Month: October 2013

Well, I haven’t posted yet this week and I am sort of stuck here right now.  I am infusing and I’m too lazy to get up and move.  It could be because I take a boat load of benedryl to prevent reactions…

I am kinda woozy.

Things are generally ok this week.  I have been frustrated with my level of all over aches and pains and fatigue.  I have been pushing myself to walk further and further but I don’t think that is the reason.

I think it is medication based.  I am either getting too much of something or not enough of my go go goo.  Let me be clear: the go go goo is what I am infusing, the Igg drug.  I am on a relatively small dose.  This has to do with the fact that I have a history of major reactions.  My dr. is not willing to push the envelope.  I think maybe I am willing.  I want to feel NORMAL.

Maybe that is way too much to ask.

I just want to have a period of time where I don’t feel like a truck hit me by the afternoon.  The problem with multiple chronic illnesses is: Which disease process is causing the symptom or symptoms?

It is very hard to know.

In better news today I saw my urologist.  She is amazing.  She is actually like a urologist/cheer leader.  Her demeanor is always really bright and she is overflowing with empathy.  Today she said, “You have beautiful urine, honey!”

I told her that was a first for me.  No one has ever said that to me before.  I need to remember that for a compliment to give people, “You have beautiful urine, honey!” Never mind.  I don’t want to look at their urine, do I?

Yesterday I had to take my 14 year old son for his physical.  That was interesting.  Guys have to have their ummmm…. stuff checked at that age.  AWKWARD.

OH well.  I stepped out and “bam” it was done. Poor little dude.

So, these are the ponderings of the final frontier.  Whose mission it is to seek out new life.  To go where no one should ever go.  To babble, incoherently.

Ok, I’ll stop.

 

Well TGIF.  It is Friday and I am grateful.  I am also grateful for a weekend without much planned.  Maybe we can simply get back some equilibrium around here.

Yesterday, I infused and then fell into a deep and dark sleep for several hours.  I really hate it when that happens.  I know I have no choice in the matter but it still pisses me off.  I have stuff I want to do!  I mean, yesterday I wanted to cook a nice dinner for my peeps and I couldn’t do it.

I know that is small and silly but it got me down.

Today is better but the afternoon is drawing in and I am starting to fatigue. There is a very fine line between fatigue and over doing it.  In my life before all this crap (so, bc before crap) I could push on through and not suffer consequences.  Not so anymore.  I pay dearly if I push too hard. I will lose a day.

Now, I have to ration myself out like a box of chocolates.  Hmmm, interesting metaphor.  I have never been one to ration chocolates.  I tend to either give away the box or eat the whole damned thing.

Well, there you have it. I am a whole hog sorta girl!  I need to learn how to go…half hog.  Is that possible?  I have never heard of it.

I wonder if there is an idiom for going part way towards something?  I can’t think of any.  Maybe that is why I have a hard time doing it.  Our culture doesn’t really encourage it.

That’s it!  It is the culture’s fault.  Not mine.

Yessss. I like that better.  I am going to go fix dinner and go half hog by putting the chicken on to roast and not fixing the green beans until some 14 year child helps me clean them.

A ha! So there!

Oh, and I’ll defrost my challah and have Shabbos.

Shabbat Shalom!

I am baaack from a week of not feeling well.  I plan to Carpe some Diems this week and enjoy life.

After all, fall has finally come to central Texas and the weather outside is beautiful.  All I have to do is look out my back door to see the beauty of the green and the sunshine.  This is what spring looks like in other parts of the world.  (The parts that have seasons).

So, should I go back and review for you what last week entailed?  Probably not. Let me summarize:

I felt like shit most of the week and couldn’t move. Everything hurt and I couldn’t wake up.  Finally, on Friday, I realized I had an infection and could do something about it.  I went in to the dr. and got meds for another bladder infection.

Unsurprisingly, the infection triggered the interstitial cystitis and made my entire lower half feel like it was ON FIRE.  I ended up going to ER for a second check and hopefully pain relief but alas, none was to be had.  Instead, I got a lecture on the use of evil narcotics.  Golly gee, Mr. Dr. Person, I have never heard ANY OF THAT ANYWHERE BEFORE.

I even got a list of pain management doctors in the area after I told him I have one.

Whatever. I found out the infection is better.  Good.  End of story.

I wonder how he would feel if his dick was on fire.

Nice visual there:)

Oh well, tra lala…

It is Monday and I plan to make it a fun day.  I am going to the grocery store and I plan to go MAD with groceries and stuff.  Wednesday I am having my house cleaned and that makes me insanely happy.

Life is good.

 

 

I have a horrible problem.  I have tried for years to stop it but as soon as I have a cardboard covered victim within range, I loose control. Going off of gluten has been a huge help in this.  However, the damned Chex people had to go and make tasties out of rice.

Assholes.

So, I keep killing.

I have been doing weight watchers online for several weeks.  I am very focused and I write everything down.  I really, really want to lose the weight.  I think it is holding me back from regaining more of my health.  My sickoid body just cannot carry around all these extra pounds.  Weight is one of the ONLY areas I have any control at all over what is happening to me, so I am damned sure going to try to lose some.

But then, there is the cereal killer.

She used to strike without warning, day and night.  But, I have met her head on during the day and tamed her.  She can come in the house if she plays nice and gets counted with the other weight watcher points.

But wait! Who is She?  Is She the cereal or Me?

Who is the Killer?  I think we know don’t we?  It’s me. At night, restless, as always, the killer in me awakes and sings the song of her people, “refrigerator,pantry, kitchen…go you must!”

This voice, the killer.. often sounds like my beloved and mourned father.  For it was from  him that I learned to heed the call of the night time kitchen.

Sometimes I feel as though a string was pulling on my chest somehow and as it grows taut, I know the only cure is to head downstairs and into the kitchen.

All fanciful stuff, eh?  Not really.  I could go on for hours about my psychological relationship to food. But, I won’t!

Right now, the only thing I am consistently eating at night that has the power to undo all my great strides in the day time, is chex cereal with lactose free, skim milk.  It is to these depths that I have stumbled.

All I can do is remove the offending box of crunchy sweetness.  Hopefully my urge to kill will then lessen with time.

I know the cure. NO MORE CHEX.

No more venturing over the gluten line (which is bad, bad juju for me) and eating my daughter’s raisin bran.

NO CEREAL KILLER.

I can kill fruit or two point yogurts or celery.  Or, I could just drink a big glass of water and tell my internal voices shut up.  After all, those voices are not my daddy, not really.

He would never sabotage me like that.  He hated doing it himself.

Each and every night when I go to bed, I pray for two things: “Eternal, let me sleep and if you don’t mind…. keep me out of the kitchen!”

And there is nothing, nothing more irritating that having my spouse remind me of research that reports that night time eating is a huge cause for weight gain.  Really?  I have NEVER THOUGHT OF THAT!

Bless his heart.  He eats like a pig, Then he goes and runs for miles with his ears flapping in the wind.  I want his body.  You know, I want it, literally.

If we really do get recycled, as the Buddhists believe, I am coming back as a tall, athletic person that can run fast and eat lots and has an iron clad immune system.

But for now, in this life, I have mountains to climb:  Mountains of cereal.

I must not tunnel through them like some sort of gopher, jaw unhinged, chewing away.  I need to climb up and over.  Maybe when I am beyond and have a better view, the urge to kill will subside.

Maybe…

 

 

I have been trying really hard to lose weight.  This is not a new issue for me.  But, it did get more complicated by some of the medication I have had to take these last few years.  Some of the drugs I take cause appetite increase and I didn’t even know it.  Some, like prednisone, are notorious.

Last year, I was on prednisone for five months.

Some of the drugs that actually help me with pain and mobility, I just won’t take.  They make me blow up like a balloon.

So, long story short (short and fat, actually!) I am counting Weight Watchers’ points online.  Weight Watchers is my old friend.  I think I have been on every program they have ever had!

This is the first time I have done the on line program exclusively.  I like it.  It is better than paying every week for those horrible weigh ins!

I have lost about six pounds in eight weeks, which is ok.  I have to be careful because I have eating disorders.  As a young woman I was bulimic.  I even tried anorexia but I was never committed to it.  (I am NOT belittling that disease).

So, here I am, trying to do this on my own and on Thursday I had my son with me and we were in downtown Austin.  I had to see a doctor and my fourteen year old was out of school for fall break so I thought it would be nice to take him to the Whole Foods on 6th… (the Mother Ship). When we got there lunch was just starting and breakfast was still laid out.  My son was still a teen-aged zombie from being awakened by his rude mommy ahead of his own body clock.

I was casting around for something gluten free and that I could count the points.  The devil bitch that keeps me fat was sitting on one of shoulders saying, “Fuck it, man, you are in this food paradise, get something goood.”

On my other shoulder, my weight watcher angel, who is sometimes soft spoken, was saying, “No, don’t listen to her.  She makes very bad choices and then you don’t like yourself.”

My son wandered over with a plate of deviled eggs.  Deviled eggs?  WTF?

I asked him, “Is that all you want while we are in here?”

“Ugh.”

“Okay,” I said.  “I will decide.”   Then I saw the salad bar.  It is huge and sort of mind boggling.  I grabbed a recycled, earth conscious piece of cardboard that is supposed to be a plate and started to load it down.

I was getting really excited.  These were all zero point value.  I could have my Weight Watchers’ and eat it too:)  I even got crazy and added some tofu and cottage cheese, which I knew I would have to count.

My son was shadowing me at this point so I hurried to find the oil and vinegar. Thinking I had spied them, I walked quickly to the next long buffet table and started pouring what I thought was vinegar. Oddly, it smelled funny.  My son said, “Umm Mom…”

I looked up from my happy and righteous salad fueled haze and noticed what he had already seen, I was at the breakfast buffet, pouring maple syrup on my salad.

Well, shit.

I did add some vinegar because I thought it might help.  Then I proceeded to just dump it.  However, my son has a higher set of moral standards than I do.  He got very freaked out.  As we went to the cash register to buy the $3.00 drinks and $7.00 deviled eggs, I confessed my mistake to the cashier.  He said, “you don’t have to eat that.”

Then he offered to ring it up and then I could go back.  It was $15.00 worth of vegetables and maple syrup!

I declined his offer.  I came back, head bowed in humility, with yogurt and a gluten free oatmeal bar.

This whole incident brought something up in me that has been on sabbatical for a while.  My sense of humor. I realized the next night when I went over my points value by eating cereal at night (not even gluten free) that hating myself for my idiot or bad habits just isn’t working.

I have to love myself and treat myself with good humor.  After all, this is the only body I have.  It is FAR from perfect, but I am trying.  Every, single day  I am trying to take care of it and doing the best I can.  If I screw up, I should laugh and move on.

I think this is true of most things in our lives; even the grim ones.  If we cannot find the humor in them, we are screwed.

My revised understand of  this is “it  ain’t over yet, baby.” What I mean is,  life just beats the crap out of us until we become grim and bitter; and we just cannot let it take us that way.  If we do, we are already dead.

Life really is too short.

So, I am an idiot who pours maple syrup on a salad. I think that is funny.  But, I won’t do it again!

More than likely, I will do something much worse:)