch my dogs to the BARF Raw Diet? Well we have been noticing some chronic diarrhea in my dog, Ares. And every now and then, Athena gets diarrhea to the point she can’t hold it and well.. messes happen.

We have been consulting with our vet every time, and so far we have to give them pumpkin every day. Benadryl helps when the grass is cut, but overall they seem fine which leads me to believe it isn’t outdoor allergies but possibly food allergies which isn’t uncommon in German Shepherds, especially the working coats that have high activity.

Over the past few months, we have only put them on three brands of dog food. Royal Canin, Blue Wilderness, and Hills Science Diet. We took them off the Royal Canin because we had what we believe to be a tampered with or bad batch because of the disgusting smell that we have never had before. Then we swapped to Hills, but it has corn in it and not recommended for my breed of dog. And then we put them on Blue Wilderness, but the largest bag is 23 pounds in store and they devoured it in less than 2 weeks with just the two of them (we have three, but one is still a pup- a baby that eats half as much as they do and they are on different bags). So we swapped them back to Royal Canin, but my baby boy just isn’t taking well at all and it’s been three weeks and his stool is just NOT consistent.

Remember when I kept mentioning my boy is sick and it’s worrying me? Well so far, pumpkin helps but it can’t be a long term solution as pumpkin, while good in fiber, has a property of it that can’t be consumed in large quantities else it will poison the dog. So I would need to give him breaks, and adding that expense onto the bags of kibble that is basically just feeding my dogs the human equivalent of ramen every day just doesn’t cut it for me.

My bf wants to get them on the PMR (Prey) model where it’s whole dead animals with everything attached, but imo we’ll see. The BARF model seems to be the cheapest and easiest at the moment.

Here is a link if you think this is something you might be interested in. It has models and transitioning methods as well as ounces, pounds, and so on to give you the exact measurements based on your dog’s weight.

https://perfectlyrawsome.com/

[civicmuses-arc]

@dreamsofalife​ continued from here

"So, uh, Marsha? Don't freak out, but...You're the one person I know who knows about magic who wouldn't be too upset by this to help me figure out what's going on."

Shy's voice shook, as did her body; she was loosely wrapped in a blanket, drawn up to her chest and draped on her shoulders.

"My back has been like...super itchy this past week, and I thought I was allergic to something so I took a bunch of benadryl and th-then this morning, something felt...wrong, so I looked in the mirror and...and..."

She let the blanket fall from her body.

On Shy's back rested a set of translucent, shimmering dragonfly wings in an iridescent blue-green color. They sat perched for flight, twitching slightly with the sudden movement.

Shy squeaked in pain. "I need to get rid of them."

Marsha’s eyes widened as the blanket fell down, revealing the dragonfly wings on Shy’s back. Well, that certainly wasn’t there the last time she saw Shy. She doesn’t say anything at first as she continues to look at Shy’s new wings.

“I guess just ripping them out isn’t an option.” Marsha reaches a hand out towards these new wings, but pulled it away. She resisted the urge to touch them. “This requires research.”

[tuellertrails]

It’s hard to put into words what our first week on trail has been like, but I’ll try.

Tiring. Hot. Cold. Amazing. Beautiful. Adventure. Ouch. Hungry. Thirsty. Dirty. Smelly.

There you have it!

Starting out the PCT was an emotional experience. It was surreal hiking those first few miles, and then it just sinks in “oh right, this is just hiking. And hiking is just walking. And walking is tiring. Wow it’s hot. Wait, how am I already this dirty?” We only made it about .3 miles when we came upon a little campground with some trail angels that we talked to briefly. One of them was an older man with long white silver hair and blue eyes named Legend who apparently is a triple crowner (has hiked the PCT, AT and CDT). He told us to put our hands towards the trail and then grab some air and cup it into a ball in our hands. He said we had grabbed a little piece of magic from the PCT and it is carried in all the hikers who had gone before us and that we were all connected. He told us to hold it up to our hearts to absorb, but being the brilliant nurse that I am, I held it to the right side of my chest instead of the left, so I guess that means the magic went into my rib cage instead. I’m not an expert in PCT magic 🤷🏻‍♀️ so who knows how it will affect me. Magic ribs? Time will tell. He also told us to take another piece of PCT magic and put it in our pocket to give to a friend. I will sell mine to the highest bidder. Authentic PCT magic, hard to come by, Bitcoin will be accepted as a trade.

Hiking has been very physically exhausting for me, more than I expected to be honest. We’re going about 2-2.3 miles per hour at this point, and have done 10-16 miles per day. We wake up between 6-7 AM, pack up our stuff and head out. Generally we eat breakfast at our first break of the day after 3-4 miles, and I’ve found that I need a break about every 3 miles. If we can get to a great spot for lunch, we will generally take at least an hour and sometimes more if it’s in the heat of the day. We try to stop hiking between 5-6 pm, so we can have time to set up camp, make dinner, roll out our feet and sore muscles, and write in our journals before bed. We are very tired every night, but sometimes we don’t sleep very well if it’s windy or very cold. I always take my trusty Benadryl and sleep better with it!

The hardest part for me so far has been the wear and tear on my feet. The biggest mistake I made at the start was not putting inserts in my shoes. My feet have been in a lot of pain and I’ve had to take more breaks to roll them out to continue hiking. No matter how tired I am, I have to roll out my feet at the end of the day or they fee pretty rough the next day. I’ve also been dealing with some blisters and some chafing, so basically everything hurts! Doing miles on miles every single day is a lot of work, and we are sore every day. Other hikers that we’ve met who have done other thru hikes assure us that we will get our trail legs (eventually) but it’s going to take about 3 weeks

Ok, enough complaining!! We have met some amazing people. Landon’s cousin Justin hiked out with us the first day and it was fun to give him a taste of the trail. There was a small group of people that we started with who have been a bit faster than us and are now ahead of us on the trail, but maybe we’ll run into them again!

We met a mother and son duo named Chris and Pat. Pat is a psychologist at a University and counsels students. She was the nicest friendliest little lady and I immediately liked her. Chris, her son, works in film media and is trying to become a landscape photographer. They were both lovely but Pat can't go very fast so I'm not sure we'll see them again, but we're following each other on Instagram now.

We’ve spent quite a bit of time with a small group of hikers, hiking and also hanging out with them in Julian (where we are taking our first zero day, no hiking and only lots of resting, eating and socializing). Half of them are not American which is exciting! Florian is from Germany and is a super interesting guy. He works for Google and has lived in Australia, the UK, and most recently in San Francisco. We talked about the differences between Germany and Europe, some about politics (how crazy American politics are compared to relatively boring German ones), gun control, Mental illness and lack of resources in America, our messed up healthcare system, the largeness of Australian huntsman spiders, and a whole bunch of other things. Lauren is from Canada and loves to quiz you about geography and ask fun questions. Today she asked "which animal most represents the place that you live?" Landon and I debated for a while and decided on a big horn sheep 🐑. She and Florian met on the JMT and are hiking together as friends as they both have significant others. She is always scavenging for everyone’s extra food and someone suggested that her trail name be Trash Panda (people give each other “trail names” on thru hikes, and then that’s how people introduce themselves. We haven’t gotten ours yet but it’s only a matter of time). I don’t think she accepted that trail name though 😂


Another woman from the group is from Germany named Silke who is a bit more shy but still friendly, and man is she fit. She just blazed past us on the trail today. We also gave her a piece of pop tart and some skittles to try, and she hated both, which was very funny to watch her disgusted reaction. She hasn’t built up the junk food tolerance that we have I suppose, it takes years to build and I started very young! Carolina is from the Czech Republic, and has a great sense of humor. I can’t imagine the kind of bravery it takes to go to a foreign country where you know no one and the language spoken isn’t your first language, and taking on a monumental task like hiking the PCT. It’s pretty incredible and I have a lot of respect for all the hikers, but especially the foreign ones. We took a picture yesterday before Carolina had showered and she said “I look so dirty and crazy!” 😂 I ask just about everyone “what does your family think of your coming out to do this?” and the most common answers include “they don’t really get it...” and “They think I’m crazy.”

Otter is a 58 year old guy who was in the airforce for 30 years and has spent the last 5 years of his retirement hiking and traveling. He hiked the Appalachian Trail in 2019. Otter said that he decided to hike the AT initially because he read a story of a guy in his town who hiked it when he was 18. The guy had to ask permission from the board of education in Virginia to graduate high school early in order to hike it, and they told him no, so he quit high school and did it anyways. Otter told us that he read that and it stuck with him, and he made it a goal of his to hike the AT someday. He said it took 35 years, but he always remembered that guy and wanted to do it. Just goes to show that you never know what kind of impact you can have on the people around you! He has been very kind to us and let us come to the Airbnb that he had rented to do laundry and shower when we got into Julian, and we have used the Airbnb as a hangout zone for our whole group yesterday and today, which has been great. After showering and having clean clothes, we almost felt like normal people 😂. In Mt Laguna at mile 42, we showered in a campground bathroom and washed our laundry in the shower like the hiker trash we now are. Real food from a restaurant and a cold drink from a trail angel (people that provide food/drinks/rides to hikers) is also incredible. When you’re living so minimally, the little things are a big deal!

Lastly we have Brandon, who I met on Instagram last year and was also supposed to hike the trail but canceled due to Covid. He ended up getting a permit for this year too and started the day after us (coincidentally he is also a travel nurse). Last night, after hanging out at the Airbnb, We camped behind the Julian Market (they allow PCT hikers to camp there) and Brandon came too. At 5:30 in the morning after just settling back down into his sleeping bag after getting up to pee, he hears a voice say “oh good, you’re up. I really need someone to talk to.” He looks over and sees this strange girl that he doesn’t know (and wasn’t there when we went to bed) who is wrapped up in her sleeping bag. He says “Oh, um..are you ok?” And she says “I have no pants”. And proceeds to tell him that she ripped her hiking shorts and didn’t carry any warm sleeping clothes because they were too heavy. He tells her that she needs to have warm base layers if she is going to continue hiking (and not die) and that she can pick some up at the gear store in town. She tells him that she asked the guy she was hiking with if she could come and cuddle with him and he told her no, so she knocked on some random strangers window at 3 AM and asked for a ride from Mt Laguna to Julian, and the stranger gave her a ride (and luckily didn’t murder her). So that’s how she ended up on that back porch in Julian, possibly staring at Brandon for hours and willing him to wake up to tell him this. Apparently she talked to him for about 45 more minutes and at some point said that she was waiting for her meds to arrive. He said “Maybe you should call your family?” And she said “no way! They’ll freak out” 😬. Landon and I were returning from using the bathroom and we walked right past them, I thought that they knew each other somehow and somehow missed the pleading desperation in Brandon’s eyes to help him in this incredibly awkward 5:30 AM conversation with this random girl. Eventually she ended up going to the pie shop across the street and sitting in there to get warm and charge her phone. Long story short, I really hope that girl is ok, because hiking the PCT is hard enough as it is without having any warm pants. Also, hiking is not a replacement for a support system and therapy. Be safe and get mentally healthy before you hike!!

One last funny story. This morning we were eating at a diner when the waitress came over to take our order. She looked at me hesitantly and said “Um...I’m not sure how to handle this...you have a spider on your hat.” I yelped and threw my hat on the table. She grabbed my hat and took it outside and gently shook it off and de-spidered it for me before bringing it back to me 😥. What a good lady!! Please tell people if they are wearing spiders and help them out. I guess I am just becoming one with nature now.

Anyways, this is long enough, but I just want to say that we’ve had lots of great experiences, seen beautiful scenery, and met awesome people. Even though this is incredibly hard, it’s such a cool adventure and I am loving having a great partner to experience it with me. Hoping my feet are doing better in the next section and that none of my blisters get infected! Our friends helped me shake down my pack today and I was able to get rid of at least a pound in weight. When you carry everything on your back, hips and shoulders, every little ounce makes a difference! Much love to everyone and thanks for the support, it’s been a great first week!

- Joscelyn

P.S. - I’ll post our daily mileage for anyone who is interested

Day 1

Start: Mile 0 Mexican Border

Stop: Mile 11.4

Total: 11.4 miles

Day 2

Start: Mile 11.4

Stop: Mile 26 Boulder Creek Campground

Total: 14.6 miles

Went thru Lake Morena

Day 3

Start: Mile 26 Boulder Creek Campground

Stop: Mile 37.1

Total: 11.1 miles

Elevation gain: about 3k feet 🦶

Day 4

Start: Mile 37.1

Stop: Mile 47.7

Total Mileage: 10.6

Went thru Mt Laguna

Day 5

Start: Mile 47.7

Stop: Mile 63.7

Total: 16 Miles

Day 6

Start: Mile 63.7

Stop: Mile 77

Total: 13.3 Miles

Day 7

Zero Day In Julian

[gethealthy18-blog]

Healthy Recipes for Kids

New Post has been published on http://healingawerness.com/healty-recipes/healthy-recipes-for-kids/healthy-recipes-for-kids/

Healthy Recipes for Kids

– Smells like wafflers, waffles today – [Mom] Smells like waffles today? (suspenseful music) – Good morning everyone

As you can probably hear from my voice, I got sick And so, this is how I'm going to sound today We have a later call today We don't have to be at the set until 11 so that means I get to spend a little extra time with my kids which is awesome That is definitely the hardest part about this job

Being an active dad is something that I'm sort of slipping on which really hurts One of the most important things in the world to me is to be a dad to these kids and I feel like I'm so busy and now I'm sick and so I'm like too tired to play and like run around with them and it's just like breaking my heart So it's nice to have these mornings where I can hang out with the kids and play – Good morning, everyone I am here with Mommy and Parker and Jacob and by the way if you guys are new, my name's Bailey

This is Parker – But I got her (laughs) – And this is Mommy Tell usoh, oops I pressed the button It was an accident (laughs) I'm with Mommy And tell us what we're doing today, Mommy

– Today we've been recovering from being sick with a cold – And we're making a snack Uh oh, hold on for a second, I need to flip this up Okay, so we're having a snack We're having a whole bunch of snacks and seeing how they taste and seeing if they're going into our recipe book

P-B and J Jacob's done with the J I'm still working on the and – Wewe just say this every time What do you do? (mumbles) – Hi everyone! We're just making this coloring – That's Jacob by the way (laughs) – And we're just coloring all the things that are good, and

– Dad is at work today You'll see a little bit of him in our vlog – Yup! (upbeat music) – So we're ready for the next page

Yup, ready, ready Freddy Isn't that great? We got a close-up First page! Check! – I'm carpooling today with a lot of people John, Colleen, Joshua, Corey, and me That's a lot

– A lot of people – [Dad] I offered to take the middle seat How are you doing in the middle seat? – I don't mind I'm in between two of my favoritist people – Awww, that's sweet

(upbeat music) I don't know if you guys could tell from that beautiful drive that we just went on, but today we're filming kind of out in the middle of nowhere So, it's a lot of forests and then all of our trucks But today's gonna be fun Look at all this cable What in the world are we gonna do with that much cable? Make a show for Netflix, that's what

Oh, speaking of which I want to say thank you to Netflix for giving me this mug It was in a little box that said 'Chris' on it, and I'm assuming it was for me, 'cause that's my name So, thank you It has been keeping my coffee warm and keeping me going even though I've been sick, so thank you

– This was so hard, so I started to cry – I told Mommy it was impossible Why didn't you believe me? – [Mom] And now why are you laughing? – We're laughing because I started to, I started to pretend I was a ghost under the sheet – And then I said, "Wait for me!" – And then we got all tangled up (kids laughing) – [Mom] You gotta go to the sides, like this corner goes down here, okay? Now, Jacob, now take your little corner pocket

Take that and put it on the corner of the bed You're almost there Just put it on, put it on Keep your knee there Yeah, yes! Okay, that's corner number one

Okay, you got that – Tada! – [Mom] Good job! – Now we have to put more sheets on – [Mom] Yeah, the next sheet isn't a fitted sheet This was the hardest one, 'cause it's the one that wraps under the mattress like that The bedroom situation's a little odd for us in Canada

We have three bedrooms, and all the kids desperately wanted to sleep together, but the beds are an odd size, so there's like a queen bedroom in one and then there's like a little toddler bed in another Parker sleeps best on his own so we really want to keep him in his own bed and I didn't really want the two kids sleeping in the same bed It is a queen size bed, but then there are two twin size comforters So they have their own space, and they kind of have a line there It doesn't matter that it's like a boy and a girl situation

Some people wouldn't know that if they didn't have a kid or didn't have an experience as a child sharing with a sibling, but it's been fine They've been good so far I wasI was like "Will this work? This is kinda weird" But it's been totally fine, and they're not supposed to like talk at night or bug each other, and so far they've done a really good job – We used to sleep in two beds Jacob's bed was a crib, and my bed was a princess bed, then we threw out the princess bed, and we got, and we got a bunk bed, and Parker sleeped in the crib, and I slept on the top, and Jacob slept on the bottom I thought it was pretty cool, because I have my own bookshelf in my bunk bed

– And while I was vlogging, look at the magic that Bailey and Jake have pulled off over here – So today it's really hot, and we're in a black tent, so we're all sweating, but this guy just got a haircut, so he's winning This is Josh – Hashtag winning – Hashtag winning

You should follow him on Twitter He's one of our producers His Twitter account is here So there you have it – Am I supposed to say anything? – If you wanted to

– I definitely will, but not right now, 'cause we're rolling (upbeat music) – [Chris] So the lighting today is a mess for this vlog because I keep finding myself in the most dark places The room that they have video village in today is just pitch black, super dark It's a giant room And we're just watching the screen over here, which I'll blur out

But that's what we're watching So it's either a black tent, or a giant, empty, vacuous room That's what my day's been Sorry, I don't have anything more interesting to say – The first night that I tried to cook in Canada, I realized like in the nick of time that I needed to put the oven at celsius instead of fahrenheit because usually it's 350 degrees, that's like the default fahrenheit cooking thing, so I started putting it up to 350, and it needed to be at 175 or something

What's the? I'm gonna look and see what the default Canadian thing is Starts at 177

That's likeso to go up to 350 in Canada is like burn it down So I'm really glad that I figured that out

Basically, this says pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees fahrenheit, and everything else that I've used here has given me some sort of celsius, except for this I don't know what that translates to, and I'm not going to look it up, 'cause that's how I cook So I'm just gonna guess that if 177 is kinda like 350, then we'll go up to like 200 (beeping) That's cool, right? Do you guys in the comments agree with me on this decision? – No, look it up Mommy, that's dangerous! (laughs) – I'm gonna, okay, I'm gonna go to 190 So we're going with 190

I might check my phone later, but for now 190 it is Whathow does this work? I have tons of packets

oh! I think there are four pizzas in here Are there four pizzas? Is there cheese? – [Bailey] No – There's no cheese! This is so unexpected

Defrosting that sauce – You gonna fill it to the top? Oh yeah, let's fill it to the top – [Mom] Look what you made! That's so cool – Can I see it? Can I see it? – [Mom] Jacob, Parker wants to see – Oh, that's so cool

Filling it all the way up – [Mom] With what? – With that – [Mom] What is it? – Cheese – And I only have this left – Good, can I see it again? – After I'm done

(laughs) – Can you fill it all the way up? – I don't know – Oh my gosh – [Mom] Do you want Jacob to save you some cheese? – No Oh my gosh It's really enormouse

Don't leave it alone Don't leave it alone Don't leave it alone Don't leave it alone Smells like the wafflers

waffles today – [Mom] Smells like waffles today? – Yeah It's really good

Can I see it again? – [Mom] Look at that, he did the whole block of cheese – Whoa! (yelling) – It's filled to the top – [Mom] Okay, enough playing with the food Let's make it – It's, it's

– [Mom] Okay, that's all you can have Do you want ham on that, too? – Yeah (Parker yelling) – [Mom] Okay

So this is where the creations are at now Jacob's adding some cream cheese – May I have some more cream cheese, Jacob? I need some – That's our take on the gluten free flatbread It's a gourmet cuisine, so I hope ya'll are really impressed

I know you probably can't redo this yourself at home, but maybe you'll want to try, I don't know Good luck – Ah, my pizza, ah, my pizza, oh yeah, on my pizza, on my, cheese on my pizza – [Mom] So wait, how are they? Jacob, how's your pizza? – Like pizza – [Mom] It's like pizza? That's like the last answer I expected

– All right, it is a little past 1 AM We have wrapped for the day And now it's time to drive for an hour to get back to where we belong And then we wake up in the morning and do it it again – Hi, let's talk about what we learned today

We learned that sitting in the middle seat isn't so bad when you're surrounded by your favorite people We learned that it smells like waffles today And finally, we learned that when the kids make pizza, it tastes surprisingly like pizza Thanks for watching, everybody We'll see you next time

Say bye – Bye! – I got the Benadryl, and it went away like after a day or two – Yeah, that's always the goal So we just have to keep track of you, buddy Are you okay? – Mmmhmmm

[sleepy-peachie]

Paris Day 3:  Pro-tip if you wanna see the catacombs book that like 3 months in advance and show up at like 9 am

This morning we woke up around 9 again and walked outside and found a flea market which was pretty cool since we couldn’t go to the one on Saturday.  There was nothing very cool there though but we didn’t linger long at any tables since the sales folks get pretty pushy if show any interest and it was mostly yardsale garbage.  We walked a little bit looking for a cafe for breakfast and the first place we looked at had coffee for 10 euro so we peaced out of there real fast and went across the street to le lithographie which actually looked pretty fancy but was a little more reasonable. I ended up getting a mint tea and croissant and ariel got a fruit salad and coffee.  This croissant was the best bread i’ve ever eaten i’ll never be able to eat the crescent rolls mom buys again and my tea came with a little kettle full of hot water and it was adorable. We got a seat outside again but under the awning so we could get the sun off of us since it was already getting pretty hot.  It was so nice to sip tea outside so early in the morning and just watch everyone around us.  Our waiter was really nice and spoke english and laughed when we still said “oui” instead of yes.  There was also an old woman getting her hair and makeup done at the table right next to us?? like she had a makeup artist/hairstylist putting her hair in a french twist with hairspray and everything and was taking up tables with the cosmetics all spread out.  It was odd but at the same time i strive to be that woman.  

We walked on to find the catacombs and walked past the montparnarsse cemetery and it was gorgeous.  We walked inside for a little bit just to see the little tombstone/house things.  All the graves were beautiful but we didn’t stay long since our feet were still sore from Saturday’s excursion so we walked on to the catacombs.  We could see two different spots where crowds were fro the catacombs so we walked to where there were signs and asked the man where we could buy tickets and at first he asked for our tickets an we said no where do we buy them and he said “the internet is closed” and we could buy them there so we walked away confused and listened for english from the people in line and asked a random family and tehy said you have to wait in line then buy tickets so were like oh okay cool and walk on to find the end of the line.  and then we turn a corner and are still looking for the end of the line and then we turn another corner still no end. until finally we end up at the original crowd we saw.   This line wrapped around a whole garden area and building.  We decided since it was somethign we were both really looking forward too we would wait we figured it would be 2 hours.  The line grew pretty fast behind us so at least we weren’t those people.  Then it had been an hour and we hadn’t turned the corner yet but we’d already invested one hour.  Then it had been 2 hours and we said okay were too invested to quit but maybe we should and by this point we were out of the shade and in the 90 degree sun and my feet were on fire.  Then it had been 2.5 hours and we started talking to the family in front of us and they said maybe another hour so we decided to keep waiting and we heard people behind us say it could take 6 hours some days and some parisians said the line was always this long and that it’s always just tourists.  We started talking to the people around us though and the guy in front of us was from Colorado and was getting ready to start college.  Him and his parents had rented a car and were driving around europe after a wedding for ~two weeks and were leaving for home the next day.  We also started talking to the group in front of them who were a bunch of study abroad students that had just happened to meet in a hostile that weekend. ONe girl was from the same town in Utah that Ariel’s family lives and it was crazy.  This town is so small and they didn’t recognize anybody either of them knew but it was still pretty cool.  There were two other students from Japan also just traveling. I kept on talking to the colorado guy and he was pretty cool.  His parents took it as an excuse to leave him holding the spot in line so they could get out of the sun.  we ended up being in line a total of 4 hours and the last 2 hours we spent talking to strangers and it was really cool and honestly made it worth it.  We all cheered when we finally got to the front of teh line and took selfies and ended up talking while walking through the catacombs too.  We got to the catacombs half hour after they opened at 10:30 and didn’t get in until after 2:30.  lesson learned there

The catacombs themselves were really cool and it felt soooooo nice to get out of the sun.  Some of the bones were growing moss from the lights and some were sparkly and its so strange to think all those skulls had faces and all those faces had lives and stories and names.  There were an estimated 2 million parisians in there moved from teh old cemeteries.  I ended up buying a patch from the giftshop and its probs my favorite souvenir so far. I wish my feet hadn’t hurt so bad or we’d have walked a little slower through the tunnels but honestly wanted to cry they hurt so bad. Also added that guy on fb and he talked to me for a couple days afterward over messenger.  He’s definitely enjoyable to talk to but it’s a bit strange since he’s only just graduated high school and lives in colorado so i dont know what the intentions were there but whatevs.

After the tunnels we started looking for bubble tea.  We wanted to try it the day before but we only saw it after we had just eaten so we didn’t want to buy any, but boy were we thirsty after standing in the sun for 4 hours again in 90 degree weather.  We walked awhile and ariel had a picture of a map pulled up so we were trying to find it, i couldn’t find it on the maps app so we were just hoping for the best.  We finally found it though and it was like a mirage.  The room was air conditioned to boot so we just died a little inside it was so nice. AND TEH TEA was so good, i got peach tea and the bobas were actually good.  I expected them to taste like chalk but it was actually like sweet jello and i loved them.  I liked it so much i ended up ordering a second one to drink while we walked, this time i got “jade” which had jasmine tea and kiwi, it wasn’t as good but i still enjoyed it.  Also this little Bubble T Paris had the best wifi we’ve experienced in all of France.  

At this point it was about 4 o’clock so we started looking for somewhere to eat supper, we figured creperies would be our only option and we knew there were some near our hotel so we walked that way and stopped at a small place on the street.  The guy serving us was really nice and he understood Ariel’s gluten allergy so we stayed, but the crepes were not great.  Kind of gross actually, i got chicken and cheese and it was a no go. We went back to our hotel after that and used the wifi and bathroom while we waited until ~6 to go to our trainstation.  

The trainstation was crazy as usual but we found the rolled ice cream stand miraculously and with ease.  We have very good luck with directions and finding things this whole trip and rolled ice cream is as good as it looks. I got apricot mint with pralines on top and 10/10 delicieux.  We found place to sit and were eating it when i felt eyes on me so i looked to my left and on the bench next to use 2 older men were clearly talking about me or us and i even made eyecontact and the older man who was closer to me maintained eye contact and continued nodding while listening to what the other man was presumably saying about me.  I was very uncomfortable and im imaging Taken scenarios.  Then they say excuse me, excusez moi and I answer and the younger guy asks where were from because they were discussing my accent and wondered if we were Englisha nd were surprised to hear we were American.  Then they asked why we were here and i was like “in Paris??’ like what kind of question is that.  I dont remember what i sadi but they asked if we liked it and i said yes and ended the conversation.  Then we left and waited on our train.  

They waited until the last minute to put the gate on the board but as soon as they did we fast walked for it since we were in car 16.  It was a forever walk but we got there we successfully found our train and could just relax for three hours.  This train ride felt much longer than when we were going to paris.  We could see the releif on sebastien’s face when we got out the train car though.  They gave us the morning off from the lab since they had meetings and we were exhausted, which was a huge blessing ‘cause i have never been so groggy in my life.  When we got back to the crous the wifi was out and it was around 11:30 so i went ahead and colled home to them i made it back safe, conveniently dad answered so i was able to wish him a happy fathers day and i told him all about paris for awhile.  i usually talk to mom so it was strange to talk to dad on the phone that long but it was nice.  When Pascal and sebastien  saw us the next day after lunch they were like “We couldn’t sleep all weekend! Were in charge of you!” I was so out of it though, i could hardly focus and i jsut felt so strange.  I had slept 11 hours and taken a benadryl to help get to sleep that night so that could be why or it actually was a result of walking 26 miles in one weekend and standing in the sun for 4 hours in addition to that.  My feet hurt until Wednesday.  

[gem-marie-blog1]

And So it Begins...

7:45am

Ok.... Today is Monday and the beginning of my intense regimen to try and kill as much lyme as possible.  I was unable to drag myself out of bed at 5:00 this morning as I had hoped.  Got up at 6:00 instead.  UGH... I will have to keep working on the early rising.

I started out by drinking 16oz of warm water with a half a lemon squeezed in.  This is to help get my system alkaline and to get my digestive tract moving toward detoxification.  I just finished my EmergenC for an extra vitamin boost and am drinking my morning juice.  This juice consists of 3 carrots, 2 apples, 2 oranges, 1/2 lemon and 1 inch of ginger.  It's pretty darned good!  

I also went ahead and juiced my lunchtime juice to bring down to the basement with me in case I get stuck down there.  It is 2 apples, 2 cucumbers, 3 kale leaves, a whole bunch of spinach (really not sure), and 1/2 cup of parsley.   It was supposed to have 8 kale leaves and no spinach.  But I only had 3.  So I supplemented with the spinach.  Not sure if I will love the taste of this one or not.  Will let you know.

Now to get the dishwasher started and gather my stuff for my trip to the basement.  LOL!  Seems awfully weird to be "packing a bag" for the basement. But... we do what we must, right? (The reason for this was explained in a previous post)

9:58am Just finished my workout and seriously feel like I am dying.  I only fell down once and only cried through half of it.  This, along with cost concerns, is the reason that I will not be taking this little circus to a gym anytime soon.  Trust me though, it's mostly this.  HAHA!  Who wants to work out next to the crying/falling down chick?  Um... NOBODY, that's who.   How awkward would that be?! I did make it to the end, though!  So, I will call it a win! I am now chilling (literally) in the basement floor trying to recover so that I can make it upstairs into the shower.  I just took one of my herx remedies.  For any lymie friends who may be reading, it is alkaseltzer gold with lemon in the water for alkalization and 6 glutathione capsules.  Supposedly this has a 70% rate of effectiveness in relief of herx symptoms.  Another thing that helps is benadryl.  I have taken one of those as well.  Now I am just pounding water and waiting to recover enough to ascend the stairs. The chills have already started unfortunately.  I fear this herx will be a killer.  It might seem counter intuitive that I am now putting an ice pack on me as I am shivering with the chills.  However, the cold helps lower my body temp faster so that maybe I can keep this herx from being too bad.  It is not pleasant.  Let me tell ya.  The cold shower I will take in a few minutes will be even worse.  It is about the most uncomfortable thing I can think of right now.  But, I will suck it up and do it. I want to be well more than I want to be comfortable. 11:04am Made it upstairs!  Woo-hoo!  Wasn't stuck down there nearly as long as I had imagined.  It was very difficult to bring everything back upstairs with me though.  I am going to need to come up with a better plan.  I know somedays I will not recover as quickly as today.  If the paralysis happens I have to be prepared to hang in the basement as long as necessary.  Will have to think about solutions. Now for my cold shower!   UGH!!!  Not looking forward to this at all. 11:20am Cold showers SUCK!   That is all. 12:35pm Well, Mr. Herxheimer is in full effect.  Seriously just want to curl up in a little ball and sleep.  I am freezing, my legs don't work right and the electric pain... Oh man.. Don't even get me started on that.  I think I will take a nap. Late Afternoon? My nap lasted about 45 min to an hour.  I got up and drank my lunchtime, green juice.  It was not my favorite.  But it wasn't horrible.  Took some more benadryl.  Read for a little while but my focus is not great.  One of the symptoms of my Lyme, that is exacerbated by the herx,  is something we, in the chronic illness community,  call brain fog.  It is basically just an impaired cognitive function.   This brain fog makes my recall almost non-existent.  So I read something and immediately cannot remember what I just read.  Half an hour of rereading the same three pages is not a very productive way to spend one's time.  So, I gave up after a while.  Will try again tomorrow. I hobbled out to the car with my stupid cane around 2:45pm to pick up the kids from school.  Got home and started sending kids to piano lessons at our neighbor's house one at a time.  Then they settled into homework.  By about 4:30 I had a raging headache which made me feel as if my eyes would pop right out of my head.  Took a little medicine for that.  Drank some green juice and went to the bathroom for the 200th time today.  My afternoon basically consisted of that.  Trying to snuggle under a blanket to get the chills to subside, taking meds, drinking juice and water and going to the bathroom.  LOL!   Really interesting stuff here, right? 8:08 pm Just sent the kids to bed finally.  I've been having terrible chills for the past hour.  I am getting in a detox bath asap.  Just waiting for the water to heat back up after the kids' showers.  I took some more benadryl a little while ago.  Sure hoping that will kick in and help soon. I was hoping that I would be able to only juice today.  My theory is that if I could do a juice fast for a couple days it will help flush toxins faster.   But my hunger got the best of me this evening and frankly, I cannot tolerate being this miserable and starving too. I am pretty strong, but not that strong. 8:56 pm Bath is running.  I feel terrible.  Should be going to bed.  But I can't do it without this detox bath. I want to be killing lyme even while I sleep.  So, I shall stay up as long as I need to in order to be certain that happens. 9:02p pm Ha ha!!  Oh for crying out loud!  Remember that brain fog thing I was telling y'all about? Yeah.. well just went to check on the awesome ginger detox bath I am running, expecting to open the bathroom door to a sauna.  Nope... I apparently had turned on the COLD water full blast rather than the hot.  So now I have a full bathtub of ice cold water.  Geez... what a pain in tha ..... ! LOL!  Seriously...  sometimes all you can do is laugh at this thing and move on. Now let me go put some actual HOT water in this tub.  I will talk to y'all again tomorrow. Thanks for reading! Leave me a comment if you want.  I would love to hear from you. Goodnight!

[quotesfromthechaos-blog]

“In (One Of) My Last Moments

Something beautiful happened in a random night of August in 2015. Me and my girlfriend went to our friend’s graduation party and had a great time with a bunch of great friends. Near the end of the night she couldn’t finish a chocolate chip cookie so she asked me to finish it for her. I did, but it was a cookie with an unfortunate surprise. The neighbors of the party had made it and it was a peanut butter chocolate chip cookie. Not only was I deathly allergic to peanuts but so was the girl of the party so to this day I’m not entirely sure why they had made them and brought them over to her house. Anyways I started having reactions, started feeling my throat contract, my face go red, and I felt outright awful. I got some Benadryl to try to slow down the reaction but it was to no avail. In my stubbornness I tried to stay at that party as long as possible and to pretend like I wasn’t dying, even though I indefinitely was, all to try and make sure I didn’t ruin anybody’s night from the phenomenal time we were having at her party. Eventually my friends, thank God for them, realized I was being too stubborn for my own good, and my best friend drove me and my girlfriend back to my house. It was then again when I was being stubborn to my family, of all the people in the world, and I attempted to convince them that I was going to be fine without medical attention. Mind you at this point I didn’t have an epi-pen because previously in my life they hadn’t worked in slowing my reactions before so I was never prescribed one. Eventually they too, like my friends, realized I was being an idiot and they rushed me to the emergency room. During the drive and as I was getting admitted, my health plummeted and I was genuinely dying. I got rushed back into the room and the doctors were having an extremely difficult time getting an IV into my arms because of all the scar tissue I had built up in my arms from recklessly building muscle in my past. According to those doctors I was “one of the hardest stick’s they’ve ever dealt with in their careers” but in hindsight, they probably say that to everyone who’s mildly difficult. Granted it did take them 14 tries combined in both of my arms so maybe they were telling the truth. Either way, by the time I had the IV in me they weren’t entirely sure I was going to be okay. I was ten minutes from figuring out if whatever they gave me was going to work for me. If I was to continue living, or if I was going to die. They were very kind to me and informed me that they could grab either one of two people who were in the waiting room to go see me within this time. In my mind, if there was going to be one person, I could bare to choose between my parents. So I told them this, “If it can only be one, get me my girlfriend, the cute red-head. If it can be two, make it my parents”. I had to choose the most important people in the world to me to witness me either recover or not, and in those moments I choose one of the loves of my life and the two of will love me for their entire lives. The funny thing is two separate doctors went out and they each grabbed the different numbers of one and two people to bring back. I just so happen to have all three of the most important people in my life back in that little emergency room. I’m not with her anymore, we had gone our separate ways in time, but if I had to go back I’d want her to know that I wouldn’t change who was back there or a single thing about that night. Despite our differences, and the way things turned out in the end I would never hate her, and that even in my last moments, if I had the power to change who was there for me in that time, I wouldn’t have changed it for anything in the world. It is times like these, memories like these, that will stay with us forever, and for that I am eternally grateful.