How am I? I'm great...wait a second....

So I was talking on the phone today and was asked the customary "How are you?" By reflex I replied, "Great!"

Except I wasn't great. The follow up, "How are you feeling?" kinda blew my cover. Although I wasn't intentionally hiding anything.

So how I'm a feeling? Terrible, to be honest. I'm in pain more often and I am afraid to eat much, lest it causes more pain. I also had the realization that I am not improving. I've been getting worse in the last week. Today, it hurt to drink water. Water. Digesting water should not be a big deal, much less cause pain. That concerns me quite a bit. I can go on eating very little for quite some time...or at least until my dr's appointment in 2 weeks. I cannot, however, go without drinking liquid until then. A few days without drinking = hospital. Luckily I did manage to get down more water and a little bit of food. I have some pain, but it is not too bad. I really, really want to avoid the hospital. I'm hoping to be able to eat at least a little on Thanksgiving, but not going to push it. Too much pain and I'll have to go back to liquids only.

I am very much looking forward to going home for thanksgiving and seeing my family and friends. I am not, however, looking forward to driving the 3.5 hrs to get there. My level of fatigue is ridiculous. Just going to the drugstore today wiped me out. Taking a shower wipes me out. I am ridiculously tired all of the time. My brain isn't functioning well - my dissertation has gone over a week without me even opening the document.

I'm getting very tired of not being able to do things and any possible plans that come up i have to say, "I'll have to see how I feel". And most of the time, I feel terrible. Sometimes my goal for the day is to leave my apartment. I don't always achieve that goal.

I can't wait until I feel well enough to go to the gym, go for a hike, go out to dinner, go to school...without worrying that I'll end up in pain or so exhausted I won't be able to get back home.

And my brain has stopped working. I had more to write, but i can't remember what it was

it's my life and I'll cry if i want to

The last couple of weeks have been stressful to say the least. There is some ambiguity in my current health status, although hopefully test will show a conclusive diagnosis. And there is the all-important question: How will I pay for all of this?

Like most people, I've developed a lot of anxiety over money. Money has been tight for some time; no employment will do that to people. I can't imagine finding a way to pay for medical expenses at this time. Even a small payment plan seems daunting.

And my dissertation is suffering from this. I think I'm using illness as an excuse not to work on it very much. I'm still doing it every day (yesterday was day 8), but not much work at all. Much less than I could do.

After a poor night's sleep complete with nightmares, I succumbed to a crying fit. And guess what? I felt better afterward. I know people mean well when they tell someone not to cry, but sometimes it is precisely what is needed. The act of crying isn't a horrible thing; the sadness, anxiety and frustration is what is bad. So what if a good cry is needed to refocus? Sometimes, it is exactly what I need.

The streak is over - back to day 1

Well, I'd been doing really well on working on my dissertation every single day. In fact, I'd hit 55 days in a row. I was planning to reward myself with something when I hit 60...but that didn't happen.

So what happened? I ended up in the hospital for 4 days. Yikes - didn't see that one coming!

I went to the ER on Monday evening with extreme abdominal pain. Really, really bad. After 4 hours in the waiting room and another hour in the exam room, someone finally came to see me. An x-ray was ordered as well as some pain medication. The pain medication took ANOTHER hour to get there! So I finally got some relief - but it took 3 shots of morphine over the next couple of hours to do it! Seriously, I've NEVER been in that much pain in my life. And I have a pretty high pain tolerance.

So the x-ray came back and it was decided I needed a CT scan. After that came back (hours later) they decided to admit me. Diagnosis - colitis. Cause - ????

To make a long story short, they kept me in there until Friday afternoon. I couldn't have any more tests because of all of the inflammation so they basically observed me. I need to schedule some tests and a follow up in a couple of weeks.

So I didn't work on my dissertation for an entire week, until last night. So today is day 2. And I'll be at least a week behind on my goal of getting revisions to my advisor. So proposing this semester doesn't seem feasible at this point. Oh well - there was not a whole lot I could do about the situation. Hopefully I will continue to get better and make progress on my diss!!!