Tag: stomach ache

Emptiness Hurts

It’s weird how often I go through this problem when I am working in the office.

Sometimes when my tiny little redesigned stomach is causing me problems, I fear that there is something wrong and that I am on the brink of big troubles when in fact I’m just hungry. I’ll be dealing with all kinds of stomach pains and gas pains and discomfort and unhappiness, then I’ll have a small bite to eat and I’ll feel better for a little while. Then the pain will come back and I’ll be afraid there is something wrong again until I make myself have some lunch. Then I feel fine for a while. It’s weird.

I used to know what hunger felt like. I mean, don’t we all? It is a sort of human thing, right? My stomach feels funny, rumble rumble, oh I’m hungry. That’s not what this feels like though. This feels more like when you eat something that’s gone bad and it just sits like a rock in your stomach. I would hope that having something to drink would alleviate the symptoms the way having food does, but it just doesn’t work the same way. I tried drinking water today between 10:00am or so and 11:30 and it didn’t help. The pain and discomfort just kept getting worse. I had a small protein bar snack and felt 80% better. By the time I broke for lunch at about 1:15 it was all back again, full force. I had some chicken tenders and some peanuts. Less than five ounces of food combined, but probably 24 grams of protein or so. Now my stomach feels 95% better.

I’m guessing that by the time the clock strikes 4:00 I am going to be uncomfortable again. This is going to dog me back and forth for the rest of the day. If history has taught me anything, I will be fine tomorrow after a half decent night’s sleep.

The weird thing about this is how often it happens when I am in the office. I don’t know if it’s the traveling to get here, or if it’s the day of the week (office days are Wednesdays), or if it’s some other connection that I haven’t made yet. I don’t know. It’s weird.

I think I am just going to enjoy the brief reprieve while I can and try to get some work done. Here’s hoping I don’t feel like this tomorrow. Fingers crossed, folks.

Week 46 Weigh In

Things are getting weird now.

I posted about my bonus weigh in on Sunday, three days ago. I was down 2.8 pounds after having been up at least a pound each of the previous two Wednesdays. Yeah, I am cheating on my weigh in schedule. Wanna make something of it? I didn’t weigh myself on Monday, but I did on Tuesday and I was down a lot. From Sunday to Tuesday I was down a massive 2.2 pounds. Wow! I didn’t record it on the spreadsheet or on my iPhone. I left it officially unofficial. When I weighed myself this morning for my regular Wednesday weigh in I was up 0.4 pounds since Sunday. That’s half a pound since Sunday, which means I was up 2.6 since yesterday.

Oh boy. I am at 216 even, which matches where I was on March 4th at the 10 month check in, which is also where I was hoping to get back to after last week. What a world, right?

BMI is 26.3 again. Total since surgery is 215.4 again. Total since first check in is at 236 even again.

Yesterday turned out to be a tough day with yet another migraine. I did what I meant to do the last time I had one, which was a week ago last Friday, and made an appointment with my primary care. It was tough to do through the partial blindness and the crushing headache, but I managed. I have an appointment for tomorrow morning. We’ll see how it goes. I expect it to just be a check in that sets up referrals to other doctors, but we’ll see. Let’s hope there is a placebo thing where now that I’ve taken the first baby step toward dealing with this it just goes away. Wouldn’t that be nice?

I had another issue last night as well. I tried to stay up through the headache but I fell asleep on the comfy chair in the living room. After about 45 minutes I got up and went to bed. I slept there for about an hour and then got up and went back to the living room. My head was much better, though still far from all better, and I wanted to spend some time with Jen. We ended up going to bed around 9:30, and I packed it in around 10:00. I woke up about three hours later and couldn’t get back to sleep. The headache was gone and in it’s place was a stomach ache. Shit. I was in and out of sleep until about 5:30 when I finally got up. I drank a water bottle while getting my jogging (yogging) in, and the stomach ache lessened but didn’t go away. I had two protein bars on the drive in to work and that mostly cleared things up. I expect it will come back again as time and digestion do their things.

Yesterday turned into a shitty day. Today is better, but still shaping up to be shitty in it’s own way. Yippee.

At least I still weigh less than I did in my last two weekly check ins. I’ll take that as a win.

Pains

My stomach has been bothering me this morning, but I think it’s because it has been empty for a long time. I had breakfast very early. I had a snack at 11:15 and after a little while I felt better. That is so weird.

Anyway, here’s an unrelated picture. Photo a day photo #191/365.

191/365

This Week Has Sort of Sucked

Between me feeling sick for a few days and my mother going into the hospital with pneumonia and me dropping the ball on something at work for which I will never forgive myself and our new cat being very anti-social, it’s been a pretty crappy week. It’s only Thursday so you’d think there would be time to straighten everything out and salvage the week, but we’re going to a wake for a 20-something year old on Saturday and that is not exactly a day brightener, you know? We are picking up our new cat’s four month old kitten this weekend so hopefully that will lighten the mood a little. The cats were named Disco and Boogie but we are changing them to Robin (or Robin Sparkles) and Lily after two characters on How I Met Your Mother. Robin is mom and Lily is kitten, even though Robin and Lily were not related on the show. Give me a break, okay? It’s better than Disco and Boogie. I mean, I don’t want a kitten named for a synonym for snot.

I’m not sure what the issue was that made me feel sick. It was definitely stomach related, but it was different than the usual post-surgery stomach problems. I wonder if it just had to do with my eating schedule going down the crapper starting on Saturday and not clearing up until Wednesday. I had two stomach problems on Wednesday but they were the usual you-ate-too-fast-and-your-stomach-couldn’t-handle-it problems. Not a stomach ache that gets worse when you’re standing or laying down and gets better when you are sitting up straight. Yeah, I don’t get it. Hopefully that goes away and stays away.

My mother will be in the hospital into the weekend at least. They are giving her antibiotics for pneumonia and a UTI. On her second night they found that she was a little anemic but as of yesterday they haven’t figured out why yet. It’s all really scary and stressful, but we know she’s in good hands. We just need to put our faith in the hospital. I’m still worried though. My brother spent the day with her yesterday, and my sister will visit her today. I’ll be going back tomorrow. After that, I don’t know. There’s a chance she could be going back to the nursing home on Saturday. I don’t know how good of a chance, but there is a chance.

As for the cat, the two year old cat I mean, Robin Sparkles, she spent the first few days hiding, but she’s starting to do a little exploring now. She was very friendly to me for a while, but now she seems scared to death of me. I don’t know why, but I hope she gets over it. She’s more friendly to Jen, but still not too friendly. I want to give her a month or so to adjust before I pass judgement on her behavior. I’m curious to see how she behaves when the kitten gets here (on Sunday… or maybe Saturday if the stars align). When we first met them at the shelter, the kitten was the friendliest feline I’ve ever seen. Here’s hoping that hasn’t changed in the intervening week.

Okay, it’s 9:00am. Time to get to work. May your Thursday go better than my Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday have gone. Thumbs up, brothers and sisters.

Stomach Ache

So my stomach has been a dick all day. I had a stomach ache when I woke up. When I had a drink before my exercise it made the stomach ache worse. I stopped right away. Two hours later I was still feeling off but I was also hungry and I needed to start taking protein so I had a protein bar. I actually felt better. Weird. Hours later I was feeling okay so I had another drink and wouldn’t you know it? The stomach ache came back. Eventually I had another protein bar and the stomach ache went away, mostly, again.

What the fuck, stomach?

We should be having dinner soon. No clue what my stomach is going to do then. Gee, my stomach is annoying the hell out of me today. Yippee.

Christmas Eve

Hello and welcome to christmas eve! It was 55 degrees out yesterday and it’s 10 degrees out right now. That’s a 45 degree swing in about 15 hours. Hooray! Also, I have a bad stomach ache this morning. It’s all winning today, left and right. Hooray!

I have more cookies to bake today. I am finished with today’s exercise. What else. Don’t think I am going out to take christmas eve pics because, as mentioned, 10 degrees Fahrenheit. I am certainly not going to the ocean. To hell with that frosty noise.

Okay, time to start the day. HoHoHo

Also, Jen sent us this a few minutes ago. Apparently Santa Claus gets a fighter escort from NORAD in both the US and Canada. Nice of the red suited dude to slow down for them, right?

Feeling Better Again

For the second time in a week I followed a really sick day by waking up the next morning feeling pretty much all better. This is annoying as hell. I didn’t hit my liquids goal yesterday. I missed it by 10 ounces. I need to make double sure I hit it today. I did manage the protein goal. I was a little nervous that pushing it last night would screw me up today, but I am okay. I did my exercise already this morning but I haven’t had breakfast yet. I want to get a little more liquid in first.

Today will likely be a messy day at work as I catch up from being out yesterday. It will be okay though. Tomorrow and Thursday are both in the office days for a huge management seminar. I am really not looking forward to it. Two days in a row, all the way to Foxborough. I have to do it twice next week too, again all the way to Foxborough. The week after I have to go into the office yet again, but this time I get to go to the closest building to home, which is still 40 miles away. Suck, suck, and suck.

The moral of that story is let’s enjoy working from home today before I go through two far away days. Here’s hoping my stomach issues don’t have another relapse. Driving 10000 miles to Foxborough feeling like I felt yesterday would be pretty much the worst thing ever.

Fingers crossed we’re done with all of that.

Sick Day Update

How’s it going, sick person?

I feel better. Not all better, but better than I was when I was doubled over in pain while I was trying to take a shower this morning. I feel like I got my ass kicked by a locomotive or something, but my stomach isn’t hurting like it was before.

I managed some food. It was sort of like breakfast at lunch time, but I ate some scrambled eggs. I’ve had some water too, and in 13 minutes I’ll be able to have some more. I still feel pretty dehydrated, but nowhere near as bad as I was when I wrote the last post.

It’s a safe bet I won’t be hitting my protein and liquid goals again today, but now it seems like I won’t get virtually shut out like I did on Thursday. I just missed a bunch of time while I was hurting and I don’t think I will be able to make it up. I’ll get as close as I can without overdoing it and just let it go from there.

I’m also not sure what to do for today’s photo a day thing. I will probably used the bathroom construction again. I could use xmas decorations but I’m tired of that. I’m pretty tired of the construction stuff too, but what can you do. We also need to find things to put us into the holiday spirit. I don’t know about the rest of you, but getting sick twice in December has put a damper on my festiveness. Jen found this yesterday though and it might help:

I wonder why our house isn’t on the list?

Kidding.

There’s also a light display at the Stone Zoo. That feels more like a weekend thing to me though. Maybe we could wait for the kids to be home for that one.

Feeling Sick Again

I took the morning off today because we were at one point considering staying over in Burlington last night. We didn’t, but I kept the time off request in place in case something came up. Turns out it did.

I woke up feeling about the same sort of gas pain that I had when I woke up on Thursday. In that instance it got steadily worse as the day went on and I wasn’t able to feel better until I slept it off over night. Today started the same but quickly got much worse. Gas pain like never before coupled with some nausea. It was awful. I haven’t had anything to eat or drink yet today because the pain feels like my stomach telling me in no uncertain terms to not even try. I extended my time off request to the full day so I can just curl up in a ball on the couch and hope it passes.

The questions I have are as follows:

  • Is it the same bug Harry had last weekend and Jen had yesterday?
    • Is it possible for me to have had that bug, then been fine for three days, then have it again?
  • Did I eat something yesterday that set this off? Also, did I eat the same thing on Wednesday night that would have set it off on Thursday?
    • I have a theory. I tried some Atkins brand protein potato chips. They don’t have any sugar in them so they should be okay, but I think I had a small bag on Wednesday and I know I had a couple of small bags at various times yesterday. If it was something I ate, I bet it was those chips. That sucks because they are really, really good.
  • Is it dumping syndrome?
    • I really don’t think so. Dumping is when your stomach gets too much sugar and literally rejects it in both directions (TMI?). I haven’t experienced that specifically, but could this be related somehow?

I haven’t had any liquids since about 10:30 last night when I had a sugar free popsicle. I am feeling crazy dehydration right now. I might have to force myself to drink something soon but I want to give the pain a little time to see if it lessens at all.

This sucks.

Feeling Okay

My stomach is okay today. No issues at all. I am almost willing to declare that whatever started going wrong two days ago, and then went really seriously wrong yesterday, has passed. It’s 3:13pm and I’m an hour passed lunch. I have taken in 40 ounces of liquid and 56.86 grams of protein. Everything is on pace for a successful day.

So the question left to me is, did I do something wrong to cause my problems over the last two days, or was it a bug that I possibly caught from Harry as he was sick to his stomach all weekend. I was going to assume it was something I did wrong until Jen told me that she’s feeling sick to her stomach today. I think it might have been a bug after all. That almost makes me feel better about the whole thing, other than the fact Jen is feeling sick today, which sucks completely.

I am feeling well enough tonight to go out and run an errand for Jen, even though it bums me out on an unrelated level. She bought something from her favorite computer/electronics store recently but it needs to be returned. I am going to return it for her. The bummer part is that the store is in Cambridge, right down the street from Harvard Square, and right across the river from Boston’s Back Bay. I have been wanting to take a camera to both of those places for months now but haven’t had a chance. I could do it tonight but it will be dark and I won’t have time to stop and that makes it a two strikes and you’re out situation. Maybe I’ll be able to take some pics from stop lights. I’ll bring my DSLR and put it in auto mode, just in case. I won’t bring film though.

Speaking of pictures, the weather is going to be crappy tomorrow. No sunrise pics this time. It’s not supposed to rain until mid-morning though, so maybe I’ll take the film camera out to a couple of places around town. We’ll see. The DSLR will go to Vermont with me on Sunday but I don’t think the film camera will. We’re not planning on spending much time in Burlington so there won’t be many opportunities for picture taking.

On a final, also unrelated note, our bathroom has a floor again:

93/365