Imagine living everyday with a buzz of discomfort constantly with you.

I have a very high tolerance for hard work and discomfort. I worked in stable 60 hours a week as a teen tossing around hay bales. Have you ever lifted a hay bale? I had both of my sons naturally. I drove from Texas to Michigan with a kidney infection. I thought they went away if you kept drinking cranberry juice. I developed profound hypothyroidism because I just thought it was my lot in life to be uncomfortable and more tired than other people. I just ignored the fatigue and vision problems. I love to long distance run and like yoga. If I hit my hand, cut my finger or receive a superficial injury I almost don’t notice. These injuries are like single notes against cacophony of constant discomfort.

My stomach and gall bladder ache. It turns out my back pain the last ten years was stomach inflammation. My fingers hurt, my arms ache, my neck hurts. Every so often I will “catch” a hip and it will hurt like hell for several days. I don’t know why but it always goes away. This time it happened on a business trip to Amsterdam. It hurt so badly that I was having problems walking up stairs and down the street. I am 30. I left all of my coworkers and went to dinner alone so that my “illness” doesn’t compromise my chances for a promotion. The hip hurts and I then promptly “catch” the knee and the other knee as I start to walk funny to avoid placing weight on the first hip. My shoulders ache and my wrists hurt. The plane ride to Europe and back is agonizing. Not enough to make me cry.

I have only mentioned the aching once to a dr who said “no, you don’t really want to talk about that. Just rest a little.” I never mentioned it again. I come from a long line of women-six generations-with psychosomatic illness. We have a hereditary imaginary illness that causes imaginary stomach inflammation, imaginary gall bladder pain, imaginary nonspecific upper intestinal pain, imaginary fatigue and imaginary muscle and ligament pain. I am sure a bit of therapy might help. I think it should be called WWS for whiny woman syndrome.

The Dutch are very funny. They don’t apologize. They may say “my mistake” but really they mean “deal with it”. Get the fuck over it. That is my daily motto. Get the fuck over it and get the things I need to be done finished. Some days I look at my mom on fentenyl patches and I just want to sit down and cry. But no I get the fuck over, quit feeling sorry for myself and get to work. No body will save me, nobody will help me. The things that must be done will be done by me. So fuck everyone and get out of my way with your inefficient, stressed out drama routine. I have no tolerance or sympathy anymore.

I have become caustic.

new finds

ADH causes salt retention via a particular receptor in the kidney. Paper compared total receptor mutants to normals and assessed water loading-nephrology-

ADH levels increased in hypothyroidism. Results in hyponatremia-mild. Thus by default it MUST drop upon treatmentof hypo.

Typing is hard when holding crying baby.

requirements

4 "i love you" s a month
4 hugs a month
2 kisses a month
who needs sex...

walker

I did the irresponsible parent thing and bought a walker for the little grump. His wiggly, squiggly little legs want to do something. fortunately we don't have many stairs here in texas.

His little wobbly head wavers back and forth when he sits in it and his toes just rub the ground. In one day he learned that he can move the walker if he throws his whole body back and pushes his feet forward. The walker will inch back a bit.

Except he doesn't quite understand the feet push component of the equation. Most of the time he just throws his body back and doesn't move. About every fourth time he pushes with his feet too. contemplatively he sits and ponders how that just happened. His little brain is so amazing.

Sonya says he is far more wiggly than other babies she has in her family. If he isn't pondering he is wiggling

week by week

one week-first breast fed projectile poop-you must cover the rear exits at all times!
two weeks-he mimics mommy when she sticks her toungue out
two and 1/2 weeks-first time he grabbed his own long hair. The more he cried the harder he pulled.
three weeks-he started to get some fat
thrre and 1/2 weeks-first breastmilk bottle from dad
four weeks-first tiny smile
five weeks-first time he spit up in mommy's mouth
six weeks-first laugh
six and 1/2 weeks-he holds up his head, pushes his chest off the ground, and flexes his baby muscles
seven weeks-first time he puked down mommy's dress
seven and 1/2 weeks-first zantac prescription-happy smiles!
eight weeks-we laugh and smile and are fascinated by the dogs,we smile at mom when she comes home from work. we torture our father as he lacks the magic milk makers]
eight and 1/2 weeks-second time he spit up in mommy's mouth
nine weeks-second time he puked down mom's dress
ten weeks-we rolled over. It took ten minutes at first but then several more rolls followed. He quit when he realized you just get stuck on your back.

kid-isms

ethanisms for today:

Mom can you make your breastmilk into cheese?

(While I am using the restroom he is shouting through the door wanting to have a conversation) Mom I know you can multitask!

We are doing work with fractions and decimals at home this summer as well as cursive writing. Texas public schools are so obsessed with TAKS that they leave gaping holes in some topics. Today I was trying to explain what 7/8 actually means when you convert it to a decimal. So you have seven apples and eight hungry children. Each kid only gets a fraction of an apple-thus a fraction or a decimal of an apple. Ethan then decided that perhaps a more fitting example was eight hungry sharks and seven helpless children. Each shark doesn't get a whole kid. This then led into a discussion of how to approprioately fragment the seven children and we moved to a discussion of plato's world with perfect separation rather than our imperfect world.

Nyjah is six weeks old now. There are tentative smiles for dad and ethan as well as the closet and some of my friends but none for mom. I am the milk provider, not worthy of smiles. This morning he woke up cuddled in my arm nook after his morning routine of a thousand farts and grunts. His little eyes peeked open and he began to stretch every part of his tiny anatomy. His eyes rolled around and widened and closed, squinted and squished. His mouth got big and little and round, then pursed and puckered, and suddenly a little tongue emerged and got very long and then disapperaed into it's little cave again. His cheeks puffed and wrinkled and little lines became etched into his tiny, hairy brow. His head rolled in little circles, arms flexed and grasped and his whole body extended as far back as it would go, little legs pointed and fixed.

Then he relaxed and opened his yoga-asian-wise old man eyeballs and looked at me and milk.

colic log

2.5 ml of baby's bliss knocked little one out. There is no alcohol so what's up? turns out ginger in large doses is a sedative. No wonder all those testimonials talk about babies sleeping through the night.

Nonetheless ginger does seem to exhibit cholinergic activity in the GI track via muscarinic receptors. Perhaps it enhances stomach emtying or regulates contractions thus preventing reflux. Thus the ginger alone could explain the happy baby tummies. This is also supported by the happy tummy the day I ate ginger bread pancakes. Second hand ginger?

yesterday I tried a 0.25 ml dose after he got fussy. I try and wait till he is is a good amount of pain, clenching his fists and gnashing his teeth, also nursing, pulling away then nursing again. It seems like a bad idea to give the kid meds if he doesn't need them. The small dose seemed to help a little-maybe?-but didn't knock him out. But then maybe it wasn't a bad day to begin with.

Today should be a great test day. I ate thai food and iced tea for lunch. I am some sort of masochist. At 4 he got fussy and was cleching, biting, and scratching by 5:10 along with squels of pain now and then. Constant holding as he screams when put down. Tried 0.5 ml.

It's 6 pm-we are sleeping!

colic

It's 6:30 and he isn't crying. his legs are softly folded up on my side, not stiffly stuck out in pain. His little hands are relaxed and sweet, not grasping and scratching. When he nurses he is sweet and gentle and falls it a milk induced coma with little bits of milky, sweet drool falling out of his mouth. Very much unlike the frantic, jaw clenching, chomping that quickly gets him a pacifier rather than a breast. Now he eats a whole meal rather than eating and pulling away after a few bites to cry.

Ike was colicky for the first six months and was a vomit projecting, miserable child until almost a year. Lets hope little nicholas doesn't suffer so.

Ginger pancakes for lunch.