WebMD is My New Best Friend

Since I know all of you have been wondering (okay maybe only some of you...well hopefully at least one of you...) why I have been M.I.A. from facebook lately. Before the rumors start (psh! I wish I was cool enough for people to start rumors about me! Please start a rumor about me! Pretty please! I totally give you permission!), let me nip this in the bud right now:


I have this new and annoying condition where I get violently nauseous every time I eat something. Okay, maybe violently is too strong of a word. But I still get extremely nauseous to the point where I can't concentrate on anything besides not yakking on whoever is closest to me at the time (if there are any MDs or RNs out there, feel free to diagnose me. I won't stop you from giving me free advice! :P).

I definitely feel like this guy:

(Only I don't have the excuse that I was up in space. Although that'd be totally fun. I so wouldn't mind getting sick if it meant that I'd be in outer space!!! The Hubby would be so jealous!)

Before you start formulating your sympathy reply comments (really don't! I hate being pitied), let me assure you that I'm 95% confident that this is entirely my own doing. I have brought this on myself. I've mistreated my body for YEARS. I'm talking years of eating things like this:

(Doesn't it look sooOOoOoOoo yummy?)

and this:

(Don't fall for it! Look away! Look away!)

And this:

(I'll admit it; I'm drooling a little....Like you aren't?!)

Yes for years I've eaten whatever I wanted whenever I wanted it with little to no remorse. Okay no remorse. None. Zippo. Zilch. There have been days when I've had ice cream for dinner, and days where I ate nothing but Tripoli Pizza and Italian Kitchen Crispelli's. I never eat vegetables (unless you count potatoes...as in french fries or potato chips) unless my husband begs (and I mean begs...and sometimes he pleads...and sometimes even bribes) me to.


Is it any wonder that after years of abuse my body is finally fighting back. It's calling it quits. It's throwing in the towel. It's saying "That's it! We quit! We can't take any more of these deplorable working conditions! Straighten up or we are going to walk out and you can find yourself new internal organs and we can guarentee they won't work nearly as well as we do!"


Yes my body is posing a strike. After years of just taking the abuse, of having no back bone, no spine, no voice, my body is finally sticking up for itself. I'll admit, if it weren't for the fact that this works to my disadvantage I'd be kind of impressed and proud of it for finally taking a stand.

I admit it. I took advantage of my youth and my fast metabolism. I thought I was invincible. I thought I had at least a good five more years (and at least one kid) before I had to get in line. But apparently I crossed the line. My body is out for REVENGE! And it's doing a darn good job at obtaining it!


So, what did I do when these symptoms simply did not go away? I did what any self respecting woman who is a partial hypochondriac would do...I WebMd-ed them. That's right, I made WebMD into a verb. And let me tell you...the results weren't pretty.


Possible reasons for my nauseau:


1. Diabetes:

Great. Just great.

2. Celiac's Disease:

For those of you who don't know, this is a disease where gluten (i.e. wheat/barley/rye) literally attacks your intestines so that not only do you not process the nutrients in the food that you eat, it also can permenantly destroy your intestines if you keep eating food with gluten in them. Doesn't that sound delightful.

3. IBS:

I don't even want to go into this one. Mainly because the symptoms are so icky.

4. Ulcer:

5. Food Allergy:


Um yikes. You don't have to be a hypochondriac to be nervous about those! I mean c'mon...Diabetes....Celiac's....ULCER?!


Although if I do have an ulcer, I'm pretty sure I know what caused it.


Possible causes for my (alleged) ulcer:

1. The Congressional Health Care Debate:

Both sides of this debate can get ulcers over congress's waffling on this issue. They need to hurry up and make a decision already. Then we all can move on.

2. Recent Racism/Reverse Racism News Stories:

Can I just say that there is absolutely no such thing as reverse racism. Webster defines racism as "hatred or intolerance of another race or other races", that includes minorities who are racist against white people. It doesn't say "hatred or intolerance of white people towards minorities". Anyway...I pray for the day when I don't have to hear about racism any more. Seriously. We all need to get over it, and start not liking mean people for their meanness instead of what they look like.

3. The fact that I have to eat Vegetables:

Seriously. I can't express enough how much I hate vegetables. I equate eating them to eating grass. Unless they are covered in some sort of flavored sauce...which helps them not taste so much like grass but also kinda negates their health benefits.

4. The fact that everyone who makes less than $200,000/yr in MA cannot afford a house in MA:

If the Hubby and I save all of our non-bill-paying-money, we still won't be able to afford a 20% down payment on a 3 br house for 3 more years!!! Isn't that insane?!

5. Friends and Loved Ones thinking I'm pregnant solely based on the fact that I'm married and am feeling nauseous:

People. I love you. I hold you near and dear to my heart. I know that you think The Hubby and I are the perfect couple and can't wait for us to have perfect cute little babies that will laugh and play with you, they'll even smell that nice little baby smell for you. Then when we take them home, they'll keep me up all nice with baby shrieks and poop all over us. You can't wait for the day that you can play with them. But we sure as heck can wait for the days of sleepless nice and poopy diapers. I'm just saying. I'm not pregnant. Nor will I be any time soon.

(Not me any time soon...)

So although I absolutely love WebMD, because hell-o, it's way more convenient than going to the doctor, which requires taking sick/vacation time and those of us who have husbands who involuntarily have vacation almost every other month (public school teacher) and need all the sick/vacation time they can get, cannot afford to go to the doctor every time they have a problem, WebMD is probably not the end all be all in terms of practical medicine. No one can replace a doctor. Unfortunately. They just know all.

Or in my case, unfortunately they know too much. Because instead of telling me "oh, that one's easy, you have THIS problem which can easily be cured by doing THIS", my doctor told me "it could be anyone of these horrible things you don't want it to be. We have to take blood, do some tests, and make you take some over the counter medication that will only appease you for a little while until I come back from vacation three weeks from now." Seriously. I have to wait three weeks. With nothing but Prilosec OTC to soothe me. You so know I'm going to call on Monday because I totally asked the nurse who drew my blood (who was super nice and didn't have any problem finding my really deep inconspicuous vein so I didn't have to worry about ending up like this guy):

(poor Mr. Carboard Man. I think. Wait he is a carboard man, right?)

how long it would take to get the results and she said 2-3 days (the third day is tomorrow). Not three weeks. So I'm going to be on her like white on rice (which by the way, I can eat without feeling sick at all...as long as I don't have any soy sauce with it). So there is an upside to all of this. At least I can eat some foods.


Since I'm big into lists today:

List of Foods I Am Grateful That I Can Still Eat Without Feeling Sick:

1. Chocolate:

(mmmmm...Godiva...mmmm)

2. Sugary Gummy Foods:

(everytime I see sour patch kids I think of the commercial where the sourpatch kid cuts the girls hair (sour) and then hugs her (sweet)...it's seriously good! YouTube it! You won't be disappointed!)

3. Meat & Veggies:

(I purposely picked veggies that had some kind of sauce on it to be more realistic...no way I'd eat asparagus and carrots raw!)

So what have we learned today from your Auntie Daisy?

1. There is always a silver lining.

2. Do not obsessively WebMD your symptoms, even if you have the excuse of being a semi-hypochondriac.

3. Pictures with people looking woozy or pukey will always be hilarious to me (even if they are of unrecognizable cardboard spaghetti-armed men).

4. You should not send me sympathy reply comments. You can however, send me boxes of Godiva chocolate like the one pictured above. That will totally make up for thinking I'm pregnant. :)

Old Bicycles and Ice Cream

A warning, for all you women out there, like me, who might think that they can still ride a bike just as easily as they did when the last time they rode a bike, even though that was when they were 12. Just because you're on vacation, and you think it is a fun idea to ride bikes around a pretty island in Maine, and just because you find a really really cute old timey bike that is a pretty red with a basket in the front and wheel covers and everything...don't be fooled into thinking that you can ride this bike.















(Actual girlie bike used. Awww....Isn't it cute?! Don't be fooled!!!)

There might be things you have neglected to factor into your bike picking process because you were too twitterpated at finding such a cute bike...like for instance...the quality of the brakes...and the fact that even though all the bikes were updated with gears, they were homemade gears, and there may only be two settings (not the 10 that we're assuming)...so you might only have two options: pedal so hard your knees feel like they are going to fall off in a puddley goo somewhere back at the giant hill you were forced to climb up when you went the wrong way, or pedal really easily and go so slow that a toddler in HIS (very practically) bike passes you.


The cute red bike with the basket in the front (to hold the helmet you couldn't use because you insisted on wearing long pants even though it's 80 degrees out and the helmet made you sweaty and even though you're married, you still don't want your husband to think "good gosh what did I marry?!?" when he sees you), IS NOT YOUR FRIEND! Not matter how cute it is!















(not actual helmet hair...but close!)


Do you really want to spend your whole bike riding experience secretly, jealously coveting your husband, who let's face it is the more practical and realistic of the two of you, who picked the newer, shinier, less cute but more practical bike, which didn't NEED to be upgraded because it already came with 10 (ten!!!) speeds and decent breaks, but not being able to tell him you're coveting his bike because you know he would all too easily trade you his bike for yours even though yours is girly and has a basket on it, because let's face it, he does enough things for you, riding around in a girly basket bike is not something he should have to endure.
















(Husband's very practical bike...see the newer shinierness of it!)


But then again, if you never picked the girly cute basket bike, and instead opted to hang out on the pier, you would have been forced to listen to really bad reggae music, and might have missed out on this...

















(actual view from bike on Peak's Island)


or this....















(more bike views)


And okay...if you hadn't gotten the deceptive girlie bike, you wouldn't have pedalled nearly as hard, and you wouldn't have gotten as much of a workout, and then you may not have gotten to eat a huge cup of well deserved and deliciously yummy Peak's Island ice cream guilt-free (not that I would have had much guilt anyway...but at least now I know food Karma is (temporarily) on my side).

(not actual ice cream...but I wish it was! Doesn't that look good?!)

So all in all...maybe you should pick the girlie painful bike. Because it's an experience. And gives you beautiful pictures to look back on. And it definitely trumps sitting on the couch watching Jon and Kate reruns wondering where their relationship went wrong (not that there is anything wrong with that!...shut up, it isn't wrong, I swear!).