Sulfa Drugs Can Suck It

I quit cleaning.  Not just the theater, but all of it. 

My theater cleaning partner got a job at the same place where I’m working now.  She has a two year old and didn’t want to work 7-days a week like I was.  As much as I loved that paycheck from cleaning every Friday, I decided to let it go as well.  Basically we both quit at the same time.  Not without lots of notice though.  We even helped train and I offered to work if they are in a bind or whatever.  I am crazy, I know it.  Go ahead say it out loud, I can handle it.

My new job is great!  I totally love it.  I really do.  But on Mondays I was so freaking tired that it wasn’t even funny.  I also felt like due to my fatigue I was making too many errors and that’s not a good thing.  So Sunday, March 17 was my last weekend at the theater.  I had to keep my other cleaning gigs (2 other buildings) a week longer. 

Quitting my cleaning jobs happened at the perfect time.  First my brother was ill.  I took off one day from the theater for that as I was so mentally exhausted.  Then next was my mother-in-law and her illness.  Somewhere around all this mess I got a UTI.  I chugged the cranberry juice and was feeling pretty damn good.  But.  I was due for my well woman check up and while I was there I had them check my urine.  To be on the safe side, they prescribed an antibiotic to me that had Sulfa in it. 

Remember I said I was hot at the funeral home?  Well, yeah I was.  That was on Thursday, April 4th.  I was due to take my last pill on Friday morning and take it I did.  I worked on Friday the 5th and by noon my chest, neck and face were bright red.  Co-workers were cracking jokes about how old I was and whatever.  I felt it was not menopause, like I would know what that feels like, but it was just intuition. 

By the evening, I had to take a cool bath to cool down.  I put Cortizone 10 all over my face because I had hives.  I took some Benadryl and went to bed.  Enter Saturday morning.  We are in the middle of planning a funeral remember.  I woke up totally on fire.  My back was beat red.  I looked like I’d been at the beach and fallen asleep or something.  Don’t I wish that would’ve been the case?  Yes!  I called my doctor’s answering service and they said a doctor would call me back in an hour.  Call he did.  He said take more Benadryl. I went to Wal-Mart and about my day looking and probably feeling the same way a boiled lobster does.

I stopped at the Wal-Mart clinic on the way out and the nurse working said that sometimes the doctors there cannot prescribe steroids.  I said forget it and drove straight to Urgent Care.  I was on fire from the inside out!  I walked in calmly and sat at the desk.  They told me to have a seat and it would be just a second.  I.  Am.  So.  Sure.  It’s Urgent Care and I knew I’d have to wait.  So off I went to the bathroom and seconds later they came into the bathroom looking for me.

The nurse took my arm and said come with us.  I got scared because an elderly lady tried to ask the nurse what doctors were working.  The nurse asked her if she was having an allergic reaction and when the woman said no, the nurse said, “Well she is!”  Off we went to the little doctor room.  They asked me if I was alone and if I needed to call anyone.  I was like yes and I guess.  They said I would have to stay until I was better.  Whoa.

Immediately an IV was administered because I was freaking dehydrated and still burning up.  My throat had also started to constrict so that was somewhat scary. What a weird feeling! Then they started another IV with a steroid and Pepcid.  Yep.  Pepcid is a badass histamine blocker.  I had no idea but it’s better than Benadryl.  After about 45 minutes I was feeling cool as a cucumber, still red, but cool.  They even dimmed the lights for me and I pretended I was having some sort of hydrating spa experience.  It was awesome.  I didn’t realize how hot I actually was until I cooled down.  Just crazy.

 

There would’ve been no way I could’ve cleaned a movie theater or my own house for that matter that weekend.  The timing was perfect, I was more than glad that I had quit.  Of course so far I was off to a pretty crappy start with my first weekend off for sure. 

I walked out of there with a list of over the counter drugs to take.  Listen to this.  I had to take THREE Zyrtec every night (all at once) for 7 nights in a row.  I also had to take two Pepcids a day and not drink any wine.  That can exacerbate Mast Cell disease which I guess is what I have.  I am super sensitive to smells, have heightened awareness in the sight department at times and also on the level of hearing as well.  It can be damned annoying.

Have you ever taken THREE Zyrtec a night?  I sure hope you never have to.  I would wake up with sheet marks all over my body that would last for about two hours.  I am sure this was from the salt, the sulfa and I was totally exhausted until about lunchtime.  I didn’t miss the funeral.  I didn’t miss a day of work due to this issue.  And to top if off, yoga at MSU also started the week I had to start taking this crap.  Holy man.

I guess a lot of people have bad reactions to medications that contain Sulfa.  Now I know that I do.  And wha’ts weird is it happens for a lot of folks up to a week or so after they’ve finished taking it.  I was trying to figure out what I had gotten into.  Did I eat something different?  Did I touch a plant?  Was it the caskets at the funeral home?  Was it that great laundry detergent that I’d just started making at home?  Nope.  It was the evil Sulfa drug!

I am much better now.  I still have a few red splotches and feel warm now and then.  They said this can last awhile.  If it comes back you’ll see me at Urgent Care again like pronto.  In the meantime, I won’t be taking anything that has Sulfa in it.  Ever. Again.

February Birthday Party

My husband turned 50 on February 21st.  Our niece Hannah celebrates her birthday the day after, so we usually have combined parties for Frank and Hannah.  We always go to Julie’s house (Frank’s sister – Hannah’s mom) but this year we partied at our place.  The old people next door haven’t been traveling much further than our home here lately.

My mother-in-law Juanita has been up and down for the past year or more.  She went from being completely normal to an angry, crazy old woman in a short period of time.  It was hard to get a diagnosis as her husband didn’t really think that there was all that much wrong with her.  Finally, last May she got very violent.  She was going to hurt herself or someone else (like her husband) if we didn’t get some help soon.  She received medication for Alzheimer’s and it helped out a lot.  The only regret I have is that she didn’t get it sooner.  But.  This was not my decision to make.  I am the support person who offers ideas but I don’t make the calls.  She is also diabetic and has had health issues her entire life. 

So. Back to the birthday party for Frank and Hannah.  We had a fish fry and Frank’s mom and dad walked over.  If you’ve forgotten, they live right next door.  We noticed that Juanita looked very yellow.  Not good.  We enjoyed our meal and cake and made the decision to take her to the ER as soon as we were finished.  And finish we did pretty quickly.

At the ER she was diagnosed with jaundice and admitted.  The next day they ran a scope down her throat and found the blockage which happened to be pancreatic cancer that had spread to her liver.  They inserted a stint to drain the liver and she stayed in the hospital for a few days.  She is 80 years old and decided against chemotherapy.  Though it may’ve prolonged her life, it might have made the quality shittier than it was going to be.  Read on.

She came home from the hospital and walked from the car to the house.  She had a place in her easy chair for for about 8 or 9 days before she became entirely bedridden.  Just like that.  The flick of a switch.  No more moving the arms or the legs.  No more feeding herself or getting on the toilet alone.  Fortunately, Frank’s sister had quit her job in January and now we know why that went down like it did.  We needed her close by for help. 

Frank and I both work full-time and to make it worse, Frank works in Branson so that’s a 45 drive one way.  Julie bathed her, painted her nails and fixed her hair.  I went over and visited, bought any groceries if they were needed and helped get her on the potty chair.  It was getting pretty tough even for two people to do.  After all his dad is 88 years old.

On April 3rd she was fine in the morning.  By lunchtime we were all called and told she was in the active stages of dying.  Wow.  Just like that.  I left work.  Frank left work.  She passed away around 5 that evening.  By 8:30 the funeral home had picked her up.

I took off work the next day and we drove to the town she was from and spent the day there planning a funeral.  That was something that I had never done.  I actually have only attended a few funerals and I really don’t recall that much about them.  I feel lucky in that sense for sure.  I walked around the room looking at caskets and urns.  I totally want to be cremated and placed in a biodegradeable urn that holds the seeds of some flowering bush or plant.  Plant me in a park or some public place please.  Lenette.  Remember this OK?  Anyhow I started getting really hot at the funeral home and I thought that my body might actually cremate itself.  More on why that happened in the next post.  It’s been a long couple of months.

We spent the evening picking out 50 photos for a slide show to play during the visitation and before the funeral.  We held a visitation at the church here in our town on Sunday evening and then held the funeral at the church the following day with a burial in the cemetery in her home area.  Somber day. 

I see the lines in my face and the spots on my hands.  I know I will get old and die as well and I wonder at times just exactly how will that happen.  Will I get sick?  Will I be sick for a long time?  Will I get in a car accident?  Will I fall and break my neck in yoga?  Will I die in my sleep with a book on my chest?  Who knows?  The only thing I know for sure is that I will die someday.  And oddly enough I think I will be ready for it whenever that time comes.

Good-byes are only for those who love with their eyes because for those who love with heart and soul there is no such thing as separation – Rumi