Eye Update

Well, after the last appointment I am still healing. Doc says he can still see white blood cells in my eyes, which means its still fighting. He is gone all this week, so my next appointment is next Tuesday. He cut my meds down to twice a day and the other drops down to every 2 hours instead of every hour. That is so much easier to deal with! So, for now I still have blurry vision and a super huge pupil from the drops. I really think if I could have gone in sometime this week, he would have taken me off my meds then. I think it's all the way better now. I don't have any pain when I forget to take my meds on time. One day I was 3 hours late and I didn't even notice! The doctor is afraid it will flair back up if he takes me off my meds before it's all the way gone so I guess I have to wait until he can look in my eye and see that it's all better. Like I said, my appointment is next Tuesday, which is August 3rd. Jus to give you a timeframe of my inconveniences with this stupid eye, I first went to the doctor July 1st. So that is an entire month of not really being able to use my eye, doctor visits, other people driving me around, etc. I am so ready for this to be over!

Temporarily a Pirate

Well, I have temporarily become a pirate. Here's how it happened. On July 1st, I went to the doctor's office because I thought I had pink eye. The next day, Friday, I was supposed to go to my sister's house but thought I shouldn't because of the pink eye. Well, I was tired of sitting around by myself and I had been on antibiotics for over a day, so I decided to go anyway. Saturday was Greencreek days, and the whole family was there. My dad brought all his stuff to brew beer there at all the festivities, so I spent most of my time with him, in the shade or in the car. I wasn’t doing too bad. By Sunday however, things got a whole lot worse. Sunday morning my eyes hurt so bad I had a blanket over my head because it was too bright for my eyes, even inside. By the time everyone got back to my sister's after church, My eyes hurt so bad I was crying. I called the on call doctor in Moscow and she said problems like this could impair my vision, depending what was wrong. She suggested I go to the emergency room to get it checked out. So, off we went to the Cottonwood ER, my sister, my mom and I.

The doctor there thought I might have had an allergic reaction to the antibiotics. He took a culture of my eye to check for viral and bacterial infections, which would indicate whether the pink eye was still there or not. He also changed me to different drops and said if it's not getting a lot better by Tuesday, I should go to an eye doctor. Tuesday came around and by then I was in so much pain, I was sobbing a lot, still hiding under blankets, and basically in agony. We got in to see the ophthalmologist that day and he said I never did have pink eye. I have something called Epi-scleritis. The sclera is the outer membrane of the eye and optic nerve. Apparently mine were swollen and inflamed. Epi-scleritis means it's only on the surface of the sclera, if the inflammation gets deeper then its called Scleritis. This would obviously be worse because it's deeper, but Scleritis is also indicative of an auto-immune disease. So far, mine has not become Scleritis, it has stayed on the surface. I was prescribed some really strong non-steroidal anti-inflammatory (nsaid) type drugs to help ease the pain and the inflammation.

When I went back to the doctor Friday (this brings us to July 9th), I had a different kind of pain. My eye socket felt like it was burning. The doctor looked into my eye again and could see the muscle behind my eye was cramping and spasming. This made all the little muscles around m y eye under the skin and whatnot spasm as well, which made them extremely painful. The doctor prescribed some eye drops that would dilate my eye and also hold the main spasming muscle still, which should keep the other muscles under control as well. I was to do these drops twice a day. These drops sting really bad and make my vision all blurry. At first, on Friday evening, it wasn't really working. It hurt so bad I was nauseous from the pain! We tried to call the doctor back, but he didn't respond, so we just kept on the drops and they eventually started to help.

My next appointment was supposed to be Wednesday, but Monday morning wasn't going well. We called the doctor's office and asked what to do. They suggested added some corticosteroid anti-inflammatory drops 4 times a day on top of the other drops and moved my appointment to Tuesday. The doctor isn't actually in on Mondays. At this appointment, he prescribed a different nsaid to take orally, and said I should see improvement in about 48 hours, so the first one wasn't working right. It was just a matter of finding the one my body responded to the best.

Now we are up to Friday, July 16th. Since having started the new nsaids, I thought I was doing a lot better. I hadn't had any pain since I started them, it was great. The doctor thought otherwise. When I went to my appointment Friday, he looked in my eye and told me I now have Iritis as well. This is where the iris sticks to the cornea. That doesn't sound good at all! So he poked and prodded and checked a bunch of stuff and then came the prescriptions. He changed the corticosteroid drops to a different type and I now have to use them every hour while I’m awake. Hours go by quickly when you have to do something for every one! This drop is an anti-inflammatory applied directly to the eye, so it will help the swelling that's causing the Iritis. He also added another drop that would dilate my eye in a different way. This would still help the spasming muscle, but mostly I think it forces the iris open and helps prevent it from sticking as much, since it's moving. Good news from this visit was it still hasn't slipped into Scleritis, it is still just on the surface (Epi-scleritis).

So, at this point, here is my eye maintenance. I have to apply one set of drops every hour I am awake, three times a day (exactly 8 hours apart, so 9pm, 5 am, and 1 pm) I take the nsaids orally (which have to be taken on a full stomach), and I apply two different sets of drops to my eye, which have to be added at least 5 minutes apart. It's really annoying to get up that early, eat something, take a pill, put in some drops (which sting really bad too, by the way) and then go back to sleep. However, I think it would be worse to eat a whole bunch right before bed (say at 10 or 11) then try to sleep from the beginning on the full stomach so I can wait until 5 or 6 am to take the pills. However it is done, it's just not convenient! But, for the sake of my eye, I will deal with it. I don’t want to turn into a pirate completely and not have the use of it!

Oh yeah, and I had been staying at my parent's house in Lewiston from July 1st until today. It feels good to be home! I can't drive however, for two reasons. One, my vision is really blurry in my left eye from the drops and two, my eye is so dilated that it just waters and waters when I'm in the sun (or any bright light) and I can't see anything. It's also usually to bright and I have to cover it up. So, I'm home but stuck inside most of the day and can't see well enough to do a lot of things. I can still watch movies and cook and stuff like that, so at least I can take care of myself!

More to come after Tuesday's appointment.

Long needed update!

I haven't updated this in way too long, I'm sorry! I am done with school now so I should be able to update a little more often. First, I will start by saying that the diet thing I posted last time only lasted zero days, as you can see I never did post anything after that. I also didn't stick to it. It's ok though, I will have other diet news later in this post.

Second, the big news I mentioned two posts ago wasn't really big news, but I have better news now. I have been seeing this guy, Trever, for about a month now. I know that's not very long, but I really like him. Things are going really well so far! We were only officially dating for about a week before he went back to Coeur d'Alene for the summer, but we have seen one another a few weekends here and there. This past weekend was his birthday so I was up there for that. I met his parents, they are very nice people and I got along with them well. I had a feeling I would, and it turns out they seem like they are just like my family! Same mentality and outlook on life; not too serious, but serious enough and that sort of thing. We did some shooting out at their property on the other side of the lake, roasted hot dogs and played in the woods. All in all it was a great weekend, and I think they like me! I am really hoping this one lasts a little longer than other have in the past, so far there is nothing on the cons side of the pros and cons list.

In other news, I am not taking summer classes for the first time in about four summers and I am very happy about that. I am spending my time working some but mostly doing projects around my apartment. Up until this week, I was working about 30 hours a week at the climbing wall and about ten as a note taker on campus for students with disabilities. Starting this week, I only work Mondays at the climbing wall (except for another three week period towards the end of the summer) and starting next week, I am taking notes in another class for about ten hours a week. My summer projects consist of cleaning my apartment (it's atrocious right now), finishing my dish rack, revamping my desk and rearranging my room, planting some veggies to grow in pots outside, and getting as much piano playing and leisure reading in as I can! I will also be spending time with Trever on the weekends when we can camping, going on motorcycle rides (he rides too), working on my bike or his truck and other fun things like that. I plan to go visit my sister and her family at some point this summer as well.

That about does it for now, stay tuned throughout the summer for more updates and pictures of my projects and my fun!

Paleolithic Diet: Day 0

My mom sent me a link to a diet called the Caveman Diet. After some research, I found it is also called the Paleolithic Diet and I like this better. Caveman Diet is a more popular thing that takes the participant through a series of phases, each 2 to 4 weeks long and I don't really like what they suggest. In a nutshell, the Paleolithic Diet is based on what humans ate during the Paleolithic time. It mainly consists of what you can hunt and gather and not have to cook to eat. By this I mean, meat, chicken and fish are all acceptable and should be cooked, but grains and potatoes cannot be eaten without first cooking them because they contain toxins that prevent absorption of nutrients and other thing we need.

Here is what I can eat on this diet:
Meat, chicken, fish
Eggs
Fruits
Vegetables, especially root veggies such as carrots, turnips, and parsnips (but not potatoes…these are not a vegetable)
Walnuts
Brazil nuts
Macadamia nuts
Almonds

Here is what I can not eat on this diet:
Wheat
Barley
Rye
Rice
Potatoes
Corn
Sorghum
Millit
Oats
String beans
Kidney beans
Lentils
Peanuts
Snow peas
Peas
Dairy
Sugar
Salt
Cashews

If you notice, the list of what not to eat is much longer that the list of what you can eat. Now, you may be wondering a few things, as I was, such as what about calcium if I can't eat dairy and what about fiber if I can't eat grains? Well, the answer is in the vegetables. Fortunately, this is a great time of year to start this because we are just getting into veggie season. I still have a little research to do, but I know there are a lot of veggies rich is fiber and calcium, and all the other vitamins and nutrient essential to our survival.

Also, I read that a little over half (about 56 to 65%) of my calorie intake should be from animal and about 36 to 45% should be from plant. Strangely enough these both add up to 101%, so I'm not sure how I'm going to do that, haha.


So, welcome to my journey. I am going to keep a log of what I eat in a day, how I feel and how this is all going. I will warn you, this may be very boring for the next couple of weeks but I will try to include some other more interesting aspects of my life as well.

Busy Busy Busy

I am very busy this week. I meant to post over the weekend, but forgot. Right now, my tummy hurts a lot and I don't know why. I didn't eat any wheat lately. I have a baked potato with bbq'd pork cheese, and sour cream for dinner. Oh well.

I have a lot of school stuff going on this week. A test on Friday and one next Monday, a big homework assignment in another class due Friday, and lots of work. Anyway, I'll try to post an update over the weekend. I actually have some big news I really want to share!

Killing Spiders

Puffs with lotion are not good for this. Just thought you all should know.

Kleenex vs. Puffs

I have been sick for a week now. It started on Sunday with just a sore throat. I missed work Monday, but made it Tuesday. Felt well enough Wednesday to reorganize my storage unit, but lost my voice completely by the end of the day. Thursday and Friday were spent on the couch. Thursday night I woke up twice in the middle of the night with mucus clogging all my breathing holes, so thick I couldn't move it. It was scary for a while, I couldn't really breath. I obviously got it moving because I am alive now. That prompted me to go to the doctor Friday morning. He gave me a prescription for Amoxicillin and codine.

I managed to go out for about 3 hours last night (Friday night). I went to a BBQ, which was very cold, then went to a friends and watched them play a rock band type game. It was actually really entertaining since they are pretty good. Anyway, by about 10:00 I was tired and my headache was so bad I couldn't move my head.

I went to bed and woke up with this severe headache. I’m not sure what it's from, but the collage of pills I took this morning must be kicking in because it's starting to feel a lot better. The codine I took last night knocked me out pretty good because I slept for 12 hours straight, which felt really good. I was up for 30 minutes this morning and went through 23 tissues in that amount of time. I'm starting to feel a lot better and I have a to do list today. I haven't done much all week except barely keep up with picking up after myself. Today I plan to pick up the house, do dishes, make granola, get groceries, and take out all the garbage. They are all packed full of tissues. I feel good about it.

Two lessons I learned from being sick this week. 1: Purchase tissues with lotion because they feel so much better on your nose when you have to blow it as much as I have. 2: Puffs with lotion are worth the little extra cost because they work a lot better than Kleenex with lotion. Puffs have left my nose much less raw than the Kleenex I purchased earlier in the week.


Collage of drugs I took this morning: