Grateful for

my impending health.

After having been knocked flat on my heiny for about 24 hours.

Although a child in our playgroup was (momentarily) suspected of having the measles, and the girl I drive home after school was diagnosed with bronchitis, I actually think I am recovering from a bout of the dreaded swine flu.

It appears that H1N1 is THE flu of the season and makes its appearance with a fever and sore throat. This is so characteristic of this flu that at Chad’s work, anybody who shows both these symptoms is asked to stay at home.

It started with a headache and some strange other-body-ness that was so unusual (for me) that I didn’t immediately attribute it to sickness. Then the next morning I woke up feeling better and I went out to a La Leche League toddler meeting (but I didn’t hold any babies and mostly stayed away from people in general). By the time I got home I was feeling much worse and by lunch I was alternating shivering and sweating, and I had such bad body ache that my eyeballs hurt. Every once in a while, I got an itch in my throat that made me cough – that hurt too.

By bedtime I could barely turn my head, and nursing the baby to sleep was agony. This plus I developed a razor sharp ache in the right side of my throat. I remember thinking, I can’t do this for another day, before drifting off. Sleep was not much better as my affected sense of equilibrium inflected my dreams, giving them a nightmarish quality.

When I woke up – I could feel the body ache receding.

Hallelujah. I was still sick, for sure, but well enough to appreciate how sick I HAD BEEN.

Now that it’s bedtime, I can really appreciate feeling better, although I’m not 100% by a long shot.

Whew. Hope this one passes you over.

[Update:

It has now been exactly a week since I got my first symptoms of sickness. No more body ache, but I still feel slightly weak and I still have a deep cough, although that only makes itself known very occasionally.

Recovery is slow.

I did notice that my fever ebbed and returned several times over the course of a few days. Also, I had many disjointed symptoms that would disappear and reappear, like the fever, a stiff neck, a sore throat, and even this cough.

Chad felt unwell and stayed home two days from work, but never got it as bad as I did - and never coughed either. His worst symptom was a mind-crushing headache which was accompanied by a slight fever.

Christian and Bella remain healthy and are getting plenty of rest.

I'm staying home today and eating lots of soup.]

 

More Pig Stuff

The finished pig with tail.

We had a joint playdate (diaperfree+attachment parenting meetup) in Irvine today – yes, the OC town where two kids have been diagnosed as having the dreaded swine flu. But as with all but one of the American cases of the illness, the kids recovered, and even returned to school today.

We practiced good “social distancing” (my brother introduced me to that term) and refrained from hugs and kisses today. I didn’t even bring snacks to share, which is not normal behavior for me. Christian was so into climbing and walking that he barely paid any attention to the other kids today, which made it easier to keep him from sucking on other people’s toys.

Less reassuring: hearing that my sister’s Oxford research unit in Bangkok has mandated eight days of house quarantine for anybody traveling back from the States or Mexico. And the international airport in Bangkok has instituted heat detectors; any deboarding passenger with an elevated body temp is whisked off to the hospital for further examination.

The main organizer of the attachment parenting meetup sent around an email with some online swine flu resources I thought I’d share here, plus the CDC  link  for updates.

Attachment parenting expert, Dr. Sears, offers his guidance.
Some insights from another AP friendly physician, Dr. Jay Gordon
A one hour interview with Dr. J. Williams, expert on viral immunity.

CDC link for updates.

An unsettling picture that I've already received several times in the last 48 hours.

 

Textbook Case

Looks like the little guy had roseola last week – he had all the symptoms:

Christian had a fever for three days and then when the fever broke, a rash quickly developed over his torso, creeping up his neck and down into his crotch area. The rash did not appear to itch or bother him in any way. He also had mild diarrhea. Two days later the rash disappeared. Everything passed through without any medical treatment, but he was extremely fussy and didn’t sleep well, and he needed lots of comforting and nursing. He had no appetite for regular food.

All told, we were in the house for five days. And I have no idea where he got it, because the incubation period can be as long as ten days.

However, roseola is supposed to be very common, with most children contracting it before entering kindergarten. It generally affects children between the ages of 6 months and 2 years, with the average age being 9 months. It is considered a mild illness. The only real hazard is posed by high temperatures. We never actually took Christian’s temperature, but watched his behavior very closely. Meaning he was hot, but never so much that he became lethargic or strange. He was just his normal self, but a grumpy, cranky version of himself.

I would’ve taken a picture, but I didn’t realize that it might be helpful to see what his rash looked like at the time.

 

I’ll take a pass, please

After several weeks of frenzied activity, everything ground to a halt this week – between choosing to stay at home and friends being sick, I’ve found myself at home TWO STRAIGHT DAYS IN A ROW!

I’m considering staying at home a few more days though, now that I’ve heard what my friends have been sick with. Have you heard of the Noro virus? The ugly GI virus that became famous after causing the evacuation of several cruise ships a few years back?

My 38-week pregnant friend thinks she had the Noro virus – and she was throwing up and having diarrhrea (every 10-15 minutes!) for 24 hours – until she became so dehydrated that her contractions started and they went to the emergency room. It took 5 bags of IV to rehydrate her. Thankfully the contractions stopped right away, and the baby seems well. Probably better for that baby to stay inside a few more days while the mom disinfects the house. (According to the wiki article, noro is completely wiped out by chlorine-based cleaners – although, what isn’t???)

Unfortunately, the virus started in the rest of the family and the poor little almost-three year old was vomiting every ten minutes around the clock. Poor baby! She okay now, but I don’t know if I’ve ever heard of a stomach flu as bad as this bug. Luckily the dad and brother just had a mild bout of vomiting and a short period of feeling unwell. But the two who got it, really were throwing up regularly for almost two days it seems. And only able to hold down popsicles and jello.

Apparently, there are outbreaks of Noro going on all throughout the country. The worst part is that the once-infected person can remain contagious for up to three days after the symptoms have passed. To top it off, people do not seem to be building any immunity to the bug, so you can get it again and again.

So, I’m nervously feeling healthy and well and popping a few vitamins. I was thinking about going to a free Family Yoga class tomorrow morning, but now staying at home and frequently washing my hands sounds more appealing than letting the baby crawl around a sweaty gym floor with dozens of other kids…

 

Reason #116 My Teenage Daughter Won’t Be Seen With Me

Have you seen these “anti-shoes”? The last few times I visited my parents my mother raved and raved about her MBTs, which she wears every day, every where, including church. Except that she wears the ones that are black sandals and they look like the medical shoes you wear when your foot is in a cast.

She says that all the velcro straps makes the fit perfect and that her feet never get tired. She wears them every day while traveling too – India, Mexico, etc – and when she travels somewhere cold, like Eastern Europe, she wears them with socks! And as moms are wont, she insisted I try them too. So I did. It’s a bit rock and roll-y at first, but they are very, very comfortable. My mom kept offering to get me a pair for Christmas, but honestly I didn’t know if I liked them enough to warrant the $300 price tag.

I’ve been reconsidering though, because I end up doing so much walking when I see art in LA. Actually, Christian’s hatred of his car seat has led to more walking in general, and even though I wear my running shoes, I find that I frequently have tired, sore feet these days. It could be my age, but it could also be the extra seventeen pounds of baby in my front pack.

Then yesterday I found a pair of MBTs that were reduced by 60% because the style is being discontinued. I took my Christmas sweater money and bought my first pair of MBTs for a mere $107. They pretty much guarantee that 1) I am three inches taller and 2) Bella won’t walk anywhere with me. I got the Mary Janes in cream suede and they look just like this.

What about the juicer I was going to buy with that money you ask? That story I’ll save for another post.

P.S. If you want to read more about these shoes, I’ve linked the pictures to the MBT website.

P.P.S. Thanks Songbae! These are your Christmas present to me!

 

It didn’t taste like chocolate coming back up

*Caution. Graphic description of vomiting to follow.*

We are recovering from the stomach flu around here and I seem to have been hit the worst. Chad had been talking about how people at work were coming down with a 24-hour stomach bug and puking and what not. I think it’s what the little guy had too when he was throwing up on Saturday. Poor guy, sick, and being hauled all over LA and back. I guess he didn’t mind so much as long as he was being carried by mama, and sleeping whenever he needed.

It wasn’t until Monday on the drive to Ikea that I started to feel queasy. I remember thinking, Ah damn, this is what car sickness feels like, and empathizing with my sister-in-law who gets carsickness pretty bad. I felt okay enough to poke around Ikea though, and to help Chad polish off two different kinds of chocolate pie. It was the last thing I ate for 24 hours.

Later that day, I walked into the kitchen, smelled the homemade chicken stock bubbling on the stovetop, and I could feel the hurl building.

I quickly rolled down the blinds, so as not give the neighbors a show, was my own best girlfriend and held my hair back, and puked into the side of the sink with the garbage disposal. Good thinking, eh?

The first wave was brown – definitely the chocolate pie.

The next two hurls were white and lumpy. Could it possibly be the oatmeal from earlier that morning, I thought?

And then with no logic whatsoever, the last few pukes were plain clear water – which I had just drunk.

And although I don’t know much about the physiology of the stomach, I really did think that the entire contents of the stomach were evenly mixed. But now I have a picture in my mind of an unwell stomach with roiling layers of undigested food, heaving back and forth uneasily, waiting to be unloosed.

Normally I have an iron-clad stomach, eating ceviche off the streets of Baja and bits of banana wrapped fried things on the streets on Bangkok, so I rarely throw up. In fact, although this cannot be accurate, the last time I remember throwing up was over twenty years ago in Montreal after spending an evening with French friends around some large bowl filled with alcohol that we had lit on fire. Ironically, Chad, who has a more tender stomach stayed home yesterday with a stomachache and nothing more. Bella is going to school late this morning – and once in a while I can hear pitiful little coughs and gasps coming from her room.

Whereas I have been wracked with body ache, head ache, and belly ache for the last two days. It has subsided today. Although I can feel the heavy pressure of the headache still pressing against the back of my forehead, just begging me to do too much and let it get back inside me.

Sorry, no pictures for this post either. : )

 

My Beautiful Cervix

I just saw something I’ve never seen before: a cervix! To be exact, thirty-three photos of the same (normal) cervix taken once a day for an entire menstrual cycle – with notes.

The site is called My Beautiful Cervix.

Very beautiful and cool, but don’t go look if you are a queasy kind of person. Remember, the cervix is inside the body, so there is goopy stuff and blood on certain days.

Thank you Sierra for sharing!

 

Diet Update

We are finishing up our third week of being wheat and dairy-free. It hasn’t been so hard, because I’ve just reverted back to eating more asian-style meals with lots of rice. I bought one $5 loaf of rice flour bread to offset the craving for toast at night and one box of Lundberg’s organic brown rice pasta – neither were particularly satisfying, but luckily the cravings haven’t been so bad either. It’s only been hard when somebody offers me a fresh-baked goodie, which has only happened twice.

I feel better overall. Chad says he feels exactly the same. And Christian, well, his dry spots (probably eczema) have completely disappeared. That may be because we stopped using any soap on him though. The big surprise is that his cradle cap (dandruff-like stuff on the top of his skull) is also disappearing – and that, that has been there practically since day one.

We have not yet changed our laundry soap. I don’t think the laundry soap is a culprit in any of these mysterious ailments – but I noted at the grocery store that all leading brands of laundry detergent now offer a “free and clear” alternative – that’s right, Tide, Cheer, Sun – all of them have a product that is free of perfume and dyes and phosphates, and at the same price as their other detergents. That’s the power of the consumer changing the world right there.

We’ve learned that there is a whole world of gluten and casein-free people out there. I finally understand that wheat is ONE thing that contains gluten and dairy is ONE thing that contains casein. I don’t know if we are going to try to “go all the way.”

My theory: I can handle cheese and yogurt, but I think that I had been eating too much butter for my system. And I think I do better without wheat as well. I’m pretty sure that Christian was/is reacting mildly to either the gluten or casein in my diet (or possibly eggs – but I’m still eating those). Chad’s still getting headaches. My gut feeling is that Chad probably needs to continue on a wheat and dairy-free diet and that we also need to try eliminating processed sugar… maybe for this last week. All the sugar we consume is apparently related to an overproduction of candida yeast in our digestive tracts…

I did just finish Jenny McCarthy’s Louder Than Words, which is a book about treating her son’s autism (recommended by my friend Darlene – who said I should read it before getting any vaccines for Christian). I was deeply impressed by the positive impact that a gluten and casein-free diet made for Evan’s progress. McCarthy recommends two sites: http://gfcf.com for general information and this link will take to you a ten week plan to go gluten and casein-free.

In general though, it’s hard to imagine staying wheat- and dairy-free for the rest of our lives. I’m more attracted to a moderate diet that leans towards health. I liked the sound of the diet Rachel Beller (of Beller Nutritional Institute in Beverly Hills) recommends for recovering breast cancer patients:

• Avoid processed sugar.
• Limit alcohol to one drink a day.
• Eat meat sparingly.
• Eat at least five cups of fruits and vegetables a day.
• Eat lots of legumes, omega-3’s, and “good” oils like olive oil.
• Eat 30-35 grams of fiber a day.
• Eat lots of superfoods: omega-3 rich sardines, wild salmon, trout, 2-3 prunes (2x the antioxidant capacity of blueberries)
• Eat 1/2 c broccoli sprouts several times a week.
• Drink matcha green tea – or any green tea.

That sounds like a diet I could live with, especially the sardines part.