Waffles explained

I finally sat down and mapped the route I walked along the ocean yesterday. It was over eight miles. That makes me feel slightly less guilty for eating six waffles and almost an entire stick of butter.

Apathy sets in

Yesterday was quite a productive day for me.

I was up at 5 a.m. when Daniel went to work. Around 6 a.m. I drove home. I ate half a box of girl scout cookies for breakfast. Then I went to work.

I've been toiling with changing my hair color. (Daniel insists he can do it for me with the aide of his mother who works as a hair stylist.) So I hopped on the computer and began uploading pictures on Instyle.com where you can snatch celebrity hairstyles right off their heads and and attach them to your face. Sweet. I have been coveting Jennifer Garner and Jennifer Aniston's hair for many years now. (Or maybe it's really their faces I covet...)

Unfortunately my computer connection is slow and moving through the various stages of the 'makeover' process was like watching paint dry. No matter. I have all the time in the world. I spent about 4 hours on my computer yesterday trying to find my next hairstyle, going through photos on my computer, and tooling around on Facebook.

Around 10 a.m. Kelly called and saved me from my virtual makeover obsession. Kelly has been out of the workforce since she graduated college in December of 2001. Since then she got married and has been raising two daughters. Kelly starts her new job tomorrow: lab assistant at an Ethanol plant. She is excited but nervous. I think she's going to do great. I am so excited for her opportunity! In the same breath I would be lying if I said I wasn't jealous that she will be working and I will not be working.

As Kelly and I talked, I got dressed and made my way out of my apartment and down to the ocean. Two hours breezed by as I walked and talked. Eventually we got off the phone, and I realized how long I'd been walking and talking. I then also realized how far away I still was from home. My normal fast paced walk had turned into a dawdle about an hour and a half into the walk. By the time I got back home, I'd been walking for 2 hours and 45 minutes. My face was tanned, and I was sweaty.

When I returned home I got back on my computer for more virtual hairstyling. (I truly believe if I had a faster computer connection, I probably wouldn't have spent so much time on the website.)

This is what I meant to do yesterday:

1. go for a walk or something active. (Yay! Achieved!)
2. shower and shave my legs
3. write
4. post on blog
5. clean my apartment
6. bake
7. send in my cobra payment
8. fill out my unemployment form
9. apply for more jobs
10. hop on USA track and field website and figure out exactly how many miles I walked

This is not what I meant to do yesterday:
1. Sit on duff watching TV
2. Sit on duff playing on computer

I am becoming rather apathetic to this whole unemployment thing, and it's not a good quality. On top of the abnormal amount of girl scout cookies I ate for breakfast (though, really, I swear they are smaller in size this year), throughout the rest of the day I ate, two hot dogs (I was starving after my walk), six waffles, and nearly an entire stick of butter. How gross is that? (Though I did wash everything down with five bottles of Dasani. Yay me for drinking more than the recommended amount of water in one day.) Unfortunately I have nothing in my refrigerator besides mass quantities of butter. (I have a major butter compulsion. I cannot pass by butter in the dairy case when it's on sale without grabbing at least two boxes. Butter is expensive! And totally necessary for baking and eating.) No food items in my apartment can really be put together to constitute any type of meal.

Today I plan to do this:

1. grocery shop for baking items (done!)
2. shower and shave legs
3. post on blog (nearly done!)
4. write
5. send COBRA payment
6. stay off Instyle.com and Facebook (so far so good!)
7. walk or something (it's sad that I used to have Olympic dreams and now my only exercise has been reduced to walking)
8. find a job
9. drive to Daniel's house where there's food, water, and someone to keep my hands away from the girl scout cookies!

Food, food, food, food, food, food, food, food, food, food, food, food, food, food, food, food, food!

Perhaps because my money is so tightly allocated and the only thing even remotely close to entertainment that I spend money on is grocery shopping, my already strong taste for food has turned into somewhat of an obsession. I mentioned this to Daniel this past week when we were grocery shopping. I'm craving licorice, I said. Do you want us to get some? he asked. No. I shook my head. The only reason I'm craving licorice is because I know I can't waste my money on it. Though Daniel wouldn't mind wasting his money on something I really want.

Licorice is only the tip of the iceberg. When I had a job, it was rare that I would buy candy. I like candy. Love would be the better descriptor for my candy affection, actually. But because I had money, I could buy candy any time I wanted. If you think of the money I used to have and the food I used to want to eat in terms of supply and demand, it's pretty simple: demand for candy never seemed high because I could have it when I pleased. Now that I can't, the damn demand has shot straight through the roof. Daniel said the same thing happened to him when he was in the Navy. He doesn't even like sweets. He never eats them. But during boot camp, sweets were forbidden. Naturally, he began to crave sweets.

Aside from craving food that's a) generally not on sale b) has very little nutritional value for what I'd be paying if I did bite the bullet and buy it; I'm obsessed with buying food. Doesn't matter if I think I'll eat it. If it's on sale, I'll buy it. Case in point, I went to two grocery stores already today (and plan on walking to the third when I'm done writing). At Von's I picked up Oscar Meyer Weiners for $.99 - three packs of hot dogs. You would think the way I buy food in bulk when it's on sale that this is food that I eat all the time. Nope. Generally, I rarely eat hot dogs. My only rationality is this: some day I might be craving hot dogs. I do not want to go to the store and have to go without hot dogs because they are $3.99 or whatever the normal price is. On top of the three packages of Oscar Meyer Weiners I bought at Vons, I bought two packages of Johnsonville brats (because those suckers are expensive and I know this summer I'm going to want to be having myself some brats) and at Ralph's I picked up two packages of Hebrew National hotdogs (buy one get one free - in case I ever want to make chili dogs ... they are excellent when you want a great chili dog) and another package of Oscar Meyer Weiners (cheese filled $2.50 on sale). The amount of processed meat I bought was sickening. And completely unnecessary. Worse, I tend to do this every week. I lay out all three grocery store ads and map out what I want to get at each store. I buy so much food, I don't have enough time to eat it. On top of that, I'm at Daniel's most the time eating his food.

One of the perceived side effects of losing my job was losing weight. No money = no food. It's a simple equation really. Unfortunately thanks to my food obsession and Daniel's deep pockets, the scale is not budging. My weight hasn't really been a huge concern of mine anyway. Not until last night when Daniel and I were discussing the possibility of a Caribbean vacation in April. I casually said, if we go on vacation, I'd like to lose 10 pounds. Who doesn't want to lose weight when faced with a week of fun in the sun? With way too much enthusiasm he replied, I think you would look great if you lost 10 pounds! I narrowed my eyes into a glare and he quickly realized the huge gaffe he'd just made. I mean, he back pedaled, if you could possibly look any better than you already do, I imagine if you lost 10 pounds you would look even more amazing. Than you already do. Which is amazing. Did I mention that?

I wanted to tell him if he really wanted me to lose 10 pounds, perhaps he should stop feeding me steak, pork chops, macaroni and cheese and bacon and eggs.

Hmph.

Other people's money

Last night Daniel and I took a trip to Stater Brothers grocery store. We wanted to buy steak (they're supposedly famous for their meat selection), and I had perused their sale ad and found a bunch of items we commonly eat (bologna $.99, cornish game hen $.99 a pound, tater tots $2.99) on sale.

In the frozen food aisle we had a hard time locating the cornish game hen. It appeared as though they were sold out. About to give up, we rounded the corner and I spotted the hen on the bottom shelf of a freezer case at the end of the aisle. I left Daniel alone to pick out the fowl and made my way over to the dairy case. With heavy whipping cream and milk in hand, I was searching for american cheese when Daniel grabbed my arm and told me we were leaving. Hastily I began shoving the items I'd picked up back on the shelf. But the bologna is $.99 here. I really did say that to him. He responded by saying he didn't care about cheap bologna.

As we traversed the parking lot headed toward his truck I asked him if he'd seen his ex-girlfriend inside or something. I like the way you think, he said sarcastically before responding that the steak selection sucked and he couldn't stand how crowded the store was. Instead we went to Albertson's where the store was less crowded, the steak selection was better and Daniel didn't blink to pay full price anything.

It's his money. I understand he can do what he wants with his money, including paying $3 for bologna if he so chooses. But because of my finanical situation, it's hard for me to watch him pay full price for anything, when I know he could be getting it for less.

Hell hath no fury like a stomach scorned

I consider myself lucky to receive subsidized COBRA benefits (even if it's just a crappy HMO), despite the fact that I'm unlucky enough to be unemployed.

When I worked for Aerospace Company X, I did not get paid unless I showed up for work. Thus, I was never sick! Really, though, in the ten months I worked there, I was blessed with good health. Of course a month into unemployment and I'm already on my second illness. Go figure!

I started to get sick early yesterday afternoon. I had a sudden urge to ... go to the bathroom. The ... urge ... continued with every subsequent trip to the bathroom. I didn't think much of it because my stomach is prone to wild mood swings every now and then. Unfortunately about two hours after I started having ... urges ... I suddenly felt a bit like throwing up. I texted Daniel to tell him. He was driving home from work and called to ask if I needed anything at the store. He said he'd make chicken soup when he got home.

Before he got home it took me five heaves to get every last ounce of the sandwhich I'd had for lunch out of my stomach. Every last ounce and then some. I felt so much better after I threw up, I triumphantly lay down on the couch practically patting myself on the back for my good efforts. I thought maybe the sandwich hadn't agreed with me and my body just needed to expel whatever was in my stomach. Then, ever so slowly, the nausea creeped back up toward my throat and an hour later I was throwing up again. The slice of bologna and cheese I had for breakfast along with two cups of coffee was now also expelled from my body, and I realized I probably had the flu.

Let me explain something here: I am not good with throwing up. Give me diarrhea. Give me constipation. Give me stomach aches and pains. Please, please, please do not give me nausea and/or vomiting. I rarely, rarely, rarely throw up after a night of drinking. I don't let myself get that way. I could not remember the last time I'd actually had the stomach flu. Twenty, twenty-two years ago maybe? No clue. My body was obviously making up for the past 20 stomach flu-free years by torturing me with the trifecta of stomach flu symptoms.

After one trip to the bathroom I returned to the kitchen with a plastic grocery bag in my hand. This is a large amount of stomach bile, I said to Daniel. I'm putting this bag in the kitchen garbage. You might want to take the garbage out tonight, I warned. He looked at me questioningly and said, why didn't you just throw up in the toilet? I think our relationship reached a new level of closeness when I told him I had no control over certain other bodily functions when throwing up.

Glumly, Daniel and I discussed the irony of our big shopping trip the night before and the meals we were planning to make all week long considering I had no appetite and couldn't keep anything in my stomach. He began packaging the bulk food we'd bought that we realized would now need to go in the freezer. Do you want me to make chicken soup tonight so you can eat it all day tomorrow? He kindly asked. I'd already declined burgers when he'd made them. The sight and smell of food was making me sick. I didn't think I'd be eating anything the next day considering how I was feeling.

Neither of us knew exactly how sick I was. We just thought I had the flu and it would pass. There wasn't a lot Daniel could do for me as I lay on the couch. He gave me some sort of carbonated see-through beverage that tasted really bland. I tried to sip from the glass. I simply wasn't thirsty even though I knew the hydration level of my body was probably reaching dangerous numbers. I was expelling more water/liquid than I even thought was contained inside a person's body, no less a person who hadn't had anything but coffee to drink all day long. My vomiting became schedulized. Every hour on the hour I'd get up from the couch and disappear down the hall toward the bathroom. And then three hours passed with no urge to vomit. I was convinced that my flu was passing after only four trips to the toilet. So I started sipping bottled water in an attempt to rehydrate.

I told Daniel I wanted to sleep in the guest bedroom so he wouldn't catch the flu. He didn't like the idea of me sleeping in another bed, but finally agreed it was for the best. He picked me up from the coolness of the tile floor in the bathroom where I lay in a heap of sweat with my water bottle at my side and tucked me into bed in the guest bedroom, depositing a small garbage can at my side in case I needed to throw up. Just sleep it off, he said. You'll feel better in the morning.

I think I had been asleep for an hour when I woke up to throw up for the fifth time. It was some time after 10 p.m. By this time, I really had nothing in my stomach. Literally nothing. Everytime my body heaved, my temperature soared and I began to sweat. Sometimes I felt like I was choking on my own bile and would end up swallowing it back down again. I began to get scared.

For some reason, my mind began focusing on Brittany Murphy. (Oddly, earlier that day I'd been watching this really terrible movie she starred in ... The title had 'Love' in it, this much I remember, and the opening scene basically typed out an on-screen disclaimer excusing her for her bad British accent.) I'm not up-to-date on the official details of her death, if they've been released yet, but I kept thinking about how she had passed out in the shower and been declared dead by heart failure at age 32. Later it had been reported that she'd been experiencing flu-like symptoms leading up to her sudden death. Unable to shake the events of Murphy's death from my mind, I was convinced my heart was going to give out, too. This is probably not a rational thought most people would have while trying to get through another round of heaving bile, I recognize that.

The last time I threw up was just before midnight. I pitched a fever as I sat on the toilet, garbage pale in hand, small amounts of bile in garbage can. I couldn't stop throwing up ... the nothing that was in my stomach. I couldn't shake the fever or the sweats. It was starting to go dark in the bathroom. I was on the verge of passing out. Danny! I called from the toilet. I heard him rouse from bed as I again called his childhood nickname. He stuck his head in through the bathroom door. Take me to the hospital, I said. I couldn't even manage to flush the toilet before I spilled onto the ground whimpering and nearly hyperventillating. I was sweating, then suddenly I was freezing cold.

When you have an HMO, you can't just go to any hospital. You have to go to your HMO hospital. I don't live in the same city as Daniel, he doesn't have the same insurance that I have; so we were both at a loss as to the location of the nearest hospital. Suddenly he remembered that there's a Kaiser Permanente building on Beach Boulevard. He swung his truck in the right direction and took me there without delay only to discover it was not a hospital. It didn't even offer urgent care. It was closed. I knew we had a good hour to locate a hospital before I started throwing up again, but we had no clue which hospital location was closest; and my google search on my iPhone wasn't cooperating.

We ended up in the city where I live, a 15 minute drive. As I was explaining my symptoms to a doctor, an admitting nurse stood to his right firing questions at me. Address? Phone number? Emergency contact? Emergency contact relation? Address? Phone number? My heart sank when she asked if I was employed. I gave her a hallow no in response; and then handed over my medical insurance card.

In the ER, I received two litres of IV solution, four shots of anti-nausea medication, and another unexplained shot. They did an ultrasound, drew blood, and did a UA. I was able to swallow four pills of some sort of antibiotic/anti-nausea/anti-acid combination and immediately got shooting stomach pains. The nurse gave me what he called a magical GI cocktail which smelt faintly of grape Kool-aid and was chalky in texture. It was larger than a shot glass and he instructed me to down it. I could only take a few sips a time. I think it was the most putrid, awful medicine I've ever tasted and it made my lips and tongue numb immediately. I refused to down the entire portion I'd been given, but luckily whatever I managed to sip through the straw immediately settled my stomach. I was finally discharged at 4:45 a.m. with a script for antibiotics, anti-acid pills, and anti-nausea pills. I felt so bad for Daniel who was supposed to start work that morning at 4. He sat uncomplaining in a chair by my bedside the entire time.

They weren't exactly sure what was wrong with me. Gastroenteritus? An infection of some sort? My white blood cell count was elevated, suggesting infection. Not just any run of the mill stomach flu after all. While  I was in the emergency room, another person complaining of my exact symptoms was admitted. The ER doc said he'd been seeing two to three cases per night just like mine.

Today I feel better, but better is a relative word. I'm not nauseaous. I can drink water. I have mild stomach pain. And a mild but persistant ... urge ... when I got to the bathroom. I'm thankful for the doctors and nurses who helped me last night, the pharmacists who handed over more drugs today, and mostly Daniel. Because without him right now, I'd be lost.