Summer Break Week 3

Apparently I had a lot of anxiety going into this week and it all came to head on Sunday when I had the worst stress-anxiety attack I have had in a long time. I realized I have been ignoring my health and it’s been bad for awhile. I have IBS-C, type two diabetes, chronic fatigue, brain fog...anyway I made myself a doctors appointment this week and it’s tomorrow and I’m nervous. I am also grieving because I had a whole month--a whole month--where I had zero IBS-C symptoms. This has never happened to me before. I thought I was cured. I have been devastated that my chronic illness is back and I don’t understand what my body is trying to tell me. What am I doing wrong? I must be doing something wrong. What was I doing right last month?? I haven’t changed anything!! Why is this happening and how do I get back to three weeks ago when it wasn’t happening? Literal tears.

Anyway back to Sunday. Sunday I was trying to deal with normal life (and failing) and I went to church and I volunteered in the snack shack at the pool and I should have just stayed home in bed.

I decided to stop volunteering at church. I think I need a break. I have been in and out of the nursery and when I have a bad health week, I just can’t do it anymore. I can’t tell when I am going to have a bad health week so... I decided to simply stop volunteering all around. And that’s okay. I messaged the nursery coordinators that I was not going to be volunteering anymore and I haven’t even heard back from them which is making me nervous but maybe they don’t check their emails often.

I did make it to bed after dinner and I stayed there until Monday came around and washed me with the cleansing waters of a new day and I felt better. This is our vacation week! I shouldn’t be moping or mourning. Brian is off, and he made waffles for the kids while I went to hot yoga. After hot yoga we went to visit Cecily (Becky’s friend) and it was fun to hang out with another family even if she lives 45 minutes away. I couldn’t have gone all the way there without Brian, who drove. Thank you Brian.

I promptly came home and took a nap until 3pm. It was glorious. After the nap the sun came out so we all ran to the pool for an hour and a half and it was perfection. Brian and I didn’t swim but we sat near the kiddy pool and watched Esther splash and watched the big kids dive off the diving board and everyone had a wonderful relaxing time. It was a perfect break between two big storms! We rushed home right before the next one hit at 5.

I had a hard time sleeping that night--either from the coffee I had or because of my long nap, but I woke up at 2am having a alpha gal reaction which I also am not quite sure where it came from. It might be the cupcakes I made. I used a Simple Mill mix that, even though all the ingredients are vegan, says it was processed in a facility that also processes dairy...or it could be because my husband is home and butter is being used around the kitchen by the kids/him... ugh.

I still did yoga Tuesday morning and I am so glad I did. It was so refreshing and wonderful. We did chores in the morning, with piano practice and also math. I am determined to do math at least 5 times this week! Then for fun we went to the mall and had pretzels and bubble tea and let Becky and Esther play at the littles play place and I invited a friend and her husband and it was just, once again, so relaxing. I got to enjoy good chats with friends and watching the kids play.

We came home and everyone is getting ready for karate and I have no idea what’s for dinner...

It’s Wednesday now, and I made fried rice for dinner last night. Two of my children started getting sick after dinner. Esther woke up every two hours through the night! I need 6 cups of coffee. I only had one...but, still. Poor Esther and Reuben are sick. I have given them some homeopathy last night and this morning and an herb bath each. They have some type of sinus sickness with a mild sore throat, no fever. And today is my doctor’s appointment in one hour! I am so thankful for husband who let me sleep in since I was up with the baby (he got up with her twice too...) and he made bagels for breakfast and I emerged from my bed cocoon at 8, did math with Becky and made bone broth for soup for dinner.

For lunch we had salmon and sweet potatoes and oranges. The plan is after my appointment to take Becky swimming for 1-2 hours, make soup for dinner and an apple crisp for dessert. Oh, and I need to pick up my milk. Hope I can remember all the things---will update after appointment...with hopefully Good Health News, or at least a Plan...

It’s 8pm on Wednesday now and I really enjoyed my health consultation. I’m going back for a scan on Friday and I hope it can give me more answers! She also gave me some probiotics that might help repopulate my gut and reduce IBS symptoms.

Esther is still sick and so is poor Reuben...Becky and I had a nice two hours at the pool and then we came home and ate soup. I made two soups--tomato and bean soup and everyone picked their favorite...or the one they were not allergic to, since both the boys are allergic to beans. Poor Reuben and Brian. But bean soup is Becky’s favorite and thus bean soup she (and I) had and the boys had their favorite tomato soup. Brian made cheese toasty for everyone but me since I have alpha gal...I didn’t get hardly any cleaning done today and everything feels a mess but it was a sick day and we all did great.

Thursday was another chore day. Brian mowed the lawn and I deep cleaned both bathrooms which was on my bucket list. Everyone was feeling better so we all went swimming for two hours. Becky’s pool friend had just arrived when we had to leave and she cried all the way home and promptly started to catch the cold the other two had yesterday...poor Becky. We missed karate but that’s okay.

We found a leatherleaf plant at the pool and I want to draw it in my nature notebook.

I keep messaging friends this week to meet at the pool and everyone is busy. Oh well, maybe I will make a pool friend too.

I’m not ready for my husband to go back to work. This vacation has so far, been a joy which is so awesome. Does this mean I’m a grown up now, that we can get along and have a good time on vacation? Hah! Who knows.

Planning for pool days Saturday and Sunday if everyone is well enough! Next week looms, and I’m not ready.

I took next to no pictures this week...literally have 4 very blurry pool pictures, a picture of a pile of books from when a shelf broke and I had to take them all off, and one picture of a very sick Esther and Reuben on the couch. None of which are shareable... will try better next week! The pick above of cute napping Esther is from summer break week 2.

I’m going to go draw the leatherleaf plant in my nature notebook.