Jul 4
I just yawned and pulled the muscle under my jaw so hard I felt it in my ear so if anyone needs me I will be facedown dead in a puddle I fucking guess. Ow. Fuck.
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I just yawned and pulled the muscle under my jaw so hard I felt it in my ear so if anyone needs me I will be facedown dead in a puddle I fucking guess. Ow. Fuck.
I really, really hate this thing where I wake up and it's hard to focus my eyes, I feel off kilter and strange, the thought of food makes me want to die, but after I've run through all of the possible but unlikely scenarios I go "well I might as well make myself eat SOMETHING" and at first it's terrible and an awful idea, but slowly I start to feel like a person again and I'm SO MAD because I was never hungry! I very emphatically did not want food despite going 15 hours without it, but I wasn't exactly nauseous. I just felt detached and kind of light headed, no hanger or fatigue just. Something Is Wrong And My Hands Are Very Cold. Fucking bullshit.
It's my first time calling off sick from a real company that treats its workers like people and I cannot believe this has been denied me my whole life. I've called off sick rarely, but I always feel guilty or like maybe I should have tried to push through or whatever. The barometer is dropping an entire point (I start getting symptomatic when it drops by 0.12 points, so this is a huge migraine trigger today) and I messaged my manager like hey my vision is starting to be affected and I have to go, this will even out but not until much later tonight, and she straight up was like. That's what mytime hours are for, I'll approve the request, just call the attendance line and I'll see you tomorrow.
And that was it. I was free to endure the rising tide of bullshit from the safety and comfort of my bed in my dark room and it feels so indulgent and it shouldn't! This should be par for the course! My head feels like a balloon and the little light from behind my blackout curtains is too bright but I am not also guilty or worrying I'm squandering chances and goodwill I might need for a bigger emergency later. I feel like a recently adopted shelter dog. What do you mean this can be normal.
Not being able to tell if I'm hungry or thirsty has mostly been little more than an annoyance but now that I'm exercising I think it's becoming a much bigger deal. I keep looking up how to know if I need more electrolytes and such since my heart rate has been dropping through the floor randomly (or staying up too long after exercise) and all the anecdotes are like "oh I'm hungry but food doesn't fix it" and I'm like. But I'm never hungry. And same with thirst and water, like I don't get thirsty as a sign of dehydration, I mostly remember to drink during tkd because I'm panting so hard my mouth and throat are dry. That's not a cue that's just what happens when you breathe too hard.
Oh wait I just realized. I spent months conditioning myself to the point that regular, high impact exercise barely affects me anymore. It would logically follow that perhaps when I get sick, provided it's a minor illness, the dip in my energy levels might not be quite perceptible. When I'm sick I turn into a dog hiding under the porch, but that might be because before I had so little energy to start with. Even minor bullshit came with feeling like I had been hit by a truck.
I do feel reluctant to go outside or do anything and I super can't focus despite "feeling" okay and it just hit me that this might be what minor illness feels like when you're otherwise healthy, 4 years on T (so, about 4 years removed from horrible chronic illness symptoms) and six months into regular martial arts. That's a valuable thing to consider because it allows me to better risk assess and makes me less tempted to mask up "just in case" and go do whatever.
Also damn. If this is all correct, a whole lot has changed since the last time I was sick, about 8 months before I started T.
This also means that maybe when people say rest and hydration will help, that's actually true and not a thing they tell you to try and make you feel less dog tired and useless while you can't move over what should be a small cold. Rest and hydration ARE helping. I'm better than I was yesterday and yesterday I was working all day. I just don't think they could mitigate nearly an entire illness before, no matter how minor. And now they actually help and I can tell.
If you're anywhere near Illinois/Wisconsin and having A Rough Go Of Things right now for no clear reason, may I submit to you that we are at the center of a major barometric befuckening. I am sensitive to pressure drops and I've known that for a few years now. A drop of 0.12 is about my threshold of being able to tell something is off. A drop of 0.20 is pretty significant, but I can still usually function.
We're dropping 0.30-0.40 at a time and going WELL OVER an entire point. That's insane. That's absolutely bonkers. My face feels like it has been stuffed with cotton and then sprayed with resin. It's bad in here. It's not enough to call out of work but everything is acting up and we're still falling until tomorrow morning.
Anyway the weatherx app will warn you if upcoming shifts and it's a lifesaver when you're sitting around feeling like ass and you've checked off all your usual Sims bars. Sometimes it's not just your brain fucking with you. Sometimes the sky is fucking falling.
If you're not in the general Midwest USA right now but you feel heavy and stuffy and weird without any apparent cause, it might be worth checking into this anyway. It's also a huge migraine trigger for sensitive populations, and not all migraines are the horrible pain you think of. Mine are silent, which for me makes it feel like I have horrible sinus congestion but without any actual snot. Stay safe out there.
Took a 2 hour nap today and could have kept going so of course my brain started cycling through all the terrible reasons I could be suddenly so sleepy (leftover anxiety from back before I got my Adhd meds, when I would be dragged forcefully into sleep for hours most afternoons but wake without rest) and like. At some point I started thinking well. What if this is actually a good sign. What if we haven't been sleepy like this since 2019 because we straight up couldn't relax. What if we just accepted a banger of a nap on a day we have nothing to do and don't have to sleep by any certain time tonight. What if it's raining and we already know storms come with their own weirdness and we just feel safe and warm in bed with a kitty asleep on our feet. What if it's not medically significant and we just finally have reasons to feel truly relaxed for once. What if it's warm outside and maybe muscles are relaxing that we didn't know had been tense - hell, what if the choices we've been making regarding things like exercise and eating better have set us up for success. But sure keep worrying you fucked your blood sugar despite the fiber you made sure to include.
Weather activated migraines are so fun. The barometer is hunting me for sport.