sweetfrenchtoast

I had a weird day today. First of all, I haven’t been taking one of my medications lately. I had suffered from chronic nasal congestion for months and months and had made a few trips to the doctor and an allergist after my Claritin-D just seemed to stop working. I learned from a coworker that the medication I was on had stuffiness as a possible side effect, and when I decided to do a little experiment and skip my medication, whaddya know, I could breathe again! So I stopped taking it for a while, and then took it again to see if the nasal congestion returned. It did, and with a vengeance. My nose was so congested that it would literally wake me up several times in the middle of the night because I could not breathe. I don’t think I need to explain how horrifying and frustrating that was.

I called my endocrinologist and made an appointment with a nurse to talk to them about the problems I was having with the medication. Unfortunately, the nurse had to cancel his appointments on the day of mine, so I never made it in. Now that my routine six-month follow-up is approaching in two weeks, and I’m guessing my blood levels will be out of whack because I haven’t been taking my meds, I decided to try to take my medication during the day to see if it would be tolerable. I had started taking it at night in the first place because it made me nauseous during the day, but I figured I would eat something substantial with the pills and surely it wouldn’t be that bad, right?

Boy, was I wrong. I soon started feeling kinda queasy. Then, within about a half-hour, I was full on nauseous. I staggered into the bathroom and sat by the toilet for a long time, tucking my hair into the back of my shirt and trying not to cry as my stomach jerked and heaved in attempts to puke. After what felt like eternity on the bathroom floor, I figured I wasn’t really going to puke (although I wished I would), and I headed back to my desk. One of my coworkers gave me some crackers, and I tried to eat one. I took one bite and immediately started shaking and thought I was going to hurl all over the place. I grabbed a trash can and went into one of the offices and laid down on the couch. I stayed there for a long time, I’m not even sure how long, and just tried to breathe. It was awful. After I finally felt like I was feeling better, I headed back to my desk but only lasted a few minutes before I had to go lay down again.

Eventually I did start to feel better and was able to sit at my desk. JR kindly went to Whole Foods and bought some ginger root, which she chopped up into hot water to make ginger tea for my sick belly. KB donated the crackers to me, which I was finally able to chew and swallow safely. By that point, I was starting to feel sick simply from the lack of food…I am prone to hypoglycemia and was starting to feel that empty knot in my stomach that I get right before my blood sugar gets really low.

I’m feeling a lot better now. But I surely won’t be taking my medicine during the day again. I’m not really sure what to do. I can’t take it at night or I literally get about four hours of sleep. I am going to refrain from taking it until I see my doctor, and hopefully he’ll have some suggestions for me. Meanwhile, I’m going to just cross my fingers that my prolactinoma behaves and doesn’t start growing wildly because I’m not taking my meds.

So the first part of my day was pretty crappy. But on my way home, I had the nicest encounter with the cashier at CVS. I was buying Zone shakes, which make for a great quick breakfast when I’m trying to lose weight (in other words, always). As I marveled at their sales price (regularly $5.99, on sale for $1.50!!), the cashier asked me what they were. I explained that they were diet shakes that you could eat in place of a meal, and she immediately squinted her eyes at me and asked what on earth I was doing trying to diet. She was actually really nice about it, and she went into this really kind lecture about how beautiful I was, and how thankful I should be, and that a lot of people would kill to look like me, and it’s not about the outside as much as the inside anyway, and I was made beautiful and I should be so grateful for that. She pointed out the tabloid covers and said, “You don’t want to be as skinny as them, right?” and I of course shook my head and laughed no.

It wasn’t so much the message from her as it was her demeanor and the way she said it to me. She was so genuine, and she really seemed to care that I understood what she was saying. I guess just knowing that there are people as kind as that woman out there…it kinda made my day.

So thanks, CVS lady, for being you. You are beautiful too.