Thursday, December 10, 2009

New PJ's, hair issues, update on my father-in-law, and sleep.

Today I went into a store looking for a few articles of clothing missing from the children's wardrobe. Mostly what I was looking for was winter pajamas. I walked right past the women's section with the pajamas and robes and such, and the light blue fluffy pj's next to the "50% off" sign caught my eye. :-) I am now sitting in my wonderful bed, with a puffy duvet and the most luxurious fluffy pj's I have ever owned. I am just dying of softie, warmy, and comfy. :-) (But the boys don't have new fluffy warm PJ's. It's not *my* fault that the store didn't have anything appropriate for them, but they did for me!)

OK, now that the writing scene is set, it's time for me to make another true confession, sort of like the last one when I told you my right leg has been hurting for a long while and I didn't tell you, and it may be PVNS--- this one is also hard to voice, but it is real, and not a good thing.

My hair is coming out in huge clumps... again. The shower drain gets completely blocked, and when I pick it up to dispose of it, I consider donating it for a wig, it is so much. The last time I experienced hair loss like this was right after I got out of the hospital after the necrotizing faciitis. It lasted for about 6 months, then got better by itself. Now, I am 3 months after the tumor excision from my thigh, and 6 weeks after appendectomy. I am doing a lot of rehab- every day it's either PT, or hydrotherapy, or training with a personal trainer.

I wrote to the doctor I am seeing- the one who is the "orthomolecular" doctor. I am taking many sorts of vitamins, some at pretty high levels. He wrote back and said that he is pretty sure that it's a stress reaction from the surgeries. He said my blood work-up was pretty good, except for something called "DHEAS" which is low (off the standard chart). It is an adrenal secretion that can get depleted with prolonged stress. Since it has happened to me before, and then it grew back, I hope it will again grow back. It is so upsetting to see it all over my hands when I just gently run my hand through my hair. And the shampooing- it is insane how thick the piles are in my hand. I'm afraid it'll never be thick again.

The doctor just said we'll keep an eye on it. He said there is a possibility to simply take this "DHEAS" to supplement what you need, but he wants to wait a bit before doing that. Wait until we have a few months on my vitamin regimen to get a good picture of how I feel overall.

So there is that, and here is other stuff:
Robert is transferring his father today from the hospital (where he has been for the past 4 months) to care at his own home, with a hospice nurse 24 hours a day. Everything is so huge and emotionally difficult at this stage. Walking side-by-side with a parent in their walk toward the end of life is an honor, privilege, and deep sorrow all wrapped up. Robert is very spiritually optimistic and profoundly sad at the same exact time. That's why I love him, because he can be that way and still communicate it all.

My sleeping is so depleted, I can barely function during the day. I have to speak Hebrew a lot, especially since our babysitters now are the Israeli ones. (the English speaking ones aren't around much these days.) I find it hard to string sentences along in a manner that implies my intelligence. My brain feels literally like a fog is enveloping the whole of it, that nothing is clear thought. Except when I write, Baruch Hashem.
I need more daytime sleep hours. All this rehabilitation I am doing is taking so much out of me, and there hasn't been time for naps, mainly because of lack of good nanny help, and running the household. My nanny now is just sort of adequate, but she has cut two days out of her schedule. I have another one, but since she isn't really used to our flow yet and still needs training, I am not able to rest much when she is here. I am meeting yet another woman on Sunday. This one is the cousin of Ravit, our babysitter who we loved 3 months back, who left when her father passed away. We'll see how that goes. Shirut Leumi is due to call me on Sunday about whether or not I can have a bat-shirut from them to help out here. That would be the best, and we don't have to pay, the government does.

I am going to sleep now, please Gd.
These new PJ's are helping already!

2 comments :

  1. Hey, you changed the title on me. I liked "too tired to think of a title." :) Hope your day is going ok today. Hang in there.

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  2. I changed the title for my own sake- I try to title them to know what they are about, so if I look at the archive list for something, I know what the post was about.
    My day went well today, on Shabbat. I'll write about it, hopefully, later this evening.

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