Tricia's Musings

Random Thoughts about life in general, living in the big city of Toronto



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I’m seriously sleep deprived

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I swear I’ve got a sleeping disorder. Over the last several months it’s very common for me to only sleep for an hour of so and then get up again. When that happens I end up not returning to bed for hours and then I only sleep for an hour or two at that time.

In other words I’ve been living on only one to four hours sleep most days for maybe the last two years.

I’ve always been a late night person. Not falling to sleep until about 2 a.m. has been my common habit for most of my life. No matter if I had to get up at 5 a.m. for a nursing shift or if I could sleep in. I’ve also never been a morning person. I’m groggy if I get up before 9 a.m., or well … that’s the way it used to be when I’d at least sleep for several hours at a time.

I think my sleeping problems started when I began working in the ER at the hospital in 2002. I’ve been a nurse since 1992, but in those first 10 years on the job I’d never had to do a night shift. Suddenly I was expected to do at least two night shifts per week … and not just an 8 hour night shift. No … a 12 hour night shift.

My night shifts were always at the end of my run of shifts and it would take ALL of my days off for me to get back to a normal sleep at night schedule. Just in time for those early morning shifts at the beginning of my run of shifts.

Then of course in mid-2005 my Crohn’s really started acting up and by the end of the year I was off work on medical leave (and still am since my Crohn’s hasn’t settled down at all).

While I’ve been off work I’ve kept myself busy on the computer. Writing blogs and starting more blogs and websites. Hey it’s been not only a way to pass the time but a way to earn the income I’m not making by working full time as a nurse.

I’d stay up later and later because my pain is always worse from evening onward into the night. So pain is a factor in my not sleeping well and or putting me off a normal sleep schedule. However filling my time by being on the computer working on my sites just keeps my mind active and as a result I don’t settle down to sleep at a decent time – or at all most of the time these last few weeks.

Of course now it seems to be getting worse.

I did go to a sleep clinic a couple of years ago. I knew I had a sleep problem. They put my light sleep down to my pain. Of course my time in the sleep clinic was a horrible mess as they tried to make me go to bed early and since I was in pain and couldn’t even take my mind off of it by reading for a while I simply didn’t sleep for hours. I finally slept at the clinic for about half an hour!

I think it’s time I talk with my doctor about my sleep problems again and maybe (shudder) go back to the sleep clinic again.

In the meantime I think I’ll try to turn the computer off my midnight at the latest and see if that helps my mind slow down and helps me get to sleep.

At this point I feel so sleep deprived that I’m sometimes not sure that I’m making sense. Sad eh?

Do you have trouble sleeping? Or have you had trouble sleeping in the past? What helps you get to sleep?





Trying out Depro Provera for Endometriosis

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I’ve had so much going on lately and so much to do that I don’t think I mentioned that I went to see my family doctor last week.

As many of you know I have Crohn’s Disease and it’s been so bad that I’ve been off work, on medical leave, for more than two years. Well, about two years ago I also found out that I have Endometriosis as well. This isn’t a good combination because the Endo can spread throughout the abdomen and there might be some on my bowels, thus causing even more pain for me to go through.

Chris and I have been trying to have a baby for years – I don’t think the Crohn’s is helping on that front for a variety of reasons, so as a result of our efforts to get pregnant I hadn’t pursued any of the medical options to lessen my Endometriosis other than having a laparoscopy two and a half years ago to burn away some of the endo tissue.

Well .. I’ve finally had enough pain. My endo has gotten worse and worse over the last few months. Either that or something else is going on! So I saw my family doctor a few weeks ago and she suggested I try going on Depro Provera for a while, perhaps a year. It’s a form of birth control that’s administered by injection every 10 to 14 weeks. Other than preventing pregnancy it’s also been found to be quite helpful to those that suffer from Endometriosis.

So that’s what I saw my family doc about last week. I picked up the medication at a pharmacy and then made an appointment with my doctor to get the injection.

I probably won’t know if it’s helping until my next period or possibly the one after that. Unfortunately that’s when I have the most pain and of course the medications that I take at that time usually get my Crohn’s going so the week after is horrible due to my Crohns.

My abdomen was much more sore than usual over the past week. That might be a side effect of the Depro Provera. It seems to be easing off a bit now though. I hope it is anyway! Hopefully I don’t get any other side effects from the medication like maybe a severe acne outbreak or something like that. LOL I’m already on enough meds … I don’t need to add acne treatments to the daily routine too!

Are any of you using Depro Provera as a form of birth control or to relieve symptoms of Endometriosis? Any strange side effects? If you’re using it for Endo has it helped and if so, how long did it take before you noticed a decrease in your pain or other symptoms?

My puppy is sooooo smart

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I wonder sometimes if I’m being more than a little naive when I start to think how smart my puppy seems to be. I mean, I really do think she’s smart, but I wonder if I’m giving her more credit than she deserves.

A couple of months ago we bought a medium sized bell. The kind that they sell in pet stores for large birds to play with in their cages. We brought the bell out and taught our puppy to touch it with her nose in order to make it ring. Once she got that down pat we attached the bell to the door handle and every time she had to go outside to relieve herself we got her to ring the bell.

Fast forward a couple of months to this week. Obviously the bell trick took a little bit of time, but she knows to ring it when she’s got to go outside to relieve herself. This week though, if I ask her if she’s got to go out to go pee or to go poop (one question at a time) she’ll go to the door and ring for whichever function she’s got to do.

Just to see if she was really answering my questions I told my husband what I’d been doing and got him to ask her one question at a time – ie “Do you have to pee? Show me?” or “Do you have to poo? Show me?” and she went to the door twice for the pee question and when she was taken outside that’s what she did.

I’ll test out my theory over the rest of the week, but I really do think she understands the questions. This of course is the puppy who used to try to fake a pee just to get a treat! That’s one reason why we ask her what she has to do before she goes out as we want to make sure she really has to do something and doesn’t just want to go outside.

So what do you think? Do I have a smart dog or what?

She’s getting bigger! Last week we had to take her to the vet and while we were there she was weighed and she’s over 50 lb now. Maybe she will get to be a decent size for a Lab instead of the runt that I thought she’d likely be due to her poor health when we got her.

We took her to the vet because we had suspected she was in heat for about two weeks, however she never did start to discharge any blood so I wondered if she had an infection instead. She was passing a bit of yellowish gunk. Unfortunately I was right. She has puppy vaginitis. The doctor put her on a sulfa combo antibiotic for a week, but now that she’s done her drug treatment I don’t think the infection is gone. We might have to wait for her to go into her first heat before it resolves.

Other than that her health is better than ever! We spent so many months medicating her that I almost thought I’d never be able to say that, but other than the yeast infection she currently has she seems to be in good health.

Have you had a pet that was sick that you had to worry over and give special care to in order to nurse it back to health? I used to do a lot of rescue work with reptiles and unfortunately I think I’ve done that with all the pets I’ve adopted and cared for. Hey, I’m a nurse … I guess it comes naturally.

Apparently the Blue Man was a fraud

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A few months ago I heard about a man who’s skin had turned blue! I think I saw his story on television and perhaps in People magazine. Perhaps you heard about Paul Karason too?

He’d apparently suffered from aches and pains for years. Perhaps due to arthritis, and while taking care of his ailing mother he said he began making his own colloidal silver at home. The documentary that I watched made it sound as if one of the side effects of using colloidal silver over a long period of time was that it could turn your skin blue.

The story was big in the media back in February or so and it was apparently a huge case of misinformation. It’s said that he was not really making and using colloidal silver, but an ionic silver solution.

It was the ionic silver solution and his application of it to his skin as well as taking it internally and even going so far as to fix the silver in his body by using a tanning bed that caused him to develop a condition called Argyria. Argyria is a condition where a persons skin turns blue gray in color.

Paul really did believe he was making Colloidal silver, but as I said it’s thought that it was really an ionic silver solution. He made it even more dangerous when he added salt to the mix and concentrated the solution by using electrolysis.

I really don’t know much about Colloidal Silver, but it’s obvious after reading this story that attempting to make it at home could be dangerous. Apparently it’s not even possible to make at home.

Those that take Colloidal Silver use it as an anti-microbial to boost their immune system and to help minimize aches and pains caused by arthritis and other painful conditions

I just found this whole story fascinating when I first heard about it. Can you imagine making a home made solution that turned your skin blue? Perhaps forever! The man is used to being blue, but I imagine he startles a lot of people when he goes out.

Exchange recipes and talk with food lovers at Food Connect

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I’ve always enjoyed cooking, although I don’t take the time to make home cooked meals as often as I probably should these days. Sometimes it’s far to easy to take a pre-cooked meal out of the freezer and heat it up isn’t it?

It’s silly when it really doesn’t take much more time to cook a decent meal. Not to mention that a home cooked meal often tastes a whole lot better than convenience food.

The only thing that I really don’t like about cooking is cleaning up afterwords. Am I right? Is that one of your least favorite tasks as well?

If you enjoy cooking or perhaps sharing some of your delicious recipes with others you might want to take a moment to visit Food Connect. It’s basically a social site for food enthusiasts.

I came across the site a few days ago, and after spending some time perusing the recipes that members of Food Connect had been posting I decide to create my own free profile.

Even as a child I used to love spending time with my mother in the kitchen, helping her bake breads, desserts and learning how to put together a quick dinner. When I moved from my family home I made sure that I’d written down several of my mothers recipes as I wanted to attempt to cook some of those delicious meals on my own.

So believe me when I say I’ve got plenty of recipes that I can share with others on Food Connect!

Speaking of recipes, I think I found a great one for tomorrow nights dinner. As I said in my last post we were hoping to grill chicken breasts on the barbecue this evening, but I put it off until tomorrow. Perhaps that’s a good thing as I found a tasty sounding recipe for Spicy Barbecue Chicken that I’d like to try. The recipe seems easy and it will only take a short time to prepare. Yummy. I haven’t had true barbecued chicken for ages.

Now I haven’t submitted any recipes yet, but as I was looking through the many recipes posted on the site I noticed that to the right of each recipe there is a box that lists nutritional facts about the meal. You can easily find out how many calories or how much fat, sodium, cholesterol or carbohydrates are in a serving. The Food Connect site does an automatic nutritional analysis of all recipes that are submitted. Bonus! I really appreciate that.

The more I look through the site the more it reminds me of many of the social sites I’ve joined as a blogger.

You can of course post recipes, but that’s not all, you can also add a drink recipe, review a wine, add and review a restaurant, invite friends, rate and review recipes, plan a menu using the sites recipes, join discussion groups or recipe networks, post photos of your recipes, contact a recipes poster or any other member of the site, list an event or use the event calendar to create your own schedule and I’m sure there are many other things that members can do that I haven’t discovered yet.

As I delve deeper into the site I just keep discovering more and more things that one can do at Food Connect. It truly is a social site for foodies.

Even if you don’t enjoy cooking as much as I do I’m sure you’ll find some recipes that you and your family would enjoy, or perhaps a local restaurant that you haven’t dined in yet.

If you visit Food Connect my member name is simply Tricia. You can check out the recipes that I hope to add shortly.

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