Oh airlines, oh airlines. . .

 

http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/10/travel/airline-charges/index.html

Sometimes I wonder how stupid some business executives think we are.  Extra charges for checked baggage, extra charges for carry-ons, extra charges for being able to pick a seat, extra charges for early check-in, extra charges for purchasing with a credit or debit card (how many people buy an airline ticket with cash or check?!.  They'd like us to believe they're simply "unbundling" their services, so customers only pay for the ones they choose to use.  I think I'd respect them more if they came out and said "we're doing this because we're desperate for more money".  Who gets screwed the most?  Families.  Especially families with young children. That's what irks me the most.

"In baseball stadiums, for example, you pay different prices for obstructed and unobstructed views.  This is now the same with airlines."  Um, okay.  Isn't that thinking why there was already a choice between first class, business class, and coach?  I cannot possibly be the only layperson who thinks they're going totally overboard with their logic.

A new way to enjoy a cup of tea?

While perusing Reader's Digest and enjoying a nice warm sitz bath with epsom salts??!  Hee hee, how odd certain parts of my life have become!  Another repeat tip from the support forums, frequent sitz baths with epsom salts are supposed to bring relief and aid in the healing process of ulcers very low in the GI tract.  So, once again, what the hell?  Why not give it a shot?  There aren't any side effects, and if it doesn't end up working, at least I will have enjoyed some nice hot tea in quiet.  :)

Another day of the funky chicken soup, lots of green tea with "really raw" honey, and super-incubated homemade yogurt with the same "really raw" honey.  I'm now starting to eat cottage cheese (fermented - that's supposed to be good) as well.  Um, and I suppose I have to admit that I snuck in a chocolate peanut butter cup.  I know it was a dangerous move, but I just couldn't resist!  NO abdominal pain.  

(By the way, that honey is DELICIOUS!  Regardless of whether or not you're ill, I definitely recommend you try it.  I was surprised that it's even noticeably better than ordinary raw, unfiltered honey.  A real treat!)  

I'm reluctant to be too optimistic because I've repeatedly been there before only to have things go downhill again fast, but I can't help but be hopeful that something good may actually be happening.  Time seems to be super warped.  It's so easy for me to think I may truly be getting better, whatever that may mean - just finding foods that will work with this condition, going into remission, or my body resetting itself back to normal (at least for now, I have to continue believing that last one is a possibility).  I feel like celebrating, and then a certain very practical and very special friend will say "T, it's been two days".  Oh yeah, that's not very long, is it?  But somehow it feels like weeks instead of days!  And this time it's been three whole days in a row that I've felt decently normal and had energy!!  (Except for that new rectal issue, but whatever, at least that doesn't make me fear I may actually die.)

The snow storm finally arrived, so we'll see how much snow we get tonight and tomorrow morning.  I hope enough to give us a good excuse to have a super lazy day tomorrow!

Goucher

Julian got a very nice folder and acceptance letter from Goucher College today.  They've also awarded him a $20,000/year merit scholarship.  It sounds like a lot, but when you look at the total cost, it's surprisingly not.  I'm not sure if that award will be in place of need-based aid or in addition to it.  For most colleges, the answer is the former, but there are some that award merit and need independently.  Everything I've read about Goucher is positive, so I hope it ends up being a serious contender.  Accepted Students Day isn't until April, but it would be super nice if we could make it down to visit before then.  I'll feel such a sense of relief when we have all of the acceptance and financial aid offers in hand, and we have all of the information we need to help Julian make a final decision.  

I'm so excited for him but at the same time, I'm going to miss him so much.  And I have no doubt the other children are going to miss him even more.  I've always said that Julian is the ideal oldest child.  He's just such a good person all the way around.  He still spends quality time with his younger siblings, and they look up to him very much.  It'll be sad for us all to not have him around on a daily basis.

All that training has come in handy

Several people have told me that they can't believe, on outward appearances anyway, how well I've been handling all of this.  I don't think I'm particularly strong, brave, or stoic.  I do think I've received some pretty good training and preparation.  Four natural childbirths helps you learn how to deal with pain.  And I don't have just the four natural childbirthing experiences to draw from; I have four labor preparation classes to draw from as well.  Yep, four.  We attended labor preparation classes for each one of the children.  I don't think my husband ever realized that most people don't do that, that most people sign up for one series and maybe an abbreviated refresher course.  Not us.  I wanted to spend as much special time preparing for the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th children as we did for the 1st.  I also figured I would learn something new in each class, and I did.  So I just kept signing us up, and DH just kept attending with me.

At the time, I don't think I ever considered that all of that training would come in handy for anything other than childbearing.  But I really think it has.  When I'm in pain, I do a mighty fine job at closing my eyes, focusing, breathing slowly, and releasing tension in the area that is tight as a knot. 

Anyway, yesterday and today, I ate my special soup and homemade yogurt with NO abdominal pain whatsoever.  Eating without pain has been wonderful!  Something we all tend to take for granted, but something I no longer do.  And I haven't had tissue loss for several days.  Yay!

Of course, to continue with the freakiness of all of this, I'm dealing with a new development.  I am quite certain that now I have either proctitis (rectal ulcers and inflammation), which is colitis' cousin, or slightly less likely an anal yeast infection (which could have resulted from being on antibiotics for FIVE weeks).  It's pretty miserable.  My poor body has stopped spewing pretty white chunks of tissue (from the colitis) and has started spewing ugly lagoons of bloody mucous.  One time, I was lying down resting and it just started streaming out of me.  Before, something like that surely would have caused great alarm.  Now, I'm so resigned that I simply sigh and say "ooo-kaaay".  Sometimes it is so intensely sore and swollen that I wonder if it's possible for a rectum to burst.  I'm trying to think positively - that perhaps whatever has been happening in my body is in the process of moving OUT, but I'll wait for time to tell, I guess.

No, I'm not calling the doctor at this point.  Unless they end up telling me I have colon or rectal cancer, I'm going to try doing as much as I can on my own.  I've done lots of reading, and I'm going to proceed treating myself as if it's proctitis and yeast, and at least getting relief from either of these conditions seems to be generally more promising than it does from IBD.

TMI?  Occassionally, it feels like too much information for me too!  I have a much more intimate relationship with my colon and rectum than I ever thought possible.  It's not a relationship I was looking to forge.  

And now. . .I'm off to make my tea - my special Brassica green tea with supposed special antioxidant SGS extracted from broccoli, topped off with some "really raw" honey that went straight from the hive to the jar.  I'd be so sad without my tea!

What do you know?

There are some pretty good songs out there about Inflammatory Bowel Disease (Colitis and Crohn's).  

http://jordansweeney.com/music/ibd_songs

I just had another bowl of my special soup.  It really is quite tasty.  In today's bowl, I discovered a big chunk of what I believed to be liver.  I know that, forever, folks have eaten organs, but *I* have never been one of those folks.  Initially, I was planning to take it out but then decided to close my eyes and shovel it in with a chunk of regular chicken.  I didn't chew that bite very well, but it did go down alright.

I also just had a cup of yummy Flora Max probiotics et al.  (This isn't a pill. That would be far too easy.  This is a pouch of "powder" that you mix in with water and drink.)  I had been taking the minimum amount simply because it's ridiculously expensive - over $50 for one month's supply at the minimum amount.  My thinking was "This is crazy!  How much can I spend a month on probiotics?!", but this whole situation is crazy, so now I'm biting the bullet and upping my daily intake in hopes that it will end up paying off.

I've also realized that I'm not the only weirdo blogging about this.  Here's a blog that I found to be particularly moving.  This unfortunate girl became afflicted at 17 years old, suffered terribly for years, and shares a very raw account of what she went through.  http://painandpoop.blogspot.com/2009_06_01_archive.html  It's a real cliffhanger, though, because she stopped blogging the day before she was scheduled for surgery to have her colon removed.  Ugh.  How did it go?  How is she doing?  I will probably never know, but I'm choosing to believe that she is making up for lost time, is out having many exciting adventures, and simply has no time to sit in front of the computer.  I really hope that's the case anyway!

"Does sleeping seem to help?"

That's what my husband just asked me.  I worked all day, came home, and was asleep by 6:30 PM.  I'm up now for a few minutes to basically get ready to go back to bed.  "Does sleeping seem to help?"  It does in that I'm not awake to deal with this.  Is that help?  I'm not sure.

Rotten day.  I did eat some soup for breakfast and lunch and some homemade yogurt with "really raw" honey for dinner.  Terrible day nonetheless.  I continue to be dismayed that my immune system / large intestine / whatever is acting in such a way that is totally against my well-being, and doing so in such a severe manner.

Frustrated that most people don't seem to process how sick I am  They still talk to me like I have a lingering cold.  I suppose because it's a bit of an anomaly for a seemingly healthy person to suddenly have a serious medical issue.  Frustrating nonetheless.  Someone recently said to me "Have you ever had a hemorrhoid?  Are you sure you just don't have a hemorrhoid?"  Yeah, I'm pretty sure.   

Maybe it wasn't the best idea. . .

Traveling down to NYC and back today, that is.  Six hours riding in the car was a bit much.  Sitting that long is really difficult in that it puts too much pressure on my colon and really bothers it.  On the way back, I needed to lie down in the back seat on my side to relieve the pressure and get my body into a straight-line position.  I have the same problem at work, sitting at my desk for so long.  At least at work, though, I can get up and walk around (and sometimes even take a break lying down on the floor).  When I was lying in the back seat, I focused on deep breathing and ended up falling asleep.  That was my reprieve.  My favorite part of my reprieves is the few moments when I'm waking.  My mind always seems to awaken before my body, so even when I'm in bad shape, I generally have a few minutes of clear-thinking and feeling good before my body wakes up and remembers it's supposed to be misbehaving.

Anyway. . . the visit was interesting.  It ended up being an eight-hour day for a 20-minute interview.  I felt like I did my part as a good mum.  Julian had never had an interview in his life, and this was to be the first.  On the way down, I went over with him what I suspected he might be asked, we reviewed possible responses, talked about what types of things to focus on, etc.  After his interview, he said he hadn't been asked anything that we hadn't discussed, so he was well-prepared for all of it.  Yay!  It probably wasn't the greatest trip to get anyone excited about this school, as it was particularly hustle bustle, and we ended up not having a chance to do ANYTHING besides finding our way to the school, finding parking, and then finding our way back out of the city and back home before bedtime.  I wish we had had a chance to spend the night and tour the school and such, but not this time I guess.  

And it was kind-of funny in that we were certainly the minority today.  Julian says that one of the things he likes the most about Macaulay is its diversity.  I think from their perspective, though, a lily white redhead from upstate would be an underrepresented minority.  Julian would be adding to the diversity for them!  :)  What a difference from the other colleges we're looking at. . .