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If it's not one thing…
My feet and I don’t seem to be in accord at the moment. I’ve got skin problems on various parts of the sole which cause the skin to tear and get caught in carpet and tear even more. This has been a problem at times for many years but I seem to have several areas affected at the moment so the soles have several bandages to protect and stop further friction. But that’s not enough, apparently. Today I developed pain on the back of my heel around my Achilles tendon. I think it’s a swelling slightly to the right of the tendon which is tender to touch and painful for walking.
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Phobias and anxiety
I’ve noticed that visiting the dentist causes me far more anxiety than it ever did when I was younger. This isn’t a case of dreading the twice-yearly dental appointment. I am generally fine right up to my arrival at the dentist’s office. But once I get into the chair I find I am anxious. I think this started when our dentist started using an ultrasonic scaling machine instead of the traditional tools because I almost always experience some nerve pain while this procedure is taking place. So now I find myself tensing up on my regular visits and often catch myself gripping the arms of the chair. I wouldn’t call it a phobia though.
While I wouldn’t call my dental anxiety a phobia, I would apply that term to my anxiety about magpies. I was swooped four or five times in a row while cycling through a local park a few years ago and since that time I’ve become quite anxious when I see one. This is especially true if it’s particularly big and also if it’s during what is locally called magpie season (from August to November when males are protective of babies). My traumatic incident didn’t occur during magpie season so I don’t feel particularly safe at any time. My anxiety was made especially obvious about a week ago while I was out on my bike again. I usually wear a heart rate monitor while riding and I came across a particularly large magpie and my heart rate spiked about 20 bpm at the same time. I’ve not actually been bothered by one since that one incident years ago (which wasn’t the first but the worst incident). I hope I find some way to overcome this anxiety since magpies are some of the most common birds we find around here.
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Fillings and pain
I had a dental appointment a few weeks ago where an an x-ray showed I had developed two cavities. This past week I went to have them filled. Everything during the procedure seemed to be fine and I had the usual five hours of waiting for the numbness to wear off. I thought that was the end of it. But a couple days later I started getting pain when chewing in that area, which is something I’ve never experienced after getting cavities filled in the past. It’s not a constant problem but does seem to be affected by temperature, especially hot foods. The Scientist had this experience earlier this year and it continued for quite a few weeks after he had the initial dental work so I am not too encouraged about the prospects of this disappearing any time soon. He did some research at the time and discovered there have been many complaints of this sort of pain with the newer types of fillings due to them being more conductive than the older style ones. I’ve also noted that I’m unable to get dental floss between the teeth in the area so may end up back to have that sorted out some time. The dentist apparently was quite surprised by the pain when the Scientist went back to him so I wonder what he will say if I end up returning too.
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Transition
This weekend I started getting those almost certain signs that my period was imminent, a mere nineteen days after the last one began. That cycle had been nineteen days too, so it was a bit disconcerting to think I’d be spending half of every month in the middle of a period. I had thought that my cycles were alternating between a short one and a nearly average length one, but upon reviewing notes I’d made I found that they have, in fact, been getting shorter as the year has progressed. So it seems pretty likely that I’m going through quite a few anovulatory cycles these days.
I’ve glanced through library books about the perimenopause in the past but nothing really shouted out that this was me. That’s not to say I wasn’t experiencing some of the signs but there was nothing that really felt like it was a change. I guess some of it has been happening so gradually over the years that it’s just a part of passing through the years for me, which makes sense when one considers the constants transitions throughout our lives no matter what age. But I do think I am on the brink of reaching the “thick of it”, so to speak.
I did some online research on perimenopause and it finally dawned on me that what I was reading and what I am starting to experience is exactly what is commonly referred to as menopause. It’s just been renamed a bit more appropriately than in the past. Here I’d been thinking this was yet another catch phrase stage for women to experience. I can only use as my excuse the fact that my brain function isn’t so great these days, one of those actual symptoms of perimenopause.
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Protected: Working towards diagnosis
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Hair
I started making attempts at cutting Lego Lover’s hair today. It’s been quite long for a while and he refuses to go to a proper shop so I get the lovely task of cutting it. I started this afternoon by cutting some of the length and continued this evening by cutting a bit more evenly around his head. I gave it up a while ago to avoid any battles with him, so will have to continue work tomorrow. The good news is his eyes are now visible. However, his hair is now quite oily and greasy. I’m assuming this is the beginning of puberty for him at not even ten years of age.
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Irregular
I find it very disconcerting that as I am growing older, my menstrual cycles are becoming shorter and shorter. I’ve noticed the following patterns over the course of my menstruating years.
1) Puberty/teen years-I don’t think I kept close track on how long my cycles were back then so it’s hard to see any particular pattern then.
2) Young adulthood, before pregnancy/kids-My cycles ran fairly long, usually 26-35 days and never a consistent length. I hated not knowing when to expect my period then. In hindsight, I at least didn’t have to go through it as often as many women.
3) Post-pregnancy years-My cycles suddenly were closer to the typical cycle, lasting around 28 days, on average. The only exception was after the second pregnancy which ended in second trimester. Those cycles were pretty irregular along with menorrhagia that continued until I became pregnant the third time. My theory for these years is that I was breastfeeding through many of those years and that helped regulate my cycles.
4)Long past pregnancy years-In the last three or four years, my cycles have returned to irregular ones but now tend towards shorter cycles that run anywhere from 19 days (this month) to 29 days. Going only on a hunch, I seem to alternate between a very short cycle and a closer to normal length cycle. I’m not quite sure what to make of that, but it’s interesting.
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My brain is taking a holiday
At least that’s the way it seems. I had something I really wanted to write about and in the time it takes me to click on the write post tab, it was gone. I seem to be having trouble again with my short term memory. Several times a day, I have a thought and start to act on it, only to forget the original thought. It usually does come to me but it’s mighty frustrating to have this happening so much. I’m also struggling with word retrieval for some very ordinary words lately. This seems to occur in cycles so perhaps I should be tracking symptoms…except I think I am too disorganised to manage it and I would probably forget anyway. :)
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Meh!
I’ve been wanting to post but then I haven’t been able to be bothered. I seem to be endlessly having too many thoughts and not enough focus lately. It’s a feast or famine when it comes to writing here. Was going to try to do a whole month of writing every day but that’s obviously not going to happen. :)
We are having flashbacks to winter with wet and windy days lately. I think we’re getting a break and it’s going to warm up over the weekend. I was sitting on the sofa in a short sleeve t-shirt while playing a game on the Wii and I was literally shivering. I’ve taken to wearing slippers and and my warm robe again. It kind of reminds me of when Game Fanatic was a few weeks old and his crying seemed to go on and on no matter what we did. Came to find that he was cold. Usually November is pretty warm but there are some days that are chilly, of course. Felt so stupid at the time for not realising he was cold but probably shouldn’t have since I was so new to taking care of babies and all.
The homeschool moderator is coming out in two weeks and I still don’t know what I will show her. Nothing ever seems to go to plan, even the more viable ideas. I will come up with something and it will just have to do. Will have to go out and buy the workbooks for Lego Lover for next year. Won’t buy too much because we didn’t end up using very many of them this year. As he gets older, I am sure we will move away from the book work completely.
The Scientist and I went to see Augie March on Monday night. I enjoyed it very much but I found the crowd way too silent. It was so quiet you could hear the rain on the roof of the theater in-between songs. The crowd became a bit more livelier around the time of the encore but it was still pretty quiet. Musically I thought it was great aside from one song that really sounded too much like the recording. While I really enjoyed myself, I must admit it wasn’t that awe and wonder I’ve felt at other shows. It’s been suggested it was the Monday night show problem. Just not a good day for concerts in Perth. As it was we were feeling rushed to leave by the end to pick up the boys from my friend’s house.
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Insomnia
It seems to be running through the family at the moment. Even the Scientist was struck with it this morning so that he got up before 4:30 and was quite tired by the time he went to bed tonight. Game Fanatic has been suffering this for the last couple of weeks and part of the problem is that he has become something of a night owl in the last couple of years. There are other issues involved but the combination is making it quite difficult. Lego Lover still goes to sleep quite late much of the time but not always and I have been something of a late nighter myself…Perhaps the recent change to daylight savings time hasn’t helped either. I’m really hoping it’s voted out in the referendum after the three year trial ends next year.
Obviously, it’s another late night so I might just try to sleep once I’ve posted this. Just needed to finally do an update.