I am still quite sick... and yet I feel like no one understands what I mean when I say that. Perhaps they don't understand.
What I mean by "quite sick" is "completely non-functioning and pathetic-like, requiring lots of help". And what THAT means is that I spend most of my time green-faced on the couch trying desperately not to be sick. That actually hasn't changed much since I acquired Zofran (which is a whole 'nother frustrating story I shall relate below).
I am still nauseous much of the time, just significantly less nauseous. To clarify, this means that the level of nausea has been reduced to what sounds a lot like what other women tend to give me advice for. You know. "Oh, just keep some Saltines around to nibble. That'll help a lot." "Such-and-such tea completely cured my morning sickness! I'll bring some for you!" "Keep a mint tea bag around and sniff it!"
Nausea that responds to these sort of things sounds like something out of a messed-up fairy tale. It just sounds so mild. So my nausea tends to abate only after I take a dose of Zofran (it wears off after almost exactly six hours, strangely enough) in addition to following all the stereotypical anti-nausea advice. Eat only small amounts. Eat frequently. Keep rested. Keep hydrated. Avoid triggers (in my case heat and lack of airflow, as well as certain smells). Avoid moving too suddenly. Get up slowly in the morning.
So following all that advice AND swallowing a Zofran every eight hours, I've actually had some nausea-free moments!
Still, I am intensely frustrated by what my body is doing in lieu of being too nauseated to stand.
Lately, I've been completely unable to function most of the time for reasons independent of nausea. Firstly, I am so lightheaded and dizzy all the time. Lying down on my back (generally a no-no for super pregnant women because the super ginormous uterus puts enough pressure on the inferior vena cava that blood flow is obstructed and bad things happen), I can hardly breathe. Same with lying on my side. Sitting is also not so good for breathing. I can breathe best when standing. Basically, I am feeling oxygen-deprived much of the time.
Secondly, and this is arguably even more annoying than feeling unable to breathe, I'm just weak. I avoid standing for very long because I feel like a sack of molten lead jelly... enough so that lifting my arms enough to hold a magazine in front of my face is extremely hard work, and I can hardly read the visiting teaching message before I have to put down that Ensign. My phone is similarly too hard to hold up sometimes. I am having difficulty staying upright in my chair at the moment. I am also having a hard time typing because my arms feel so heavy, even with much of their weight resting on the table. In fact, I've been putting off typing this blog post because I feel too weak to type much of the time...
And then I'm so drowsy...
And I have a constant headache. And Zofran makes my headache worse. (Still worth the relief from nausea, though.)
So basically, the idea of tending a toddler while in this state is quite simply overwhelming. And that means that James is staying home many days to help me instead of going to campus to think brilliant mathy thoughts and make money. And the more frequently this happens, the worse I feel about it. If I'm sick enough that my husband has to stay home... gosh, I feel pathetic. And a bit guilty. Like maybe if I was less of a wimp or something, James would be able to work as much as he's supposed to. As much as he needs to.
Here's the part where I whine.
It has gotten to the point where I almost wish someone would prescribe me bed rest. I feel like I'm already confined to lying down most of the day since I most emphatically do not wish to collapse or faint. So, at least in my imagination, the only difference between what is happening now and what life would be like if I were sentenced to bed rest is this: When people ask me how I'm doing, and I tell them "I feel awful and completely unable to do anything", they actually realize I am feeling awful and am completely unable to do anything.
I'm so frustrated. I shouldn't have to have James stay home so often. There are theoretically other people who can help, right? I shouldn't have to add the words "bed rest" to get across how bad things are, should I?
Is the problem that I am trying too hard or something? If I'm at church, clearly that means that no matter what I say, I'm really okay? Do I have to stay home for weeks in a row and neglect my calling in order for anyone to notice the words I am saying? Do I have to show up in a wheelchair and carry a sign that says, "I'm disabled! Help!"?
(And then if people did suddenly realize I needed help once the words "bed rest" or "wheelchair" or something were officially attached to my name somehow, I think I'd even feel slightly worse about the situation. After all, the situation would be the same, only people now actually believe I need help. I shouldn't need bed rest or a wheelchair for people to hear me when I say I need help!)
James is already doing most (or all?) of the childcare (and wifecare, hah), shopping, food preparation, and household chores. In addition to that, he is supposed to be doing math research. Which means he's essentially supposed to think up new math, and think deep, mathy (and preferably also new) thoughts about general relativity--you know, one of the things Einstein is famous for coming up with? [If you didn't click the link to his paper above, just think Einstein or something.] And then he has Church callings to attend to.
And then he feels guilty for not being able to do all these things without pooping out. And he wonders why it is so hard to find the energy to play with Amelia, while maintaining a happy, playful mood... Truthfully, he should realize that all of the above is an awful lot to ask of him. Probably too much to ask, in my opinion. I don't know what I'd do without James. (Although it probably wouldn't involve being pregnant, I suppose... Or taking care of toddlers...)
Foof. I shall stop that whining business... and move on to whinging about something else! I was disappointed last month when the best answer for my nausea anyone could come up with was Zofran. One of the midwives (I am seeing a team of them) prescribed me some. Specifically, it was 60 of the 8 mg oral dissolving tablets with two refills, with directions to take one every eight hours as needed. To my dismay, when I got to the pharmacy, the price was... *dun dun dun* $150. Ugh, no! And my insurance will only cover 24 of those precious puppies each month. So I went home in tears with enough Zofran for a mere eight days.
Thankfully, after digging around, I located an additional week's worth of old Zofran that I had leftover from last pregnancy. I was too traumatized from the last pregnancy to even consider getting rid of it. And also, I vaguely recall having much difficulty obtaining it in the first place. I may or may not ever throw out any Zofran I do not use...
I soon noticed that, yes, the Zofran helped a lot... and I just could not bring myself to take fewer than three Zofrans over the course of each day. I was hoping to ration it out so it lasted longer, but it didn't work. I got violently ill approximately six hours after each dose, which means I have two hours of misery before it's been eight hours. By then, my willpower has faded and I am no longer willing to not take the Zofran I was hoping to do without.
Well, I ran out of the Zofran I had on hand, and was unwilling to pay $150 for the remaining oral dissolving tablets the midwife had prescribed, so I called the midwifery clinic and asked the midwife who happened to be there that day to call in a new Zofran prescription for the regular tablets rather than the oral dissolving ones. Why? Well, 90 of the regular 8-mg tablets is $35. 60 of the 8-mg oral dissolving ones is $150. That's why.
The midwife called in a new prescription, and I went to go get it. And then I got to burst into tears again when I got what she prescribed. Zofran, yes. Regular tablets, yes. But only 20 of them, no refills. And, even worse, they were the 4 mg tablets. The 4 mg tablets help me significantly less than the 8 mg ones do. So basically I have enough Zofran to last me a little over three days. Three measly days.
Well, I haven't thrown out the empty Zofran bottle from that one time a couple years ago when someone got it right. (... And honestly, I got that because I was working at the doctor's office and could make absolutely certain that the prescription was being done right. And that doctor actually understood that I was sooper dooper sick because he saw me so often.)
Ugh. Maybe if I shove the empty bottle in someone's face and ask for exactly the same thing, I'll get it. I sure hope so. I'm fed up with trying to communicate via phone. -.- Monday is my next midwife's appointment. Here's to hoping I can miraculously obtain a prescription for generic Zofran... 8 mg tablets, not orally dissolving... in an appropriate quantity. Like 90. Or 120. It's cheaper when I get more at once. (Yay, Costco...)
Anyway. Let me repeat: I need help. HALP! I'm planning to gather up the courage to ask for help from the appropriate people in the ward. I'm not sure what to ask for. Maybe since it's summer, one of the youth can come over every morning and play with Amelia for me. Maybe someone can help with chores. Maybe people can bring food. Maybe someone can help when I need to go shopping. I just somehow need to survive when James goes to work. And, importantly, I need to somehow survive when James goes to Vienna, Austria for a whole week and a half at the end of this month. So yeah. HALP.
Ready for something more lighthearted?
So many of our forks have mysteriously disappeared. Of course, I suspect Amelia is the culprit, but I can't find them. Not in or around our couches. Not in our heat vents. Not in anywhere I could think to look.
Well, this small deficiency of forks caused my father to call and offer to send us what sounds like a nice flatware set that was obtained from some relatives in England. Stainless steel, but plated in something that makes them look gold. Service for eight. I accepted, and so theoretically we will be getting these in the mail.
And then apparently my dad decided we should have more nice flatware. Without asking, he purchased a 94-piece set off the Interwebs, and shipped it to us. It arrived yesterday. This is what was in the box. I was very pleased with them. They are beautiful, and nice and sturdy. (Thank you!)
James' reaction to them, though, completely flabbergasted me. It simultaneously elicited alarm and amusement in my heart, it was so utterly flabbergasting.
It was almost like the very idea of this flatware set was offensive. He spent the evening scowling and radiating black waves of malcontent into our already stuffy apartment air.
They are apparently too nice. We didn't know how much Dad had spent on them, but still, James was upset anyone would spend money on such things. I think, in his mind, there is absolutely no reason to spend more than a quarter on a fork. On the manufacturer's website, a new 94-piece 18/10 stainless steel set costs upward of $400. The set we received, I think, has been discontinued and cost more like $110... and STILL, James was grumpy about how expensive they were.
The other thing he apparently took issue with--what are all the funky looking ones? ... I hadn't been aware there were any funky pieces in the set besides the sugar spoon. (I didn't know what that is, but frankly, that isn't surprising given that I have never, ever been served tea or coffee, given my religious beliefs about such things.)
He picked up a soup spoon and demanded what the heck anyone would ever use such a bizarrely-shaped spoon for. I explained the virtues of the soup spoon, but James is insistent that he has never in his entire life even seen a soup spoon. (I would guess that he has seen one before, even if he didn't notice it. Soup spoons aren't exactly uncommon.)
"And what the heck are the sharp, pointy knives for?" ... "They're steak knives." He had heard of steak knives before, of course, but it just did not even occur to him that steak knives could be all metal or actually come in a matching flatware set. I keep laughing about this. He assumed they were some bizarre form of butter knife.
And then all the giant serving utensils. He does not see the point in owning such strange things. ... I explained how much I have always wanted pretty serving spoons. He thought this was absolutely bizarre.
We ended up having a two-hour conversation last night about flatware. James was just so disturbed that this whole issue needed to be resolved immediately. To give you some idea about how upset he was, let me tell you this: he has never, even once, been that upset in the entire three years we've been married. Actually, hostile is a more accurate word for the emotional vibes coming off the man last night. I could not think of a single occasion besides this one where I could feel waves of hostility expanding from his body and accosting the world in all their grumpy glory.
James has now accepted the existence of the flatware. I'm glad, because I like them quite a lot. He still has minimal traces of hostility toward them, but I think that will wear off eventually. I am hoping we won't have a repeat event when the goldish ones arrive. (Psst. I hear rumors there are napkin rings in that set! Gasp!)
Love and soup spoons,
Jenna
and Amelia
and Dragon
P.S. Mom and Dad Dilts--James has this idea in his head that neither of you ever had the remotest desire for nice dishes or flatware or such. Is he correct?
