Short, Choppy Update

My stomach is feeling better these days. It's still touchy, but as long as I'm careful, it feels mostly better. 

Oh, yes, my eyes. I have some new eyeglasses, picked up earlier in the week but not yet worn because my eyes were so tired.  I'm not sleeping, like hardly at all, and when I do, I have disturbing dreams that wake me up. I got about four broken hours of sleep last before last. Last night, none at all--but then I was able to sleep about six or seven hours today. That was great. (I know some of it is hormonal. I thought by my age, I'd be done with menopause, but I'm not, not at all. In fact, my period showed up a few days ago and it's a proper one, not one of the wimpy menopausal ones. I keep thinking I'm going months and months between periods, but no, I had one in June, so it's only been two months. Menopause is twelve months of no periods, but at this rate, I'll be finished with menopause when I'm 70. Is this why they call periods "the curse"?)

The days are shorter now and it gets colder, down into the 50s, at night. Fall is coming. My brain sometimes goes a bit haywire in the fall. It's been happening for decades, though not every year.

I have some new things in the sewing space, including a set of double wedding ring templates from Victoria Findlay Wolfe's shop and two eight yard bolts of fabric from MSQC that I'll use as backgrounds for things. I've only ever once before bought eight yards of fabric and it was of a fabric that I loved but which had gone out of print. I found a bolt of it in a fabric store in Santa Fe and bought what they had, all eight yards. I haven't used it (the only thing I ever made from the original yard I had was a fabric mask that I wore to get married at the beginning of Covid, my version of wedding attire.) The other new thing is a small photo printer--small, like just larger than a deck of cards small--that prints my photos onto sticker paper from an app on my camera. It's from Canon (a Canon Ivy 2) and I love it. I'm using it to take photos of some of the things I sew to include in my quilting journal.

As far as sewing goes, I've been slowly hand quilting my wall hanging. I sewed a new cover for my new quilting journal (volume III of my quilting journals). I sewed a test arc for a wedding quilt, using the templates I made myself from a pattern in a book and it was not great. I wasn't sure if it was the pattern, the templates I made, or my sewing skills, but it was just...not great. That's why I ordered new templates so we'll see how those go. I also sewed a seat cover for my sewing chair. Other than that, I've not done much sewing. I did do a bit of cleaning and straightening of my sewing desk. I put away all the fabric I had pulled out for various projects and I got it so that I could close all the drawers of the desk. (I tend to pile things in my way into open drawers to get them off the desk top, but that introduces a whole different kind of chaos into my sewing space.)

I don't know what I'm going on about. I'm going to go do some paper journaling, then I'll...then I don't know what I'm going to do. Maybe I'll try to get a nap in before bedtime. I have to be up in the morning tomorrow to go to the dermatologist. By the time I could get an appointment, the problem I'm seeing her for has cleared up, of course, but it's still worth asking questions about because it keeps coming back.  

 

The Week As It Is

The pain in my stomach goes on and on, though it seems, fingers crossed, like it might be trending towards better. Eating almost anything is still dicey though and I'm still relying Mylanta and Tums for symptomatic relief. So that's fun. 

Last week I started a new journal so I sewed a cover for it using some fabric I ordered from a fabric shop in Japan. I only had a quarter yard of this fabric, so this used up a good chunk of it. 

I also ordered these trimming tools, which are basically acrylic squares with grippy bottoms and small handles.  They start at 2- inches square and go up to 6.5 inches in half- inch increments. So far I've only used the 5- inch one, but I like having the full set because I'm crazy and also collecting sewing notions is my other hobby aside from quilting. 

This is my next project, a double wedding ring quilt.  I have templates but they are on thin plastic so I want to make better ones before I start cutting up fabric. 

And that's been my week. Oh--I also saw the N.P. who was completely useless except for ordering blood tests that show that my pancreas and liver enzymes are within normal limits.  It doesn't rule out other physical things like a hernia so my brain is still going crazy with anxiety, but it's something. 

We came home from that appointment via the DAISO near our house so I consulted myself with a bunch of cute stationary, some of our actually from Japan. 
 

Things

The pain and anxiety from day before yesterday has subsided somewhat--not 100% gone, but it's not as intense as it was. I still feel a bit under the gun today, which I attribute in part to menopausal hormone fluctuations.

I'm back to not sleeping well, but when I do sleep, I have intense dreams. For a long time during perimenopause, my dreams went away. I did not dream at all for several years and then a little more than three years ago, they came back. They were more intense just before and during my period, then they would go away again until the next time. 

I think we are just at the beginning of understanding how hormonal shifts in perimenopause and menopause affect us, not just our bodies but our brains. This is one of the worst things about leaving men in charge of medicine; women have gotten the short shrift when it comes to things that don't affect men, like menopause or pregnancy or anything gynecological really--and even when it comes to things that do affect men, like heart disease or even simply medication dosing, those are all based on men's bodies and men's reactions and symptoms, which can be markedly different in women. It's amazing that we outlive men (which is believed to be in part because women form more frequent and lasting interpersonal relationships than men do). 

I don't know what set me off on that tangent. (Is it really a tangent, though?)

So I'm up throughout the night, sleeping at odd hours, dreaming. Things hurt when I'm up and about, a kind of constant, low-level din of pain. My allergic reactions to things become more pronounced. I feel more emotional and shorter tempered, more impatient. Hormones? Getting older? Misanthropy? All of the above?

 

The Morning

Here's how my morning is going:

I'm right now, as I write this, in the middle of an anxiety attack related to my health. What prompted it was: Earlier this morning I got up, ate something, and took my meds. Then I lay back down on the sofa to try to nap. (I did not sleep much last night, was up from 2:20 or so until almost 5 a.m.) While I was laying down, I reached off to the right, not twisting, but stretching my torso at the waist far to the right, to reach something on the far side of the coffee table. As soon as I did so, I immediately felt stomach acid burning from my right side, below my ribs, into my esophagus and I started burping. I took a Tums and lay back down, but it didn't go away. My brain started to think I had damaged something, my stomach, or I had caused a tear or hernia in that area. The heartburn pain spread into my left shoulder and back (which it often does). My anxiety got worse. 

I sat up to change position and the heartburn felt a little better, but not completely, so I took another Tums and decided that I should get in the shower because if I had to go to the hospital, at least I would be clean. (I hadn't showered yesterday.) I took a quick shower and had another Tums. Dave was on a work meeting, but he came in soon after I got out of the shower. I told him what was going on and he said it didn't sound like it was a heart attack or anything like that, which helped a bit to hear, but which my brain didn't entirely accept. He suggested I take some Mylanta and that sounded like a good idea (I had been resisting more antacids because I took my meds ninety minutes ago and best practice is to wait two hours after taking medications to take antacids). I got up and took 20 ml of Mylanta, a double dose, but my usual dose. 

That brings us to right now.

I can still feel the heartburn very slightly--the Tums and Mylanta did help a bit, as did standing in the shower and sitting up--but I'm still stressed out and anxious. (It's made worse by the fact that I didn't get much sleep, and the sleep that I got was broken up, not restful.) My brain keeps asking: Did I damage my stomach or something else or cause a tear in something by stretching and putting pressure on the area? Did I just cause a release of stomach acid without damaging my stomach or any structures around my stomach? Am I going to have to go to the ER?  

This is what it's like in my head during one of these health-related anxiety attacks. This is not even a very bad one. I am able to function through it so the panic is not overwhelming.  

After my shower, I put on the same nightgown I was wearing before. I should have at least put on new pajamas, but I didn't. It was too hard to think of and then find and put on new pajamas. My brain is/was preoccupied by anxiety. 

Doesn't this all sound like fun? 

Now I'm looking out my window at the greenery in the courtyard and at GK giving himself a small bath near the plum tree. We did not put out bird food this year (except for the hummingbird feeders), so our courtyard hasn't been quite as busy as it was last year, when the birds and chipmunks and squirrels and mice came to feast. (The rec this year was to not put out birdfood because birds congregating at feeders was helping bird flu to spread.) 

My heartburn is feeling a little better. A huge chunk of my attention is going towards monitoring the area where I first felt the heartburn and the surrounding areas (the left side of my chest, my left shoulder, the left side of my jaw).  A lot of my attention goes towards monitoring for things that are going wrong. This is part of the hypervigilance that goes along with the PTSD that comes from being a sensitive child raised by--or more accurately trapped in a house with--an often violent alcoholic. I *never* feel completely safe. I never feel completely relaxed. I hardly even know what those words mean. It's exhausting. Sometimes I can lose myself in sewing or journaling or painting, but that's like holding my breath underwater. It doesn't mean that suddenly I am able to live underwater, it just means that I can buy a bit of respite from the worst of it, block out the din of it.

There are two hummingbirds chasing each other around the feeder. They're sticking around a little longer than usual this year, seems like. I'm glad, but I don't want them to miss their moment. 

Last week, we had a snake on our patio. It was fairly large with skin in various shades of brown. Two spotted towhees screeched and screeched at it, trying to draw it away from their nest. We saw one of their fledglings (was there only one?) on the ground, flailing around. It probably didn't fall from its nest; the birds nest on or near the ground. The parents drew the snake away from it and into the plants near the pond. The fledgling stayed on the ground. Dave called the wildlife rescue hotline and spoke to someone to see what we should do, pick it up or what. They told him that the parents often follow their fledglings as it leaves the nest and they continue to care for it, feeding it as it hops around and learns to gather food and to fly.

We haven't seen the snake again. 

I spoke on the phone with my mother on Monday, Labor Day. We usually text but I called her because I had texted twice and emailed once but hadn't gotten a reply. We chatted for about an hour--she wants to get a glass topped stove and she was working on some sweaters to donate and was watching something on TV--and then I got too hungry to continue our conversation, my blood sugar dropping is not a good thing these days, so I got off the phone and made some lunch.

My heartburn is mostly better--there's still a slight sourness in my stomach--but the next few hours will be occupied by monitoring for its return. 

Futurama

I went for an eye exam yesterday.  These were one of the choices for glasses, nixed in favor of a darker pair-- but if the Rx is a good one, I'll go back and get these as a second pair. (Yes, I always still wear a mask in public places.)

It rained earlier in the week. 

And this big cat wandered onto the courtyard and hung out for a bit. She looks tough. Probably somebody's barn cat, poor thing. 

Ugh.

My right axillary lymph nodes are swollen and painful today as are my nasal sinuses on that side.  Something bad's happening, but hopefully my immune system can handle it.  I'm going to get some rest, etc. This body stuff is too hard for me to deal with.  When do I get to be a Futurama-esque head in a jar?