Benign.

I don’t think I’ve heard a better word in a long time.

When the doctor called me with the results, a wave washed over my entire body and melted all the stress I’ve been holding onto.  I could almost see it running down my arms, dripping off my fingertips and disappearing through the cracks in the hardwood floor.

I didn’t realize how much stress I had been holding onto until that moment.

The two-inch scar, the bruising, the discomfort, the swelling, the fear, and yes even the 7 lb weight gain–I would do it all again, and again, and again….

Because I live with enough uncertainty, we all do.

Having an answer for just a little piece of uncertainty can change your life.

I’m so thankful that my answer came back “benign”.

So very, very, thankful.

I would love to be able to say that the only thing wrong with me is that I’m overweight.

LOVE to be able to say that because most people would hear that and think: fixable.

Unfortunately that isn’t something I’ll ever be able to say.

I can share that I’m no longer clinically obese, my BMI puts me in the “overweight” category now. I’m feeling better about the way I look and enjoying clothing more than I have in the past 14 years.

BUT I still suffer (and will for the rest of my life) from autoimmune diseases, and the issues associated with that can still bring my life to a standstill.

I’ve felt disengaged from life for a few months now—sure I still get through the day to day stuff but it hasn’t been easy.  I’ve distanced myself from people I love to hang out with because once again I feel the brain fog creeping in, the inflammation of my body makes it hard to concentrate on conversation and I feel like I bring the party down with my presence.

Living with an autoimmune disease can be tricky.  When you have more than one it gets complicated.  What helps with the inflammation and allergy often causes my thyroid to go out of wack.  And lately I’ve been experiencing some loss of muscle control. That symptom alone brings a whole host of other considerations and problems into my life…it’s the symptom my neurologist has warned me about and the one I can’t ignore for too much longer.

But first I need to deal with the breast issue.  After having 2 mammograms, 3 ultrasounds and being told the docs wanted to monitor me for the next six months due to a strange mass in my right breast,  I took matters into my own hands.  I went to a breast surgeon who took one look at the mammograms and told me she would want the mass taken out—no needle biopsy for me.  Surgery.

Needless to say the past five months have been a bit stressful.  Stress tends to trigger autoimmune symptoms.  The stress of the unknown for me is particularly bad.

I do have a plan in my mind if it turns out to be cancer.  Obviously I’m hoping this is not the case.  Having the back-up plan in my mind helps keep the stress down somewhat but this hasn’t been something I’ve yet been able to talk about. Joke about: yes, but talk about in my usual manner not so much.

As for the muscle control issue—no plan.  I expect it’ll be another MRI and a possible MS diagnosis…or maybe this is just another symptom of my current autoimmune and the stress I’ve been feeling.

I’ve kind of put life on hold in some ways.  I was so excited back in October planning a new business venture, planning to go back to school and working on getting healthy.  Then I hit the “oh shit” moment and fell apart a bit.  Oh I faked the happy well when I had to—but it’s getting harder to do as the reality of my life grabs hold.

Next week is surgery, and this week I feel like I’m falling apart emotionally.  I’m finding it harder to hold myself together to even get through the day to day…

I keep reminding myself that I’ve gotten through so much, these new symptoms and new issues are just a few more bumps on the road to health.

I’m trying to keep that in mind and stay positive.

It’s hard, but I’m trying.

the new me is the old me

Interestingly enough, I’m 20lbs over what I was when I got married BUT I fit into my old jeans and a good portion of my old skirts from that time.

I’ve spent the month firmly in one-derland (194ish) and have been doing a lot of reading about Leptin and resetting my hormones in general.  The information isn’t really new to me, but putting it all together and looking at some things in a new light I’ve had more than a few “AhHA!” moments.

People that have known me since our move to the states (14yrs ago) are in awe of the transformation my body has undergone…while people from my life before the move, who haven’t seen me in the same amount of time, comment that I “haven’t changed a bit!”

Which makes me look at them in horror–after all the crazy medical, all the surgery, all the babies I haven’t changed???  OH, right you didn’t get to witness all that or my spiral into obesity.

The moment passes quickly and a sincere “thank you” comes out but in the back of my mind the thought lingers.

I looked at myself in the mirror for the past 14yrs and most days I saw the “old” me.  These days I’m almost surprised to see her.  It has made me realize how much denial I put myself in over the years regarding the changes in my appearance.  So I guess in some ways I shouldn’t be taken aback by the surprise my current circle of friends exhibit when they see me now–I have changed, they’ve only ever known me obese…this thinner me will take some getting used to.

And my old friends–they’ve never known me obese or sick…of course they’d think I haven’t changed much.

Looking at photos from my late 20s, I do look much more like that girl than I have in a long time.  In many ways the new me is the old me…only she has a wealth of experiences the old me never thought/dreamed/could anticipate would happen.

There’s still a long journey ahead of me, but I’m happy to be able to say that it looks like I’ve made it to stable ground.  Blood work looks awesome, hormones seem to be doing what they are ment to do and fitting into sz 12 (which are now getting loose!) jeans is a definite bonus!

One-Derland!!

199.8–still counts as one-derland, right?

 

7 pounds to wonderland…

I’m 7 pounds away from one-derland!  And it looks like I have a stomach bug…not sure if I can count that as a good thing or a bad.  Good, I might see one-derland before the sickness leaves me.  Bad, I won’t be able to count it as a true weigh in because the weight you lose while sick never stays gone!

 

 

Inspired

There are some places in this world where you cannot help but be inspired.

For me, being on or near any body of water sets my mind at peace and send relaxed waves through my body.  No matter my moods or thoughts before, viewing the crashing waves will bring my  mind to peace and my body to rest.

While walking along a beach on the Strait of Juan de Fuca this summer thoughts about how transformed I felt floated through my mind as my eyes scanned the sand for treasures to point out to my children.  Then I saw this, a perfect smooth rock resting in the sand…

The words took a moment to register, a moment more to smile at the thought of someone writing the perfect words just for me at that moment.  At least that’s how I felt.

I AM exactly where I need to be at this moment of my life—I’ve let go of the stresses associated with my health.  I’ve come to terms with my
weight loss struggles and triumphs.

I am in a place where I do not allow the outside world to form me, I have worked hard to transform myself and to accept thoughts that may have been foreign to me at one point.

I feel as if I am a new person.  A person transformed and born anew.

My life changing journey has taken me places, has introduced me to people and has reshaped my mind…and I am grateful to still be here, to be able to continue this journey and others.  To be able to say that I’m changing my own little world…starting with me, but touching all those around me and maybe encouraging someone else to take their own journey toward change.

I still find myself posting, thinking and writing more about my crafty side…but every now and then I come back here to share the more personal side of me….

I hope that todays day brings something inspiring into your life…or at least makes you smile as you continue on the path of your own journey.

In the two-teens

I hit the twoTeens–mid level.

Nothing much else to report…feeling good after eliminating dairy, gluten and other allergens on my list to avoid.

Now I’m off to the crafty side to play catch up!

Where I’ve been…

Well, I haven’t had much to share health wise….I’ve been over on the crafty side of me posting all over the place.   Sewing has been a bit therapeutic for me these past few months—my sewing and crafting room is one place I feel like have a bit of control.  Not to mention the joy buzz I get once a project is done and my kids are raving about whatever it is I’ve created for them.

It turns out that my body thinks it’s in menopause.  It’s not.   LOTS of eggs left (which leads me once again to explore tying my tubes—really 4 kids is more than enough!).  Sometime around last September my body stopped producing estrogen along with the progesterone it hasn’t produced properly since brain surgery.

I’ve been feeling off.
I haven’t been losing weight no matter what I ate, how I worked out or what I did.

I haven’t gained any either.  Guess that’s a blessing I should count.

In January I had a cold with a high fever, then two weeks ago I had another cold with a high fever (lasted 8 days, let me tell you it really sucked!) Both these events kind of messed up my hormone taking…bio-identical estrogen and progesterone.

Still, for the first time since last August, getting my hormones in the realm of normal has resulted in weight lost.

Go figure.

Having an autoimmune thyroid disease is bad enough, but with the rest of the hormones messed up no wonder I haven’t seen movement in the scale.

So beside the hormones, it looks like I do have a gluten sensitivity.  Now I get to knock out glutens, chocolate and severely limit chicken (which sucks! But too much does cause me all kinds of gastrointestinal grief so better to live without too much of it)

I found a new naturopathic doctor who I like.  I also found an acupuncturist I  like.

If my body continues to respond to the hormone treatment and the rest that I’m doing like it has, I should start seeing some significant drops…or at least see  results from all the hard work I’m putting in.

So that’s where I’ve been, where I am….You can still catch me on the crafty side, but I  won’t be posting much here until I manage to find a balance…

it’s a long process filled with lots of trial and error.  In the end I hope my body re-learns to release hormones on its own, if not I’m in for a long haul of taking interesting combinations of hormones in order to feel “normal”.

Mommy Monday—they aren’t vegans!

“Pow, bang lalalala bang heeeheeeheee” This is what I hear coming from the playroom one rainy afternoon.

“Girls?  What are you doing?”

“Shooting pigs” calls the 5yr old

“Come over here” the tromping of little feet followed by the smiling faces of MissyD and MissyT

“What are you doing?” I ask again.

“Mommmmmmy, I told you we’re shooting pigs” imagine an exasperated 5 yr old and you get the picture of Missy D telling me this again.

“Don’t shoot things, it’s not nice”

“MOMMMMMMY, we’re just pretending”

“Still, shooting isn’t nice”

“I’m shooting with my Barbie legs” pipes in the 3 yr old with a huge smile on her face

“Let’s find another game to play.”

“But mommmmy, we shot lots of pigs”

“Why do you want to pretend to shoot pigs?”

“So we can have lots of ham!”

“And bacon. Bacons yummy” adds MissyT

I need an award for not bursting out laughing before sending them off to play again.  Ham and bacon—oh my, not raising any vegans in this house am I!

hack, cough, hack

I have the flu…or I’m getting over the flu and now have a hacky cough.

5 out of 6 people in my house have gone through it.

Not fun.

The cough is cutting into my sleep and I’m feeling like crud….

The youngest of my kids is whiney…then again so am I.

Working out has been virtually nonexistent these last couple of weeks and I’m feeling cruddy from that too–my muscles can’t get use to the disuse they have been subjected too during the course of this cold.  But I’m trying to get at least a few minutes a few times a day…if my body wasn’t so tired it might appreciate the effort more.

I’m going to bury my face in a warm cup of tea…with honey…and lemon…hopefully it’ll help with the cough so I can talk to my kids without hacking up a lung.

Mommy Monday—the youngest child

MissyT, my youngest child turns three today.

Where did the time go?

Three years ago today I walked into my doctors office and told the doc to get this baby out of me ‘cause I wasn’t going to last another day.

My doc took one look at me and sent me to get an ultrasound (to justify the early induction). 

How early? Two weeks. 

Why early?  Because I was miserable.  That pregnancy had me convinced that four times was enough. From throwing out my back on Halloween to the constant contractions which plagued me in my final trimester.  The night before I got induced I was in the hospital because the flu that ravaged my body that week had Mr.G and my mom worried…I guess I looked pretty bad and felt even worse if I let them drag me from my bed to the ER.

Now looking back it’s almost comical to remember my doctor walking in for a regular check up and before she even had the door shut I was telling her to “get this baby out of me”.  She took one look at me, opened the door called the nurse and told her to get me an ultrasound appointment right away.

I had to wait almost two hours for someone to tell me: “WOW! That baby is 9lbs and needs to come out today!”

My doctor inserted a Foley catheter to induce labor and open my cervix and sent me down to delivery to get comfortable and enjoy a nice steady stream of pitocin while I called friends to arrange for my older kids to be picked up, to let them know I was in delivery.  To wish one friend a happy birthday and let her know she’d be sharing it with the soon to be born MissyT.

Of course everyone thought it wouldn’t be happening on the 17^th—I wasn’t even dilated! No, everyone thought it would be a long labor (including my doc.), me: I was determined to meet this child that day.

Even after 5 hours of nothing happening down there, upping the drugs to bring on the contractions I knew she was coming.

Even after the doctor came in to tell me that I was finally opening, but since it took 6 hours to get there she felt confident she could go home for an hour and have dinner with her kids.

No problem doc, see you in an hour.

Five minutes later the contractions became uncomfortable. Epidural time!  30 minutes after epidural—why am I still feeling contractions? Nurse runs ice on my legs…nope, don’t feel anything from the knees down…but I’m feeling slight contractions…call the anesthesiologist back to check out what’s wrong.

HOLY CRAP WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT! I think I need to push.

That was me 40 minutes after the doctor left.  The epidural failed (well, it did numb me knee to toe!).  I firmly believe it failed because I kept saying this last pregnancy would be a “natural” delivery (what was I thinking!)

My nurse, who was running slower than molasses until that point, took a leisurely look and RAN out the door to get the floor doctor, RAN back in to page my doc., yelled at me not to push until the floor doctor got in…that doctor also started moving real fast once she realized Missy T’s head was almost out!

On push #2 the anesthesiologist stuck his head in, heard me swearing…I still remember the look of “oh crap” on his face as he skedaddled out of there. Push 3 and MissyT was out, my doctor arrived in time to deliver the placenta and Mr.G and I laughed happy to have the whole ordeal over with.

8lb 6oz and 21 inches…

Sigh, you know how they say “start as you mean to go”…well the way life started with MissyT I’m sure to have many a headache the older she gets.

Good thing the 3 kids before her taught me to take their antics in stride.

(I’ll be posting the presents & cake I made for MissyT over on my crafty side…check it out!)

Mommy Monday—when I grow up

The soon to be 5 yr old has started declaring that she wants to be an engineer when she grows up.

She does this 5 times a day.

It’s getting old and my replies have gone from enthusiastic to a nod a mumble.

So when the soon to be 3 yr old decided she wanted to be part of this conversation and declared she wanted to be a mommy, just like me I had to reply:

“Hopefully you’ll be an even better mommy, Missy T”

That did it, the smiling child just had to keep going:

“uh huh! And I’ll have a little girl”

Me: “that’s right, maybe you’ll have a little girl”

“A little girl JUST LIKE ME!” Said with a whole lot of enthusiasm.

I laughed, hubby laughed, she looked confused for a moment, then I said:

“God willing you’ll have a little girl JUST LIKE YOU!!”

Satisfied with that answer she happily went off to play.

The older I get and the older my kids get, the more I understand my own parents…and boy do I feel like I need to apologize and say thank you to them every day!  Especially when I deal with the kids who are “just like me!”

Mommy Monday–just about wordless

It’s bee a long weekend, followed by a long Monday….and my kids have driven me to:

(don't want to even think about the number of calories in these suckers!)

Mommy Monday–The questions…

I grow weary of the questions…even more so of the answers.

What am I talking about?

Those questions kids ask over and over and over. Only to get the same answer from me.

Like: When can we get a dog?

Answer: When the youngest child turns 5.

Or: Can we have a piece of our Halloween candy?

Answer: When you’re all done your supper.

I’ve been thinking of jazzing up my answers when all of a sudden Missy D, soon to be 5 yrs old comes up with this:

“When can I learn to milk a cow?”

“WHAT?”

“A cow mommy! I want to milk a cow?”

“Why do you want to milk a cow”

“To get milk” (I got the duh tone and expression–she’s already heading to the teens here)

“But we can go to the store to get milk, you don’t have to milk a cow for it.”

“Mommmmm, milk comes from a cow. So we should milk a cow for our milk.”

Oldest female child gets in on conversation and adds “Well, we do grow our own vegetables….”

Exasperated look from me shot in her direction. She tries to hide her giggles.

“So mommy, can I milk a cow when I’m 5?”

“I don’t think so sweetie”

“6?”

“How about when you are 22?”

“Mommmmmmmmmm….”

Blissful silence for 3 second, then Missy D asks:

“Mom when can we get a dog?”

I bang my head on the table: “when the youngest child is 5…..”

I don’t know if I can give a more creative answer—they keeps me on my toes with their creative question! What comes after milking cows? And do I really want to find out?

Mommy Monday—the snow edition

I grew up in Ontario, Canada and I know snow.  If we looked out the window and saw only a foot of it, we knew we would be going to school. Two to three feet—check the news to see if schools were closed (they usually weren’t).  Four feet—woohoo!  Snow day!

I now live in the Pacific Northwest, the Seattle area.  We don’t get snow and what we get is barely enough to make one small (tiny!) snowman.

my back yard this morning

This is the kind of snow my kids have known all their lives, and this morning I really had to keep reminding myself of that little fact.

“It’s snowing!!!”

“MOM!  Do we have a snow day today?”

“Can we go out and play??!!”

“Is school closed?”

These types of questions hit me before I even opened my eyes this morning.  I look outside—we’re talking less than an inch of snow!  Granted schools here have been closed for less, but come on!  Can I at least get out of bed before you bombard me with Christmas carols and singing “it’s snowwwwwwiiiiiinnnnnggg….”?

Nope. Four voices have merged into one and I can’t tell anymore who is asking what this morning.

Snow is the PNW—not what I grew up with, but I get the excitement my kids have when they see it.

So we checked the news, school web sites—all clear! Kids are going to school (woohoo!)

Bring out the winter jackets.  Find gloves.  Repeat “don’t lose your gloves/hats” ten times to each child.

Find boots.  Have discussion about wearing boots. Have kids convince us they can still wear their runners (I had friends who wore their runners in four feet of snow, less than an inch—the kids can win this battle).

My husband decides he’ll drive all 3 school going children to school since I don’t have to leave for class with the youngest for another hour.

Thank you darlin’!

Ten minutes after they leave—phone rings:

“uh, you may not want to go anywhere it’s really slippery out here”

Thank you darlin’!  I just needed an excuse not to warm up my car.

Minutes pass, phone rings again:

“I’m headed home, the hill to MissyD’s preschool is backed up with people sliding down the hill…”

OK, see you soon.

Minutes pass, phone rings again:

“Can you see the entrance to our subdivision?  Apparently there’s a huge pile up down there”

Nope, see cars going up, no cars coming down…drive slow.

Thirty minutes later (of what should be a ten minute commute), door opens and in they come.  Older kids are at school, younger kids at home. I’m informed that the ditches are full of cars on the hill right before our subdivision entrance.

And there is now a whole inch of snow on the ground.

The deck...just over an inch of snow

Gotta love winter in the PNW.