All Adither

Oompa Lupus

If you go to the doctor because you're bruising easily and your skin is turning scaly, and the doctor finds you have low platelets, then tests you for the ANA antibody, which comes back positive and indicates that you're probably on the road to developing Lupus, though you don't yet technically have it, do not Google Lupus Symptoms. Do not listen to a friend (a nice and good friend, even) who regales you with stories of her aunt and how she's lost all her hair to Lupus.

Do not hark back to the one woman from your childhood town who you remember having Lupus and ask your mother what happened to her. You may find out she's died.

Also, don't dwell on the word Lupus itself. It's an ugly, roundy little word that makes you think of Pus-y Oompa Loompas.

And do not, at 11:30 pm while you're trying to drift off to sleep, start thinking about all the ways in which an autoimmune disease could fuck up your life.

Heed.

Doing such things will only require more Xanax than you legally have access to.

Update: Thank you thank you for all your kind words and positive thoughts. For the people asking, I just wanted to clarify things a bit. Lupus is an auto-immune disorder in which the body's immune system attacks its own cells. It can vary from mild to organ-threatening.

I first tested positive for ANA back in 2004 when I was pregnant with Claire and having some extreme skin issues. Since then, my titer (or the concentration of antibody in my blood) has risen. But is still not at a level which is considered Lupus. The patterns of the cells, however, indicate that Systemic Lupus (or SLE) is to come. It's possible it may not. Though I have been experiencing some vague Lupus symptoms for the past few years and think it's probably likely. Perhaps that's just my pessimism talking.

For the most part, besides some bad moments, I'm not incredibly freaked out about this. I may only get Lupus mildly. They may come up with better treatments for autoimmune diseases by the time I need them. Maybe I'll somehow skate out of it entirely.

Lupus has been on my mind, so I wanted to blog about it. I believe everyone has something health-related, or several somethings, to deal with in life. This is just one of mine.

How a crazy person conducts a peanut challenge

Last Friday morning, I gave my three-year-old daughter poison.

Okay, it wasn't really poison. To most people. To her brother it may as well be anthrax or cyanide, but to the majority of the population it is just Reese's Pieces.

I wanted to find out once and for sure if Kitty Cat was going to follow in Fruit Bat's footsteps and be allergic or if she would get lucky enough to escape the particular hell that is food avoidance. She starts preschool in a month and I, frankly, had to know if it would be in her best interest to keep an Epi-pen near her person.

So I conducted what we in the Food Allergy World call a Peanut Challenge.

First off, you should know that I had her tested for all major food allergies when she was 10 months old. She was negative to everything. Secondly, you should know that on Friday I made her lick the inside of a Reese's Pieces (and wait 20 minutes) before I even gave her half of one to ingest. That's how paranoid I am.

She was so trusting, so willing to engage in my odd little Challenge that I kept thinking, If she has a reaction I'm going to feel like the shittiest mom in the whole world for feeding her this crappy, nutty candy.

But she was fine.

She ate half a Reese's Pieces and was fine.

Then 30 minutes later, a whole one. And 30 minutes after that, another whole one.

I was elated for her! I was sad for Fruit Bat. That he's the only one in our family who can't eat whatever he wants just seems unbearably cruel for a kid.

But SHE can consume peanuts. Freaking peanuts. Just don't tell me that Reese's Pieces are not actually peanut-related but contain only a pasty mixture of corn syrup and canola oil.

Because then I will weep. And right after that I'll pave our front walkway with Reese's Pieces and let Fruit Bat eat his way in.

Which scares me even to write.

Western medicine vs. natural remedies. Game's on

Turns out that, even with all the scribbling I've been doing in my novel, I still want to blog. A lot. I like the little community we've got going on here and I don't desire any off time. From All Adither, that is.

From the nighttime parenting gig, yes, I want time off from that. The last two nights have been crazily bad around here. Kitty Cat now has some eye goop thing going on (not sure if it is, indeed, pink eye but I took her to the doc and the doc did put her on anti-b's).

Perhaps it was stinging, oozing eyes, perhaps it was the Sudafed I gave her for her impressively tenacious congestion, perhaps it was some side effect from the steroids she was given over the weekend for her croup. Or maybe it was just overtiredness and a feeling of general malaise, but every time Kitty Cat tried to drift off last night, her body would jerk and she'd start flailing and snuffling and crying.

I laid on the futon in her room, I brought her into my bed (which I only resort to in the direst of circumstances), I rubbed her back, I called J. in Phoenix, tearful myself.

Long story short, she didn't settle until around 1am. I got about 5 hours of sleep for the second night in a row. I am tired. I mean, I'm awake enough to function (mostly) but I am certainly not at the top of my game. The words are swimming across my laptop's monitor and I have a curious stomachache that is probably borne of too much caffeine and not enough shut eye. Also, I'm oddly ravenous. I think I may leave soon for Tully's and order five scones.

And another aside, as much as I love medicine and all the suffering it relieves, I have this sense that I'm overmedicating Fruit Bat and Kitty Cat. Fruit Bat has his daily allergy and asthma meds, don't think there's any getting away from that. But in the past week Kitty Cat has withstood many chemicals poured down her gullet. Dexamethasone, Sudafed and now Amoxicillin. Can't we just cure it all with parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme?

Or vitamins and tea tree oil?

I want to believe in the power of plants! Believe it or not, I've seen a naturopath and have taken Fruit Bat to an Oriental Medicine school for his allergies, but that stuff has not worked for me/us. Evah.

Okay, wait, I take that back. Airborne and massive Vitamin C doses has been pretty effective for me in staving off colds. So, there's that. But for some of the other maladies, no luck. Not for me anyway.

Do any of you have natural remedies that you swear by?