Okay, I am almost afraid to say this out loud but….I THINK I FEEL BETTER.

After 7 or 8 weeks of absolute hell from nausea, unrelenting fatigue and just a constant sense that my pregnant body was under siege, I am starting to have more good days than bad (meaning that I DO still have bad days, like most of Saturday and Sunday of the past week when I mostly stayed in bed. Or in the bathroom, hunched over the toilet throwing up. Ugh). But it’s now Tuesday, and I haven’t taken any of the most helpful Zofran in 24 hours; today, I actually feel pretty normal.

Could it be that starting the second trimester really has been the magic mark? Having never been sick like this in any previous pregnancy, I didn’t know when it would let up, but an awful lot of women seemed to tell me that almost like clockwork, as the first trimester turned over into the second, the really bad nausea went away.

So I am knocking wood, throwing salt over my shoulder, begging and pleading with Mother Nature and just hoping against hope that this is what is happening for me. I am now into the first week of the second trimester, and this is the second day in a row when I have felt – dare I say it? – almost like myself. And as is generally the case when one has been very ill for a period of time, just feeling normal feels rather euphoric. Regular old good feels way better than good. It feels great.

On Thursday I am going to see what I am referring to as the pregnancy drool specialist. He’s actually an ENT doc who apparently has some specific expertise in treating my bizarro condition, which has now been officially diagnosed as Ptyalism Gravidarum (my doctor says he’s never seen anyone have it as bad as I do). I am hoping he has some tricks up his sleeve – and I am also kind of annoyed that I was never referred to a specialist for this condition in previous pregnancies, where I also suffered from it. I think I have just complained more loudly and forcefully this time. I have also discovered that taking a low dose of regular, old OTC dramamine helps A LOT with the PG. I discovered this remedy via my hours and hours of googling in an attempt to discover some cure that my doctor might not have thought of. I kept reading that dramamine is frequently prescribed for dogs who drool too much, so I figured, “hey, I’m a mammal with a similar problem; maybe it could work for me!” After confirming that dramamine is safe during pregnancy, I gave it a go. And I am happy to report (especially to other pregnant women who may find this blog post while googling for their own cure to Ptyalism Gravidarum) that it helps quite a bit. I take 25-50 mgs every 6-8 hours, and it doesn’t make me sleepy at that dose, but does dry up my mouth enough to offer some good relief. So there you have it. (FYI: It’s kind of embarrassing to admit that I have this specific pregnancy symptom publicly, but there is SO LITTLE INFO out there about it that I decided to share it with blog readers in hopes that I can help someone else who is suffering from this weird and not terribly common affliction.)

Even though I am feeling better physically with each passing week, I do feel rather anxious because I am so buried in the undone; I am terribly behind on so very many things. I have been keeping my head above water by focusing 100% on work. That’s come first during the past few months of hospitalization-with-virus-followed-by-first-trimester-hell. Jon and I agreed that everything else had to play second fiddle so that I stayed productive and met expectations on the job. So I have been a very neglectful wife, mother, friend, sister, granddaughter, housekeeper, volunteer, church attendee, dog washer, book reader, exerciser, entertainer….you get the picture. Many days (okay, most) in the past several months, all I have been able to do is go to work and do my job to an acceptable level. Once I get home at night, I’ve collapsed for the evening. Thanks be for Jon, his amazing parents (who have brought us supper more evenings than not in the past month. I LOVE MY INLAWS!!!), my sister Betsy, my amazingly understanding children and a few close friends.

It’s been a tough, tough, TOUGH couple of months in our family, but I am hoping that dawn is breaking. With a little help from Dr. Zofran

If you have contacted me in any way in the past three weeks (email/Twitter/Facebook/Blog comment/phone call/text/message from on high) and I have not responded in a timely way, I have two requests:

1. Please forgive me:  I am buried in a backlog of unreturned messages, many of them kind wishes for better health from wonderful people. Please know that even if I am still too exhausted and disorganized to respond, I have appreciated and savored every sweet word.  I may never get responses out to every nice message I’ve received since I got sick in early October, but please know that I would if I could. And I feel very grateful and blessed that so many people took time to wish me a speedy recovery. (And if you contacted me during that same period to complain that you hate my blog, or that I am a Bad Mother, or that I am going to hell because of that photo of my kid on Flickr where he’s wearing a Ramones tee-shirt, please know that I am praying for you, too).
2. If you have contacted me about anything that requires a real response, or even to which you would kind of LIKE a response, please pester me again…and again until you get one. Because that’s what it’s going to take for me to get back on top of everything in front of me at the moment. Don’t be shy. Just bug me and bug me until I answer you.  It may be a while, but I will eventually respond to everything in my inbox, even the email from the blog reader who asked where I get my eyebrows done (actually, I can take care of that one right now: Panache on Tazewell Pike in Knoxville, Tennessee. They do good brows.)
   

Thanks!

Yr Pal -  Katie

So I’ve tried and tried to get over whatever this virus is that is kicking my arse. I’ve been limping along, trying to work from home, mother, etc, etc, ever since I got out of the hospital, and I still feel so weak that just getting C dresed in the morning exhausts me. Everything makes me want to lie down and fall asleep. Driving feels unsafe. Cooking food feels impossible. This is a rotten way to feel, and I am very ready to be done with it.

Today I was supposed to do a presentation at a luncheon. I was really looking forward to it. Considering how sick I’ve been/am, the idea that I COULD do a presentation right now is sort of ridiculous. I have no idea why I continued to insist that I could do it. Frankly, it was rather stupid and irresponsible of me. But as soon as I woke up this morning, I knew I could not. And I had to contact the organizers and tell them. I felt just awful to cancel on such late notice (although I am happy to say that I was able to get someone awesome to replace me).

Having to cancel this made me realize that something had to give. So this morning I had a conversation with my wonderful boss, who made it perfectly clear to me that she had been thinking the same thing, and that unless I TRULY allow myself to get well – time, space and quiet – I would not heal, and I would relapse and end up back in the hospital. She really helped me understand that sometimes you simply have to let go.

LET GO…

A radical concept for me.

But I am taking Cathy Ackermann’s completely wise, yet somewhat scary advice. I am letting go, completely.

I am staying in bed and off my feet and asleep and reading a book or two for the next week – til 10/26. No client work, driving, meetings, proposals, Twittering, blogging….just resting…and healing…and letting go.

I still don’t really know how all of this will work. I am worried that clients will be unhappy if I am unavailable completely for a week. And how will I mother my children? Just getting them to school and back and to appointments, etc is a challenge. I mean, Jon can’t do everything. So I did something perhaps even MORE radical than this letting go thing. I actually asked for help.

I actually sent an email to good friends asking if they can help me with getting the kids where they need to be for the next 5 or 6 days, and I even asked for help with keeping my family fed. Now that was radical for me. I have trouble accepting help even when people ofer it, but to ask for help? I still can’t believe I did it.

And now, I am going to sleep. In my bed. I am going to concentrate on healing my body and resting and truly letting go. I am going to trust that this will all work out. My kids will eat and get to school, with homework done. My clients won’t abandon me. My job will still be there. My friends won’t think I am a big whiner because I proactively asked for help.

I will be WELL and I will get my strength back, and I will be myself again. In fact, I plan to send this virus packing, simply by resting, It’’s sort of a Gandhi-esque radical non-violent approach to getting well from a viral infection.

So it’s the rest cure for me (let’s hope it works better for me than it did for Charlotte Perkins Gilman).

I will see all of you again next week, after my week of complete rest and focus on healing. I’ll let you know how it goes.

So ever since I got so sick about a week ago, I have been trying to understand myself (as have a small army of doctors) what exactly is wrong with me, and I’ve had numerous people ask me to explain what’s wrong with me. After an overnight RE-admittance to the hospital on Friday (which included the dreaded spinal tap I’d been tryingto avoid since this all began), I think the docs finally feel confident saying what happened, and why I am so sick.

So for those who are interested, here’s the way I understand it, and the best way I know to explain it.

At some point in the past few weeks, I began getting sick with some kind of viral syndrome. We still have no idea what exactly this virus was/is, but the docs feel sure now that it was viral in nature. In the first few days, they were not sure whether it was a lymphoma or a virus, but thank God, it was the latter.

The virus crept up slowly, making me feel run down and sore in my neck and shoulders (that was why my neck and upper back felt so stiff for about 2 weeks) and then finally slammed into me like a mack truck.

The virus hit me so hard and so fast that it caused my entire lymphatic system to suddenly go berserk, which looked somewhat like early stage lymphoma on CAT scans, and some early blood work. But it was just my lymphatic system working overtime to deal with this viral attack. It also caused me to develop something known as “sudden onset thyroiditis.”

Now, I am told that I am still recovering from the virus itself, which is why I am so weak and tired. I have been sent home with the express instructions to stay completely off my feet and drink lots of fluids and sleep a lot for around one week. AFTER the viral symptoms are truly gone, then I will will follow up with various specialists (endocrinologist, oncologist, haemotologist, etc) to determine whether the viral attack has permanently altered my autoimmune system and thyroid in any way, or whether I am lucky (please keep your fingers crossed for me on this one) and my body returns to its normal functioning immune system, thyroid, etc.

So basically, the virus – whatever it is/was – really was like a sledgehammer, and now I will have to wait to find out whether getting beaten with the sledgehammer has left me with any permanent damage, like a limp of the immune system or something.

The docs also told me that if I don’t start taking better, basic health precautions (more sleep, regular sleep hours, better nutrition, better exercise, better balance of work/relaxation, etc), I am just begging for something like this to happen again, only worse. I consider this a very important wake-up call, and suffice it to say that a change is gonna come. I feel grateful and lucky….and still really, really tired.

So there you have it. Or rather, there I have it. Decisions to be made. Organizational changes to be addressed. Priorities to be prioritized… I never want to feel this sick again in my entire life.

It appears that we MAY have flu in the house. J’s been sniffly and had mild sore throat for several days. She woke up at 3am last night with headache, chills and generally feeling rotten. Hoping it’s not what it looks like it may be…

Working mother moment: 3pm, Weds afternoon. Deep into project in my office. Phone rings. I pick up: “Mom! I’m pretty sure E has ringworm! It looks just like that time my pony had ringworm! Remember that? Can you come home right away?!”

I decided that ringworm likely wasn’t a true emergency, and delayed my return home until after 5pm, as usual. When I arrived, I was pleased to discover that the “ringworm” was just a few bugbites that actually looked absolutely nothing like that time the pony had ringworm.

Once, when I was 11 or 12, I called my mother at work to tell her I needed to go to the ER because I’d badly burned myself when I tried cooking a whole egg …in the shell…in the microwave. She responded by telling me that unless I was bleeding or actively convulsing, it would have to wait til after her newspaper went to press that day.

By the time she got home, I was fine.

I cannot recommend the documentary “Boy Interrupted” – currently airing on HBO/HBO On Demand highly enough. If you know a parent who has a child of any age who suffers with mental illness or addiction – or both – today would be a good day to reach out and offer them some love, support and kindness.

And be sure to watch this important documentary – and encourage others to watch – to gain more empathy and learn less judgment for parents of kids with mental illness & addiction diseases.

Jon and I are both coming to terms with the fact that another baby is unlikely for us. Part of that acceptance for me has been trying to put the numerous miscarriages I’ve suffered in the past few years out of my head. I try not to think about it, and I focus on the family I am lucky enough to have, plus work and friends and life in general.

But today, I felt like I was suddenly kicked in the solar plexus – really, really hard – when I looked one week ahead on my Google calendar and saw  “DUE DATE!!” entered for July 27th. I guess I typed that into my calendar sometime last winter, when for a few brief, tentatively optimistic weeks, pregnancy #266765 was looking pretty good, after the ultrasound where we saw the little twinkling star of a heartbeat, but before the ominous belly rumblings that signaled the beginning of yet another end.

I deleted it.

I’m curious to know how worried folks actually are about this Swine Flu outbreak. Are you taking any precautions? Or are you mostly ignoring?

The scientific evidence appears to be quite clear: routine vaccinations do not cause autism. I believe in good science.

On the other hand, I have personally spoken with at least one very smart, very thoughtful, very non-hysterical mother who explained in an articulate, calm way to me the extreme, in-your-face, no-mistaking-it changes that overtook her toddler son in the hours and days after a routine vaccine — changes that marked the clear, bright line slide from perfectly “normal” child into autism.

And that is the story that so many individual mamas tell again and again: their toddler was talking and hugging and learning and interactig at a perfectly healthy pace until the extreme changes that occurred within 48 hours of getting shots at the pediatrician’s office.

How can we reconcile this? Science – based on epidemiology and population-wide studies – says no. But scores of individual mothers – the people who know these little people more intimately than anyone – say yes.

What are your thoughts?