November 2018

Thanksgiving week. 

Being a teacher, we live for the days that we have a short week. I only had to teach two days that week, so it wasn't that bad. That Wednesday was spent watching movies with my 4 cats and texting with my mother about the food that was going to be made the next day. I was excited for the side dishes that I would be making, and the Brasilian "twist" that my mother always put on the food. I'm not really a meat eater, so my favorite things were always the side dishes; and I excelled at making the veggies. Even my husband, who is a carnivore to the heart, usually asked for more of those sides than the actually turkey breast or pork tenderloin that my mother did. Nope, we were not a family of people who cooked the whole turkey (my mother did that once and I think only a little bit of the meat was eaten, most went to waste).

Thanksgiving Thursday came and we went over to my parents in the morning to help with some of the prep and for me to start figuring out temperatures and timing of everything. That morning, while snacking on the popcorn that we always had on the counter (and I love me some buttery or cheesy popcorn), I started to notice that my stomach was acting "funny". Now, for those who have known me for years, my stomach--and gut mostly-- has been a bit finicky. It would turn on a dime and I would be laying on the couch wondering what it was that I ate that was contaminated (my silly food allergies . . . but I'll get into those in another post). Anyway, I decided that it was just the popcorn that was probably old, so I tossed it and popped a new batch, grabbed a glass of milk, and continued on my merry way for the day. 

The rest of the day I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary, other than the "food baby" that my stomach had become after all that lovely food. My problems started the next day, when I went to the bathroom in the morning. I noticed things were, well, softer than normal. I've never had an issue with constipation or not being able to use the restroom, but I felt like something was a little off. There was a "twinge" for lack of a better phrase, when I went. The last time I had something like that was in June of 2018 while we were moving and remodeling the new place and I was stressed beyond stressed. I had ended up with diarrhea for a few weeks. At the time, I had attributed that to just the stress of the move and remodel and not eating at good times (or eating too much because I had forgotten to eat earlier in the day). Anyway, back to that Friday. I decided that a light breakfast would be the best thing for me to have since the indulgences of the evening before so I headed to the kitchen for some toast, homemade peach jam, and a latte. Partway through my first piece of toast, my gut said "bathroom, now!" and I bolted. A few minutes later, as I was wiping, I noticed some milky white stuff. Again, I had seen that in June and knew that there was a mucosal lining to your gut, so I wondered if just the fact that I had eaten too much the night before had made my gut work too hard and it was complaining. So I abandoned the toast and latte, made a pot of chamomile & ginger tea, and decided that it was going to be another couch day since I had things to do that weekend and also had to go back to teaching the next week.

Throughout the rest of the day, I was in and out of the bathroom multiple times. I ate light, but it seemed that no matter what (or when) I ate, about 30 minutes to an hour later, I would be making the trip to the bathroom. I also started to notice that my neck was extremely stiff on the right side and my ear was starting to hurt. I attributed that to just sleeping or laying wrong on the couch during the day.

The weekend came and went. I ended up missing out on an activity with some friends because I didn't have enough energy. It was an evening parade to welcome in the winter season and since it was in the evening, all the entries had lights! It is usually really pretty. I ended up sitting in the truck that was pulling the trailer for the entry. I had absolutely no energy to be able to walk the few blocks that this parade was.

Going home was a different matter. It took us about 2 hours to drive up there, and on the way back, I was happy that I hadn't eaten anything for the day. I wanted to be sick or visit the restroom almost every hour. 

That Sunday, I started to feel better gut wise and just decided that it was a stomach/gut bug that had caught me from my students the week before, and I just needed to take it easy for the next week or so. 

Monday had me at a chiropractic appointment because my neck was not getting any better. My ear was starting to throb and my upper jaw and teeth were getting really uncomfortable. My chiropractor is a long time friend of the family and when he did that first crack! oh man, the tears started to flow. He didn't do too much (just a little bit of adjusting plus some laser therapy) and I came back 3 days later for another adjustment & laser therapy and another 3 days after that for a repeat. By the third time, I was able to move my neck again, but my ear and teeth weren't feeling any better.

I made a trip to the InstaCare center in town and the doc there was stumped as well. He didn't see anything in my ear (since I thought it was an ear infection), but thought that since my teeth were bugging me that it would be a lower sinus infection. I wasn't sniffly or anything that signified a classic sinus infection, but he gave me some antibiotics and asked me to visit with my dentist just to check and make sure. A few days later, my dentist said that he didn't see any cavities, just some slight inflammation and to let the antibiotics do their thing and see how things go from there.

Now, this is about my gut, so you may be asking yourself "why am I talking about my neck, ear, & tooth?" Well, I found out that these can be precursor signs of a gut flare. I'll chat more about that in  another post.