So, as I’m typing this, the new fridge I ordered yesterday (because the old one is not going to be gasping out enough cold air to keep food safe for much longer) is sitting in our living room. I’ve been in non-stop (and therefore mentally out of breath) mode since yesterday… and now have unexpected complications in the form of an uninstalled new fridge and an unmoved old one with a faulty water valve. Soooo… I think I’m going to need to rush us all madly through this week’s post so that I can keep from getting crushed as my schedule builds and rolls on.

When I was in elementary school, I fell in love with the movie Labyrinth the first time I saw it. Sometimes as I think about navigating self-care in my own life, I feel like perhaps I am in a similarly shifting maze, with the ground heaving and shifting, new walls ever emerging.

Scratch testing last week for foods revealed a shifting set of potential allergy goblins. Some of them I know are probably more significant, because as I type this 9 days after that testing, I still have itchy welts from three of them. If I knew which ones those were, I think we could probably skip challenge testing those because they clearly represent the three things that my system has the hardest time with right now. But getting out of that maze may require some significant dietary adaptations…I may no longer be able to safely be vegetarian. One of the items that listed as a higher sensitivity is the Navy Bean, which is genetically very similar to black beans, kidney beans, and pinto beans. They didn’t test for lentils, and in checking on those I see they are a different genus and species, but I’m still in the process of trying to decide how I want to handle this. I very much like being a vegetarian, but I have to make sure my diet can sustain my health appropriately.

The nurse involved in the testing told me they go with the symptoms, and in way, it is freeing to hear that trusting my body is important. I felt so much confusion after the RAST testing, because for example, that indicated antibodies to bananas but none to watermelon. But I can tell you bananas have never made me feel badly, but watermelon gives me a runny nose. I can tolerate it, but I have felt that my body is more sensitive to it. And cinnamon came back as fine on the RAST, but I had asked for a RAST on it because I had felt like a cinnamon tea (heavy amounts of cinnamon in that) had increased swelling on my tongue back in January.

After the RAST, I thought it must have just been the heat from the tea, and since I have been eating small amounts of cinnamon since the RAST came back, I know that little bits won’t throw me into anaphylaxis…but could I still have some sort of a problem with it? Absolutely. And for that reason, even though the scratch test for Stevia didn’t come back indicating a full on allergy, since there can be some error in the testing, I will ask them to challenge test that because I popped neck hives that last time I had something with that in it. Perhaps my system was just hypersensitized at that point and whacking at a lot of things, but I feel it is better to run through that corridor as safely as possible.

Basically, I’m actually trying very hard to follow exactly what they have asked me to do to get around these new lifestyle road blocks, and sometimes I am frustrated by the unexpected places I find some of the items I now need to avoid. Xylitol in setting spray…why urban decay, why??? Andy thinks maybe they want a person’s face to taste sweet if licked? I don’t know, I can’t imagine any amount of xylitol would make my foundation taste good…

I’m also having to go over my make up collection. All of the caffeine I can’t drink right now because it raises my heart rate too much was helping me mask symptoms for fragrance sensitivities. I had to throw out several of my favorite lip products. I tend to like a pale, frosty lip with darker eye shadow looks, and Ballerina Shoes was my favorite. Until I realized I was getting gassed by the fragrance without the caffeine. Now I’m on a quest to find a new pearlized favorite with a scent I can tolerate. Some aromas I do fine with…Lunar Beauty’s gloss smells kind of like a nutty cookie…and doesn’t cause me any respiratory problems. Root Beer scented stuff, cotton candy scented stuff…fine. Floral? Nope.

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And some old sensitivities don’t seem to be an issue right now. When I was a little girl, I had an allergic reaction to my first vaccine. All of the rest of my childhood vaccines were given in half doses. After discussing the situation with my allergist, I went this past Monday for my first dose of the Pfizer vaccine. I got a little bit of a runny nose for the first hour afterwards, but nothing more dramatic then that. I felt so much relief to have seemingly left that sensitivity in an oubliette.

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Sleep is still a mess, but Tony’s developmental pediatrician has been working on trying to tweak his medications so that he’ll sleep through the night. For a while now he’s been struggling with rebound waking from his ADHD medication. So far, we haven’t really found the right combination (last night he still was awake at 1:09am after the latest change to .3 mg of Clonidine), but hopefully one of the other options she can try will help and perhaps someday I’ll be able to step out of this trap of sleepless dance.

As I rush forward into my future, trying to find an adequate way to care for me in the hectic maze of circumstances that is, I am looking forward to a planned return to clinic based therapy at NMTSA in early June. I declined an offer to go back in clinic this past fall, but since Tony is tolerating a mask for longer stretches, I feel like the time has come to cross that bridge. I feel badly because I really haven’t had a good way to photograph those at-home sessions, and I think it’s important to document what that process looked like, so I’m still trying to puzzle my way through how to do that in a way that doesn’t increase my stress. And in keeping with that theme, I’m going to rush all of us out of my current self-care labyrinth with my best wishes that each of you find moments of meaningful joy in the week ahead.