Yes, I'm Still Sick

It's been a hot minute since our last touch-base - my apologies friends! Let's just say life is moving at the speed of light and I'm just trying to keep up.

I'm always trying to keep up.

Last week, my hubby was out of town for work and dysautonomia reared it's lovely head in the WORST possible way. I had a major flare-up.

My flares, for those of you not super familiar, can include:

migraines that last for days super nausealack of appetiteheart rate stuck in "exercise" modebrain fog Those are just some of the issues I dealt with last week. But I want to focus on one BIG one that's still plaguing me and I get a lot of questions about it:  Brain Fog
Brain fog can also be caused brain fatigue and it's essentially an episode of mental confusion. It can strike without warning and causes confusion, lack of focus, and poor memory recall. It can be caused by: lack of sleepmenopausestressside effects of medicationnutritional deficienciesdiabetesneurological c…

Last night, I posted something rather vague on Facebook. For the last few weeks, my world is very upside down and erratic! So, my post last night was a reflection of that. Everyone has their own version of what hell is - and I don't mean after-life hell, I mean hell on earth. For me, hell on earth is knowing there's an issue with one of my kids and have absolutely no clue as to how to help my child.

Let me backtrack.

If you're a reader of the blog, you know our oldest has Sensory Processing Disorder. His development is behind and when something developmental is going on, he regresses in one way or another. Lately, as he's finding his own voice, he's refusing to listen in class and also refusing to participate in activities at school.

I can understand how hard it is to live in his body. Working in an open office environment is enough to send my system into overdrive. But truly imagine what it's like to live in his body.

Closer your eyes and imagine someone'…

I am no stranger to handling stress. My life is full of stressors. But, right now, that stress feels different. It feels personal and it's affecting my health.

According to the Mayo Clinic, stress can affect your thoughts, your body, your emotions, and your behavior. Some symptoms of how your body reacts to stress are:

headachemuscle tensionchest painfatiguechanges in sex drive (YIKES!)changes to your digestive systemsleep pattern changes That's putting it mildly. 
Back in 2016, I started a journey toward alternative health and taking back some of my life. One of the most interesting things the doctors' notice was my stress levels were off the charts and it was because of work. They urged me to find a new job because it would be better for my health. 
Afterall, I work in advertising...where only the strong survive. 
But I am strong and I stuck with my job. I was recently promoted. Little did I know my promotion came with its own bag of stressors - like having to prove myse…

If you're new to my life - welcome! Let me catch you up a bit...

We are trying to conceive kid #3 and it's really hard. My body is problematic - aside from having dysautonomia and fibromyalgia, I also have interstitial cystitis. Something in my system is making it hard to get pregnant. This past month, I was on Clomid which was a horrible drug for me and it was an abysmal failure. It was horrible because of all of the side effects. And it's all fairly depressing.

When you have dysautonomia, you tend to feel your body going haywire more than most people. While I don't normally get pelvic cramps before my period, Clomid really allowed me to feel that pain. Additionally, most people don't feel ovulation but thanks to Clomid, I was in so much pain that I actually had to take a day off of work to deal with the pain. Holy. Hell. It was awful.

Along with pelvic pain, I had migraines, nausea, and moodiness. The moodiness is making it hard to parent properly ... especially …

Dysautonomia patients always seem to understand that when the weather shifts, so does your body...and not in the greatest of ways. What I didn't expect was the shift that happens in households during "back-to-school" season.

It's unseasonably cold in Michigan. This week, it'll be in the upper-70s which is great, if I can enjoy it. Last week, it was in the 50s and 60s. It made for a great first week of school for kid #1 but a horrific week for my body.

Back to school is a different kind of change for us - especially kid #1 who has Sensory Processing Disorder. We took him to his occupational therapy appointment last week and his therapist came out after a half hour and said she hasn't seen him this wound up since his first day with her. My heart sank. A half hour before, his kindergarten teacher called to talk about him. He got up every half hour to go to the bathroom. I explained it's one of three things:

He actually had to go to the bathroom ever 30 minute…

There's so much running through my brain right now that it's hard for me to put my thoughts into words but I'm going to try.

My grandfather went into the hospital on my anniversary - he was ill and very uncomfortable. Four days later he passed away. He died last Saturday, which coincided with the day Nazis decided to take over Charlottesville and were met with resistance.

I missed most of the action on the news because I was so focused on my ailing grandfather. I'm glad I did. Let me say it, again: I'm glad I missed the action. I was right where I needed to be.

In case you haven't figured it out, I'm Jewish. I come from a very long line of proud Jews and I'm the product of four Holocaust survivors.

I'm grateful my grandfather missed the insane action on Saturday.

He moved to this country with my grandmother and father after the Holocaust. He rebuilt his life, the community around him, and his family. He was one of those people who built a community…

As someone with a chronic illness, I know most of my limitations. If I do too much in the morning, I'm not doing anything after 2pm. If I do too much in the evening, I will feel like I had the best work out of my life, but in a painful way, the next morning.

Yet, I'm active. As active as I can be. I get tired easily, though.

Case-in-point: I had a rough day yesterday. The news about the death of a friend hit me really hard. I didn't want to parent - I wanted to be left alone to process my feelings. However, one kid needed to go to Occupational Therapy and I had to drag the other along with him. It was exhausting. I had to rest when I got home before meeting some family for dinner.

That doesn't sound like stuff that should be exhausting but it is.

A post on The Mighty got me thinking. There's so much stuff we share within our community of similar people that we don't share online for various fears. Those fears are anything from judgement that we look tired to j…