Being Sick

I experienced a first since my total gastrectomy in February this week…..being sick.  This sickness had nothing to do with my stomach, or lack there of, nothing to do with something I ate, it was just old fashioned being sick.  Last Saturday, we celebrated my birthday a couple of days early.  Late in the evening, I started not feeling great with a little of a sore throat.  Sunday morning I still didn’t feel well.  Throat was still sore, felt weak and my body was aching all over.  I wouldn’t have went to church, but had a meeting afterward, so went.  During worship, I found it necessary to sit down during a couple of hymns which of course made people around me notice.  And of course, if I’m not feeling well, it’s because of my surgery, there’s no other options, or at least so people think. 

I didn’t go to work on Monday, my birthday.  I slept all day, not getting out of bed for any length of time until 4:30.  Because I slept all day Monday, I didn’t get the doctor called until Tuesday and they couldn’t see me until Wednesday.    They suggested I could go to Urgent Care on Tuesday, but first of all, I didn’t feel like sitting and waiting for what sometimes can be a long time at Urgent Care and secondly, I didn’t want to have to explain the whole “no-stomach” thing to a doctor who didn’t know me.  I actually hadn’t seen my regular physician since my surgery, so I sort of wanted to see her anyway.  When I went to the doctor on Wednesday, she determined it was strep throat and put me on antibiotics. 

I managed to go into the office for about an hour or hour and a half tops on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, but that’s all I had energy for.  Friday, I made it up to about 3 ½ hours.  In case you’re every wondering, it’s hard to get a week’s worth of work done at an hour a day.

My throat was so sore all week that it hurt to swallow.  Since it hurt to swallow, I couldn’t make myself eat much.  I survived the week on yogurt and Smoothies was pretty much it.  I ate a little other food, but not much.  I lost about 8 pounds. Originally, after surgery, I was losing 1-2 pounds a week.  That was starting to slow down and my weight was beginning to stabilize.  I’m wondering now if I will gain back the 8 pounds I lost this week being sick or if it’s a new threshold.  Only time will tell. 

When I did start to feel like eating more at the end of the week, at first I found it difficult to consume very large quantities.  It was sort of like the expanding that I had done over the last few months of being able to eat more, took two steps back.  But after a day or so, I seemed to be close to where I had left off a week ago.

I’m curious to see where I am a week from now.

Sleeping in

I slept till 10:30 this morning.  It felt good.  I actually didn't get myself out of bed until 10:45.  It was a rainy morning, so a great day for sleeping in.

I really hope this will help me not be as tired as I've been.  I've felt more of a normal, I need more sleep tired recently instead of the I don't have any energy tired that I was feeling a few weeks/months ago.  I didn't mention yesterday the late nights that I've had (besides the one associated with work) which I'm sure is part of the issue.  Last weekend, I ended up being up till midnight or later for one reason or another Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  Then Thursday night this week, we went to the Royals game and that was another late night.  I think my body was rebelling and reminding me it's not fully recovered, even though I'm doing so much better.

Gaining Strength and Energy

For a week, I've been going to post about gaining more strength and energy, but I keep being too tired to post when I think about it.  What does that mean?  I think it probably says more about my motivation and the other things that I have going on, but it just seem funny.

The week before this was a crazy week at work.  It's another one of those weeks that reminds me that I'm doing a lot better, just because I survived it.  We had a major storm Saturday night, July 22.  Sunday morning while I was still in bed, about 7:30, my husband brings me my phone because I had just received two texts.  They were from our youth director who was at the church early to head with the young adults to Colorado.  She was letting us know that the power was out at church.

Even though I really didn't want to, because I'm still not doing mornings well, I got up and started making arrangements for our worship to go on without power.  We have an early worship service at 8am at a local park so our pastors would already or soon be there.  Worship in the sanctuary is at 9am (contemporary) and 10:30am (traditional).  I started emailing the pastors, musicians and media techs.  At the 9am service, we only have words to the songs on the screen, so my daughter who creates the media emailed me the lyrics so I could print on our home computer a few copies to be shared.  I got to the church a little after 8:30, handed off the lyrics and then started my self-appointed task of getting light into the bathrooms as they have no windows.  There was enough light in the sanctuary and all classrooms that I wasn't concerned about them.  After I distributed the LED lanterns, flashlights and battery pillar candles to the bathrooms, I remembered that we had a box of old funeral fans that we had used for a Camp Meeting reenactment we did a few years ago.  By this time, the 9am service had started, but when I delivered them to the ushers, they said they would distribute them and they were very welcomed.

Before I went in Monday morning, I had already heard from our pastor that we were still without power.  I still went in for a couple of hours.  Since we actually had "half power" and some things were trying to be on, I spent most of the time going around and unplugging electronics and turning off power strips.  The office was by far the hottest place in the building, so I tried to avoid it.  I had a few things I wanted to do in the History Room in the basement, so this seemed like a good time to do them.  I took a few things home and spent a couple of hours working from home in the afternoon.

A little after 8pm, I heard that the power was back on so I headed back to the church to try to get the computers and everything up and running so that things would be functioning when other staff members got there Tuesday morning which would likely be before me....remember I still don't do mornings well.  I couldn't get the server up and in texting my volunteer IT person, he offered to come help, so I said "please."  I was willing to stay as long as he was because if it didn't get fixed Monday night, I would likely be on my own on Tuesday.  Well, we got the computers going before we left, leaving the church just before 11:30pm.  I put in a normal 7 1/4 hours on Monday, just at odd times.

Being so late Monday night, I obviously do not get up early Tuesday morning.  It was about 11:30 before I got in.  However, I had a meeting Tuesday night and worked straight through, so it was still an 8 hour day.  Tuesday was spent calling technicians for all the things that didn't restart on their own after the power outage such as copiers, elevator, A/C, alarm that had a ground fault, etc.  Wednesday was another 7 1/4 hour day dealing with all the technicians that had been called Tuesday.

Thursday started with a phone call from our pastor waking me up at 8am.  It had poured Wednesday night and she had been up since 3:30am helping her husband bail water out of their basement and wasn't going to be in.  Our office volunteer that gets in a 9am doesn't have a key, so I told the pastor I would get myself together and be there to let the volunteer in.  Shortly after I got to the church, I was informed that the Rescue Assistance system in the Education Building was making a very loud, annoying, static noise, so I called the Alarm company again.  I then discovered that if you hold down the intercom button, it stopped making noise, so we duct taped the button down.  A few minutes later, we discovered the basement had got water in so I helped move the wooden furniture and sent emails asking for people to come help with the water.

About 12:30, we were finally ready to heat up the leftovers we had brought for lunch when the power went out.  It wasn't storming at this point.  Don't know what happened.  We waited a few minutes to verify it wasn't a quick flash and was going to come back on, then decided to go out to lunch.  Fortunately, when we got back from lunch, we had power, but didn't have internet.  I was going to be out of the office on Friday, so had several things I still needed to get done before I left on Thursday, including Payroll.  I was making plans for doing what I needed to do at church, but then having to finish things at home with internet when my second call to the phone company actually accomplished getting the internet back, so I was able to finish everything at the church.  However, it was 7pm before I got done what I needed to get done, so it was a 9 hour day.

Friday was an all-day meeting in Topeka.  I drove myself so I could go see my dad afterward.  It was a full week!  As I said before, I know I'm better because as tired as I was, I was not drop dead tired and survived.  I even managed to walk some of the evenings.

This week has been a little more normal, even though not quite everything is back together, but we're getting close.  I'm still having trouble getting up in the morning, so I'm not getting in until close to 10 and therefore, only managing  6 1/2 - 7 hours.  I have walked almost every night this week and 3 of the last 4 times I've walked, I've walked 4 laps around the pond at the local park.  Each lap is 545 meters, so I've been walking 1 1/3 miles.

When I get caught up in life and don't realize how tired I am until afterwards, I know I'm getting closer to "normal."