Below Deck

I think I've been under the weather for most of this month.  

Typing this, by the way, lead me to wondering where the origin of the phrase "under the weather" came from and by anyone's best guess it has to do with boats... ships.  And that if you were seasick, you went below deck and so were "under" the weather.  

I'll accept that as an explanation and not go any further down any rabbit holes of wondering for now.

I say *think* because it hasn't been glaringly obvious and because I've been under a lot of stress, which never makes me feel good or 100%....

I hope you have never had a UTI (urinary tract infection) but if you have, you know when you have one.  Unfortunately.  

I remember a few weeks ago texting C-Dawg that the pee break I just had at work felt "suspicious"... in that it felt just a little bit like how a UTI feels.  Damnit.

Damnit because I don't do well on antibiotics.  There's not really a delicate way to talk about it other than saying I'm one of the 1 in 5 people who is negatively affected by antibiotics in my... well, my digestive system.  If I eat?  I need to be near a bathroom.  As things aren't going to stay to be digested, they are going to quickly make their way out.  (Sorry for those images... ahem.)

So I didn't want to do what one is SUPPOSED to do when one has a UTI and go on antibiotics because for me, it's one of those "the cure is worse than the sickness" kind of situations.  At least in how it makes me feel.

So I decided I would attack whatever was going on in my bladder system with natural remedies.  No, not cranberry juice, but other "herbal" things like D-Mannose. And things didn't get worse.

There would be a day here or there where I would get a dizzy spell.  Probably stress, I thought.  One day at work earlier in the month I actually asked someone to touch my forehead to see if I was hot.  They said I was warm and clammy.  Well, I mean that's not ideal, but yeah, maybe I was just probably kind of really stressed out right?  Nevermind the fact that I was having to go pee (sorry!) a lot.  But that could be anything right?  I was trying to drink more to help flush things out.  

But I wasn't feeling good.  Losing sleep (getting up at night to go, having trouble falling asleep)  I was extra miserable and unhappy.  It was hard to do my water fitness classes as all the jumping around really made me need to pee.  But damn if I didn't want to go on antibiotics.  Especially since there weren't the FOR SURE symptoms to tip me over the edge of knowing.

On Wednesday of last week I had a planned doctor's appointment for my now semi regular B-12 shot (which I don't remember if I did or didn't mention but I've been getting them for a few months now and I swear I'm sleeping better... go figure.) At work on Tuesday I got hit by a wave of "not ok" in the last half hour or so of my day.  I legit wasn't sure if I could drive home safely but I pulled myself together and did.  And then I booked off a sick day.  I had an appointment on Tuesday with my acupuncturist and she politely reminded me that UTIs are not something to mess with (sigh, I know) and so when I saw my doctor on Wednesday I mentioned what was going on.

It was kind of hard to explain that it wasn't a FULL BLOWN UTI and maybe just like a low grade one and that I didn't want to go on antibiotics because they were so rough on me last time, not just physically but emotionally (gut/brain connection and all) so she gave me the cup to give a pee sample in but of course I'd been avoiding drinking water that morning so I didn't get caught out and about needing to pee and so of COURSE there wasn't anything available to put in the cup.  Argh.  (A urine sample can be tested to see if bacteria are hanging out in your bladder.)

I started to feel really not great at the end of the doctor's appointment (she took my temp, it was fine, I was just not doing well) and so had her give me a prescription for a different antibiotic than last time and then I went and picked it up and despite her sending me home with a requisition for the pee sample, I just kind of said screw it and took the antibiotic.  It was, by the way, a powder!  That I put in water and drank!  How WEIRD!?  (And it didn't taste horrific which I expected it to because people are smart!)

I still had physical reaction from the antibiotics but it didn't hit me as hard as the last one I took (for five days vs this one oddly consumed dose) and here I am five or so days later going pee in normal amounts at normal intervals but also kind of still trying to drink a lot and take the herbal things to keep flushing out whatever might have decided to reside in my urinary tract uninvited and unwelcome.

I also bought something I didn't previously know existed, some home test strips that I will try next time knowing they are only so accurate.

I didn't want to go on antibiotics as it's an unpleasant experience for me but I think it's probably a good thing that I did and I'm hoping that the next few weeks show me that I wasn't having huge stress reactions but that I was fighting off a bacterial infection in my system that has now been removed.  (We hope.)

So yeah.... I've maybe been under the weather for almost a whole month while stubbornly not wanting to take the only medication that actually fixes the issue.  Le sigh.  

Bodies man... so weird!