A month of riding the roller coaster

What does riding a roller coaster make you think about? Highs and lows? Screaming your lungs out? Nausea and vomiting? Well, that's what my month has looked like since I posted my Christmas letter.

The weekend before Christmas started my descent into the pits of nausea ... always overnight, so as to create maximum disturbance for my trying-to-get-some-sleep-for-work husband, of course. I emerged from the clouds of not-being-able-to-keep-food-down on Christmas Day, when lo and behold, I was hungry for Christmas dinner (prepared by my dear mom!). Unfortunately, my very growling and empty stomach was not ready for turkey dinner, and proceeded to return it all after I went to bed. (Sigh ... what a waste)

December 26 Facebook post: I have been too sick for too long this season. And now I am awake when I should be asleep.

Dec 28: I think the final indignity of being sick is that I can't sleep. My feet are hot and stiff and I have leg cramps.

Of course, another indignity was going to the doctor's office, being put in the back room in case I was contagious, having the doctor confused about whether food was going in or out, and sending me to get the materials to take a stool sample or two. Now I ask you, if you have been throwing up forever and a day, what effect is scenting one's own stool going to have on the steadiness of that poor tummy? Bleah!

Dec 29: I am returning to life ... still pajama-bound and tired, but not drag-yourself-on-the-ground tired. If I had to answer the questions that the pulmonary hypertension specialist asked this week, I'm sure he'd have me hospitalized. "Can you walk a block before getting tired?" "How many stairs can you climb before you have to stop and rest?" I did have to laugh at the one about the stairs ... if I stopped and rested, I'd never get upstairs. Momentum, that's the key ... you can always breathe when you get there!! Maybe I'll go look for some excitement in the washing machine.

Dec 30: Today's update: every muscle hurts. How can lying on the couch and in bed cause everything to hurt? Shouldn't rest make a person feel better?

On the plus side (or plus size): my appetite is returning.

Dec 31 ... I apparently thought I was feeling better and drove my bride-to-be daughter,her bridesmaids, and her mother-in-law-to-be to Kelowna for an afternoon of trying on wedding dresses. Yes she found one that she loved. And she bought me a Starbucks drink (caramel frappucino). But I returned to the nausea and vomiting all night (Happy New Years anyone?) and was wiped out for the next week. Didn't go to work at New Hope on Jan 3rd ... no point in making my seniors sick too.

January 7: Managed to get a lot done without leaving the house today (too much snow plus still recovering from whatever this was). Submitted 4 reports for the church annual business meeting. Yes, four. Clerk's report, minutes of last meeting, membership list (3 pages) and librarian's report. I rock. Or so I've heard.

Turned down several days in a row of substitute teaching ... no way could I handle looking after a class of kids. And when it got back to being my turn to teach Sunday School last week, well, I got sick Friday night and was so wiped out Saturday that I had to phone and get someone else to take my turn.

This week ... I managed one morning of substitute teaching in the high school my sons attend ... first period I did photocopying during the teacher's prep period, and second block I "taught" a grade 8 computer class. I was quite amazed because they settled down immediately and did what they were supposed to be doing. That hardly ever happens. And I managed a morning last week at New Hope and a morning this week as well. But I still seem to require a lot of naps.

For example: Tuesday - taught in the morning, napped in the afternoon, didn't sleep well at night.
Wednesday - napped in the morning, saw the neurologist in Kelowna in the afternoon, napped when I got home, and of course, didn't sleep well at night. Thursday - New Hope in the morning, napped in the afternoon ... still awake at 12:25 am.

So I'll wrap this up. I'm feeling better ... but not necessarily feeling well. Better than I was, but not "all better". Perhaps I'll sleep tonight. In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight.