An Underdog Kinda Day

There is an old Underdog cartoon that I remember from when the kids were little, where our hero has fallen under the spell of the evil Simon Bar Sinister, who has given him something that will make him sick. Underdog says, "Things are fine when I sit down, but when I stand up, things go round and round." (amazing how I can remember that so many years later!)

Well, today has been kind of an Underdog day for me. Things started off ok, with my waking up and then remembering about writing the journal entry. But by the time I'd finished the journal I was having abdominal cramps.

A little health confession here. I haven't been a very compliant patient with my diabetes II meds for several months and the piper eventually had to be paid, so I finally got the damn lab tests done and went to the doctor prepared to have the riot act read to me. She doesn't do that sort of thing, but she did get me to promise to go back on my meds again and to report in to her on a regular basis what my blood glucose readings are. She also adjusted my medication so a couple were dropped and a couple of others were added. Possible side effects are nausea and diarrhea.

For me, the end result was nausea, varying from mild to not quite so mild and disappearing quickly as the day progressed. At first I thought it would get better as my body adjusted to the meds, and then after a particularly bad day, I made an appointment to see the doctor again. But of course by the time I saw her it had adjusted. There's been a lot of back and forth over this re-starting jazz, but the glucose numbers are coming down, which she is happy to see, and the last time I saw her (last week) she said my blood pressure was "beautiful." I can't remember when anybody ever told me that.

So this nausea has been coming and going for about 2 weeks, but today seemed worse than usual, plus there was some diarrhea as well. I didn't feel like doing anything today and over the course of the morning I probably lost everything I've eaten for the last three days, one way or the other.

I didn't know if it was a continuation of the medication problem or if perhaps the chicken salad sandwich I'd eaten last night was the culprit.

All that mayonnaise on a warm afternoon, you know.

For whatever the reason, I was down for the count. Polly and Emmy were thrilled to have lap time all morning long. At some point I sent Walt (who was upstairs) a text message to ask if he could feed the dogs, which he did (the cell phone is replacing the "ring the bell if you want anything" days of being sick!). I fell asleep sometime mid morning. When I awoke, there was a note saying he'd gone off to the farmers' market.

He brought fresh cherries home from the market and they were too good not to try, so I did. I don't know how those sat with my system. All my symptoms aren't gone yet, but it was worth it to try some of the cherries. It seemed that every time I got up to check e-mail or get a small bite to eat, it would set off my symptoms again. Things were fine when I sat down, but when I stood up, things went round and round (as well as up and down!)

I spent the afternoon watching TV and taking pictures of the puppies playing on the dog bed across from where I was laid out.

At dinnertime I had a bowl of plain rice and decided that it would either (a) fill me up, or (b) put something else in my system to get rid of because I was running pretty low.

Toward the end of the day, I had a call from the Enterprise office about the review for As You Like It. I'd stayed up to get it done, to make sure it was at the office first thing this morning. Now, at 5 p.m., they wanted to know where it was. Turns out that my boss, who is on vacation, had told me to send it to the editor, and I'd confirmed with the editor on Thursday that it was coming, but the person whose job it was to actually get the paper printed didn't know that, didn't have access to the editor's e-mail and wanted to know where it was. Sigh. If I'd know that, I could have gone to sleep earlier last night and written it this morning!