Who Knew Detergent Could Cause So Much Trouble?

Quite truthfully, the past week and a half has been the most effed up I've been in quite some time.

I've been trying to adjust to unemployment. It's not great, but hardly grim.

But I was feeling really ill and it had been getting worse. I was having horrendous sneezing fits, swollen eyelids and a never ending tiredness of which 12-14 hours of sleep didn't even crack the surface. At first I put it down to stress. Maybe I was feeling more stressed out about my job loss than I consciously realized. Maybe I had caught a virus. Maybe I was adjusting to being in my home environment more often.

On and on my speculation continued until by Friday, with a constantly running nose, a throbbing, painful right ear and a lesion having developed on the outside of my left one, I managed to secure an appointment with the nurse practitioner at my doctor's office.

She checked me out and confirmed my lymph nodes were up like balloons. Then she asked if we had changed detergents or cleaners lately. I had, about a month ago. She speculated I was having an allergic reaction and advised me to go back to my old detergent and rewash everything. It was either that, or the stress of late had made me prone to a virus.

Two days and several loads of laundry later, my symptoms are already improving. Thank God. I was on the verge of completely losing my shit. I was seriously questioning why with having time off and more sleep then I've had in ages, I was feeling so lousy. I saw a couple of jobs I wanted to apply for but just couldn't get my brain in gear to generate resumes and cover letters for them. Why, I was asking myself, was everything getting so bloody difficult to do? Now I know.

Inflammation is a bitch. I just hope I can get back into gear next week.

That being said, I'm feeling somewhat hesitant. There's a part of me that frankly, just doesn't want to apply for anything right now. I'm quite happy to just stay at home and catch up on my life and the things that are important to me. It's been such a shell shocking last year and a bit. There have been moments where I have to stop and survey the changes. The Maritimer, my grandmother, my uncle and three of my pets are gone. Now so is my job. And while all this has been going on, my relationship with the Marine has been ending. No wonder I just feel like hibernating for a while.

The week did, however, end somewhat well. I'd had an appointment with my naturopath booked for ages, and given the week that was, I decided to keep it. I thought it was for iridology but it was actually for live blood cell microscopy. What can I say? Right now my life is one big brain fart.

Anyway, it's pretty freaky seeing your blood cells milling around doing their thing. We don't think about all the activity constantly going on inside our bodies. And the good news was that despite some minor digestive/absorption issues, my blood was looking really good. It was a big change from when I got microscopy done a few years ago. At that time, things were a mess as far as blood goes: thin blood with cells that clumped together with all sorts of extraneous crap floating along for the ride. Now my blood is for the most part, strong and clean.

So here's to a better week next week. Hopefully my ears will stop ringing soon. It's funny how things work out. Given how I've been feeling, it's probably just as well I didn't get that part.