For a little while now, Olivia’s been playing with our Nintendo DS. Her first game was Magnetica. Sometimes she’d actually clear a level. Then I showed her Animal Crossing Wild Word and we made her her own character. (I even played through the intro stuff for her so she’d be free to play how she wanted.) Then we bought her Nintendogs, and now she has a Golden Retriever puppy named Daisy.

Having the DS active again has also renewed our interest in it. It had been unused for probably more than a year. Dale even weeded my AC town for me while on a flight to California. I started playing it again as well, determined to pay off the final upgrade to my house.

Once in a while when I logged on after Livi, I’d find a few things missing around the house, usually the Garden Gnome in my main Mushroom Forest-themed room. So I’d have to switch over and put back all the stuff she’d picked up. I finally learned to just log in her character for the housework, then switch to mine for the bell-making. Today when I got ahold of the game, I noticed about 1/4 of the contents of each room was missing. The Garden Gnome was gone again, so was the Mushroom bed, the Mushroom side table, and even the Mushroom TV. The “outdoor” room was missing its hammock and picnic table. The Robot room lost its TV, bed, and the awesome toy train table.

When I checked Livi’s character, all I found was a bunch of flowers and the Robot TV and bed. I put those back in place, then wandered around the town. I figured she’d done a swap/drop during her flower and fruit foraging (apparently her favorite activity, after looting the house). I didn’t find a single item anywhere in town. I even checked the Lost and Found and the Recycle Bin. No luck. I tried to ask Livi what she’d done with the items, and she said, “I’ll find them all for you, Mama.” I gave the DS back to her.

A few minutes later I looked over and she was logged onto my character and putting my inventory into the Recycle Bin. Ack! I quickly retrieved my gear, then asked Livi if that’s where she’d been putting the household items. Yep. Ah, well. I told her that when things get put into the Recycle Bin, they go away forever and we can’t get them back. So, hopefully, she wouldn’t do that any more.

I wasn’t happy, but she’s only 3 and didn’t know any better. Plus, it’s not like it’s the end of the world. That was to happen later.

The next time I checked on Livi, she was eating fruit. I was surprised by this, because after all this time having the game, I didn’t know you could eat the fruit. (Or I’d forgotten you could.) I couldn’t really see her character because she was on the upper screen and the angle was bad. So I left Livi to her fruit-eating. When she was done playing and wanted another game, she handed me the DS. It was then that I noticed she was in the bedroom of the house, where four beds should be, and there was only one. And her character looked different. Moving downstairs, I saw only one small, empty room. When I walked outside, the house was in a different location.

This was not Klaatu.

Hoping and praying, I turned off the DS without saving. Unfortunately, when I turned it back on, the first option was no longer ‘Continue.’ It was now ‘New Game.’ Somehow Livi had gone to the Town Hall, talked to Pelly, and told her to delete the town, even tapping affirmatively through each confirmation screen.

Olivia now has the only character in a new town, PinkCity. I let her pick the name herself. In a bit, I’ll run AC-Olivia through the introductory errands so she can play freely. I’ll probably make myself a new toon too, though I don’t think I’ll have the energy or spirit to rebuilt and refurnish our awesome little house.

What I’ll miss most though, are the love notes that Dale had sent me through his character. But at least Livi can have all the fun she wants now without Mama saying, “eep! Don’t do that!”

I like to say that I have a low threshold for pain but a high tolerance of it. Dale’s the one who says I’m a tough bitch. And I do believe that I can put up with quite a lot physically. And I do mean a lot. I’ve been through an ectopic pregnancy that nearly lost me a fallopian tube, and I endured THREE MONTHS of gall bladder attacks. I even drove myself to the ER during two of them. (This still makes me bitter, because everyone else I know who’s had a gall bladder attack was in the ER and having surgery after the FIRST one.) Still, neither of those was as bad as the worst pain I’ve ever experienced. That would be a whole ‘nother post. So yeah, I know what pain is.

Anyway, back to the point of this post. A few weeks ago, I wrote about the fun of self-administering intramuscular injections. Now I’m going to complain about the fun of other-person administered intramuscular injections.

I have been taking progesterone in ethyl oleate (PEO) injections for over a month now. They’ve always been uncomfortable at best and downright painful at worst. Tonight was the worst injection ever, and I just wanted to cry and give up.

The EO part of my PEO shots likes to collect in the muscle and form lumps. After weeks and weeks of injections, I have huge lumps in each of my butt cheeks that make it feel like I’m lying on top of a couple of potatoes when I go to bed. When you palpate the spots, it feels like there are golf balls under my skin, they’re that hard. On good days, they’re just uncomfortable. On bad days, they really freakin’ hurt. Bruising, of course, is also quite common. I have at least another week of these injections. As bad as it was to inject them in my thighs, I think we’re going to have to do that for a couple of nights, because my ass really needs a break.

Currently, I have a bruise on my left butt cheek that looks like someone tried to karate chop me and left an imprint of the side of their hand. It’s been there for almost a week now, and for all that time, it’s been extremely painful. I have to be very careful of how I sit and lie down. When I touch the area, the skin is so sensitive, it feels raw and my fingertip feels like I wrapped sandpaper around it before dragging it forcefully across the spot. It’s been so bad, most of the shots this week have been going into my right side, instead of alternating. It’s so bad, we’ve discussed whether I should go see a doctor.

Sometimes, despite our practice and careful preparations, the shots don’t go well. One night, the shot didn’t hurt at all, beyond the initial prick. I was mulling over this when Dale said, “uh oh, I think I got an artery. There’s blood in the tip of the syringe.” As soon as he said that, I knew he was right. It suddenly smelled and tasted like someone had cracked a vial of some sort of medicinal alcohol right in front of my face. I also got woozy and it felt like my chest was constricting. This lead to a coughing fit that ended with me vomiting into the toilet. Fortunately, all the bad effects from that passed within 10 minutes or so, but it was pretty freaky. And it’s happened 2-3 times in the last couple of weeks, though the effects haven’t been as bad as the first time.

This is not Dale’s fault at all. He’d pulled back the plunger after inserting the needle to check for blood, but saw nothing so he proceeded with the injection. It wasn’t until he’d removed the needle that he could see the very tiny amount of blood in the syringe. I really want to emphasize this. None of these issues are caused by Dale. He’s done everything about perfectly, and he still feels terrible each time I say, “ow.”

A few times, the injection has stung and burned really badly. We don’t know why. Every night the procedure is the same, but twice now, the injection has been so painful I haven’t been able to keep myself from going, “owowowowowow,” while the leg on the injected side twitches uncontrollably. Tonight, it was hurting so badly that my leg was buckling and Dale pulled out eh needle before the injection was done. The spot bled more than any other injection so far (which really wasn’t much). While I applied pressure to the spot, Dale swapped the needle for a fresh one. Then he stabbed me and finished the injection. This time, it went ‘normally’ and there was no more pain or discomfort than usual.

Although the searing pain stopped almost as soon as Dale pulled out the first needle, and the second injection was fine, I’m hurting quite a bit now. Because my left side has been so bad, we’ve done the last 3(4) injections in the right side, and now it’s starting to pay for it. So tonight, when I finally go to sleep, I’ll have to see if my sensitive belly will let me sleep on it, because the damn Potatoes of Pain are waiting on the other side.

Morning sickness talk, this is your warning.

After my last visit to my doctor, and being on the verge of throwing up before and during my ultrasound, I was given a prescription for Zofran, a pretty serious antiemetic. Dale had to go to work shortly after we returned home, so I reluctantly dragged myself and Livi to Target to fill the prescription. While waiting for it to be filled, I thought I was going to pass out in the middle of the store. We finally got the prescription and went home. I promptly took one, made sure Livi was set up OK with some entertainment, then laid down on the bed. Within 15 minutes, I felt GREAT!

I bundled Livi back into the car and went out to grab some fast food lunch I’d been craving but had been too afraid to eat until then. I felt so good the rest of the night, we even went out to a sushi place for dinner. (I kept myself to cooked seafood, don’t worry.)

Each pill lasts 8 hours, so I only take two per day, occasionally less. If I’m not feeling horrible when I wake up, I try not to take one. (For one thing, the scrip was for only 12 pills, with a single refill.) After several days on Ondansetron (the generic version), I got sick despite the medication. I wasn’t sure if that meant it was losing its effectiveness for me, or if my nausea was just that bad. The past few days I’ve been miserable, despite the medication. I’ve been exhausted and vaguely queasy at all times, though I’ve only been sick a few times. I’ve spent most of the past few days lying in bed with the laptop because moving around made me too nauseous. Livi is a sweetheart and will come in from time to time and snuggle with me or sit next to me playing the Nintendo DS. I was able to do this, oddly enough, because Dale has been working from home because he and Livi have pink eye! (I don’t know how I’ve managed to avoid getting it.)

Today has been odd. I woke up feeling ok and took my regular morning meds, but not the antiemetic. An hour or so later I started feeling bad, so I took it. Then I ended up dry-heaving, which was a mixed blessing because I kept down all my medication. At lunch time, I really needed to eat. I got halfway through my lunch before I had to abruptly head to the bathroom. That seemed to be what my body needed, though, because a little while afterwards, I was able to finish my lunch with no further ill effects.

A couple of weeks ago I also accidentally discovered another nausea-relief remedy. I’d picked up a couple of bags of Atomic Fireballs. Those, along with tart candies like SweetTarts, were small things I could eat without any threat of illness. The Fireballs are particularly effective, since they last longer. Shortly after I bought these, I found a couple of internet references where other women have mentioned that they help with morning sickness. There are a few drawbacks to this remedy though. First of all, the relief only lasts for about as long as the flavor lingers, so 15 minutes or so. They also don’t work against really bad nausea (and who actually wants to eat anything when they’re feeling like that anyway?) And, they’re pure sugar. Non-nutritious at best, and bad for someone who’s insulin resistant and nearly guaranteed to be a gestational diabetic again. So, I try to keep my Atomic Fireball consumption low too. (Actually Dale, the fiend, eats about 3-4 times as many as I do!)

So, I am now 10 weeks pregnant and down about 3lbs from the start of my pregnancy. It looks like this pregnancy is going to be much like my last one, which had me lose/not gain weight until the very end. Ah well, it’ll definitely be worth it. After all, we got Livi out of that one!

Between the three of us, we have

1. one case of morning sickness (even with anti-nausea medicine)
2. one viral sore throat
3. various allergies
4. two cases of bacterial pink eye
5. two cases of general fatigue and malais

Treatment for these ailments include

1. anti-nausea medicine
2. gargling with saltwater
3. zyrtec and benedryl
4. two different anti-biotic eyedrops to be administered 3 tmes a day
5. naps

QQ

Bigger isn’t always cheaper
Originally uploaded by monkeyjunkie

For a long time now, the assumption has been that larger sizes of grocery products are slightly cheaper, because you’re paying for less packaging. Membership discount stores like Costco and Sam’s Club are built on this theory. Unfortunately, manufacturers are now taking advantage of this by slightly marking up the prices of larger product sizes. These two brands of orange juice are two good examples of this.

The price difference is very subtle, but it adds up for the retailers.

Another way that retailers have begun subtly price gouging customers is by shrinking product sizes while raising prices. The Consumerist blog has a whole section devoted to reports of this practice.

I guess the lesson here is to start paying better attention to what you buy. This might be a good time to start making a price book.

Why is it, that after centuries of evolution, a woman’s digestive system still insists on turning itself inside out during early pregnancy? You’d think, by now, women would have evolved so that when they’re pregnant, they want plenty of protein and veggies, stuff that’ll be good for them and their temporary residents. Instead, I get to spend way too much of each day getting to review what I’ve consumed. If I’m lucky, it happens right after I’ve eaten, so it just tastes like tears and food. If I’m unlucky, it’s a while after I’ve eaten, and we all know what that’s like.

When I was pregnant with Olivia, I had terrible morning sickness that lasted into my second trimester. I didn’t even gain any weight until the very end of my pregnancy. Actually, I lost weight during my first and second trimesters, so the third was spent catching up. My net gain was 16lbs. This pregnancy definitely seems to be following the same pattern. I’m a little over 2 months along, and my weight keeps bouncing up and down the same few pounds, depending upon how sick I’ve been that day.

Today has been the worst day, though. My first… meal rewind was so violent, I thought I was going to choke at one point. I had rice caught in my throat that threatened to go the wrong way (what’s the right way at this point?) when I tried to inhale. By the time I was done, the back of my throat and the tissue around my uvula were scorched and swollen. It hurts so damn much to swallow right now. Eating and drinking just about makes me want to cry. I’ve never had this happen before. And, despite my sore throat, my body just won’t give me a break. I’ve been sick two more times since then, which isn’t helping.

I do have a few comforts right now. Dale is just friggin’ awesome, comforting me when I need it and staying the fuck away when I can’t stand to be touched. Livi, as always, is an amazing little person. And, as much as it pains me, this barfing is a sign that our next child is inside me, growing and causing trouble already.

I’m in the "John Hurt way*"
Originally uploaded by monkeyjunkie

I’ve been waiting to share this news for a while now, but we wanted to wait a bit before we did. I’m now two months along and in the full throes of morning sickness, so here we go!

This ultrasound was taken a little over a week ago, on March 3. Our next one will be March 17. Baby #2 is expected on October 22.

Yes, this is the reason for the shots I’ve been getting, along with the handful of pills I’ve been gulping down day and night.

* If you watch BBC’s Coupling, you might get the reference

Olivia was brushing my hair this evening. Here’s what she had to say about it.

I like your hair.
It’s… brown.
And comfortable!

I’ve been receiving intramuscular injections for a little while now (I’m not going to go into why). Dale usually administers them, since they’re not easy to do, and there are only three locations on the body to do them, butt, thighs, and biceps. So, Dale’s been stabbing me in the butt with a 1 1/2″ needle every night. Well, he went out of town yesterday and won’t be back until Sunday night, so that means I have to do the shots myself. Two of the locations would be near impossible to do myself, so my thighs win by default.

I did the first solo shot last night, in my left thigh.

OMFG that sucked!!!

I’m squeamish enough about tiny insulin needles (I was a gestational diabetic when I was pregnant with Livi, so I got to administer plenty of injections then), but these needles are huge! And of course when you’ve got one poised over your thigh, they seem to grow until they’re a good 6″ long and 1/4″ in diamter.

In theory, you hold the syringe in your dominant hand like a pencil or a dart. With your other hand, you stretch the skin taught over the injection site. Then, smoothly, you stab the needle into your thigh perpendicular to your skin. Then, you draw back the plunger a bit to check for blood - you don’t want to be in a vein. If it’s clear, then you depress the plunger to inject the medicine. After the syringe is empty, carefully pull it straight back, then apply gauze and some pressure if there’s any bleeding.

In practice, I sat there, one hand on my thigh, the other holding the world’s biggest syringe, and mentally commanded my right hand to move. Down. Now. Come on, quickly. But don’t ram it, just use enough force to break the skin and enter the muscle in one go. OK. Any time now. Tonight, please!

Finally, I jabbed downward and the needle sank in to a depth of about 1/4″. Since the initial breaking of the skin is what hurts the most (when Dale does it), I didn’t want to pull out the needle and stab again, so I just applied more pressure on the syringe. It hardly budged. I used more force until I felt like I was trying to push a boulder through my leg, then the needle was in halfway. And that’s when the muscle started to spasm. I managed to get the needle 3/4″ of the way in and figured that would be good enough. Obviously I was in the muscle, since it was twitching. Thankfully, no blood was present when I pulled back the plunger. After I finished the injection, the needle came out smoothly and painlessly. There was very little bleeding and it stopped quickly. The muscle spasms had already stopped too.

Since then, though, I’ve felt like I was punched in thigh. I took some Tylenol just to help me get to sleep. I’ve been limping around all day, feeling like I severely pulled the muscle. There’s no bruising and only a tiny mark visible where the needle went in, but nearly a square foot of area around the injection site is very tender to the touch.

I get to do the next injection, in my other thigh, tonight. Then Saturday night, I’ll use whichever leg is hurting least. If the other two injections go as badly as this one, I may not be able to walk by the time Dale gets home.

I knew today was going to be busy, but it turned out to be much more of an ordeal than I’d anticipated. I’ve been sick lately and not sleeping well, so I was relieved when Dale agreed to take Livi to her gymnastics class this morning. That ended up not happening anyway, because lately she’s been into control games where she’ll say she doesn’t want to do something when we know the opposite is true. If we say, “fine, then we’re not going,” she’ll start hollering that yes, yes, she does want to go. We’re quite tired of it, so we’ve started accepting her fake No’s as the definitive response. Unfortunately, that meant she didn’t go to gymnastics this morning. (I hope we can get her into a make-up class, because we’re not getting a refund on that.)

Anyway, I got to go back to bed for a bit longer this morning, then had to quickly shower and rush out the door to get Livi to her dentist appointment on time. We were a little late, which I felt bad about, but there wasn’t a single other patient there when we arrived or left, so I guess we didn’t mess up their schedule at all. Once we coaxed Livi into the seat, she got her teeth cleaned and counted. All is good with them, except the dentist noticed a tiny bit of decay right between her upper front teeth. Basically, it looks like a little sliver of enamel is lifting. He wants to go ahead and fill it, so that’s scheduled for next Monday, to the tune of about $150. (Thanks for the damn deductible, insurance company.)

In honor of Livi’s freshly cleaned teeth, we went to Chik-fil-A for lunch. Livi was really stubborn about eating, and I felt like a hypocrite admonishing her to eat when I couldn’t manage more than a few bites myself (see above reference to being sick lately). Once she’d gotten down a minimally satisfactory amount of chicken, I agreed to let her go to the CFA indoor playground (the reason I’d picked the place for lunch). She got to play for about 30 minutes before I became the party pooper and dragged her to my podiatrist appointment.

I was going to see the podiatrist because I have a small sore lump on the sole of my left foot. It’s been there for about 10 days now, so it’s not the stepped-on-one-of-Livi’s-small-toys bruise I originally thought it was. Thanks to Google, I’d self-diagnosed it as a plantar fibromatosis, basically a benign tumor of the tendon running along the bottom of the foot. The doctor confirmed my diagnosis (and plan of action). “Keep an eye on it.” If it gets bigger or more develop, I may need to try cortisone shots. If it gets bad enough, it will require surgery.
At least it would be outpatient surgery and can possibly even be done under local anesthetic, the recovery would require me to be on crutches for about three weeks. (Which is nothing compared to what Lisa’s been through these past few months, I know!)

My next stop was to be FedEx/Kinkos to pick up a very important package. Unfortunately, the damn car wouldn’t start! When I turned the key, there would be a faint clicking sound, and that was it. After searching around for about five minutes, I finally found the hood release and took a look at the engine. That’s almost pointless considering my lack of car knowledge, but I did suspect the massive amount of corrosion on one of the battery terminals might be part of the problem. As soon as I realized I would not be able to get this car to move, I started calling Dale. I knew he was in some big company meeting off-site and not likely to answer the phone, I hoped that by the second or third call from me in a row, he might realize something’s up and find a way to contact me. Nope. I called his phone about 20 times over the next hour and only got voicemail.

Fortunately I didn’t wait that long to call my mother-in-law and explain the problem. She sent my father-in-law out to us, and after cleaning the contacts and a jump-start, we got my car running. Thor followed us home, thankfully, because once I turned off the ignition, it wouldn’t start again. We had to jump the car (twice, ’cause I stupidly turned it off again) just to back it into the driveway so Thor could hook up a battery charger. After half an hour, the battery charge level still read “1.” Thor asked how old the battery was, because it was a Nissan brand and had an 84 month warranty. Well, the car itself is only four years old and we had the battery replaced about two years ago, so that means the warranty was good for another five damn years!

I called up Champion Nissan and had them look up when they’d replaced the battery to see if replacing it would be under warranty. They confirmed it was, and confirmed towing to the dealership would be covered if needed. I made sure that if I brought the car in today, they’d be able to get a new battery in it this evening. They assured me they could, so Thor jump-started the car one more time so I could drive it to the dealership. (We only have one car and two motorcycles, so I couldn’t have Dale drive me out to the dealership to pick it up unless we left Livi with a sitter.)

Oh, during this brief stop at home, I tried to call Dale again — and heard his phone ringing in the office. He’d forgotten to take it with him. There was also a message on the answering machine from him telling me he’d forgotten his phone. I didn’t listen to that right away because I’d left a message on the machine for him and figured the message light was only for mine. Ah, well! All he could really have done was tell me to call Thor sooner than I thought of doing it myself.

The car made it to the dealership without incident. Once there, I left it running so the staff wouldn’t have to jump it just to get it into their work bay, but the engine died anyway while I was still getting Livi out of her carseat. We spent almost and hour and a half at the dealership waiting for them to confirm that the battery was hosed and put in a new one. We had both had little to eat for lunch and it was already heading into dinner time, so I fed my three year old a pack of vending machine Chex Mix while we waited. Yay, nutrition. At least the dealership washed the car, though that added about 15 minutes to our wait.

It was 6:30 by the time we left Champion. I had been planning to take Livi straight home, but I hadn’t voted yet and the polls closed at 7. (I would have done early voting, but see ‘been sick lately’ again.) So, I took Livi with me to the polling place. Dale had been there earlier in the day and said he was in and out in no time. By the time I got there, so had everyone else who’d waited until after work the day of the election. Still, as crowded as it was, we got in and out in about half an hour.

I finally took poor Livi home. She’d been remarkably well-behaved throughout our long and boring day, so Dale went right to getting her dinner while I went back out, again. This time, to FedEx/Kinkos. Getting my package wasn’t an issue, though it took several minutes for the guy to get all the proper info scanned and typed into the machine before I could sign for it and leave. Despite the fact that I was exhausted and starving, I opted to go back to my polling place and participate in the caucus. I didn’t even know if I’d make it, but I figured I’d try.

When I got there, the line was amazing. The doors still hadn’t opened, and it was about 8pm. The line went across the front yard of the community center, then wrapped around the side of the building and extended past the swimming pool in back. But, I had an easier time getting a parking space than I did when Livi and were there earlier. I’m glad I grabbed a light jacket before I left the house because it was cold and I ended up standing outside in line for another 30 minutes. I pity the people who’d been waiting to caucus since before the polls closed. There was a good number of them lined up when I voted at 6:45.

I was wondering how on earth they were going to manage to hold the caucus in the community center. There were hundreds of people in line, way more than could even fit in the building. It turned out that another precinct had been sent here, so there were two precincts that were going to be holding caucuses at the same location. People in line around me chatted politely, though a lot of the talk seemed to be about how irritating and stupid Texas’s democratic caucus policy is. Why go through early voting if you just have to come back on election day and vote again? Still, most people seemed good-natured, if confused about the point of caucusing. (I’d had to Google it myself before I’d gone out.)

When the doors finally opened, they split the two precincts into different lines and fed us through. After signing in, anyone who wanted to stay for the convention went to the parking lot or the tennis court, depending upon precinct. I was interested and wanted to stay for the parking lot caucus, but by the time I signed my name and wrote down my candidate, I was too damned tired and hungry. And I was getting a sore throat. So I finally went home, for the last time today.

Despite the crappy events of today, I was in a surprisingly good mood this evening. I didn’t cry or throw a fit about anything, especially the car. I didn’t kill anyone. I did accomplish the important tasks for the day. I guess I felt like I triumphed over adversity. Yay me.