Hiking

A couple months ago I suggested to some of the nieces and nephews that it'd be fun to go for a real hike.  Some of them sounded interested, and since then we've been trying to find a day when we could all go.  Finally on Labor Day numbers 4 and 7 could go.  Number 3 had shown interest, but he couldn't go, but with the season winding down I thought we'd better just go for it.  I had a couple hikes in mind: Gobblers Knob in Salt Lake, which is supposed to take 6-7 hours or Silver Lake in American Fork, which is my favorite hike and takes 2-3 hours and starts and ends at two different lakes.  But I also did some research and found a few other hikes to give the kids options.  One of the hikes, Horse Tail Falls, is in Alpine.  The description said it's an easy hike, it takes a couple hours, and it ends at a great waterfall.  Another hike was Dry Creek Trail, also in Alpine.  It was supposed to be 3 miles roundtrip, take about 2 hours, and be an easy family hike, and it also ends at a waterfall.  Also, the description I read said it's in the shade most of the way, so it's good if you get a late start. We got kind of a late start on the day (what better way to celebrate Labor Day- or any day- than by sleeping in?), so I decided one of the shorter hikes would be good.  So as we set off, I let the kids decide if they'd rather hike to a lake or to a waterfall.  They said they'd rather go to the waterfall, since it would be new to me also.

So we drove to Alpine to find Dry Creek Trail.  It starts basically where the road ends in Alpine at the foot of the mountain.  And from there it went straight up the mountain.  And then it kept going straight up the mountain.  And up a little more.  I don't know where the internet gets off saying this was an easy family hike.  Luckily, it was in the shade most of the way, but it never let off being steep and rocky.  Number 4 and I were happy to enjoy a slow pace and take frequent water breaks (and enjoy the views- there were a few spots when we'd come around a bend and it felt like we were in a little corner looking out over all of Utah Valley), but number 7 would have run up the mountain nonstop if we weren't there to drag him down.  That kid's got energy!  Finally, after a couple of hours, we came around a bend and saw a bunch of teenagers sitting around and talking and we thought we had come to the end.  Hallelujah!  But when we got up to where they were, we realized it was just another resting point.  They were sitting on a huge flat rock cliff looking over the mountain side.  And from there, we could see our destination: the waterfall was way off in the distance (one of the pictures below shows the waterfall from that viewpoint- you have to look pretty hard to see it).  I asked the teenagers if they were familiar with this hike and how much further we had.  They said at least another mile over a sketchy trail that would be hard to find.  Great.  But numbers 4 and 7 charged on up the trail so I followed.

Luckily, teenagers aren't good at gauging distance.  About 15 minutes and maybe half a mile later, with some mild rock scrambling and dodging of branches, we arrived at the waterfall.  And it was great.  Oh, and it turns out this was Horse Tail Falls, the other hike I had looked into.  The two trails converge somewhere along the way.  There was a short natural waterslide at one level that ended in a nice shallow pool, but that spot was full of a family group with little kids (how on earth did they get those little kids up there?).  So number 4 found a way down to the next level where there was a slightly deeper pool and she and number 7 made short work of getting their shoes and socks off and getting out to the middle of the water.  I was brave enough to put my hands in, and it was COLD.  We sat there in and near the water for a while, eating snacks and challenging each other to get a certain level of wet.  Number 7 was the only one willing to go all the way under (can you tell which picture that is?).  I think next time (now that I know what to expect, I don't think the hike is really that hard), it'd be fun to take swimsuits and towels and enjoy the waterslide on a really hot day.

All the way down the trail, every person we met got a little encouragement from number 7 about how close they were to the end, and then he told them that he was the only one who went all the way under. I'm not sure he ever wasn't talking in the entire 6 hours of our adventure.  But that's okay.  I didn't have a lot to say, so I'm glad he did.

This was on the big rock cliff where we found the teenagers

Can you see the waterfall way off in the distance?

This is the pool at the bottom of the waterslide

And this is the waterslide, and the lid of my waterbottle

The Saga of the Shower Door

When I bought my house, there were a few projects that I immediately wanted to do on it.  One of these was my basement shower.  It has never drained right.  The lowest point of the shower floor is a few inches in front of the drain, so the water pools there and I have to mop it out after every shower. This shower also has really nice tile work, but no door, so I've just had a plastic curtain hanging in it all this time, with plans to eventually put in a glass door and class the place up a bit.  But the house kind of dictated other projects for me to do before I could get to any of the projects I wanted to.  So now, four years in, I decided to do the shower this summer.  I had no idea where to start; I've never hired anybody to do anything in my house and I don't know how it works to hire somebody.  So I went on Facebook to ask people for recommendations for a contractor, but I got nothing.  So then I went to KSL and searched for shower floor and shower door installers.  I found a list of contractors, and went with the one who had the most and best reviews.  I emailed him and set up a time for an estimate, and he came over.  He took one look and said it'd be a really easy job.  He would just have to take out a couple tiles, re-level the the floor under those tiles, and put in new tiles, and the door would be a breeze.  He said the whole thing would only take a few hours, but it would have to be spread over two days to let the grout dry. He told me to go to Home Depot to get the door (because those are the doors he's most familiar with) and to call him when I had the door, and we'd set up an appointment.  He would be free the end of June, which was perfect for my work schedule. Easy peasy.
So I went to Home Depot within the next few days and ordered a door.  I had to get a custom door because my shower is about 2 inches wider than any standard-sized doors.  But the design consultant (we'll call her Barb) at Home Depot said the door would arrive in the store in about 2 weeks.
A little over two weeks later I hadn't heard anything, so I called Home Depot.  Barb had gone home for the day so I just talked to one of the sales people.  They looked up my order and said the manufacturer was missing some info on the order and hadn't started yet.  But the note on my order was that they had called me a couple weeks ago to get the info and left a message.  Um...no?  Barb would have to call me back on Monday (this was a Friday) to figure out what was going on.  So I was two weeks behind and livid.  Barb called me first thing Monday morning to say she hated this door manufacturer.  They had all the info they needed and and had had it from the beginning, and my door would be in by the end of the week.
So I called at the end of the week.  The new note on my order was that it would be shipping within a couple weeks.  This went on for a few weeks.  I would call every few days, and I was always told that it would ship in a few days.  Finally one day, the note had changed to 'shipped'.  It was due to arrive by the end of the week (I'd heard that before).  So I kept calling every few days.  It took another two weeks to arrive.  The sales people couldn't tell me where it was shipping from (turns out it was California) or why it took two weeks to ship, but somehow this manufacturing company hasn't heard of freeways or motor vehicles.  Anyway, I was under somewhat of a deadline, because I was supposed to pick the door up from the store, and it was huge.  I was planning to use my parents' truck to pick it up.  They were planning on selling their truck.  And eventually they sold it. The next morning, Home Depot called to tell me my door was in and I could pick it.  Of course it arrived THAT VERY DAY.  So I told the guy the truck I'd been planning on using was no longer available and that they were TWO MONTHS late.  The guy said he could set up delivery to my house for an extra $80.  I repeated the part about TWO MONTHS late.  He said he'd get back to me.  MmmHmmm.  He'd better get back to me.  Barb called me a couple hours later and said somebody would be bringing the door to my house later that night.  Yeah, that's right.
That night, two guys, who were clearly not delivery guys, brought my shower door over.  They looked more like store managers on their way from work or something.  It was kind of funny.
Once I had the door, I called my contractor and set up an appointment. The timing kind of worked out because I'd already taken a few days off work the next week for Jenny's wedding.  I was hoping to spend them doing fun things, not sitting around my house, but whatever.  The contractor said he'd come on Wednesday.  Tuesday night he emailed to say he'd be a day late because his mom was in the hospital and he hadn't gotten that day's work done.  Good reason, but it was still pushing my deadlines a bit.  So he came on Thursday.  He did the tile, and then looked at the door.  He said it was going to be really complicated, and he had never done one like that before (really?  his website said he specialized in shower doors, and he's the one who told me to get a Home Depot door because those are the ones he knows).  He called it a day and said he'd be back at 8-8:30 the next morning to seal the tile and do the door.  He arrived at 9:30 the next morning.  I'm a time nazi.  I don't like when people are late, and 1 hour first thing in the morning really drives me nuts.  I don't know what he was doing in the basement, but after a couple hours, he said he had to go to the store to get grout and tile sealant.  When he got back, he finished the tile and messed with the door for a couple hours, before declaring it impossible.  He said it's the first time in 40 years he couldn't finish a job.  He leaned the glass panels against my wall, I paid him for the tile work, and he left.  Because the grout was wet,  I couldn't test the tile to see if the floor drained better until the next day.  It doesn't.  I think he replaced the wrong tiles or something.  The water still pools in exactly the same place, and I still have to mop it out.  Fantastic.
This was my last day off before going into a really busy season of work, and I thought maybe I could get somebody to come on Saturday, so I immediately called Home Depot to get one of their installers.  The girl told me they don't have installers for shower doors.  What?!  I had about half an hour before I had to leave for Jenny's wedding, so I started madly going through the phone book and calling everybody I could find who was associated with shower doors.  Nobody would talk to me because it wasn't one of their doors.  I finally got one lady to listen to my story and she kind of noncommitally said she thought maybe they could help, but it wouldn't be for a few weeks, and her installers might not be familiar with my door.  I said I didn't have any other options, so she put me on the calendar.  In the meantime, I called Home Depot again and said they had to do something to help me.  I was talking to a different girl this time (we'll call her Maud), and she said they do have installers.  She found my door in the system, saw the nightmare of my order, and said she'd get an estimate for me and call me back.  She finally called me back a week later.  Her price was twice what this other company was charging, and I would need to be available the next day, which I wasn't.  I told her never mind, and I figured I could wait for this other company.  It was only three weeks out at this point.
This week, three days away from my scheduled appointment, I got a call from the installation company.  She said one of their installers had quit, they were overscheduled, and they were cancelling on me and couldn't reschedule.  She wished me luck and that was that.  I was so frustrated!  So I called Home Depot back and talked to Barb again (she remembered me), and explained the situation.  She said all her contractors were closed for the day, but she'd have Maud call me the next day.  So Maud called me the next day and set up a new installation order.  Later that day a new installation company called me and set up an appointment for three weeks out (I had to ask if they were through Home Depot, because I wasn't expecting this call, and they were. Phew!).  But the next day Barb called back and said she'd have an installer call me.  I told her one already had.  Seems like there's a breakdown in the communication system somewhere there.  Anyway, I braced myself for another three weeks of glass panes lying around my basement.
I had already taken Friday off in anticipation of installation, but my boss was also hoping to take it off.  Because it's a very busy time at work, only one of us could take it.  I told him I didn't need the day after all and I could be at work.  We went back and forth and I very nearly ended up going in to run reports, but in the end my boss said I may as well take it, so I did.  So I slept in, went to the gym, and was just getting ready to mow my lawn.  Then my doorbell rang.  When I answered it, there was a guy standing there with a big work truck parked out front.  He asked if I needed my shower door installed.  I said yes, but I didn't have anything scheduled that day.  I had no idea which installation company he was with.  Was it the company that had cancelled and maybe they'd forgotten they cancelled (although they would have been two hours late if that was the case)?  Was it the company that was scheduled for three weeks out?  Was it somebody else that Home Depot had scheduled?  I didn't really care at this point, I was just really confused.  He turned out to be the guy who was scheduled for three week out.  He said his calendar showed me for Friday.  I said, 'Great!' and showed him in.  He took one look at it, threw out the directions that came with the door because they were confusing, showed me the directions he had downloaded the night before in preparation, and got to work.  And two hours later I had a shower door.  I still have no idea why he showed up on Friday.  I was never scheduled with his company for Friday.  I'm just glad I didn't end up going to work that day.

An Oldie But a Goodie

Here's a little blast from my past.  When I worked at the Federal Reserve, every summer all of the research assistants would have a photo op with Alan Greenspan.  We'd have about a week's notice, and then on the appointed day we would all gather in front of the Fed (if the weather was good) or in the main lobby (if the weather was bad).  The official Fed photographer would arrange us all just right so that we would fit within the frame, and then Greenspan would come in, tell a joke, pose for a couple pictures, and tell us all to get back to work.  I think my first year, one of the research assistants made an obscene gesture so nobody got a copy of the picture.  My second year, I somehow ended up in the back row, behind a big bushy head, and you can only see my forehead sticking out a little bit.  I'm pretty sure that picture is somewhere on facebook, but I just looked through all my Fed friends' albums and I couldn't find it.  My last year, I was determined to get a good picture.  Somehow I ended up on the front row (I definitely wasn't one of the shortest people there, but I wasn't going to argue with it; besides, everybody behind me was standing on the steps in front of the building, so I wasn't blocking anyone).  I thought I was wearing a good outfit and that my hair looked good (yikes, what did it look like on a bad day?!).  The photo day was about a week before I left to go back to school, so I knew I was cutting it close to get a copy, but one of my friends promised she'd send it to me if I missed it.  She never did, and I bugged her about it, but I never got it.  I was bummed.  That would have been a pretty cool little memento from my days at the Fed.

For some reason, this week, one week short of my 9 year anniversary of leaving (how can it have been that long?!), I got to thinking about that picture and I decided I wanted it.  So I emailed the Fed and asked if they could send me a copy.  Tangent: When I worked there, one of my duties was to answer emails from the public.  I bet you didn't know this, but if you have a question for the Fed, you can send them an email, and those emails will get sorted by division and section, and the appropriate person will get back to you.  My favorite emails were from a man in upstate New York who had frequent questions and advice on alchemy, and how we could control the money supply if ordinary citizens could were creating gold.  

Anyway...I sent my email to the Fed, asking if they could send me the Research Assistant picture from 2005, and half an hour later, it was sitting in my inbox.  The wonders of modern day interwebs.  So without further ado, I'd like to introduce you to me from 9 years ago, along with some of my friends.

I'm on the front row, 2nd from the left.  The boy on the front row, 2nd from the right was my junior assistant.  I trained him through my second year, and when I left, he became the senior and trained the new junior.  From his first day there, he tried to date the girl in red standing next to him. Within a few months they were inseparable.  It was kind of cute.  They're married now and live in Chicago (last I heard).  The girl on the back row, third from the right was also in our division.  Her counterpart was one of my best friends there, but he had left a week or two earlier, so he's not in this picture. The other girl next to my counterpart was the roommate of the girl in our division, so she hung out with us a lot, when we'd do lunch or if we did something after work.  The really tall guy in the fourth row from the back, 2nd from the right, wearing the suit is one of the nicest guys you could ever meet.  He wasn't in our division, but somehow he always hung out with us (I think he was roommates with some of the people in my division).  He ended up marrying my replacement.  His junior is the really short girl next to Greenspan.  She was also fun. Oh, and the guy standing right behind me was one of the foulest people I'd ever met.  If he gets remembered for nothing else, I'd like that to be written.

So there you go.

This Morning Was a Real Drain

All my life I've known that normal people donate blood like it's a regular thing.   I always see the sign-ups going around church and work, and I always see people with the tape around their arms as if to prove that they're good and decent people.  And I've always planned on being one of those people.  One time in college, I even signed up to donate at a blood drive.  At that point, I had never given it a second thought.  I figured it'd be like getting a shot, only instead of having liquid put into my vein, liquid would be taken out.  No big deal. I walked on down to the Garden Court in BYU's Wilkinson Center and saw all the people lying on the gurneys with tubes full of blood coming out of them, and I just kept right on walking.  I figured that one was on whoever had the bright idea of holding a blood drive in the Garden Court- a room with glass walls so there's no hiding what's happening inside.

Anyway, since then, I've had a hard time with blood drives.  Luckily, a couple years later I did study abroad in London during an outbreak of hoof-and-mouth disease, and when I got back home, I heard a rumor that anybody who had lived in the UK during that time was ineligible to donate blood, ever.  That was good enough for me.  I could happily live the rest of my life knowing that I'd be more than willing to donate blood, but I was ineligible.  Hmm....Oh well.  

But a few years ago I heard another rumor that the first rumor might not be true.  So I was back to feeling guilty and wussy for not wanting to donate blood.  Generally I'm okay with wussy.  I have no problem admitting that bungee jumping, sky diving, under-water activities, etc., scare me.  But the guilt factor has been bothering me.  Decent and good people donate blood, and I like to think that I'm a decent and good person.  

This morning when I got to the gym, there was a sign saying that a blood drive was happening upstairs.  I thought, 'hmm..interesting.  That has no bearing on my life.' And then I went to the gym.  But when I finished my workout, I must have had a burst of endorphins or something because I decided today would be the day.  I walked down the hall to the room, looked in the window, and walked a little more slowly to the next door, looked in that window, then walked even more slowly to the next door and went in.  That door put me right in front of the registration desk, so I was committed.  Or was I?  

The kid at the desk asked me for a photo ID.  I'd walked there from home, so no drivers license or anything.  But I had my gym ID card, and they accepted it.  Then they gave me a pamphlet to read.  One of the things it talked about was foreign countries.  Apparently, I really had lived in the UK at the wrong (right?) time.  So I announced I was ineligible and tried to leave.  But it turns out I would have had to live there for five years or more for that to be effective.  My last chance was a question that asked about recent tissue grafting.  I had a tissue graft just a few months ago!  But since the graft came from me, it didn't count.  So I was really on the hook.  They didn't even care that I had just worked out and might be weak.

The guy took me over to a gurney and I warned him that I've been known to faint in certain situations where my circulation is threatened.  He said he could handle it. I put my pile of stuff (phone, keys, water bottle, id, kindle) on the floor next to me and braced myself.  He put the needle in, and I was actually okay.  I watched and was pretty relaxed.  But then he called one of the other ladies over to take a look.  I guess the needle hadn't gone in well and he wanted her to reposition it.  She pulled it out a little, and there was a fountain of blood.  It spurted on the gurney (luckily I had a paper in my lap or it would have been all over me), and landed all over my pile of stuff on the floor.  Gross.  

They adjusted the needle and the pressure and the guy kept a close watch on me for the next little while.  They said I just had a really slow blood flow.  Low blood pressure I guess?  I don't know. Anyway, I sat back and relaxed and watched as my blood drained away.  He kept asking how I felt, and I was actually surprised at how well I was doing. I tend to get queasy easily, and I've fainted twice in recent years and almost a third time, but saw it coming so I was able to get out of the situation before I passed out.  Anyway, I was excited that I was doing so well.  It took a really long time to fill my bag, but the guy kept saying I was almost done.  Then, all of the sudden, I wasn't doing well anymore.  I knew I was done.  I told him I was going to faint, and the next thing I knew there were three people standing over me.  Two of them, one on each side of me, looked just like the guy who had been working with me, and the other one was a lady standing behind me and looking down.  They were all yelling at me and asking me to tell them my name and birthday.  Even though they were all looking at me and standing around me, I didn't feel like I was in the room, so I didn't answer.  I felt like I was in a train tunnel or something dreaming about something else. Finally, I realized what was happening so I answered them, and one of the guys (who I realized a couple hours later was probably just the one guy all along) disappeared.  They told me I'd been out for about 15 seconds.  We talked a little til I was completely back, and he made me eat some snacks.  I asked how much blood I'd managed to give (400 mL).  He said a full unit is 470mL.  I asked what happens when they don't get a full unit, and he said they can't use any of it.  I was crushed.  I felt like a drain on their resources.  I'd taken up about 40 minutes of their time, eaten their pretzels and cookies, drank their juice and water, and they got nothing out of me.  But now I know.  Maybe blood drives just aren't my thing.  Maybe I'll try again someday, after I've eaten a pot roast and not worked out.  Maybe.  

Some Random Things

Since I haven't posted in a while, and since I don't foresee anything happening for a while that's worth posting, I thought maybe I'd share some random tidbits.

Every year about this time I start thinking it's time for me to sell everything and move to the mountains of Montana or Wyoming and just live off wild blueberries and beef jerky that I bought off a guy on the side of the road.  I could spend my days looking for moose and  mountain goats and smelling bear grass and hiking around lakes.  It's especially bad this year because I'm in the middle of a crazy long book about the settlement of the west.  I'm just now in the part where the whites are starting to win out over the Native Americans.  Plus, I just watched Dances With Wolves for the thousandth time.  I'm just tempting myself.  But then winter always comes back and I remember that I like public utilities, grocery stores, paved roads, movie theaters, etc.

My soccer season ended a couple weeks ago.  My team came out in last place out of 9 in the league. The league kept a running score of how many goals each team scored for the whole season, and how many goals were scored against each team for the season.  The winningest team scored 56 goals and had 28 goals scored against them.  My team scored 13 goals and had 59 goals scored against us.  I think all the other teams had signed up as teams.  For my team, we all signed up individually and were just thrown together on the leftover team.  So by about halfway through the season, several people on my team had realized we were terrible and stopped coming.  We were left with just the people who were there to have fun.  Meanwhile, the other teams were still going strong.  They'd show up with 12 people (six are allowed on the field at a time, so they could sub out every few minutes).  We'd have 3 or 4 show up and have to play the whole game.  A lot of times, the other teams would lend us players just to make it competitive for them.  But it was fun.  Those on my team who stuck it out were a fun group, and I liked playing with them.  In the beginning, I was clearly the worst player on the team.  I didn't really care.  They had all played within the last few years, and I made it known that I hadn't played since elementary school.  I was there to see how I was.  By the last game, I was hearing several things like 'Way to be, Carolyn', 'Good kick, Carolyn', 'Nice block, Carolyn', etc.  One of the teenagers even told me I was starting to get better.  High praise indeed.  After the last game, we all exchanged phone numbers so for the next season we can try to sign up as a team (and hopefully recruit enough people to make a real team).

This year I might actually get zucchini from my garden.  The last few years, the squash bugs have killed all my zucchini and butternut squash before I even knew I had an infestation.  But this year I knew to watch for them and I was ready and armed with a big bag of diatomaceous earth.  Every few days I go out and find a few larva on the back of the leaves and sprinkle some more powder on them.  Tonight I found some eggs on the back of some leaves and, feeling too lazy to get the powder or a bowl of soapy water to drown them in, I just squished them with my bare thumb.  Is that what it's like to be a mom and wipe snot off your kids face with your own finger?  Gross.

The Secret Life of Carolyn Glauser, Episode III

Thomas Edison once said, "Our greatest weakness lies in giving up.  The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time."
Through extensive experimentation and hundreds of trial runs over the last few years, I've come to the conclusion that I might not meet my future boyfriend (or any friends, for that matter) in my basement, in front of my tv, in my kitchen, in my yard, or even at the community gym.  While I'm still firmly following Edison's advice and plan to try many more iterations of weekend nights watching tv, I decided to throw something else into the mix a few weeks ago.
Every day on my commute I drive past a new indoor soccer arena.  As I watched it being built, I thought it seemed like good idea.  Then once it opened I saw signs for open registration for adult leagues.  I put myself on the email list a couple months ago, but all the team openings were for super late night games (10-11ish: no thank you!), so I let it pass.  But about a month ago I got an email saying they were taking registration for the new season and they had one team left to fill.  I went to the website, and the open team was for the lowest skill level, playing late afternoons on Saturdays.  I decided to go for it.  So I'm on a soccer team now.  I've played two games so far. 
I haven't played soccer since I was 10 or 11, so I had no idea what to expect.  First of all, I had to google how to put on shin guards (without looking, who knows if they go over or under socks?).  And then I showed up.  I was expecting a nice group of people to mingle with, and maybe after the game we'd all go out and get ice cream.  I was wrong.  It turns out soccer is the new roller derby.  My team is a little softer than the other teams I've seen so far (my team is a married couple and their teenage son, two other high-schoolers, two girls in their twenties who might be LDS, one guy who stays in the goal box the whole time but seems nice enough, and two guys covered in tattoos, but all the other teams are covered in tattoos, have a steady stream of obscenities streaming from their mouths, and could possibly pass for meth addicts.  It's an interesting mix of people. 
Most of my team has been playing there since the place opened and didn't realize they were signing up for a low-level team, so once they realized I didn't know what I was doing, they stopped passing the ball to me.  So I established myself as the person who charges the other team and doesn't let them think about what to do with the ball.  During the first game, at one point I had a guy on the other team cornered against the wall with no way to get away with the ball, so he twerked me.  That's the only word I can think of for what happened.  I was stunned, and he got away.  During yesterday's game, I got slammed into the wall by a much bigger girl and now have welts and bruises down my arm.  My best move yesterday (and the only one for which I got commended) was when my back was turned and the other team tried to kick the ball to one of their own, but instead the ball hit me in the back of the leg and bounced to one of my teammates.  I'm feeling that one today, too.  Soccer is a young person's sport.  Last week my thighs were sore until Wednesday or Thursday from all the running around.  I'm feeling better after yesterday's game, but only because we had more people show up so I sat out for more of the game.  Here's a picture from yesterday.  I'm not in it.  It's hard to take a picture of myself playing soccer.

And I thought my last one was gross...

If I thought talking about gum surgery in a blog post was gross, I didn't know what I was in for.  I'll try to use delicate words, but the subject matter of this post is hard to be delicate with.  It's just gross. You've been warned.  But also kind of super interesting.  To me, anyway.

I had a whole post written out with a daily play by play of my last three weeks, but then I realized, nobody probably wants to read about how regular I have or have not been lately.  So now you’re getting the short version.  I’ll try to just include the stuff that I’ve found particularly interesting (and a few details that are crucial to the story line).

Three weeks ago on a Wednesday night I went to bed feeling completely fine.  The next morning I felt anything but.  I’ll spare you the details, but I was in and out of the bathroom six or seven times before I even left for work.  That continued through the day.  Plus, I was nauseated all day and had a headache that wasn’t my normal type of headache (they usually start in my head and grow to my stomach; this one started in my stomach and grew to my head).  Anyway, I wrote it off as some kind of stomach bug. 

The next day the nauseous feeling and headache were gone, but the other symptoms remained.  And they’ve remained ever since.  Again, I’ll spare you the details.  Let’s just say, I’ve been able to eat whatever I want because I knew it wouldn’t be with me long, but I really didn’t feel like eating anything because I knew I would feel sick in short order, and not much sounded good.  It’s been gross.  And it’s been seriously messing with my life.  I don’t eat for a couple hours before meetings (which means no breakfast on Sundays because we have primary first and I’m at the piano for two straight hours), no walks (even the three minute walk to the gym often becomes an emergency situation), no movies, etc).

I’ve been doing some research to figure out what was going on.  I started with Crohn’s disease (why not go straight to the worst scenario, right?).  Some of the symptoms listed were the same as what I was dealing with, but not all.  But all the information I found on Crohn’s said that a doctor would first test for IBS (irritable bowel syndrome).  So then I researched IBS.  Bingo.  If you really want the details of my life in the recent past, go to http://www.webmd.com/ibs/guide/irritable-bowel-syndrome-ibs-symptoms

But I wasn’t about to just accept an internet diagnosis of IBS and carry on with my life.  And I had a feeling that if I went to the doctor, it would just mean a $40 copay to be told to take some immodium and watch my symptoms over the next few months.  I’d rather watch my symptoms, gather information, and be better prepared for a more in depth doctor visit.  So I did some more research.  Most of the websites I found on IBS say that dairy and sugar are triggers.  After a particularly trying day last weekend, I decided to go dairy free and see what happened.  The next day, I had no symptoms.  It was wonderful!  So there it is; I’m lactose intolerant.  But then I kept thinking about it and it didn’t make sense to me that I could suddenly become lactose intolerant overnight.  How could that happen?!  Here’s where it starts getting good.

I googled ‘adult-onset lactose intolerance’ and found a chat string about people becoming suddenly lactose intolerant.  Lactose intolerance is caused by the intestines not producing enough lactase, which is the enzyme which breaks down lactose.  The production of lactase can be stopped by a short illness (I don’t think I was sick, but maybe that first day of symptoms was an illness that interrupted my lactase production), or it can be affected by taking antibiotics.  The probiotics that help in lactase production (or at least its effectiveness) can be killed off by antibiotics.  I don’t think I’ve ever taken antibiotics before, but for my most recent gum surgery I had to take them for two weeks, meaning I finished them about two weeks before this whole thing started.  So my theory is that the antibiotics threw off the balance of my probiotics and messed up all my regularity.  Now, normally when I hear the word ‘probiotic’, I think we’re venturing a little too far into the realm of Whole Foods and natural healing and unscience and my mind turns off.  But when we’re dealing with the possibility of a lifetime without ice cream or other sugary or cheesy dairy goodness, I’m willing to explore my options.  So on Monday I found myself in a Whole Foods Market.  And let me tell you, it’s another world in there, where people live in a different sphere or something.  But that’s a story for another post.  Wow.  I found a bottle of probiotics that was loaded with the strains containing the prefix ‘lac-‘, and I got out of there.  I think I’m getting back to normal.  My symptoms aren’t totally gone yet, but I’m definitely climbing back to normalcy.  I don’t know if it’s due to the probiotics or if I was just going through a debugging stage.  Either way, I think the way nutrition works is amazing.  There really is a delicate ecosystem going on in there, and it’s incredible how it all balances out just right.  I often think about what I would do differently if I could start over as an 18 year old freshman in college.  Economics is still one of my first choices, but nutrition is definitely at the top of the list.  There’s so much to learn about it!