Archive for the ‘Health’ Category

• Petition against pelvic exams without consent

  Date: 2010.01.29 | Category: Canada, Health, Things I Don't Understand | Response: 1

  Catherine Connors, aka Her Bad Mother, has posted an open letter to protest the practice of pelvic exams without consent.

  Go read it. Sign it. Share it.

• This Is Not My Post-BlogHer Post

  Date: 2009.07.28 | Category: Health, Uncategorized | Response: 0

  It’s the story of how I do not travel well.

  My body does not like stress. It does not like change. It does not like big changes in eating patterns. When I do any of that it’s like having the Bolshevik Revolution in my digestive system. The drive to Chicago wasn’t so bad. We had a well packed cooler. I didn’t have breakfast before we left and I had slept poorly (something that would continue for the next week). After decided that the ginger pills and ginger ale combination wasn’t working I popped a couple of Gravol, ate a Rice Krispie square and took a 30 minute nap. Somewhere near Ajax we demolished a bag of beef jerky. At a rest-stop near Woodstock I had a hamburger. Lee spent the day working through the leftover (homemade) pizza from the night before. We ate dinner at 11pm that night – Burger King take out. I had three bites of my salad and went to sleep.

  Not a great start.

  The rest of the trip wasn’t bad. We ate dinner with Denise and Tarrant the next two nights, including the night Tarrant made me meatballs and cheese grits because she loves me. (My grits never turn out anything like hers. I think it’s because I’m Canadian and know jack about grits.) Breakfast was pretty stable most of the week – yogurt, juice and coffee. Just like at home.

  Midway through the week something happened. The day before the conference I was sick. Really quite sick. It didn’t stop me from doing too much (including drinking Gold Coasts, which I blame on Megan although I do think that perhaps they helped set me to rights). Things went fairly well during the conference, except that I forgot to plan dinner both nights which resulted in at least one late-night trip to McDonald’s for chicken nuggets because I needed something hot to eat and I needed it now (McDonald’s was the only thing we knew that would be open and knew where it was).

  On the two day drive home I didn’t take so much as a ginger pill. I had half a can of ginger ale. That was it. I felt pretty good. Tired but good. Then less than half an hour after I went to bed last night (my. own. bed. for the first time in over a week) I was in the bathroom paying a sacrifice to the porcelain gods. Delayed motion-sickness? Exhaustion? Ate something bad on the road? Some combination thereof? I don’t know. I just know that instead of being at work this morning I stayed in bed. I know my stomach hurts. I know I’m sick and I don’t blame BlogHer Bola.

  It’s just me. This is how I travel. The time I went to Europe? Less than a week after I got back I had the worst migraine I’d had in more than five years.

  I’ll do it all again next year, possibly twice since we want to do both PEI and BlogHer 10.

  But in the meantime, I don’t suppose anyone wants to make me some soup?

• Lovely

  Date: 2009.01.27 | Category: Health, sometimes I ramble | Response: 5

  So, it was cold here yesterday. The stupid transit strike is still going on so there were no buses. I’ve been getting a drive to work with Lee in the mornings (and walking home) but he had an appointment yesterday morning. If I had gotten a drive with him I would have been at work at 7:30am. That is really early…even for me. So I said I’d walk to work, even though the windchill was minus -34C. It didn’t look too windy so I thought it would be fine. I had layers. I’d be ok. After all people were walking further and longer than I had to walk the other week when we had that brutally cold snap. And since he’s be picking me up at lunch it was a normal walk day, just a cold one.

  Yeah. Bad decision on my part.

  I walked to work. It was cold. My right ear in particular seemed to be pretty cold. It took me about 25 minutes to walk to work.

  My ear hurt but to be honest I didn’t think too much of it. You see, cold generally equals pain for me. The only reason my toes weren’t in pain was because I had slapped some toe warmers on them. Heat Factory toe warmers have been saving my toes this winter and I thank the doctor that recommended them. This is the same doctor who believes I may have something akin to Raynaud’s phenomenon, which would help explain while my hands and feet are chronically cold and why whenever I go out in the cold I’m in pain.

  In all honesty I thought that being in pain in the cold was normal. I thought that other people just handled it better than I did. Apparently most people don’t lose complete feeling in their toes when walking through the grocery store parking lot. Apparently for most people their toes don’t go from fine to pain in less than two minutes in the cold.

  I’m just special I guess. Basically what the doctor thinks happens is that when my toes (and fingers) encounter cold my circulatory system freaks and restricts blood flow to my extremeties, which helps explain both the icecube nature of my toes and the pain. Now I don’t have anything like the dramatic pictures in that Wikipedia article. And there’s no true test for this condition, although there are some things they can test for that point to an increased likelihood for it. And I fully plan on getting those tests done when the stupid bus strike is over and I can actually get to and from the lab.

  This is all to say that I’ve been pretty darned careful this year about staying warm. I’ve also been feeling much better about the outdoors this winter now that I know I can do things to retain feeling in my feet.

  So I was pretty surprised yesterday afternoon, long after I had been out to in the cold to realize that my ear was still hurting. I was even more suprised an hour or two after that to go into the bathroom, pull back my hair and realize that my ear was blood red.

  Frostbite.

  I have never had frostbite in my life before but well, either it was frostbite or something else was seriously wrong with my ear. So off the hospital we went where we waited for four hours for the doctor to say, “Yep. That’s frostbite alright.” I was sent home with instructions to keep my ear out of the cold, take advil and buy a new hat. Lovely.

  So I’m sitting at home today, taking advil, researching warm hats (and trying to figure out how the hell I’m going to wear one because my ear – it hurts like hell when something touches it), and trying to figure out how the heck I’m going to get home from work for the rest of the week if I can’t walk.

  I’m having one of those weeks where I understand why Canadians go south to Florida or Arizona for the winter.

• Itchy and Scratchy

  Date: 2008.07.17 | Category: Health | Response: 6

  It all started on Sunday with an itchy big toe. By Monday evening I had a rash on 4 of the toes on my right foot. Yep. Hives. My wonderful hypersensitive to who knows what skin revolts against me once again (at least there was no wax or um…”sensitive bits” involved this time). So 10:30pm found me cruising the aisles of my local Shoppers looking for Benadryl (pills and topical). Both items secured I was positive that all would be well in a day or two.

  Fast foward to Wednesday evening when the hives have progressed to blisters and the application of the Benadryl cream caused shooting pains in my foot and I all but tore out my hair. Time for a doctor’s visit don’t you think?

  There’s only a slight issue there as I still have out of province health care. Despite the fact that I can get an Ontario driver’s license in less than a month it takes 3 months before I can get an Ontario health card. Which means that any medical services costs bucks. It’s really not that much (particularly in comparison to the US) but it still sucks and I have that lovely “I’m out of a job and shouldn’t be doing this” mentality that I need to boot myself out of. After much prodding and poking and internet searching for just exactly how bad a case of hives I really have I forced myself to go to a clinic. Because apparently when your hives turn into blisters it just may be something that you need to have checked out by a medical professional and not Dr. Google.

  And you know the SHOOTING PAIN every time you accidentally wiggle a toe or something brushes against it had nothing to do with my decision either.

  So off to the clinic I went and had a blessedly short wait only to have the doctor spend less than 2 minutes with me and write me a prescription. He also all but backed away from my toes while crossing his fingers in front of him to ward him off from the evilness that is my hives.

  I couldn’t get the prescription filled right away so I stopped back at the pharmacy after an Ottawa tweetup (which hello, was difficult enough for an introvert like me, I’d totally die from having to be social if I were at BlogHer). I get home and read the label to see this:

  “Typically, it is used for inflammation and itching or for hemorrhoids. It requires several days to take effect.”

  Right… so not only do I have medication for my hives that is typically used for hemorrhoids but it will not produce effects any time soon. I’m thinking that as sucky and painful as hives on your toes can be (and trust me, I’m limping all over the place and they are forming on the other foot now) I really got off easy. Because having to wait days for hemorrhoid relief? That’s a whole other level of suckitude.

• Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow

  Date: 2007.08.13 | Category: Health, sometimes I ramble | Response: 2

  I hurtttttttttttttttttttttttt.  From my pecs to the base of my skulls is one large knot.  So I decided I was going to have to break down and get a massage even though the thought of it has me practically in tears cause I know it’s going to *hurt*.

  For those of you who are unaware – there’s a big difference between the massage you get on a spa day with your friends and a therapeutic massage. Therapeutic massage actually kind of hurts. Sometimes it more than kind of hurts. Sometimes it hurts a lot. And sometimes it hurts the day after. But in the long run it’s beneficial. So I’m doing it.

  And luckily for me I mentioned to someone that I was going to do this and it turns out they have a connection and made me call said connection. (Why I was surprised this person had a connection I don’t know – they have connections for everything…) So tomorrow morning a very nice sounding woman is coming into my apartment along with her folding table and is going to try to ease my pain. And hopefully that will help with the headache situation.  And it’s less money than I was paying to go to an RMT in Toronto and they sure as heck didn’t come to my apartment.

  Sigh. Unfortunately insurance is not going to cover it because I don’t have a note from my doctor.  Possibly because I don’t have a doctor. lol But when I get one I tell you I’m getting that note!

  Of course this means I have to clean. Luckily I’ve been keeping the apartment fairly tidy. Maybe I’ll finally unpack that box of bathroom stuff and put it in the bathroom. I keep forgetting that stuff I need is in it and walking into the living room to grab stuff from it.  Unfortunately this happens to be a problem as I’m usually in various states of undress and my blinds are usually up.  And well…the kitchen mess usually tends to get hidden in the dishwasher. Have I professed my love for my dishwasher lately? I love that thing. I find it’s actually encouraging me to cook more now that I don’t have to deal with washing dishes (my mother would be unsurprised by this, lol).

• Crud

  Date: 2007.04.07 | Category: Health | Response: 1

  I have caught some serious crud. Some seriously nasty crud.  Sinuses are a mess.  I’ve started coughing. Can’t lie down because when I do I need to cough. I’m tirreeedddd.  I slept about 5 hours last night, 3 hours the night before. My head hurts.

  I feel miserable and disgusting.

  And my doctor’s appointment isn’t until Wednesday.

  I wish I knew what time the crappy little pharmacy around the corner opened. I can never remember. It’s either 10, 11, or 12.  Too long.

• Ugh

  Date: 2007.04.04 | Category: Health | Response: 0

  Sinus colds rot.  Seriously.

  Not being able to sleep and being up at 5:30am for the second time in a week really rots.

• Reminder?

  Date: 2006.11.14 | Category: Health | Response: 2

  Someone wanna tell me why I got a flu shot? Cause right now I’m having a hard time remembering why.

  All the cells in my body are yelling at me to go back to bed. I’m doing my best to ignore them until after my phone meeting in a few hours.

• Ooky

  Date: 2006.11.13 | Category: Health | Response: 2

  Got flu shot.

  Feel ooky.

• This cold never ends

  Date: 2006.11.01 | Category: Health | Response: 0

  Even after a 10 day dose of antibiotics I think I still have a cold. Or an alien is using me as a host and slowly sapping the life out of me.
  Sign #1: I’m exhausted. Sure….I’ve put in about a whole extra day of work with the extra hours on Thursday, Friday and Monday but the bulk of those involved sitting in front of my computer and willing it to register my document. And then profusely swearing at it when it didn’t.

  Sign #2: Headaches.  Maybe it’s just a headache. But combined with nausea and eyestrain I’m thinking not.  And is it eyestrain? Or it sinus pain? I really can’t tell at this point.

  Sign #3: Nausea.  Nuff said on that one.

  Sign #4: When I swallow my ears make a crackly noise that is usually reserved for sinus infection type deals.

  Any of these on their own are not a very large deal. But the combination of them leads to me to think that I’m still sickly. And just when I (mostly) got my voice back.

  This bodes poorly for the winter.  I think I’ll be getting a flu shot this year. Not something I’ve ever done before but if a cold has been keeping me down for what seems like forever I don’t even want to think about getting the flu.

  This is one of those days where I wish I was one of those 20-minute nap types. But I can rarely nap and when I do it’s often for hours.  But darn, a nap would feel good. Which is

  Sign #5: I want to nap even though I slept for about 9 hours last night.