I'm Finally Back

I'm back where I began...190 miserable pounds. So here I go again.

My downfall began in mid-November with my sinus surgery. The surgery went great, but I was stuck home with nowhere to go for a week afterward. The girls were home for Thanksgiving, so we made treats, snacks, desserts, and of course - Thanksgiving Dinner! It was a lot of fun to get in the kitchen with Randy and the girls. Each was in charge of one or two dishes and we had far more food than we could eat. Leftovers followed. Then more leftovers. Then take-out because we couldn't stand to eat anymore leftovers. When the girls went back to their respective universities, I planned on getting back into my new, healthy routine. "Planned" being the key word. As Mike Tyson so eloquently phrased it, "Everybody's got plans until they get hit."

And boy did I get hit. Not literally. No bus ran me down. Nobody slugged me. But I sure got knocked on my backside. The B12 shots I'd been taking weekly for my deficiency hadn't yet kicked in. In fact, my numbers decreased over the course of the four months. My iron went up into the low normal range, but I just learned on Thursday that they have fallen again, so I'm anemic again. To say I have no energy is putting it lightly. I'm flat out fatigued on a daily basis. I go to school, teach as hard as I can go, then come home and go comatose. I lost interest in cooking and started hitting up the fast food restaurants for breakfast and dinner again. Not every night, but often enough. To top it all off, I was going for allergy shots on Tuesdays and Thursday and getting the B12 shots on Wednesdays. That meant I wasn't getting home from work/doctors until 5:30 each evening and I was having to take school work home each night since I couldn't stay late at work to get it done there.

In addition, I've added two more antibiotics and possibly steroids to my list of allergies. Since steroid allergies are rare and not well studied, I had to go two hours away to the University of Mississippi to their allergy clinic where I spent two hours - one being told there was no way to test for a steroid allergy and being told I'd have to take nasal steroid sprays the rest of my life, and the second being told by the senior doctor to disregard what the 1st doctor had said. Protocol for testing steroid allergies was developed this past year, so he's contacting the team of doctors who did the study and will have me come back for a day of allergy testing in the future. That's good news but I don't have another sick day to use so they'd best be ready to test me over my spring break in a month or they're just going to have to wait until the end of May when school gets out.

Now while all of this was going on, the first week of December, I started an IBS flare to end all flares. I had to stop eating whole grains, fruits, and many vegetables. I ate a lot of crackers, white bread, baked potatoes and chicken because that's all I could tolerate. If you've never experienced IBS/Chron's/IBD, etc, you won't understand how it affects every facet of your life. There's a terrible fear of leaving your home to go to work, shopping, etc. Since I tend toward panic attacks anyway, it wasn't a pleasant time. It finally subsided in January, just in time for me to get bronchitis and hit the doctor's office again. I spent weeks coughing and nebulizing and wondering if I'd catch a break at some point in time.

Knock on wood, that point in time seems to be now. Thank goodness. I've been easing back into whole grains, fruits, and veggies. The allergy shots have ceased until the steroid thing is resolved. The B12 shots have been changed to a nasal spray, so I'm now able to work an hour later each day and avoid bringing work home each night. My outlook has vastly improved and I've turned my eyes outward instead of inward, looking forward to the future rather than feeling trapped in the moment by my health issues. It's like a breath of fresh air to feel hopeful again.

I started rowing on an erg last week (I was only able to go 10 minutes at first, but I'm up to 20 now) and I have a healthy menu planned for this week. So here I go again...I'm starting at 190 and we'll see how much I can lose by June 11th. At this point, any long term loss will be a success in my eyes, but I'm still hoping to lose a grand total of 50 lbs. It really helps when friends and family are generous in their judgement. Thanks to those of you who checked in on me when I went missing and so sweetly told me you'd hang in there with me until I could get going again. I love you guys!

Oh! Here's a shout out to Randy. During all of this, he's been sweet and distracting, keeping me busy with this and that and refusing to let me slip into apathy or misery. I resist the push sometimes, but he's the guy who keeps me going and I'm so very thankful he's my guy.