Good IBS book to read.

I bought this bookawhile ago. While I admit to not having read it all, it has some great general information at the beginning. I keep rereading sections of it as things change with my symptoms. It helped me figure out that several of what I thought where safe foods where actually the cause of many of my issues. It is full of lots of recipes that look yummy. I never have time to cook like that these days, but someday, I really am going to try them all out!!  (this is not the cook book that is collecting dust on my shelf unfortunately…..). I ordered it through a local book store, not the site, but that was just because I don’t order anything online.  

The site itself has lots of great information and resources. Lots of great message boards where you can find all sorts of great information.  I hope someone out there is able to benefit from it! 

Beautiful Day

I love living in New England. Days like this are what it’s all about. It is beautiful outside! Beautiful! And it just so happens that I had to take a drive to buy cat food. I got to blare my radio with the windows down! Lots of fun! Except for the fact that I couldn’t go to all the stores I wanted to go to because I don’t have any money to spare this week.  I could have been lost for hours in my favorite stores. oh well. Maybe I can go back this weekend! The Kid needs more shirts, and a few more toys… yeah, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it!!

Today was a good day! I felt good all day and was in a great mood. Here’s hoping for a repeat performance tomorrow! I hope you all had a great day too!

Death by Olive Garden, Chocolate and Stress

This weekend was not a fun one. The best part about this IBS thing is that it changes all the time. Yep. That is my favorite part! Because without that, how could I ever unsuspectingly eat a meal from Olive Garden that I love and have eaten many times without issue and then pay for it all night long???  blah. I love Olive Garden’s chicken Marsala (yes, the original one, not the cheesy stuffed one). I love it! Every time we have ever gone, that is the only thing I get (granted, most of the menu is stuff I can’t eat but we won’t dwell on that…). But anyway – the Kid was away for the first time ever Saturday night so the hubby when to get take out and we had a nice quiet dinner with no kid to throw food. We hadn’t been there in a long time so it was a real treat.

And then I was up overnight and into Sunday with all the typical painful symptoms.  We missed the family barbeque they always have for the holiday weekend and Hubby missed the softball game.    For the record, I told him he could go without me but he refused.  He’s such a great guy 

But anyway, no more Olive Garden for awhile. BOOO! 

Of course, the way IBS works, I can’t really say if it was the yummy food or not. It could have just been a fluke. But I am not really all that inclined to try it again anytime soon. 

Then, on top of that, a single piece of the best chocolate ever (Godiva of course) gave me a wicked stomach ache. Hubby got me a box for Mother’s Day and I guess I won’t be able to eat it.  I just struck out all over the place this weekend.

Now pardon me while I go pout.

My Blue Plastic Safety Net

I’m going to let you in on a secret. Sometimes, my actions are a little…

(pardon me while I look for the right word…imagine the theme song to Jeopardy playing right now….) 

… absurd. Yep, that will work. Absurd as in totally inconsistent with reason or logic or common sense(thanks google for the definition).

For instance:  I have a bucket in my car with me at all times. 

Just in case. Not that I can ever imagine myself using it, but it’s there. If ever faced with the choice between bucket and trees I’ll know which to chose.

It has become more of a trash can now, but it is there none the less. On the floor in the back, on the little hump in the middle sits my blue plastic safety net. When I travel in the Hubby’s car for any stretch of time, it comes too.  I used to carry toilet paper too, but I am not sure what happened to that. I have tissues, they would work in a pinch.

Thankfully, the bucket is as untried as the camping toilet. And often I forget it’s there.

But it makes me feel better to have it anyway, even though it’s full of empty soda cans.

Ok. Your turn now. Anything you want to share?

I Made Him Late…

…Again.

Hubby had an appointment this afternoon. He left in plenty of time to make it. Then I asked him to get the kid and drop him off at home. He was on that side of town and it made more sense for him to get the Kid and drop him off then for me to go all the way across town and back. Gas is expensive! Besides, his apt is 5 minutes from the house. So I was supposed to meet him down stairs and get the Kid out of the car when he got here so he wouldn’t be late. I thought he had plenty of time to get there right on time.

Yeah, well, you’ll never guess where I was when he got here.

Go ahead. Guess. I’ll give you three tries.

That’s Right! I was in the bathroom. After all, where else would I be when I need to be doing something else?

ARGH!

I had been in and out of the bathroom for an hour and a half trying to get things moving with no luck. My body was teasing me. But of course, five minutes before he pulls in the parking lot my bowels decide to wake up and play.

So up he came to the apartment, got the kid settled and then left. He was probably 5 minutes late to his appointment. Most likely more. Now I feel so guilty about that.

For an added bit of fun, the Kid was a little fussy. He wanted to be in the bathroom with me not in the living room watching his favorite video. There is of course, no privacy any more with a toddler around the house.  We are going to have so much trouble teaching him that bathrooms are for private time when he spends so much time with me in the bathroom. Today he sat on his stool next to me “reading” books while I waited for my belly to calm down. The storm was calming down by that time, luckily. But still, it is not fun to sit there trying to entertain a kid while feeling crampy and nauseated.

blah. 

How exactly does one deal with being at home with kids while having an episode? You have to watch them, make sure they’re safe. But you don’t want them in the bathroom staring at you either. At least, I don’t. We have a little area outside the bathroom gated off so he can play out there but he has access to my book shelf and if we forget to close the door, our bedroom. Not good. Luckily, I guess, he is usually in the bathroom with me. Playing with the cat food, sticking his hands in their water, almost falling into the bath rub as he reaches for his bucket, trying to pump his bottle of soap, playing with the toilet paper, wanting to get on his stool to wash his hands, trying to get into the cabinet under the sink, *sigh* the list goes on. It’s just so relaxing! Anyone have any tips? I can’t leave him locked out of the bathroom screaming to get in to me.

Doctor Visit

I went to my GI yesterday for a follow up. The last time I went, I had to wait and hour and a half. So this time I went prepared with a book I really wanted to read.

They called my back right away.  Doh!

So anyway, he says I am doing pretty good. We talked about my symptoms and figured that I feel pretty good 5 out of 7 days a week. So not too bad. He told me the max dose I can take of the Bentyl is twice what I currently take. And he said that I can increase it if I need to when I know I am going to be in a stressful situation because that is a big trigger for me. And he said at some point in the future I may be able to get off the meds all together for stretches of time. I am not brave enough to try that anytime soon.

So now I am just going to see him when I need too, hopefully not for awhile.

Weekends are not for traveling

We went to the inlaws again. Had to party for the Hubby’s birthday. We left way too late this afternoon. Usually we leave at 10am and today we left around 2pm. BIG mistake. I felt sooooooooo bad. So nauseated and crampy. Everything hurt. I took my Bentyl before lunch. I took Phazyme for… well, you know what that is for. And I took Dramamine for my super nauseated stomach. I rode the whole trip with a bucket at my feet on the floor of the car but I made it. Finally. We are supposed to go back up next week. I just can’t $&@!&$! wait. Thinking about it stresses me out.

And we are all grumpy. Well, mostly I am grumpy because I feel horrible. And because the Kid is cranky. He got way off schedule and over tired and was just whinythis evening. And I have no patience. Sometimes I wish we didn’t visit. Especially those days like today when the weekend ends on such a crappy (haha) note. If we had come back at the normal time everything would have been ok and we would have been able to do our errands and we could be having a nice relaxing weekend. Instead we came back late and I had to suffer a horrible car ride and now I’m bitchy.  Yay. Lets go do it all again next weekend. I think I may stay home. Then I can have a quiet day to myself and the Hubby and the Kid can stay as late as they want to while I relax here. Sounds good to me.

Stress Relief

I am addicted to TV.  It is my stress relief. My escape. I only have basic cable, and no nifty tivo. But I am lucky because the major networks are posting their shows online!  WAHOO!  I am currently watching the entire seasons of Brothers and Sisters. I LOVE IT. LOVE IT. Thanks to my dear friend for suggesting it! I can’t seem to get enough. I am not sure what I am going to do when I get to the end of the season. Go back and start over I guess. I also love to watch (in no particular order):  Bones. NCIS. Notes from the Underbelly. Numb3rs. Grey’s Anatomy. And many more that I don’t usually have time to watch.  I love Monk, but as of yesterday, I don’t have the television station that airs it anymore.

My hubby and I are also big DVD fans. We have over 250. We don’t have room to store them all. Got any good movies to recommend?  Before you say yes, I don’t do gore or scary. Nope, I don’t need any nightmares. Besides, it has to be able to play while the Kid may see it. The Hubby rented me The Holiday for Mother’s Day. Now I must buy it. So anyway, any suggestions? Movies you love?  I need to add to my collection of crappy day stress relief movies. 

Today’s Anthem!

thanks to Rodney Atkins for this one… I got the lyrics from site I found through google. So don’t yell at me if they’re wrong.     I danced in my car to this on the way home from my agency job interview today. I sat in stand still traffic for way longer than I liked, thanking all that is good that I felt ok and that the biggest problem was how bad I had to pee. (Thank you IBS gods, thank you for 45 minutes of pure belly calm!) I watched 12 police motorcycles and a cruiser go past (No lie! 12! I counted them as they wiped by me while I stared at them longingly!). But apparently the road swallowed them whole because I never passed an accident, never say the cops again, but suddenly was going 70 mph again. hmmmm…..  But anyway, back to the song, dancing to it in the car was the highlight of my day… Especially since I had such a bad attack of D and neasea this morning that I had to stay home from work and was afraid I wasn’t going to be able to go to my interviewy thing this afternoon (more on that and how I hate having to be at work at 6:30 later….)

So anyway, here’s my song of celebration for today! 

Well you know those times
When you feel like there’s a sign there on your back
Says I don’t mind if ya kick me
Seems like everybody has
Things go from bad to worse
You’d think they can’t get worse than that
And then they do You step off the straight and narrow
And you don’t know where you are
Use the needle of your compass
To sew up your broken heart
Ask directions from a genie
In a bottle of Jim Beam
And she lies to you
That’s when you learn the truth

If you’re going through hell
Keep on going, don’t slow down
If you’re scared, don’t show it
You might get out
Before the devil even knows you’re there

Well I been deep down in that darkness
I been down to my last match
Felt a hundred different demons
Breathing fire down my back
And I knew that if I stumbled
I’d fall right into the trap that they were laying, yeah

But the good news
Is there’s angels everywhere out on the street
Holding out a hand to pull you back up on your feet
The one’s that you’ve been dragging for so long
You’re on your knees
You might as well be praying
Guess what I’m saying

If your going through hell
Keep on going, don’t slow down
If you’re scared don’t show it
You might get out
Before the devil even knows you’re there

Excuse me now while I go dance around my living room…

Stress

The kid is sick. Mysterious fever. Yeah.

Our lease it up in two months, we have to decide what we’re going to do now. We have to tell them by this weekend. Sign a 12 month lease with the rent at the same rate and pay a $2000 fine for breaking it in a couple of months. Or sign a month-to-month lease and pay extra money a month until I find a job and we figure out where we’re going to live. I have no idea where we’re going to come up with more money for rent each month.

I’m still job hunting, with little luck. The clock is ticking VERY LOUDLY.

We have to travel this weekend. I still don’t feel normal after this past week and half of major intestinal upset. I feel better, but not what passes for “normal” around here.

I’m just a little stressed.