Sleepless Nights

Blog

  • Hitting the wall

    The problem with a condition like Ehlers Danlos is that sometimes I will go weeks or months without any major issues. That is of course if we’re not counting minor dislocations, nausea, vomiting and tiredness in our major issues list and ignoring the arthritic pain and assorted aches.

    This means that I get to function relatively normally for a period of time. Yes, I puke of an evening and have to manage what I eat relatively well. I also dislocate my ribs/shoulder/wrists/ankles/fingers every day, but that isn’t a huge deal. They’re all relatively easy to reduce and while painful, I don’t scream over those. This is what relatively normally means to me, but we can work with this.

    The major problems appear when I’ve been running on empty for a while. The holiday season is rough on me – rich food, family commitments, later nights, excitable children – these all conspire to use my energy faster than a week, say, in the middle of winter.

    So when I had a positive pregnancy test, a hospital admission for Isaac, a wedding to organise and execute, a miscarriage and a few other unbloggable things happen within a fortnight, you might not be surprised to hear that I hit a brick wall sometime on Tuesday, as my reserves of any remaining energy disappeared and I found myself pretty unable to do anything normally.

    You might not be surprised, but these crashes always take me a bit by surprise (apparently, I am more determined than smart sometimes and seem to think my body should run on willpower alone) and leave me grumpy at the whole situation.

    After all, there is only so much you can accomplish when the ability to walk has just about deserted you and your children are running in circles and demanding feeding.

    Thank god for Nathan, anyway.

    I am trying to take it easy, but you know what? I’m just pissed off. I’m pissed off that I can’t eat right now without wanting to vomit, that I can’t walk, that I can’t move without feeling like someone three times my age, constantly keeping an eye on my joints to make sure nothing breaks.

    I’m pissed off, knowing that getting my boob-to-knee support wear on would help – but that I know I wouldn’t be able to get it on in the first place, without dislocating at least one major joint. And I’m too scared to do that.

    I’m just pissed.

    I know that this will get better. My last big crash that felt like this involved me quitting my job and spending six weeks in bed and 12 months recovering (I was pregnant with Amy during that period, which didn’t help matters) before I felt like I had a decent control over my body again (insomuch as you can control vomiting and dislocations).

    Today I have at least managed to sit semi-reclined and deal with emails and write this post (we’ll ignore the dislocared thumb joints near my wrist, I don’t type with my thumb anyway), but it’s a slow process.

    I used a good deal of my energy resources today just having a shower, and suspect that my entire afternoon will be spend curled in a chair with my kindle, trying to work out if my hands are stable enough to hold a cup of tea. Yesterday they weren’t, but I’m hoping for progress.

    And maybe, if I’m lucky, tomorrow will be better too.

  • Recovering

    Apparently when you have a fortnight as crazy as I did, you get to the end of it and your mental state is fried.

    Who’d have thought it?

    In lieu of blogging, I’ve been spending all of my time drinking tea and reading books (Diana Gabaldan’s “Cross Stitch” series) and contemplating my lack of energy. A little bit can be attributed to depression, a lot of it was sheer exhaustion. Today is better, thanks to a psych appointment yesterday, increased sunshine and warmth and an hour planting flowers in the orchard.

    Admittedly my pear tree isn’t looking great, but it’s the first year in the ground.

    Isn’t my view pretty at the moment?

    I got my second set of HCG results back yesterday. Sixteen. ARGH. I’m still wanting to throw up on and off, which has to be my reaction to the progesterone in my system. It’s unpleasant, regardless of what is causing it.

    My mental recovery has been relatively easy. Because I’d bled from the very beginning, I wasn’t entirely convinced that my pregnancy was going to be viable. Being proved correct wasn’t what I wanted, but knowing that nearly every woman out there has gone through it makes it a little easier. Misery loves company and all that. Knowing that I wasn’t alone in things, that helped.

    Thanks to our wedding gifts, we’re hopeful that we can get the toilet moved inside in the new year, which will be great. Another winter of freezing near to death in order to pee doesn’t appeal to me.

    We’re down to two ducklings now. I started listing all of the things that might have happened to the other babies the other day and then went “huh. I am really not surprised.” It’s a harsh world for small bundles of yellow fluff.

    I also bought myself some water colour paints. Now I’m just trying to work out if I have the energy to paint myself a pretty new header for here.

     

  • I got attacked by an angry duck to bring you this post. I hope you’re happy.

    It is the fourth day of Summer today and when I went outside to take photos of my ducklings for you Internet, I put on thick socks, jeans, an undershirt, a t-shirt, a jumper, Nathan’s big furry coat and red gumboots. It’s cold Internet and the cold has sunk into my bones, leaving me wanting nothing more than to curl up with my book and unending cups of tea.

    These are the sacrifices I make, in order to bring you ducklings photos. Of which there is only one, because while the ducklings regarded me suspiciously and hid behind their mother, the mother had no such qualms and instead seemed interested in eating my face.

    For an animal that doesn’t have teeth and can’t really use it’s claws, mother ducks are rather vicious and attacky.

    You’re welcome.

    So, after wandering around after the ducklings and finding one dead (it got confused about which duck was its mother last night and despite my best attempts to shoo it back to its siblings, spent a cold night without its mum), I went into the garden.

    We’re not telling the children that I know where the strawberries are ripening.

    Blackcurrants ripening on my black currant bush. My two grandmothers gave me this cutting from my great grandmothers blackcurrant bush when I first moved in here. I’m glad that it’s not only survived, but thrived.

    These are the sweet williams that I used to make my “aisle” for the wedding. I still haven’t planted them out, but you know. I’ll get there. Just as soon as I can make Nathan dig the holes for me.

    It seems that miscarriages and exhaustion make bendy joints even worse and if walking has been displacing joints, I shudder to think what trying to dig a hole would do. At this stage, I’m just grateful for thigh high socks, which are not only keeping me warm, but are providing valuable knee support.

    My children “helped” me plant peas again this year, which has seen little pea plants pop up everywhere. This one I found almost in the pathway, along with some self sown chives and a large amount of grass.

  • I went for an obstetric ultrasound and all I got was this lousy empty uterus

    A week before the wedding, I got a positive pregnancy test, which was lovely and fantastic and completely unexpected. Seeing as how we weren’t planning on starting Clomid until January, a natural pregnancy was a bit of a shock.

    But that’s okay – it was a good shock and I only told a very few people because I was spotting (my period started and stopped again, for those keeping track at home) and we weren’t sure what was happening.

    Then of course we ended up in Hospital with Isaac; running around like idiots getting the wedding prep and I was quietly vomiting in the corners when I had the chance. So much fun.

    We got married and while I spotted a little over the weekend, it wasn’t anything too major and I wasn’t bothered. Bleeding through an entire pregnancy with Isaac has raised my tolerance levels for spotting and such.

    Monday, I made an appointment with my GP to get my pregnancy confirmed and an ultrasound scheduled.

    Monday afternoon, I started to bleed relatively heavily – although not as heavy as a normal period, nor as painful.

    By Tuesday, it had lightened up a little, to the point that I wasn’t certain that I’d lost the pregnancy.

    Yesterday, I was still bleeding, but fed up with waiting for my appointment, I begged my GP to fax a referral off so that I could have an ultrasound ASAP to find out what was going on.

    Nothing bothers me worse than not knowing. Limbo is a special kind of torture for me and that limbo of bleeding too much to feel safe in my pregnancy, but not enough to be certain of a miscarriage was hell.

    This morning I got my ultrasound.

    And nothing.

    Empty uterus. No sign of pregnancy there at all.

    Which is fucking ridiculous, considering I spent the morning throwing up, and got another positive urine test yesterday evening.

    My body is fucked, you guys. It can’t do ANYTHING right.

    I went back to my GP to have blood HCG done and he’s as baffled as I am.

    Either I lost this pregnancy with minimal cramping and bleeding Monday night (unlikely?) or something weird is going on. Considering my body never falls on the easy side of statistics, my vote is for weird.

    I know when we are likely to have conceived (within the limits of sperm life), because I’m anal and I chart everything, but something is amiss here.

    Namely, the lack of fetus like material in my uterus. Or a uterus that looks pregnant at all.

    Argh.

    I’ll have my blood HCG levels back tomorrow lunchtime and if the levels are still pregnant (very likely) then I’ll have a second lot of bloods drawn on Monday to test and see if they’re going up or down.

    But until then, I’m stuck in this limbo hell, bleeding and vomiting, feeling pregnant and bemoaning my stupid uterus.

    And watching for signs of ectopic pregnancy, with increasing stress.

  • Individual pavlovas with strawberry pear champagne sauce

    The day after my wedding, as we cleaned up the house and yard, we discovered a few things.

    Firstly, half a bottle of pink champagne left in the alcohol fridge and secondly, a sheet pavlova, cream and strawberries that my gorgeous aunt had baked and brought up, that hadn’t been put together or served.

    Not wanting to waste the champagne, or the pavlova and not being a big drinker (or a drinker at all, really) I wondered what a strawberry champagne sauce would taste like.

    Google was next to useless and instead, I made it up as I went along and ended up with the gorgeous looking thing pictured above. Kudos to the other gorgeous aunt on Nathan’s side who gave us the dessert glasses.

    It was divine and really easy to make. Easy is something I very definitely needed!

    Ingredients:

    You need one small sheet pavlova,
    some whipped cream,
    a punnet of strawberries,
    a cup (thereabouts) of sweet champagne
    and one large pear, peeled, cored and diced.

    Method:

    Cut the strawberries up into quarters and dump into a saucepan, along with the diced peeled pear and champagne.

    Simmer until the alcohol has cooked off and the fruit is mushy. Using a stick blender, blend it up to a smooth thick liquid.

    Using a dessert glass, layer whipped cream, pavlova and the fruit sauce, until it all looks pretty.

    You could top this off with fans of strawberries, or mint sprigs. I was going to, but I turned around to check the sauce and my children had eaten them on me.

    Such is my life.