Monday, June 21, 2010

It Never Rains but it Pours

What a weekend.

We spent Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and most of Sunday morning working on the house. We painted the hall, painted the baseboards in most of the rooms, and painted pretty much every door in the house. We put in the new doorknobs, rearranged all the furniture that we'd had to move away from the walls to paint baseboards (including all our books and bookcases), deep cleaned the bathrooms and kitchen, and then cooked a meal for 15 people. It was exhausting, and wonderful fun!

Then, Saturday afternoon I felt a bit nauseated. I wasn't too alarmed because I was a bit "late," as it were, and I was hopeful it was a sign of pregnancy (we're not trying, but we still wouldn't complain if things worked out). I thought this might be the case especially because the nausea went away when I ate.

On Sunday, I woke up with tummy distress (mild and lower digestive tract), but took Pepto and then felt fine. I put this distress down to the usual culprit: lack of sleep and stress.

Sunday's dinner went off without a hitch, and aside from being exhausted, I felt pretty good.

Late last night we went for a walk around the block because I haven't had a lot of time to exercise and I was eager to move my body. I didn't run because I was too exhausted and it was too late in the day. By the end of the walk, though, I felt properly nauseated. Putting it down to fatigue, again, we went to bed at 10pm (super early for us, especially considering the previous 3 nights we'd gone to bed at 2am - a whole 4 hours later).

At midnight, I woke up and vomited over and over. Then it came out the other end. I threw up four separate times in two hours, and found myself on the toilet another four times. At one point, I actually was thinking that a bullet seemed preferable to the pain. It was THAT BAD (and it was late, so I was feeling a bit dramatic). I was so exhausted, but I couldn't sleep laying down because I felt so sick. But, I was so tired I kept falling asleep sitting up on the toilet. In retrospect this was mildly funny, though at the time I was hardly laughing. In fact, I cried a lot.

I did sleep from 2-4am, but was up again for another 1-1.5 hours, on the toilet as well as dry-heaving/barfing AGAIN. This time, it was all just bile. Nothing else was left in me.

When I woke this morning at 6:45am (after a whopping hour and half of sleep), I felt like a parched fish on dry ground. I can't remember the last time I was so thirsty. Aaron's ice chips were a godsend, as was the Ginger Ale he ran to SaveMart to buy for me before he left for work at 7:30. He's such a lifesaver. I LOVE HIM!

Last night, as I was laying on the bathroom floor somewhere between sleep, illness, and wakefulness, I hoped this WASN'T pregnancy, because I would have seriously been wondering what I had done to myself.

Today, though, I took that thought back. Why? Because, in the middle of the fatigue, sickness, and inability to keep things down, I am having cramps - solid, hard, legitimate, painful cramps. I'm not late anymore. The worst part of it, too, is I can't take any ibuprofen to knock the pain (like I usually do) because I doubt I could keep it down (after all, ibuprofen is hard enough on the tummy on regular days, let alone on a day like today).

I just keep thinking about what Bryony would say in these situations: "Really? Really, Body? You can't be serious. This is NOT okay."

Really, though, and very seriously, Body, this is not funny and NOT fun.

The only good news is that it should all be over before the cabin trip this weekend. Now, I just hope that Aaron doesn't get sick, especially while backpacking in the mountains with his brothers. Keep him in your prayers because that would be sheer misery.

Still, I may take some soda, crackers, and soup up to the cabin, just in case. It always pays to be prepared, after all, because you never know when there will be another downpour.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

A Break

So, I've sort of been taking a break from running the last few weeks. Don't get me wrong, I'm still exercising, but not running as much. Here's why:

Two weekends ago my family bought last minute tickets to San Francisco for the weekend. So, we rented a car (for super cheap, actually) and drove up to meet them. While there, we went to Alcatraz, Ghiradelli Square, the Wharf, Lombard Street, and the play Wicked. We also ate some really good Thai food, with Pumpkin Curry (YUM!).

Then, my mom came back to Fresno with us. She spent a week with us, mostly relaxing, reading, and napping while we slaved away at work (tough life for her, eh?) ;).  It wasn't all play, though, we went for a morning exercise walk together several times, and she helped me completely reorganize my kitchen so it is, now, a functional space. It's much more intuitive to use now, and I LOVE IT!

After she left on Saturday, we went to a friend's house for a movie marathon, then came home and quickly cleaned before we babysat some cute kiddos (three of them, ages 5, 2, and .5) from 5-10pm.

Sunday I had a great morning run. It was difficult, though, mostly because it was SO HOT outside. I started running about 8:30, and by then it was already in the 80s. Way too hot to run. That night we did homework, because our ox was in the mire, and then we were back to the grind on Monday.

This week has been busy, too, what with house preparations for the family coming into town this weekend.

But, today I finally went running again: 5 minute walk, 21 minute run, 5 minute walk, and it wasn't even hard. In fact, my knee pain was non-existant. The thing about this, too, is that I was having knee pain last Sunday when I ran outside in the heat. Then, based off a recommendation in Runner's World magazine, I started to lengthen my stride to its fullest. I dug deep, ran fast and hard, and stretched my stride out completely. I was FLYING. And, the best part was that my knee immediately stopped hurting.

So, today I ran faster on the treadmill. I kept the pace for the entirety of the 21 minutes.

WOOHOO!

The best news in all of this is that, despite my busyness, I haven't lost much of my fitness. I've only lost training time - a week and a half of it. But, hey, it was TOTALLY worth it, and I'd do it all again!