my kryptonite

wow. what a ride. i mentioned in my previous post that i want to write about being ill. so here goes...october saw almost 250 prospective students come and go. 250 doesn't include moms, dads, siblings, grandparents, and yes... even pets. having fellowshipped with, entertained, and physically touched hundreds of visitors, the likelihood of succumbing to an illness was inevitable. i spent the entire month of november and into december with chronic diarrhea, stomach pain, and bloating. lovely. i sometimes wonder why my body experiences the things that it does. i have a vitamin b-12 deficiency which i believes contributes to a weak immune system. so in general, i am more susceptible to things than the normal person. after two weeks of abnormal poo (which after 4 days, i began to worry/stress)...i was told to take a sample of my poo to the hospital. i've never had to handle my poo like that before and have never had to give my poo to another person to hold. interesting experience. what's bad...i had to do this TWICE. and in between giving two stool samples, i had a stomach scope performed. i had lost several pounds (which i didn't have to lose in the first place) and the gastroenterologist was concerned and wanted to go in for a look. i was heavily sedated as they shoved a six foot camera cable down my throat. they didn't find anything alarming just a little bit of gastritis and a hiatal hernia (which explains probably my incredibly insane ability to burp like a man...i always thought i inherited it from my mom...i guess she has a hiatal hernia too). :o) my stomach biopsy came back normal after the procedure. so the big question was why i am having this incessant diarrhea? i began to think it was all in my head, stress, and irritable bowel syndrome. i was all down on myself for stressing about it all and causing unnecessary self-infliction all these weeks. but then the news came...the nurse calls me after all was said and done and said indeed that my second stool sample came back positive for a parasite called "cryptosporidium." i have never been so elated and disgusted at the same time. i was like all excited that they finally found out what was wrong with me. and then freaked out that i had a freakin' parasite living inside of me. for those of you that haven't heard of cryptosporidium, it is a parasite that is water-born. who's to say where i picked it up. could have been anywhere really. i am really good about drinking filtered water though (at work and at home), so i am thinking it came from a restaurant or a water fountain. i take bottled water to the gym and restaurants now. :o) not risking being funkitfied again. what a miserable five weeks! the doc put me on antibiotics, and i am on cloud nine. just in time to have a wonderful christmas with family and friends.

a mess

so my in-loves come to town this past thursday. i decide to get the twenty-four hour bug (more like the 67 hour bug and counting) saturday morning exiting both ends (TMI...i know), and david leaves me yesterday for a week in canada. the in-loves leave this morning. i wisp to work having lost weight over the past couple of days wondering if i would make it through the day. i last until one o'clock and head back home for the couch. i am already emotionally stirred by the morning's paper on 9.11 and the haunting memories i have stored in my mind. so i am at home feeling pretty puny missin' my baby wishing that my stomach would stop cramping. to make matters worse, my aunt from the red sea visited me yesterday...what a combination. sorry, men...TMI. women, you feel my pain. so with the option of three soap operas or divorce court compliments of our rabbit ears, i resort to our case of dvd's. why i chose castaway, i don't know. i love this movie for some reason, so today i was on my, i guess, fourth viewing. i guess i like it because i don't have to concentrate on people speaking, or i don't have to figure out what's going on. i also love how it portrays the essence of time with profound, unspoken symbolism. similar to the previous three times, i begin sobbing when wilson is torn away by the sea and continue to sob until the end of the movie. the movie has an amazing ability to draw you into hank and hunt's character. this fourth time around, i was so much more aware of the comments and the surrounding set after hank had been rescued. we take so much for granted...so much. man. i flip the news on to watch more 9.11 memories only to surface more tears. i dawned on the fact that i had not prayed a single prayer for any of the victims' families and all involved on that horrible day. so i am sitting on my couch with snotty tissues pretty much a wreck still missin' my baby wondering what i was going to do about addressing my stomach. i go into the kitchen only to walk into a war zone of flies! flies buzzing all around me. i couldn't count...i panic...what the? i frantically looked for the source finding...nothing really. i trashed three red peppers on the counter and a banana that had been cut in half. nope. turned on the disposal. nope. all the while pulling matrix moves avoiding the frantic dive bombs. i put the trashcan on the back mud room and come back in to the deafening force field. i get a kitchen towel ready for retaliation. did i mention i hate flies? bam...broke our plastic paper towel holder (didn't like it anyway...). determined to stop the insanity...i licked three down in a row...just call me chuck norris...or rather mrs. miyagi. it was amazing. three dead flies wrapped up in a paper towel in the trashcan on our back porch. kitchen towel in the dirty clothes pile. silence. feeling good and wanting to reward myself, i scooted up to sonic for a chocolate milkshake to coat my stomach. it's a few hours later...and all i can say is...my eyes are still swollen from sorrow, and my stomach still hurts and that concerns me. maybe i am just constipated from all the lomotil i took to stop the diarrhea. yeah, hopeful that's it. anything past twenty-four hours means something is majorly wrong with me, right? i am a hypochondriac...i will settle with constipation though and call it a night. out.