Not in the first paragraph, you greedy goat! Just wait for it…
(If you missed Part 1 of our exciting and gross-but-still-riveting story, here it is.)
Where Babe gets weirdly tired and it isn’t normal, but she brushes it off.
Running in Los Angeles was a very different experience than in Ohio: Ohio had been flat as a pancake, but Babe’s new route took her up towards Beverly Hills.
You’re Picturing Glamor. Instead, Roxbury Park Was a Charming Neighborhood Family Park (Now Cookie-Cutter and No Longer Charming)
When Babe had trouble completing her usual distance, she ascribed it to the hills. But soon, Babe began to have trouble completing even a mile. She’d try to push herself, but find that she literally couldn’t take another step. She’d wind up sitting on a curb in front of someone’s house, waiting for enough energy to slowly walk back home.
Why Was This Happening?
Babe was really disappointed that her hard-won exercise habit had to stop. She blamed it on the famous L.A. smog, but wondered if that was all it was. Still, the sunshine every day made up for a lot.
Where Babe gets really, REALLY tired, and headachy, but still does squat about it.
There is nothing like living in sunshine and having a pool to swim in each and every day. Babe was working nights as a programmer, and had all day to lounge on a raft in the pool. Bliss! She couldn’t have been happier.
Babe slept when she came home until the sun rose. Then, she’d get up long enough to put on her suit, and move to the raft to finish her “night”.
I Remember the Bliss
That left her the whole afternoon to visit with new friends, shop, or whatever.
Pretty soon, though, Babe found that she was sleeping more and more. She was sleeping so much and so hard that she was having trouble waking for work. She began to have trouble staying awake at work.
And she began getting these awful headaches…
When It Was Really Bad, It Was Her Everything
Study Questions:
Don’t you wish you were in a pool in the sun right now?
Where Babe gets a tummy ache.
(Where Babe gets a TUMMY ache? Are you for real?)
Babe was getting almost used to living with her headaches. Then, her stomach started to hurt. Very quickly, the problem got worse and worse. It hurt SO much, in a band right across her diaphragm–She often had to stop what she was doing and hold herself still and tight, and breathe carefully in little shallow sips of air until the pain passed.
Babe Didn’t Look This Attractive While Suffering.
Babe kept working, and kept sleeping her days away in the pool. Her head kept hurting, and her stomach kept hurting, but she didn’t go to a doctor. She just wasn’t the kind of person to go to a doctor for every little thing. She knew most things got better on their own.
Boy, Did Babe Pick the Right Street To Live On!
Study Questions:
Would you have been smarter than Babe?
Where sex hurts. Now THAT makes Babe sit up and take notice.
When Babe wasn’t working or sleeping or aching, she found time to hook up with a steady boyfriend. They weren’t sharing an apartment, but they had gotten to the point where they sometimes shared a bed.
One day, just as she climaxed, Babe got a horrid menstrual cramp. Then, it clamped down and got even worse.
No, Guys: She Is NOT In Ecstasy At Your Awesomeness.
It was so bad that she couldn’t stand. Babe slid off the bed onto the floor, and, while her boyfriend asked, “What’s wrong? What’s wrong?” she crawled around the corner into the bathroom and vomited repeatedly from the pain. When she stopped, she was cold all over from her sweat. The worst cramps imaginable. And it wasn’t even her time of month.
From then on, whenever Babe came, so did the cramps. She could have sex, so long as she didn’t enjoy it too much.
Yeah, Baby–It Was the Best.
Study Questions:
What’s the problem? I thought Babe wanted to be a nun anyway?
Part 3, In Which Babe Meets The Good, The Bad, and The Really, Really Ugly
The Last Half 
Paul
/ 2015/05/03It’s almost as if it targets the very things you enjoy – running, sex, swimming, etc. Insidious OB.
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Outlier Babe
/ 2015/05/03(It sits back, twirling its mustaches, grinning its evil grin…)
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kirizar
/ 2015/05/03I can see why you hesitated to post this. It is raw and entirely personal take on a debilitating condition by the sound of it. Perhaps someone will recognize these symptoms in themselves as a result of your bravery.
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Outlier Babe
/ 2015/05/03Now I’m totally embarrassed. First, I am not brave–I’m an Aspie, and overshare as a matter of course. Next, I totally understand how you understood these lupus posts to be the ones I was hesitant about posting–particularly as they have less zing than some of my others ( 😦 ) –but the ones I hesitated about I STILL haven’t posted.
So much for bravery! These lupus posts are re-edited from an old lupus blog I had in 2006–was that before people called them blogs?
Okay, I’m a little brave. ‘Cause I’m trying to re-edit these, and will have to rewrite the ending on the fly when I get to it…
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Outlier Babe
/ 2015/05/04Now I’m re-reading my answer of yesterday and seeing what an ass I was/am. (1) Thank you for the heartfelt compliment, Kiri. (2) How ARE you? Perhaps reading blogs is serving to distract you from the p–oh, whoops–I almost said that forbidden p-word. From the “dis-com-fort”, as the doctors and nurses would insist we label it
😛
but I would think it’s still too discomfortable to allow you to concentrate on anything but counting the minutes until the next Percocet.
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elleturner4
/ 2015/05/04Blimy…yowch…not great…am reading avidly waiting for the next part (hoping it doesn’t sound rather a mean statement….Yes you are brave 🙂
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Outlier Babe
/ 2015/05/04It doesn’t sound mean at all. What writer doesn’t want to have her words read? Thank you.
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Master of Something Yet
/ 2015/05/04Crikey Mikey. I had no idea. Opened my eyes, you have. (Well, it is May the Fourth there still, right?)
I totally get the ‘ignoring the symptoms’ thing. “It’s probably nothing”, we think. “I don’t want to be one of those annoying hypochondriac types”, we tell ourselves. “I’m sure it will go away soon”, we lie to ourselves. Until we can ignore and lie no longer.
But, sheesh, your body was trying pretty hard to get that message across, eh?
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Outlier Babe
/ 2015/05/04I know now that my plow-through-it attitude to illness, which continues today to a great degree–derived from the hide-it-when-hurt survival mechanism developed in my abused childhood. I directly lied to a caring doctor once. I could not straighten up, the pain in my chest was so severe–and he said “I can see you’re in a lot of pain”. I snapped indignantly, as if he’d insulted me: “No I’m not! I’m FINE!” and ever-so-slowly and gingerly maneuvered myself off the examining table and onto the floor. Proceeding snail-like in my question-mark posture, I then shuffled my way out the office door.
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Master of Something Yet
/ 2015/05/04You’ve certainly had more to cope with than anyone should and your attitude is understandable. I do think it a good thing that you have identified the reason for it. It would help to see where things are coming from and to counteract it as necessary.
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Outlier Babe
/ 2015/05/07It would help, if I had the wisdom of applying hindsight as foresight. Big if.
:p
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Silver in the Barn
/ 2015/05/07As Heather say, Crikey! No, I would not have been smarter than you because I too believe that most things get better on their own. But I would have changed course dramatically should the last scenario ever have occurred. Good God, girl, is nothing easy for you? Never mind, I know the answer to that, sorry. I see that these are not the posts you are hesitating to publish. I will await their eventual appearance….or not….I know how it is.
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Outlier Babe
/ 2015/05/07Those posts will be anti-climactic after these. Their weakness will explain then why I hesitated to post them!
😀
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Yemie
/ 2015/05/10This is gripping stuff Babe, and I’ll have you know I wouldn’t have been smarter in the circumstances to go look in on the doctor, complaining of an ailment I’d possibly just will away and hope it’d plain go away after tarrying for a bit! I’m sooo guilty of that one! 😔
Thanks for letting us in Babe, this is really a tough sell and I simply find it pretty difficult to take in or wrap my head round it! Its only best imagined and you Sweets, have to live through all of these with each passing day, taking it in your stride while you’re at it! However do you do it?! Find the strength to keep keeping on?! Yet, you deny your bravado! I crave your indulgence and beg to differ on that one….You. Are. One. Very. Strong. Woman. By Golly! Thanks again Phoenix, you never cease to ‘ah-maze’ and inspire! ❤👏👉👍
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Outlier Babe
/ 2015/05/12Awwww… Thank you for joining me in spitting venom upon that doctor!
Regarding bravery, I don’t know if you saw the earlier comments, Yemi: I am almost always healthy now that I don’t work full-time, so bravery no longer applies, if it ever did.
🙂
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longchaps2
/ 2015/05/11Ohhhh, man. This is tough. Tough. You have been through a lot. I can relate in some ways. I’m not found of doctors either. Basically I avoid them like the plague until Butler drags me kicking and screaming. I’m really hoping this story is going to have a good ending…or at least a very knowledgeable specialist…you are one tough hombre. Yep. Tough. I am awed.
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Outlier Babe
/ 2015/05/12The medical story has a very good ending. There: I spoiled it–now you don’t need to read the rest. How dumb a serialist am I?
😀
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Christine J Randall
/ 2017/07/08Gosh, I had forgotten all this… mouth agog … how COULD I forget! At least, by doctor time, you had a decent list of symptoms…
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Outlier Babe
/ 2018/09/21HA Ha ha! First, your comment was funny! Second, is this the record for the longest time to respond? Was skimming through your place the other day, BTW, hopping around randomly. Always suffering a bit of envy at both the quality of your photos and the variety of wildlife you live among (amidst?). Will stop back in not TOO distant and be polite enough to leave a comment. Hope you are well, Christine : )
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Christine J Randall
/ 2018/09/26Well, my comment was a few year late too, I think. Thanks for visiting Babe, I’ve been a very bad one-sided blogger, and pretty slack at that, too, lately!
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