4th Day of Pesach!

Tonight is the start of the 5th day of Pesach or Passover. I managed to cook (although I planned to not do as much as usual), prepare, set, and lead our family seder Friday night. Despite my health deteriorating. Felt accomplished afterwards. Even if it was just for my parent and I. 

I roasted a beef marrow bone this time. Safeway had ran out of their soup bones (which is what I got last time), so I went to Central Market to see what they had. Felt a bit panicked that I wouldn't find a bone...They had them in the 'extra' meat section. Same place as the beef tongue, chicken schmaltz, chicken feet, organ meats, etc. It was easy to roast. I'm keeping it in the freezer so I could use it next year, too. Used to do that with an actual roasted lamb shank bone (that's traditionally what it's supposed to be) for years. It became petrified. Looked cool.

'Roasted' the egg for the plate by holding a hard-boiled egg with tongs over a stovetop burner's flames. Took longer than expected, but certainly not as long as putting it in the oven. Plus, I was able to monitor it better. Hard-boiled eggs in the oven can explode. I've only done that a couple of times. 

We had the usual appetizers: hard-boiled eggs, matzo, and gefilte fish. I got a lot of hard-boiled eggs from Safeway, which made it so much easier. Made matzo ball soup. Used chicken broth instead of water, and added carrots, celery, and parsley. I should have used reduced sodium broth, because it ended up really salty. I like that, but it was on the verge of too much. There's a lot of sodium in the balls and soup flavoring mix. The matzo balls turned out just right. Fluffy, but with some structure to them. 

We had roasted chicken, Pesach roasted garlic couscous, salad with craisins and shredded carrots, and Pesach popovers. I tried using the orange ginger sauce as a dressing, and the ginger was way too strong. I made 24 (2 batches) popovers this year. I know we'd have 2 at our seder, and our friends' seder the next night had 11 people. Just in case, I thought having 2 per person would be enough. I know that many people love them. 

We broke into the dark chocolate seder plate, and I had a Pesach peppermint patty for dessert. That plate is just as impressive as last year. There were a few bad reviews of it on Amazon, saying and showing pics of it arriving broken up. Ours was fine. Totally intact. In fact, it was difficult to break. Makes me wonder if they broke it up themselves just to make a negative review. We have a lot more Pesach desserts. There's pound cake, chocolate covered macaroons, chocolate macaroons, large marshmallows, and fruit jelly slices. (I think that's all the others.) I don't think I've had Osem's pound cake flavor previously. I've had their marble and chocolate chip cakes. Every time they've been amazing! Somehow very moist, soft, and the flavor is perfect. Sometimes it tastes better than regular cake. It's like magic. 

It was nice seeing everyone at the 2nd night's seder. Found out that one of the hosts' dogs had to be put down. She was having a lot of issues for a while. Both their dogs were/are big. It seemed kind of sad to only see Zoe, who's younger than the other one was. Hopefully, she has many more healthy years. 

I brought up my health stuff there. I didn't really want to bring it up, but when asked what I'm up to right now...I was honest about trying to get this health stuff taken care of. I told them about the awful treatment I got during my upper endo/colonoscopy, and how weird that GI was. They were understanding about it. There was one person that seemed not very 'with it' about the sex and gender thing (he wasn't hateful, just confused about it), but seemed well-meaning and did feel awful about what happened to me. Still haven't written/filed a complaint about it. I also briefly touched on the other health stuff I'm going through. It seemed like they wanted me to elaborate, but I didn't want to go into more of that. 

There was a lot of good stuff for the meal part. Last year, I remember not eating much of what was there. There were much fewer people, and a few things I either didn't like or would upset my gut. This year there were hard-boiled eggs, seemingly homemade gefilte fish (still had mini bones mixed in and didn't have that 'jarred' taste. I prefer the jarred ones more), matzo ball soup (theirs is never that great, always have to add so much salt), salad greens (we brought this, plus craisins and shredded carrots to mix in), Pesach popovers (obviously we brought these), cauliflower casserole thing, beef brisket, potato kugel (like a casserole), a fruit mix (pineapple, blueberries, grapes), Pesach chocolate chip cookies (the hostess makes these every year, and they're really addicting), fruit slices jelly candy, and Pesach peppermint patties. 

I've kept up with eating kosher for Pesach stuff so far. Last year I ended it early, because we went to Leavenworth during the middle of it. Still have some ideas for meals and there are quite a bit of snacks as well as desserts. Most years I don't make it to the end of the holiday. It gets too difficult at a certain point. Plus, it's not the greatest for someone with digestive issues to keep it up for long. If I end it early, at least I kept it up for half the holiday. 

I have an appointment to see my primary on Thursday. Yesterday I decided to make a list of my symptoms ordered from head to toe to prepare for it. I also went without Extra Strength Tylenol to see what it was like. Tylenol only takes the edge off. I'm still in a lot of pain while on it. I've been taking it for roughly a month straight, which isn't good. Might cause other issues later on if I continue to take 2 or 3 doses of it every day. I almost couldn't stand it when I was completely off of it. Noticed more things this way, too. 

My eyelid rash is worse, and may have spread a little to my nose, top tips of my ears, and my scalp. The scalp one I'm really unsure about, but there are certain areas that if I just touch them, they burn. I feel the same sunburn burn feeling I have with the eyelid rash in those areas. Not very visible with those, but neither was the eyelid area for a while. Felt the pain long before I could actually see it. 

My jaw joints feel really swollen. Somehow, I think that's affected my ears which are achy. My dysphagia is worse at times. Still taking Lansoprazole, and I don't notice any difference with that or the other gut stuff. I've been taking it since my follow-up with that GI. That was on the 9th. I've been very lightheaded, and have both chest and shoulder pain. I'm a little scared of that combo. 

All my muscles are worse with the pain and weakness. I have a weird circular rough patch of skin near my elbow. Both wrists are worse than before. The left one (which was the first one to be in pain) has a lump that feels like it's filled with something. Both hands hurt; joints and muscles. The knuckles are swollen, too. I'm constantly nauseous. Sometimes it hurts to breathe. There's some spine pain. Every so often, I've had bright red blood come out of my butt. Not just a little. My parent thinks that the ones who performed my colonoscopy might have punctured something. I'm not so sure about that. That just doesn't seem right to me. If it's not, then why is it doing that? It is disturbing either way. 

Looking up myositis again, I think a lot of my symptoms line up with dermatomyositis (dm) more than polymyositis (pm). The clear difference between them is one has skin-related signs, like rashes. Makes sense because 'derma' relates to skin. It's an inflammatory ('itis') skin ('dermato') and muscle ('myos') disease. Also, both dm and pm are rare autoimmune diseases. When I looked up dm, the pic that popped up next to the description looked like my eyelid rash. Makes me really lean towards that. I'm not a medical expert, but I'm oddly fascinated with learning about things I don't have answers for yet. Even if it's scary, I can't help but look into it. (Another possibility was lupus, but I highly doubt it.) I can always suggest that it might be this, also. If anything, they can test for it to eliminate that possibility. Oh, both dm and pm can cause arthritis. So, I could have both. Wahoo!

Whatever this is, it's getting worse every day. I thought about going to Urgent Care, but realized they wouldn't know what to do. Thought about going to the hospital, but I don't want to go there unless I'm on the verge of death. My mom passed away in the last local hospital I was in. That's enough of a turn-off. Plus, I've been hospitalized twice over a decade ago. It wasn't fun. (Constantly being called Princess and referred to as hon added to that.) Although, I remember one of those times the food was amazing! It would be scary if my primary suggests I go to the hospital after my appointment. If she does, I feel I wouldn't have much of a choice. The good sides to it would be they can ease my pain, monitor me, run a bunch of tests, and help me with whatever needs to be done right there. It's gotten to the point where it's hard to cope with. So, I don't know. Just need to make it to Thursday to see.

Got a new pillow recently. My really old one was beat up and didn't resemble a pillow anymore. The new one's a copper pillow. I didn't really care about that, but it was on sale, so why not? It's supposed to keep you cool, anti-microbial, and hypoallergenic. All I cared about was a sturdy fully stuffed pillow. It is, and it's pretty comfy. It lifts my head more than the other kind did in the past, but that's ok. 

I accidentally stepped on Rosie's tail this past weekend. I immediately felt really bad about it. She got up and hissed at me. As soon as she did, Tasha jumped off the bed and attacked her. First time I saw her do that. Normally it's the other way around. Apparently she felt she needed to protect me after that hiss. It scared Rosie enough she ran downstairs and hissed more along the way. Tasha stopped a few steps down, came back to me, and demanded attention. Also, not the usual. I'll take it, though. Felt bad for Rosie. All of this happened so quickly. 

27th of Adar II

This is my wallpaper for April. It's Zoro's personal Jolly Roger from One Piece. I didn't know he had one. I don't think they brought it up in the anime. The only personal one I remember is Chopper's close to the beginning of the series. They mostly use the Straw Hat crew one. This one's obviously based on him after the time skip. Something happened to his eye while everyone was separated. He keeps it closed, too. I don't think they actually covered what happened yet in the anime. He's one of my fave characters. He uses 3 swords when he fights, one in each hand and one he holds with his teeth. He seems to only put his bandanna on during serious fights. 

The month-long holidays for April are: National Garlic Month, National Grilled Cheese Sandwich Month, National Soft Pretzel Month, Frog Month, International Guitar Month, Jazz Appreciation Month, National Garden Month, National Pecan Month, National Pet Month. Some are for important causes, some are to make you appreciate things you may take for granted, and some are just for fun. 

For my Jewish calendar,  the main pic's a painting on linen from 1864 titled Gelila. Gelila is when the Torah is rolled up and dressed (sash, cover, crown, etc.) after reading the weekly portion during Shabbat services. It shows 2 kids doing it while a rabbi (I'm assuming) holds the Torah and watches them. There's a faint outline of another man in the background watching. It's a painting with nice, warm, and bold colors for the focus; everything else being very dark and distant looking. Not sure what type of painting it is, since it doesn't say. Might be oil? The other pic's of a printed Haggadah c. 1950-1960. It's colorful looking. One of the more recent stuff in that museum's collection. They don't say where it's from. A Hagaddah is the book that leads you through a seder (usually for Passover). Seder lit. means order, but it's also a ritual dinner that goes in a certain 'order'. Makes sense that they'd have something related to Passover, considering it starts at sunset on April 19th and goes until the 27th this year. 

For the elements calendar, it's on Plutonium. There's not much on it. They do bring up that it's extremely difficult to use in atomic bombs, because it's unstable. Hard to keep it stable enough until it hits a target. They used to make pacemakers with plutonium. It's illegal to get those now. However, if you have one in you, you're allowed to keep it inside until you die. They show an empty plutonium pacemaker battery, and shots of the outside and inside of an empty pacemaker that's made for that type of battery.

It's been longer than I'd like. Hopefully, I can get back to posting more often. Health stuff has been weird lately.

Had my upper endoscopy/colonoscopy on the 27th. I couldn't tolerate the magnesium citrate I was supposed to start with a few days before. Threw up all of that first 1/2 bottle dose. I liked it at first, because it tasted like a really strong lemon warhead to me. Then, for close to 40 minutes my gut was battling it out, then suddenly just couldn't take it anymore. After immediately letting them know that the magnesium citrate wasn't going to be a go, they let me use Dulcolax pills. I don't know why they didn't have me start with that instead. It's much easier and you don't have to taste anything nasty. For the liquid diet, I had chicken broth, lemon jello, regular Sprite, and water. Thought I could have some popsicles, but the ones I chose had chunks of fruit so that was a no-go. Not much to eat. I threw up again after the Miralax/Gatorade night prep. I thought I could have some chicken broth afterwards, and they said to continue taking fluids when I was done with that for the night. I think it was too much fluid for my system to take. I was ok up until then.

I had a horrible time at the clinic itself on the day of the procedures. The intake nurse didn't weigh me despite telling me she needed to do so. She ignored the wrist pain I told her about, and even asked me about it on the pain scale but never wrote it down. She was supposed to do a full physical but only took my blood pressure, oxygen intake, and temp. It says in the after-visit like report that she did and everything looked fine. My tongue was a grey-ish color, yet it said it was normal. They said I wasn't in distress or pain. I had numerous things going on, told them, and I certainly didn't feel that calm and fine. 

If all that wasn't enough of a tip off that it wasn't going to feel 'right' or professional, they didn't have hospital gowns. They told me to keep my shirt, bra, and socks on. The only thing that covered my front was a flimsy lukewarm blanket. They put a pad under my butt, too. Did someone steal their gowns or something? Most places, even if it's for a routine physical, tell you to get into a gown. 

My main nurse was nice, however she had a very hard time finding a vein for the IV. At one point I had 4 nurses on me. They twisted my pained wrist in all sorts of directions. Not to mention, my muscle and joint pain/stiffness was worse than before at the time. Felt like I was manhandled. They found a vein, but actually told me that they thought it would be too small and won't be able to take it. 

I know some of it did hit my system, but not nearly as much as I should have gotten. I wasn't at 'twilight sleep' stage. They were using the same things as my previous procedures. I remember I actually slept through those. Took a while for me to wake up afterwards. This time I was still very much aware, could see what they were doing, and felt things. I tried to keep my eyes closed at one point so I wouldn't see it. I choked on the upper scope, and they told me to relax. The nurse seemed to be checking my IV, and looked a bit panicked but didn't say anything. Really hard to relax with that stuff going on. At one point, I felt like I couldn't breathe even though I had the oxygen tube in my nose, then panicked. All they did was tell me it's ok. It was a bit traumatic. My new GI didn't talk much to me afterwards, unlike the other GIs who performed them. There's usually like an initial review of what they saw in it. I did get the pics and initial findings on paper before we left, at least. 

It was such an awful experience I'm planning to write a complaint. Write it so that I can have a copy of it, I have time to remember and write down everything clearly, etc. I wouldn't really trust just calling them about it. I also don't trust them with anything anymore. 

I got the biopsy results yesterday. It indicates that I have mild chronic gastritis and mild reflux esophagitis (this is GERD affecting the esophagus essentially). My throat had rings/ridges in the scope images, this usually indicates eosinophilic esophagitis (aka EoE). My new GI was leaning a little towards that. It looked very similar to pics of mild forms of it online. It didn't look like most pics of reflux esophagitis. So, there's something already to ask about. I'm cool if it's not EoE, but this doesn't seem right. I didn't have heartburn or any acid-like sensation. I know what that feels like, since I've had it really bad in the past. They say EoE is extremely hard to diagnose, and is often misdiagnosed as GERD. Some people do have both. It tends to be patchy, so some areas they take biopsies from might not have signs of it. Plus, you can have a really low count and still have it. There's a certain number they go by. I threw up twice before the procedures, which makes me wonder if it affected it. 

Gastritis kind of makes sense. I think I was diagnosed with that in college, but didn't show signs after that one incident. It made me so sick, I think I might have been rushed to the ER by my friends. I remember going to a Pullman hospital, not the on-campus Wellness Center. I wasn't admitted, though. They gave me some meds and ran several tests while I was there. My memories of it are a bit hazy. Why don't they treat that seriously, though? 

Before I left the clinic after the procedures I was prescribed pantoprazole, which is usually for heartburn. I've taken omeprazole in the past, and did it for a few years. It's a similar med. I was taking that because I had a weird issue of throwing up all day every day. I had no heartburn at the time, and omeprazole was just a let's see if this helps med. It did help, but it was like a band-aid for something we never found the cause of; similar to my IUD that saved me and stopped my mysterious 8-month long 'monthly friend'. I'm just a medical mystery, and I don't think doctors like that. Anyways, pantoprazole was apparently prescribed by my new GI and someone I've never met before. Funny thing is there's a different mystery person that referred me to that clinic in the first place. The whole thing seems fishy... The dosage I was prescribed (from what I've read) is usually what is used to determine if the person has GERD and/or EoE. If it clears up the dyshagia, it usually rules out EoE. If not, you either have EoE or both. 

I've been taking it ever since. I think my throat started to improve a little last night, but the night before was the worst it's been. I also feel like I have slight heartburn now. That's what it's supposed to treat. So weird. 

My new GI emailed me yesterday about the biopsy results. She seemed to not know about prescribing me pantoprazole, and when my next appointment was. She told me to use an over-the-counter heartburn med, and that my next appointment should be in 2-3 weeks. She also said after the follow-up I won't need treatment. Hmmm...I told her about being prescribed it twice, and that my follow-up is next week. Her response was just: sounds good. No surprise about a random person prescribing the same thing? No an 'I forgot' thing? These things are in your records. Wouldn't being on a med be a form of treatment? Don't I still need to be monitored if I'm in remission, like CCFA suggests? What about dealing with the scarring in my colon (it's still there, and they say it may never go away)? This just gets even weirder. I'm seriously debating whether I should even see her for the follow-up. If I do, I might not tell her about the increasing pain/stiffness of my joints and muscles. 

This also makes me wonder if I have a muscle condition. Some of them can affect muscles in the throat, too. It would make sense, but I'm not a professional. I might bring it up with my primary. Although, I might switch to a different trans-friendly one. It's hard to be my own advocate with this stuff. Feels like maybe I'm faking or something when tests look mostly healthy. It was similar to when I had the 8-month long 'friend' and most doctors thought it was nothing or in my head. Hard to ignore my current pain. It's not just the pain, but it feels tougher to move and twist/open things. 

After the procedures, I went to IHOP this time. Haven't been to one in a long time, and it was the 1st time at that location. I got their Tres Leches Pancake combo. Got turkey bacon, hash browns, and scrambled eggs for sides. I've always liked that they have good pork-free breakfast meat alternatives. They don't have as much hash browns as most places. That was pretty much the only downside. It was so good! Although, I'm not sure if it was because I was so hungry at the time. I guess I'll have to try it when I don't fast beforehand. I also used their bathroom often. I was having a scary reaction to what they did to me. The main part was the bleeding. 

Despite that, I have had some fun during the weekend and Monday. Had a good dinner at Red Lobster Friday night. Had a big shopping day on Saturday. Started with going to Starbucks and getting a blueberry scone and matcha green tea frappuccino for brunch. The matcha seemed like one of the most soothing things on my throat. My parent needed an outfit for her presentation/workshop in Indiana. That will be tomorrow. She's there currently until Friday or Saturday. Anyways, she found 2 outfits (I think) at Nordstorm. We got to look around Southcenter mall while they were modifying them for her. I found unicorn skeleton earrings, and a winged unicorn skeleton necklace at Fuego. They look really cool and seem to go together perfectly. Went to Bahama Breeze for dinner, which I haven't been to in a long time. I usually stay away from jerk chicken, since I've had awful ones in the past. Got their jerk chicken sandwich anyways and it was amazing! Seasoned just right and a little juicy. 

On Monday, we went to a local bakery downtown, and got a maple bar donut and my fave Norwegian bread (the name on it just means bread in Norwegian...). Went to Starbucks again to have the iced latte matcha version. It was just as good. Went to Crimson Cove, which is a smoked goods store (also has things like nuts, flavored olive oils, jams, etc.), and got my fave smoked cheddar and a new thing called Smoky Garlic and Mozzarella Dip. Just tried the dip today. Wasn't exactly what I was expecting, but it was still great. Tasted complex. Went to World Market, but didn't see anything new and exciting. Did get my pickled red cabbage and apple salad. That stuff is addicting. Then, did some shopping at both local markets. Another packed day of stuff. 

Finished watching Tensei Shitara Slime Datta Ken or That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime. I liked it a lot. Seemed quite a different take on characters being sucked into a different world. I like that they made the main character, Rimuru, agender. He still used he/him because he was used to that in his previous life. He tried to be as genderless as possible when he was figuring out how his human body should look. Nobody questioned him on it, either. It was interesting to watch his city evolve from a tiny goblin village to what it is now. There are monsters of almost every kind living there. Goblins, direwolves, dwarves, lizardmen, ogres, orcs, etc. No humans live there, but they have visited. So has a demon lord. There haven't been other slimes, which is interesting. A dragon lives inside Rimuru, so he kind of lives in his city, too. Also, an interesting idea to have a monster that's considered extremely weak in most games as overwhelmingly powerful and the main character. Hardly anyone stood a chance against him. When they did, he would pull tricks like make them eat something delicious to distract them. He didn't want to fight most of the time, but he never slacked off when he had to. He created a few alliances with other nations. At the very end he summoned a demon named Diablo, originally named Kuro or Black. They had 2 extra stories after that, and one of them was a little on Diablo's past when he met Shizue (someone who was summoned to that world from ours right after World War 2). I like him a lot even though we barely were introduced to him. He reminds me of Sebastian from Kuroshitsuji, at least with his attitude. He seemed like a 'good' demon, unless he felt it benefited him more to be 'evil'. Characters like that are interesting. They say there will be a 2nd season in 2020. I'll definitely want to watch that. 2020 sounds so far away, though.

Finished Mob Psycho 100 II. It was even better than its first season. Mob really matured, but so did Reigen. While Reigen is like a parental figure to Mob, he realized that lying to Mob was holding him back. I like that they finally let Mob try to go all out with the fight at the end. I don't think he ended up at his most powerful level. The villain behind everything had the same powers, which we hadn't seen before. They definitely left it open enough for another season.

Youtube:

Boku no (My) Hero Academia:





Kekkai Sensen (Blood Blockade Battlefront):


Mob Psycho 100: