Hospitals, Specialists and Sleep

It has been an interesting few weeks. I have gone from having IBS which was mildly disruptive to my life to not being able to leave the house or indeed my bedroom as it was making me so unwell. I have no idea what has caused the escalation and nor does my Gastroenterologist. The past few weeks have been a whirlwind of blood tests, allergy testing and new medications in an attempt to bring me something approaching normal quality of life. IBS may not have any link to serious diseases but my goodness it can ruin your life!

This week I have been to the hospital twice. First to see my specialist and the second time to undertake Lactose Intolerance testing. I am the dairy queen. If it is made from milk I love it so I am seriously praying that the results come back negative as I really do not know what I would do if I can no longer eat dairy. I am back at the hospital again this afternoon to meet with a dietician in the hope of finding a way of eating which is going to minimise or eliminate my symptoms. We are also waiting for the results of a blood test to see if I may have a gluten intolerance. We would also be testing for fructose intolerance but the test is not available in Singapore so we just have to wing it on that.

I have become a spectator rather than a participant in family activities. I am not eating very much as my appetite has completely left the building. As a result I have no energy. I tried to go out with my husband and daughter twice on the weekend but only managed to be out for an hour before I needed to go home and rest. On Saturday I slept for five hours to recover from being out watching my daughter at her gym class. My daughter has been crying at school because she is worried about me and she wants my tummy to get better. She does not want to go to school any longer because she needs to look after me (this equates to watching lots of Disney movies while I am in the same room apparently). It breaks my heart.

At least this week I have managed to be up during the day. Last week I spent most days in bed and sleeping when I wasn't spending hours in the bathroom. I am eternally grateful that my husband has no work trips until the new year as I could not manage without him. He has been a total star but even he is starting to wonder if this is ever going to get any better. If it doesn't we will have to get a helper as I cannot be relied upon to be able to get Scarlett to school every day or even be able to cook her dinner. I just want my life back.

I have managed to do a little bit of creating on the couch in the last few days. It has been nice to do something approaching normal. I have been wondering about scrapping what is going on at the moment but I think it is too immediate and, to be honest, too depressing to write about.

 I wanted to focus on something positive and I love this picture of Scarlett and me out for brunch. Amy Tangerine papers also make me happy so I used those all over the layout. Even the border strip on the bottom is a branding strip from one of the 12 x 12 pages. I added a handful of sequins and some diecuts to embellish the layout. I am so in love with the little Basic Grey alphas. They are the perfect size for everything.

The Freckled Fawn washi is featuring on a lot of layouts currently. Those arrows and the colour combination just seems to work with everything.

I have quite a large collection of sequins now after discovering a lady selling them on Etsy. She is based in South Africa and I got thousands of sequins for about $10 and her postage was super reasonable. Her store is Ruby Supply and sells all kinds of haberdashery treasures. Crafting really is a universal language!

I have really missed my blog and my readers. I don't want to be a real Debbie Downer on here but I also cannot paint everything as sunshine and roses during a pretty difficult time for me. Let's hope all these tests give me some answers and that I can join my family on our Christmas holiday. At this point my health won't allow it.