Showing posts with label sick. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sick. Show all posts

Sunday, February 17, 2013

Screw you, immune system!

I'm sick. AGAIN.  I swear people must think I go around licking door knobs and dirty tissues with the way I am constantly catching one bug or another.

I'm not.  I swear.

I eat a good diet. I exercise. I wash my hands. I don't share food willy nilly.  I drink my water. I take my vitamins.  I do all the good things! I just can't seem to stay healthy.

It's driving me insane.

This time around it's a sinus infection and a generic throat infection. NOT STREP, PRAISE THE LORDS AND LADIES.

I woke up Friday morning and I had a lump in the back of throat, left side only.  My throat was all raw and icky.  I was not happy. Started popping Zicam and taking emergen-c and went about my day.  Through the work day I started to feel grosser but I had things to do. A birthday party to make happen.

I left work a little after 4 and headed on to get the birthday party stuff picked up and set up at the studio.  All done. Party time - I had the first 3 songs of the night.  An 8 minute warmup, one dance song and one fitness song.  I felt like I was going to pass out through all three.  Once I was done, I watched, I took pics and I enjoyed seeing all the love pour down on the Sarah.

HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY, SARAH-BELLA!

I went to bed early Friday night with the knowledge that I had the whole weekend off to rest and get better.  That never happens, but Sue was the logical one and convinced me to cancel my TurboKick class Saturday morning and offered to take my Sunday class in my place.  So from 7:15 Friday through 7:45 Monday I would have nothing to do but just be.  Oh, how I appreciated that.

Because Saturday morning I was SICK.  My face was puffy, my left eye was twitchy, I had no voice and I felt like I was hit by a truck.  I went on to Immediate Care.

At immediate care, I learned something interesting.  My tonsils have grown back! I had them out when I was 22 but apparently they came back. This could explain a lot of my health issues.  This was the root cause of a lot of issues up until they were yanked out.

Anyway - fully occluded left sinus cavity, fluid behind my left ear and pustules behind my tonsils.  NOT STREP but yeah. Sick.  Antibiotics. Go home. Rest.

Yesterday I enjoyed a nice lunch out with folks before diving in to movies and TV watching before an early bed time.

I watched:

1. The Possession
2. Sound of my Voice
3. Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
4. Looper
5. Step Up: Revolutions
6. House at the End of the Street.

And tomorrow I will watch: Hotel Transylvania!

I feel well rested and very blessed to have had a weekend to take care of me.  I'm off work tomorrow and am going to rest some more and hopefully I will be back at 100% by the time I go to class tomorrow night.


Monday, October 8, 2012

Fun, Fundraising and Freaking Exhausted.

Going in to this weekend I was exhausted. The cold that hit me on Monday was holding strong well in to Friday and I was scared that I wasn't going to survive my weekend events and my voice was 95% gone with no sign of coming back.  

Here's what was on my schedule for the weekend:
Saturday 10a: 2 hour Zumbathon for Girls on the Run.
Saturday 4p: 2 hour Zumbatomic Birthday Party for Morgan and Makenzie.
Sunday 2:15p: 1 hour Zumbatomic class
Sunday 4:30p: 75 minute Zumba class at the YMCA.
That's about 6 hours of Zumba related work and Zumbatomic is the most exhausting specialty I currently teach.  Kids are hard.  They require twice as much energy and enthusiasm as a normal Zumba class.  I guess it's fair though because the reward is twice as big.  

Friday night I went to bed early after taking my 100th dose of Zicam, EmergenC, gargling with salt water, taking NyQuil and slathering myself up with VapoRub.  

It worked well enough, I suppose.  I almost had a full voice back when I got up Saturday and I was not feeling so much like death.  So on we went.

The Girls on the Run Zumbathon? AMAZING! Girls on the Run may have won me over and I may be considering volunteering with them.  I love their mission and the way they teach self acceptance, self love and honoring your body.  Ginger from GOTR did a little exercise with the girls at the Zumbathon that I really needed.  It involved a Positivity string and throwing away the Negativity strings that people try to force upon us. Then playing a game of "tag" with positive adjectives that when we had to freeze we had to attach to the people closest to us.  It was a beautiful exercise and I loved the messages.  They resonated with me.

Mostly?  The day was about fun and dancing and playing and we did!!!

Curl in like an amoeba!
Mrs. Fatass gives a lesson on Cumbia
An unplanned circle during a game of Freeze Dance!
The Monster Mash!!
Starting a game of Center Star
Positivity string meditation
It was a blast to get to play with the kids and to watch some of them just come right out of their shell and make new friends.  I miss that about being a kid.  How every new person you meet is a best friend you just haven't met yet.  It was uplifting and made me feel great.  Even though I was still wanting nothing more than to be in my bed with hot chocolate and a book.

After all was said and done I got home, got cleaned up and had lunch while psyching myself up for the birthday party.

And you know what?  The birthday party was AWESOME too.  The two girls we were hosting the party for were turning 7 and 11 and we wound up with a full hour of giggling and dancing.  Even some of the parents and grandparents got in on the action!!!!! It was so much fun and I loved that the kids got so in to the dancing piece of the day.  It was harder with the age span but we did it.

Then Sue and I spent the second hour helping out with the food and drink portion and cleaned up the studio. I was dead tired by the time we finished up.  Like... DEAD.

I spent the evening catching up on the DVR and eating pizza with Matt and Marshall.  It was the best way to end the day.

Sunday morning came far too quickly though. I slept in a little bit, but not much and then had to go grocery shopping.  Then I spent an hour separating meats in to single serve sizes so I could easily making up meals for the week.  Lots of yummy chicken and turkey sausages and veggies for lunch and quick dinners this week.  I also did some planning about breakfasts and snacks and everything is pretty much set to go.

Then it was onward to my normal Zumbatomic class.  I had 2 little girls and 2 older boys and it was a weird class BUT it was fun and everyone got sweaty and giggly.  It took a lot out of me.  It was a hard class due to the age difference.  A 4 and 5 year old and a 9 and 10 year old. OUCH!  It wound up being incredibly satisfying though.

My class at the YMCA was smaller than normal but it also wound up just feeling good.  I went with an all cardio, playful playlist.  There were lots of call backs to old favorites and some Halloween related fun routines.  It was great.  I felt so much better about 30 minutes in to class when the endorphin rush just rose up and hit me.  I love that crew so much.  No matter how tired I am they rock me!

Today I am working from home, on my day off, and about to go run some errands with Matt.

I am still a little high on the weekend.  Why?  Because I got two of the biggest compliments from Zumbatomic kids through their parents.

First one little girl, who has been to pretty much all of my classes, was told that she was going to do Zumba for a few hours Saturday morning by her mom and she said "I don't wanna do Zumba without Miss Sam." Dead. That hit me right in the heart place. WHAM!

Secondly, the little girl from class on Sunday.  Her mom posted this on my FaceBook last night:

 And then this this morning:
Yeah... I'm so won over by the love from the little ones.  They are so open and honest and live life so unapologetically. 

So much good stuff.  

I'm still freaking exhausted though. EXHAUSTED.  After this weird week and next weekends Sentao training I am fully prepared to be dead by the end of next week... when I turn 30! EEK! It's coming up so quickly! 

I can't wait to see what year 30 brings!

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Weigh in Wednesday

Last week I rejoined Weight Watchers and today was my first weigh in. 

Down 7.6 pounds. 

7.6 pounds.  I rarely see that in a month, let alone a week.  I also didn't really do anything all that differently last week either.  I was just getting back "on plan."  Silly body making me all confused.

Anyway, I'm going to keep soldiering on and only weighing in on Wednesday.  Not going to weigh in every day.  I'm not! ... If I start doing so I'll let you all know so you can shame me in to stopping, because I'm pretty bad with the obsession of weighing in.  

I'm enjoying the heck out of the #20till30 challenge.  It's been cool how people are getting their daily exercises in with new people, in new places and sharing it with me.  I'm totally digging it.

Me?  I did jumping jacks outside with Matt and then did squats with a new Zumba student at my new location last night.  Tonight?  I'm totally cheating a little bit.

Lunges - I added these because I hate them so freaking much.  Mostly because of my broken ankle from 7 years ago.  BUT I do a Zumba song that's alternating lunges.  I retired it because the lunges were making me angry with life (and my ankle) but I'm bringing it back tonight to get in my lunges in Zumba style.  It's 32 lunges on each side over the course of the fun Broadway, vamping song.  So I'll be getting my lunges in with my Zumba family.

Matt and I are also going to go for a jog, not sure about before or after class... but we'll get in at least 30 minutes.  

And then sleep.. because this cold will not let go of me! My head is stuffed full of snot and angry right now.  My right ear sounds like it's stuffed with cotton balls.  The doc said it's just a cold though so I'll just deal with it.  One or two more days and I'll be back to normal.  Just in time for a day long Zumba fest - A Zumbathon, a Zumba birthday party and then 2 classes the next day! WOOHOO!!

Saturday, May 19, 2012

Sick of being sick...

Frustrated beyond belief, I sit here trying to figure out what the deal is with my body and not wanting to be healthy and non-injured. 

Rewind to last Thursday.  Towards the end of 3 hours of Zumba I started to feel truly exhausted and I said YES! I've kicked my own tail! ... Not so much.  After eating a bowl of soup, I got home and immediately begin vomiting.  So began over a week of feeling awful.

I slept ALL DAY Friday.  I woke up long enough to go to the office (Marshall drove) and grab my laptop and some work stuff so I could get work done over the weekend.  I slept from 9am to 1pm, showered, watched GLEE and then passed out again until just after 5pm.

The vomiting ceased pretty quickly but the exhaustion, chills, fever and overall feeling of GROSS continued on and seemed to leave my stomach and something vile settled in my sinuses and throat.  Breathing was painful because my throat was so raw.  However, being me, I knew I couldn't sit still and I was back at Zumba Saturday morning.  I read books and stayed still as much as possible. 

Sunday my ears began to feel awful, my right ear became useless and I started getting dizzy when I sneezed, coughed or changed position abruptly.  Crap!

Yet... me being me... I waited until THURSDAY to go see the doctor.  Diagnoses? Sinus infection. Laryngitis. Pharyngitis. Double ear infections. Inner ear infection causing intermittent vertigo.  Handed me high dose omnicef and sent me on my way.

It's now Saturday and I still don't feel great and my voice comes in and out.

So it was a tough week for me, but ended on some very big high notes. 

Truth be told, aside from this sinus/ear/throat crap, I know I'm healthier than I've ever been in my life.  Tomorrow I will take my 2nd set of quarterly measurements, pictures and my weigh in.  I'm STOKED to see what the numbers have to say because my clothes all fit differently and I can see little things like the way my thighs move when I teach certain Zumba songs has changed.  I can see how much stronger my back already looks to me.  I can't wait to see the overall numbers though.

Back to reading and resting for me.

Sunday, December 4, 2011

Can I stop getting sick now? Please?

As is common this time of year, my upper respiratory tract, sinuses and throat all want to kill me.  And I mean that quite literally.

I've had horrible allergy issues since autumn came for a visit. Then I got a sinus infection the Tuesday before Thanksgiving.  Now?  Now I have strep throat.

At work on Friday my throat was really hurting, it burned to eat or drink anything and my voice was hoarse.  I figured if I still felt bad on Tuesday I'd go back to the doctor since that would be one week after the antibiotics finished their course. 

Yesterday morning I woke up and my mouth felt horrible.  Dry, coated in something and it hurt to breathe because my throat was so raw.  I figured I was dehydrated and the coat of ick was from sinus drainage.  I put on my big girl panties and headed to Zumba.  After class I was wincing every time I breathed in and so I looked in the mirror and opened my mouth wide.  White patches.  CRAP!

I called Marshall, told him I was cashing my YMCA check and heading to Immediate Care. 

The PA on duty was the one I saw the week before and she looked in my ears, throat and nose and said "Well, the good news is... your nose and ears look great.  That throat?  That is not a happy throat." 

A quick strep test later and I'm given antibiotics for my shiny case of strep and was sent on my way. 

Given that I wasn't running a fever and that I felt fine aside from the soreness in my throat I kept on about my previously planned Saturday.  That included lunch with Marsh and Matt, going to the Wilson Christmas parade, and heading to a birthday party for my friend Jennifer. 

Lunch was Olive Garden.  Soup... heavenly soup. 

The parade was a ton of fun! I was walking with the dance studio where I teach Zumba and since we had such a small turn out of Zumba folks I just walked with the dancers and even did their little dance routine with them.  This means there is not video of me dancing with a large group of tiny high school age and younger girls on the local TV station.  I didn't think that through. 

Oh well. It was a good 2 miles of walking, one of those while dancing.  yay extra cardio?

After coming home and getting changed we headed out to Jennifer's house.  Her birthday party was a really muted even but it was SOOO fun! We ate pizza and snacks and talked and played games on the Kinect. 

I learned that I'm pretty awesome at Dance Central. I got a 5 star rating on my first attempt at Push It.  I want this game so bad it hurts.  Seriously... too much fun!

The only down part of the night was that the antibiotics I'm on started to make me feel really sick.  I had forgotten how bad sulfa medications made me feel.  My stomach started cramping towards the end of the evening and by the time I got home I felt like I was going to spend the evening calling Ralph on the porcelain phone.

I got changed and in to bed and held on as the room spun until I passed out.

Today I am feeling gross still but not nearly as bad as I was yesterday.  My throat is still hurting and I'm trying really hard to speak as little as possible.  (Those of you who know me in real life know how hard that is! The rest of you can guess by my blog!) I also skipped Zumba this afternoon and took a 3 hour nap after sleeping for 13 hours last night. 

For dinner I made a giant pot of chicken soup with brown rice and veggies.  It was perfect, exactly what I needed today.

All I can hope for at this point is that I get through tomorrow with minimal side effects.  I have to drive to Winston Salem for a meeting.  I have to present information about a number of things during the meeting and I hope my voice holds out and that I'm not trying to hold back vomit the entire time. 


Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Simply Thankful (and the secret dance project!)

I am feeling rather grumpy today as I blindsided by a sinus infection yesterday but, sitting here in bed, I realize just how blessed my life truly is.

I woke up yesterday feeling fine.  A bit congested but that's normal - my allergies are always worst in the fall.  Forgot my pill case and struggled through the morning.  Matt gave me one of his Claritin.  No improvement.  Started to scare coworkers with sneezing and blowing my nose.  One starts making snarky comments - retaliate by walking to his cube and blowing my nose as loudly as I possibly can.  Hilarity ensues. Finally get my meds.  Take more Claritin.  No improvement.  Crap. 

Leave work early - my doctor can't see me so off to Immediate Care.  One look in my nose and at my lab work and my low grade fever and I'm sent home with antibiotics.  Work from home for the rest of the afternoon. 

Dinner is reheated pizza.  No flavor.  Can't breathe.  Making playlist for Zumba. Not looking forward to it as breathing through my nose is death.  Big girl panties on.  Let's do this.  Class is awesome. Had a fantastic time even though it felt like there were rocks in my chest.  I want to pass out.  No can do! One more stop to make!

Off to the YMCA to record this video with Matt and Katie. My choreography. On the internet. Forever. I look like a Zumba Oompa Loompa. Oh well. What's done is done!

Went to bed as soon as I got home and got my second dose of antibiotics in me.  Prayed I;d feel better so I could go to work today.

No such luck.  Worked from home.  It was not easy as my nose and head are fighting a war to see which wants to piss me off more.  I get stuff done.  Food has no taste.  I can't smell anything. 

Even though I feel horrible I am incredibly thankful for all the good that being sick has helped me see.

I am surrounded by people who love me.  Matt, Marshall, Chip, Katie, Sarah, Jennifer, all the folks at work, all the folks at Toe 2 Toe, everyone is concerned about me and is showing me such love and kindness. I haven't had to leave the house all day. I'm being bombarded with love and that makes me feel very special.

I have a job that allows me to get stuff done at the office and at home and a very understanding boss who let me work from home when going to the office just isn't a good idea. I am grateful for the technology that allows me to telecommute.  How awesome is that?

I have health insurance that allows me to easily see a doctor.  I didn't have that good fortune so much with my last job.  The copays were not cheap (especially when it wasn't your PCD) and it just wasn't feasible all the time. I'm thankful for nyquil, cough syrup with codeine, anbiotics and orange juice.

I'm so thankful that I found Zumba and got close to my Zumba family.  I don't know what my life would be like without them.  I didn't have much in the way of friends outside of Marshall and our immediate circle of friends before Zumba.  I am so blessed to have those ladies and gents in my life. Zumba is my hobby, my second job, and my escape from the daily grind.  Can't get much better than that.

I'm a little sad that I feel this gross at Thanksgiving.  I'm hoping I can at least somewhat enjoy food tomorrow.  Maybe it's a blessing in disguise - at least I know I won't over eat and maybe I can avoid some of the holiday bloat?

I am thankful that the Macy's parade is tomorrow.  I love the Macy's parade!

Happy Thanksgiving readers.  May you find tomorrow is a great day full of food, friends and festivities.