Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Calling it Progress

Seeing my mom not taking care of herself is motivating me to get back to taking care of myself.

Seeing my weight shoot up almost 10 pounds since November is motivating me to keep close contact with endocrinologist so we can iron out the new meds and stop this insanity.

Seeing that it's been 2 solid years of unrelenting plantar fasciitis pain is motivating me to take a hard look at my eating habits again. Because after 6 months of being essentially sedentary and the pain still not resolving, I'm convinced it's not gonna get better unless I can take off another serious chunk of weight.

I'm finding lots of motivation, which I had lost.

Now I've got to dig even deeper and find my resolve again. I don't know when or where I lost it. I just know I looked up one day and it was gone.

Maybe I should check under the couch. That's where we always find the matchbox cars.

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

You Might Be a Redneck

Mom got us great little LED flashlights for Christmas.

So far, my brother has used his to gut a couple of deer and last night I used mine to check for damage and residual guts. 'Cause a ginormous raccoon committed suicide under my van.

Scary as hell. Ran right into us, no chance to spare him without us getting hurt, he hit my van three times.

But on the bright side, my alignment improved and the missing backlight on my car clock came back on.

In other news...

Whole reason I'm down here in redneck land is that my mom went and had herself a little stroke over the weekend. We'd come down to finally have our family's Christmas and it happened sitting around the table chatting after dinner. Thankfully we actually saw it happen and called 911 instantly.

Had she been home alone watching TV like a normal Saturday night, she'd have most likely just laid down and possibly died. Know how I know? Turns out she's had an "episode" before AND NOT FUCKING TOLD ANYONE. Just went to bed. This time was much worse than the other one, though. She was confused and arguing about stuff like what her doctor's name was, so - in addition to her general attitude of "I'll just go lay down until I feel better" - she probably would not have been thinking clearly enough to call for help.

She recovered miraculously well. The technical term for what happened is a TIA, but it really happened
for the fantastically brilliantly fucking reasonable cause of Not Taking Her Medication.

Subclassification: Because I Don't Want To.

So I'm down here in redneck land to drive her to some of the follow up tests. Because there's every chance she wouldn't do them.

Know how I know?

Cause she had another "episode" Monday night. But I'm not supposed to know, because she's keeping it from me. She told Dad (her ex husband) the next morning, and she thought I was sleeping and she's a little hard of hearing and I heard every word she said. He called me to let me know because he suspected she wasn't going to tell me and wanted me to make sure someone told her doctor.

Ugh.

So I'm doing what I can - I drove her to her carotid doppler yesterday and took her over to my lawyer friend's place to sign powers of attorney. Now it's time to throw on some clothes and take her to the MRI/MRA.

Then I have to figure out how to gracefully navigate 250 miles of Illinois interstate through an ice storm to get home. Because I miss my Bear so much it hurts and it was hard enough to make arrangements for his care for just 3 days. I need to get back to him.

We don't have anyone scheduled to stay with Mom tonight, but at this point my attitude is that if she's not going to tell the person staying with her in case she has another attack that she's having an attack then WTF are we staying for?

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Today

Today, I:

1) Made a fruit & yogurt protein powder smoothie.

2) Had a semi-emergency appointment with my endocrinologist.

3) Went to the gym for a swim.


Today, I learned that:

1) My ancient cheapie blender has a workload limit, and burning motor smell is not pleasant with lunch.

2) When your doctor takes one look at you and gives you a big hug, it means you're not crazy and the meds really aren't working.

3) I vastly overestimated my residual fitness and can no longer knock out half a mile in the pool. I squeezed out a quarter mile. In 3 intervals. (But at least my pull felt strong and my laps were much faster than I expected them to be.)


Today, I'm excited that:

1) I get to shop for a new blender!

2) My doc gave me new meds!

3) I went to the GYM! And now I'm going to a dinner networking meeting! With grown ups who wear real clothes and talk in sentences and everything!

Sunday, January 03, 2010

Taking Stock

I've been sick going on 3 weeks.
I've also been so exhausted I've been sleeping when Bear naps, going to bed by 9 pm and sleeping up to 12 hours whenever Wonderful Husband is able to let me.
I've started gaining weight for no apparent reason.

It's pretty clear I need to call my endocrinologist and discuss the undesirable but unavoidable switch to a different thyroid med 3 weeks ago. I was dreading it, I knew it could be rocky and I was terrified I would gain weight while it happened. But my regular med is indefinitely unavailable, so I had no choice.

Aside from all that, I've been going through the mental garbage of accepting that it's actually been almost 3 YEARS since I found out I was pregnant with Bear. Which means it's been 3 YEARS stuck at the same weight. 3 YEARS since I lost my momentum.

Given the current state of my health, I may not be physically ready to remedy the situation, say, in the next week. But I'm as mentally ready as I'm ever going to be.

So I put in a call to my friend who happens to be a personal trainer. We're going to sit down together (as soon as I'm not contagious!) in a professional capacity and discuss how to get me back on track. She knows we're struggling to pay for Bear's therapy, so she's willing to work out a deal with me so I can afford her help.

The good thing is I'm not like her other clients who need her to stand over them 3 times a week to make the workouts happen. I just need the time saver of having an appropriate workout pre-planned for me, and the accountability of someone checking in to see how they went.