06/06/2012: Me and losing weight

So I'm up.  In weight, that is.  I'm finally writing an accountability blog and taking ownership for where I am.  I'm laying it all out.  It's funny about these laying-it-all-out-there blogs.  They "usually" are a turning point for a person.  Now, I don't expect much of a turning point for me because I expect to be pregnant soon!  Therefore, losing weight is not my focus right now.


When I started my weightloss journey, I weighed 264.
When I had surgery I weighed 237.
When I got pregnant I weighed 195
Today I weigh 240.


There is my journey, skipping a few pitstops.


I am not mad at myself for this.  I think it is beautiful why this is what it is.  And if I had it to do all over again with the same decisions to make, I'd make them all again in exactly the same way up until approximately February of this year.


I knew I'd gain.  I had no idea how much I'd gain, but I knew it would happen.  It is why I wanted to get baby-making days behind me before I truly focused on goal weight.


195 was good for me.  I felt great.  I looked a gazillion times better.  Hell, my abs were not sticking out further than my boobies.  Clothes were getting back into the realm of fun to shop for and even could be flattering on me.  I was not a fat girl anymore but just a chubby one.   I had hope, too, that my skin was actually going to rebound satisfactorily.


I don't think I ever expected to level out at 45 pounds up after the dust settled from the pregnancy with the twins.


But...how could I not have?  I am the one that did that - gained 45 pounds.  Yep.  I did that.  I cannot blame that on the pregnancy.  No, you can't tell me it was that and it's ok and it's part of the process.


Yes, it's ok.  Yes, gaining is part of the process.  But not all of those 45 pounds get that logic.


I had the babies.  Literally 2.5 hours before my water broke I weighed 277.9.  I was laughing all the way through the pregnancy as the scale number climbed and climbed and climbed.  I did not hate that, it did not make me wince, it was beautiful to me.  I grew two very healthy baby boys at the exact same time.  Not many twin moms get to say that.  Many twins are born prematurely and under 4 pounds.  Many twins end up in the NICU and rarely get to go home with mom.  My twins were born prematurely, yes, but weight was not an issue, one was 5lbs11oz and the other was 6lbs6oz.  They were healthy and they have stayed that way.  They did not spend a single night in the NICU and they did go home with me.  So I would do what I did all over again.


When I got home from the hospital, 90 hours later (from the last time I weighed prior to my water breaking), I weighed 245.  Ok, I thought.  I was still swollen as all get out from 1) being pregnant and 2) all the fluids they pump you full of when you have an epidural AND a spinal.


By the beginning of November, I was down to 225.


Ok.  Good!  I can do 30 pounds.  30 pounds is very reasonable given that I just had twins.


And that is where that ends.


I was breast feeding.  Breast feeding requires you to keep your calorie intake up.  If you drop your calories, your supply drops.  I know that to be true.  Breast feeding made me gain weight.  But, thinking, well then I must have plenty of stored energy, so I must not need to keep the calories up, I'd drop my calorie intake.  And my supply, already not enough, would drop, too.  Pick up the eating again, supply picked back up, too.


So, yes, I did in fact have to eat more.  


I stayed at 225 until the middle of December.


From the middle of December to the beginning of February, I gained 20 pounds.  So there I was, at 245.


Relax, you're telling me.  I just had babies.


Yeah yeah yeah.  You know what hearing that makes me want to do?  Yell and scream 'stuff it'.  If someone thinks telling me that is going to make me feel better then they aren't hearing what I'm not saying.


Like that?  Have you figured out yet what I'm not saying?


Yep.


Wrong choices.  All.  Over.  The.  Place.  Too much soda.  Too much desert.  Not enough protein.  Bad choices left and right.


I did that.  It was not my body readjusting from pregnancy.  Ok, well, mostly not.  Mostly it was me making wrong choices.


I did not get myself in check!  I gave myself carte blanche to do whatever the hell I wanted whenever the hell I wanted to.  "I had a higher metabolism right now", I'd say to myself.


In reality, I did not.  In reality, even if I did, it was the wrong choice I was making more often than not.


The funny thing is through the pregnancy I did pretty well with my choices.  It truly was post-partum that my choices became shoddy!


By the middle of March I was no longer breast-feeding and in severe pain from the endo.  I was hospitalized for 5 days in March and did not eat a single meal that entire time as eating makes everything worse.  Yeah, I lost.


By the time I'd had all my surgeries and whatnots, I was back down to 232.


Not bad.  I can work with that.


But still.  The bad choices did.  not.  stop.


Eventually my brain catches up.  Eventually.  I am smart but I never claimed to be quick.  And that should read more like I "can be" smart.


Nearly two weeks ago now I realized we need to stop eating out.  Know where that came from?  Eating out so much?


When you have babies, you generally end up house-bound.  I was tired of being house-bound from being on bedrest for so long.  Granted, my bedrest was "easy".  I did not have to lay in bed 24 hours a day for the four months that lasted.  I just had to be home.  I needed to have the ability to lie down as soon as I felt the need.  But I did not have to be down all the time.  Well.  When the babies arrived, I was tired of being home.  So eating out became something we could do.  And it turned out, it was a nice break for the babies, too!  Blue and Green love being out and about!!!  So that's where the eating out came from.  Once I went back to work, it then became an 'it's easier' thing.  


I realized nearly two weeks ago that it's not easier. It completely disrupts routine.  It's expensive.  It's not healthy.  


And now here we are.


The scale didn't respond immediately to that.  In fact, the scale continued to climb.


So now what, I think?


Bad choices, Lori.  Too much soda.


Soda is done.  I can have one a day.  When I was at my best for losing weight prior to getting pregnant, I never said no soda.  I am not a "no x" kinda gal.  If I can't do it forever, it's not part of my plan.  In my pre-pregnancy days, I drank water at work and I was allowed one soda at home in the evenings or on weekends.  And much of the time, I didn't actually get me one of them things out of our fridge completely stocked with soda, beer and wine that lives in the garage.  So I'm back to that.


Drinking all the water I should be is making a difference.


What else?  My protein has been back up where it should be for about a month now.  So no worries there.


My carb intake is ok.  If I don't get enough, my brain goes wonky.  I'm not doing no or low carb.  I am choosey about my carbs, but that's pretty normal for me.


What else?  Sweets.  Sweets are out of control for me right now.  Sweets are a work in progress.  I know sweets were something I wanted pre-pregnancy, too, and that I had found things that worked for me.  Those things were homemade goods, things I could control the ingredients in.  I know I need to do some baking at home, I want to, it would help.  But finding the time...argh.  I think I can get something baked this weekend and start to make progress there.  I also know that being cognizant of this as a problem is likely to help, too.


Finally.  Just the simple calorie count.  I'm eating too many of them.  I have not yet done a day where I track things because I do not yet want to know.  I do know I need to get back to my banking idea.  In my little world, pre-pregnancy, the week mattered more than the day.  And following a day where "I ate a lot", I usually would have a day where I wanted very little.  I am not sure where I actually fall on the spectrum of calories right now, though.  I know that I am only eating when I'm hungry, though, so it is what it is.


It does not help that the band is not optimal.  It is not in effect for me right now.  I do not have to eat slow or chew well.


But all this has taught me something.


Pre-pregnancy, I did not have to eat slow or chew well, either.  I ate cookies every day and allowed myself a soda, as well, which I may or may not have consumed.  My band has had two episodes of being too tight and that caused major problems.  In general, though, my band has been a vague reminder and nothing more.


What I learned is what I suspected all along.  Losing weight was not attributable to the band.  It was attributable to me.  In the pre-pregnancy days when I was losing it was because I made the right choice much more often than not.  It was because I chose to work out.  It was because I did the work.  I stopped doing the work - and I gained - but I needed to, for the most part.


And here I am.  Realizing that I need to make better choices.  I may not yet be ready to get back to losing.  But that doesn't mean I can get away with poor choices.  


So that is where I am today.  I am not yet ready to turn on my weight loss switch again.  I am, however, ready, to get back to basics.  Eat well.  Chose wisely.  It's not that I can't have sweets. It's the sweets that I choose and the frequency with which they are allowed.  It's not that I can't have sodas or sweetened coffee.  It's the frequency.  My move to eat at home was the start of getting back to basics.  But it's only a small component.  And in the end, I may not be worried today about the number the scale feeds back to me, but I do need to worry about what's floating through my arteries and veins.  I do need to worry about where my energy is coming from.  Hell, I think cleaning things up could even help with the endo!  What you put in is what you get out!


So here I am.  I put myself here and that is all.  It's on me to get myself back where I want me.  And right now, that's just making better choices and keeping it real.

06/05/2012: For me

A lot of this blog is for me to remember what was happening at the time.  It's always interesting to go back and read something and remember.  It's amazing how much we forget in any given day.  And this blog is more about giving me something to remember in the future.  Not that it's likely I'll forget that endometriosis sucks.  But I want to be able to remember what endo is doing to me, how I'm having to cope, what I know is likely to come because of it.  


How much more do I really need to say about this?  For myself, a lot.  For the average reader - probably already too much.  But since this blog is for me, guess who wins.  :)


FYI, this really isn't important and if you don't want to read any or all of it, I don't blame you..  This is actually more, like I said, a reminder for myself in the future as well as the easiest way for me to articulate and process what I really think.  Seems like the buildup makes it troubling or urgent or something like that and it's really none of the above.  T


Last week I said endometriosis sucks.  Was that a news flash for anyone?  I think not.


I talked to my cousin (an ob/gyn), or rather, we had a series of emails we exchanged, and she told me that endo usually does end up worse for the person after a pregnancy.  It's funny, pregnancy gives relief.  But that relief usually turns into endo coming back better than ever.  Not sure how.  I mean, if endo is the uterine lining getting into other places in the abdominal cavity because of (normally) retro-grade flow during your period, well, how the hell can it do that when you're friggin pregnant?


See, here's why this is helpful to me.  Typing that out, the answer occurred to me.  When you are pregnant, instead of the uterine lining sloughing off 14 days after you've ovulated, the uterine lining continues to grow to create a warm cuddly environment for the fetus.  So all those endo spots I used to have were allowed to grow a gazillion times more because of all that extra progesterone my body made/used for such a long time.


Ok.  So.  More pregnancies will therefore mean even worse endo, my cousin tells me.


Damn.


Not all women with endo have retro-grade flow, by the way.  Wanna know what retro-grade flow is?  Instead of the uterine lining that's being sloughed off and discarded via menses traveling out of the cervix and then down through the vagina as is normal, in a woman like me, some (or all) of the menses travels out through the fallopian tubes making it's way into the pelvic/abdominal cavity.  Some can even flow into the ovaries.


Now the endo I've always had has grown to a size that is remarkable because it was allowed to grow so much during pregnancy.


Whooppee!


I have two solutions.  

1. Take hormones, either through BC pills or otherwise, to stop the endo from growing.  All the various hormones I can take will shut down baby-making, albeit temporarily.
2. Have a partial or full hysterectomy.  For mild cases, partial hysterectomies are usually sufficient.  And keeping the ovaries allows the body to still manufacture hormones as needed.  A full hysterectomy is for moderate to severe cases and HRT may be needed afterwards.  Either option, of course, shuts down baby making, permanently.

Hmmm.  I aint done having kids.  Neither is Husby.

Damn.

What's the alternative then?  Pain control.

Ugh.

Well, of course, now we get to aggravate this further by saying we don't know when we can get Lori pregnant again.  Pregnancy gives temporary relief.  Yeah, so it'll probably come back again worse afterwards.  It doesn't come back at all until Lori gets her period back and the typical estrogen/progesterone cycle gets back to full force.  For the entire time I was breast-feeding I did not get my period at all.  But I was only able to breastfeed/pump for about four months because, as is par for the course, for me, things didn't work right or well and breastfeeding proved to be causing other problems.

What I know now - those other problems are something I'd rather deal with over this.  So I can push through longer next time if that will help.

We don't know if there will be one more pregnancy or two.

We are reading now that Husby "may" have to take radioactive iodine to ensure all of the thyroid "cancer" cells are killed off.  There's a whole 'nother blog - whether this is really cancer or not.  For now I'll say it seems there is debate in the medical field about whether this is truly cancer or whether it should be called cancer.  In all other cancers, the tumors are made up of cancer cells, something we all have, cancer cells, that is.  But in a "healthy" person, our immune system knows to not let those cancer cells run amuck.  In a tumor, a malignant one, to be precise, those cells multiply and regenerate and mutate causing problems.  Well, in thyroid "cancer", these aren't cancer cells, these are thyroid cells.  They are thyroid cells that refuse to die and they are clustered together in a nodule that continues to grow.  It's why this is "so beatable".  And to make it incredibly beatable, the nicest thing about it is thyroid cells, as a matter of course, want iodine to create T3 and T4.  Thyroid cells are the only cells in the body that want thyroid, although I guess some salivary glands also want iodine, but it's not "needed" for salivary glands.  Because iodine is so specific to the thyroid, they can use radioactive iodine to go after any remaining thyroid cells that might be around after the thyroid is removed.  The various chemos do not know the difference between cancer cells and healthy cells, which is why chemo makes people sick.  Anywho...radioactive iodine could make Husby infertile.  Doesn't usually cause problems for women, but it's not uncommon for it to cause problems for men.

Well.  Damn.  If we want two more pregnancies, which is going to make my endo that much worse, they say, then we'd better get busy.

We are thinking and hoping that we can get me pregnant before anything gets started with Husby.  That gives me 9 months of relief.  And morning sickness is something I'd gladly take over this pain.  Morning sickness sucks and all - but it didn't shut me down like this pain does.

We can bank some sperm in case Husby does wind up with issues and we decide we want that third pregnancy.

But the endo.  The endo getting worse.  The endo even staying the same.  That just sucks.

My endo is everywhere.  It's not just outside or even inside the ovaries.  It's on my colon.  Endo, as a matter of course, creates adhesions.  So the endo on my colon has adhesions.  Adhesions cause organs to stick together.  The colon is an organ that likes to move around depending on what it's up to.  But the colon sticking together makes it less likely to move which means pain as things move around in there.  I have endo up by my stomach, on my lungs, by my liver.  It is everywhere.  All these organs it's attached to like to move and adjust and settle and shuffle and I have endo and it's associated adhesions trying to lock everything into place.  And the endo keeps growing.

But yeah...this aint cancer.  I have a fix at the end of the baby-making.  Of course, that fix fails for as much as 40% of women, they say.  It seems shutting down progesterone production is the fix.  But what happens when you've had a hysterectomy and the endo is still causing problems.  Well, apparently endo cells can mimic the cells of the organs the endo has attached itself to.  So I've got to pray that my doc gets every last spot of endo zapped with the laser.  I'm gonna guess if he doesn't, and I'll know by the pain that still exists, that means more surgery.  Yay.

I'm so all over the place.  I'm not learning much, either.  

I think one of the things I now know is that my problem was never my appendix, it was endo.  My problem was never my gallbladder, it was endo.  When my problem arose the third time I knew without a doubt that whatever it is that's going on, it's directly attached to ovulating.  Given that ovulation is the point in time that you switch from estrogen dominance to progesterone dominance, that makes sense, since progesterone is what causes the uterine lining to grow.  The uterine lining doesn't care whether it's inside the uterus or whether it's on the pancreas.  My appendix problem "started" exactly when I ovulated.  The first ovulation since having the twins.

That surgery was exploratory.  So it was justifiable and warranted.  They removed the appendix to be pro-active.  Oddly, the pathology peeps said the appendix was bad.  My surgeon, on the other hand, swears it wasn't.  I believe him, now.  They removed the appendix but they also cleaned up adhesions and endo.  And that was how the endo was diagnosed.  Endo does not typically show up on imaging, ultrasound, MRI, CT, etc.  Doesn't show.  Typically, they need to go in to see it.  And most women don't have it that bad that exploratory surgery is needed.

So then, a month later, new pain.  It was pinned down to the gallbladder.  I worked exclusively with the general surgeon who removed my appendix.  I had no stones on a CT and nothing questionable on ultrasound.  He ordered a HIDA scan which showed my gallbladder to be over-active.  The pathology peeps, the same ones who said my healthy appearing appendix was diseased, then said I had stones, or rather microcrystals.  Would microcrystals ever have caused a problem?  Who knows.  But the pain I was complaining of that caused my surgeon to order the HIDA scan is still there.  I now think I should have been working with my ob/gyn, too.

Why?  Because endo LOVES scar tissue.  So having another surgery gave the endo more fuel.

A month later, new pain again.  This time, I did take it to my ob/gyn.  He said "hurry up and get pregnant".  Is it pancreatitis, this time, I wondered?  He said who cares if it is.  More surgery is going to make it worse, surgery isn't the answer for pancreatitis, pain control is, so here's some pain control for the endo.  In the meantime, lets see a GI to make sure he agrees.  But my ob/gyn asked me to do something.  He asked me to not tell the GI what we knew from the gyn side of things.  

I like my GI.  He's a smart guy and for a GI he's pretty normal.  He put it all together.  I didn't tell him that my pain always kicks off with ovulation and that I then stay in pain until I'm done with my period.  Nope, he figured that out himself.  And he said the same thing.  He thinks the endo has gotten itself into nooks and crannies of the colon and intestines.  And more surgery is going to make it worse.

I don't think I needed my gallbladder removed.  The good news is, having it removed has not caused me any grief in the typical sense of gallbladder removal.  Some people wind up with incessant diarrhea as their bodies figure out to let the liver do all the work.  I haven't missed a beat there.  It just hasn't relieved pain.  As my FIL said, speaking of his own case, it's hard to find a surgeon that doesn't recommend surgery.

I don't think I can do anything without checking with my ob/gyn first.  I asked him after the miscarriage if he could be my PCP and he said no, too busy.  And that makes sense.  But I swear, everything ever wrong with me always ties to my reproductive system.  And he is amazing.

I struggled with him when I was pregnant.  He is one of those docs that believes you can't know anything about your own body.  He's seen enough pregnancies to know x, y, and z, and I'd better keep my opinions to myself and just learn from him.  I struggled with that like crazy.  I wanted an open conversation, not a "I'm the doctor and you're the patient" type of exchange.  But by the end of the pregnancy he seemed to have found a respect for me and I'd settled in to just let things be.  I went so far as trying to find a new doc during the pregnancy, at 5 months, because his antics were driving me buggy.  But in the end, I settled myself down.  And that respect he found for me...it ultimately did lead to open conversation.

I will never forget him walking into an appt with Husby and I somewhere around the beginning of the eight month and saying "what do you guys drink in the morning, you're always so happy?"  We'd been there for 2 hours already and he was running behind.  I started all my appts at the end of the pregnancy with a non-stress test and then had an ultrasound every other week.  That particular day, the boys would not behave for the non-stress test, which meant I was going to have to do it again, our ultrasound tech had been double booked, and our doc was running late.  Most people in that situation would have been irritated and grumpy.  But there we were, still smiling and just going with the flow.  His nurse, the non-stress test nurse, our ultrasound tech - a friend, and our doc were all just baffled that we were still happy.

We said things like why be not happy?  We were there for a great reason, things were going well, everyone involved truly wanted to help, and at the end of the day, being irritated, stressed or grumpy wasn't going to fix it and was actually just going to make it worse.

But it was because of things like that which allowed my doc to start to have a conversation with us instead of just tell me "my way or the highway".  And I'm glad I stuck it out with him.  Had I switched to a new doc, when this whole problem with the endo arose back in March, someone that didn't know me so well would have said I was making shite up.  So many of the docs I dealt with when I was admitted for pain did have that attitude.  Other docs in my doc's practice have that attitude if I have to call on a weekend, for example, and talk to the on-call about something. My doc has been going to bat for me through this, something that wouldn't have happened if we hadn't built up the rapport we did through that pregnancy.

I think the hardest part of this endo is not knowing how much worse it's going to get before it can get better.  What if it is affecting fertility now?  We got pregnant so easily and quickly with the twins.  If we can do that again, I can be pregnant by the end of this month.  And that would be good, Husby and I think.  Me pregnant and therefore relieved of pain, even if just temporarily.  Me out of pain can help Husby more!  Even with morning sickness and the low energy that comes with the first trimester.  I'd be better for helping Husby in that state than the state I'm in.

I literally have days where if one of the boys cries in the middle of the night I cannot drag myself out of bed to go to him.  I am beyond exhausted 100% of the time that I am dealing with this pain.  One symptom of endo is hypothyroidism.  I'm pretty sure that's me right now.  I have no energy whatsoever.  Do you know how devastating it is to not be able to muster up an ounce of energy to help my baby boys?  Yes, Husby gets up with them and he knows in an instant whether I'm up and can handle it or whether I need him to take it.  And when he needs to take it, he just does.  But I hate that I have to do that to them.  It's not like that every night.  It directly ties into how much pain I've dealt with in the past 24 hours.  In the 1.5 weeks I get pain free, it's not an issue - and to make up for what Husby gets forced on him, I try to handle it ALL in that pain-free window.  But it certainly doesn't cause warm fuzzy feelings for me about my mothering abilities when I simply cannot do it.  

I think the low energy of the first trimester is better than what I feel right now.  When I was pregnant with the miscarriage and with the twins I swung to hyperthyroidism.  It was a weird hyper - my TSH was absurdly low and that was somehow stimulating proper T3 and T4 production.  But it was hyper and compared to right now - I felt good.  That was first trimester.  My second and third trimester with the twins I actually felt good.  I never feel good, right now.

It is hard to muscle through days when you don't feel good.  Everyone knows that.  But when it's day after day after day, it gets harder by that much more.  And when it comes to how well you can take care of your babies, it gets that much harder psychologically.

If pregnancy gives me relief, there's 9 months.  If we have a girl(s) with the next pregnancy, won't do a third.  

I interrupt the regularly scheduled program to bring you this...

So I want twins again.  I have been saying that pretty much all along.  Twin girls would be ideal, but a boy and a girl would work, too.  I've also been saying that Husby is scared to death of another set of twins.  Well, we talked awhile ago and he's embracing the idea, too.  Literally to the point that I think if we go in for our first ultrasound and hear it's a singleton, we are both going to be disappointed.  But it gets better.  Not only is Husby onboard with wanting twins again...his dad told him over the weekend "Son, I really hope you guys have twins again."  Husby asked why and his dad told him because we are good parents and we can handle it and he loves the idea of having that many more grandkids to spoil.  How cool is that.  

Back to regularly scheduled programming.

So if we don't have a girl, there'd be a third attempt.

Ok.  Assume we do the same spacing.  I have to be prepared for breastfeeding to not work again in spite of my claims I'll stick with it as I'll take those problems over this pain.  If it unfolds identically to this time, that's 4 more months, on top of the 9 pregnant, of relief.  And then 5 months of pain.  Doesn't sound too bad when you're talking about months and not days, eh?

Maybe it's a good thing we can't "remember" pain.

Anyway.  If we have the third pregnancy.  I'd be 40.  They won't do the hysterectomy at the same time as the c-section.  I'd have to heal and be finished breastfeeding before they'd do that.  I don't know what I think about that.  Rough.  And yet not.  I believe the hysterectomy is going to have to be open.  Given that I have endo in far off places, I believe I'm gonna get lucky.  Ha.  Not.

I'm 36 right now.  Close to 37, but still 36.  So 3+ years to go.  If we do a second and third pregnancy.  That could potentially mean 18 months of relief in that 3 years.  Plus minimum of 4 for breastfeeding.  Times 2.  8 months or relief in that 3 years.  18+8 is 26 out of 36 months.  We'll say 3.5 years to have a concrete number for coping.  26 out of 42 months.

And this is assuming we get pregnant right as we say 'we want to'.

I hope fertility hasn't become an issue with this.

And how will Husby's stuff factor into this?  Will he end up infertile?  Will we need to draw on the frozen sample?  Yes, I want a girl that much.  Yes, I am that scared I will never have a girl.

Wow.  To go from making twins quickly and efficiently to worrying that I am already having fertility issues and that Husby might wind up with fertility issues.  Just wow.

This blog really isn't at all what I thought it was going to be.  Odd.  If you read it all, I'm sorry.  If you read any of it, I'm sorry.  It really is just for me to remember as I get further down the road.  I want to look back when I'm 42 and feeling great and start to wonder what all the fuss about endo was and know that I did the right thing by having a full hysterectomy after having all our kids.  I want to know that premature menopause was worth it.  Today, feeling like I do, barely being able to do what I have to do let alone what I want to do, I am ready for that hysterectomy but I can't today because today I want babies more.  At some point that sentence won't be true. I hope it is after we are done having babies.  And I hope we have no issues having them.  Endo has me that scared....

06/04/2012: Accounting 101

I declared a week and a half ago that Husby and I would cease eating out immediately.  I updated last week with last weekend's outcome.  And so here I am to update for the past week's outcome.


We have "eaten out" twice.  Yep.  Two times.


Time #2 - Husby's parents came down to visit us yesterday and they took us out to lunch.  They live much further inland than we do, we actually live on a bay and the majority of "fresh gulf coast seafood" that makes it into Texas comes in through our bay.  Since it seems like it's probably fresher where we live than where they live, they wanted seafood and so seafood we did.  I could have chosen much better than I did, but given that it was my only true eating out for the week, it truly was a treat and I actually felt I could let it be just that.


Speaking of treats, Sarah made a comment on my first update blog for this exercise that "I personally had to stop thinking about food as "treats." For me, it was all or nothing. I had to look at it as nourishment."  That's an interesting idea and after reading that, I had to mull it over.  I played with that and twisted and turned and finagled the idea to see what I really thought of it.  And I can't do that.  A treat is a treat, to me.  I know I can find nutritional value in a bowl of ice cream.  Calcium, for example.  But if I start finding nutritional value in ice cream and soda (a somewhat hydrating beverage), then it develops the potential for allowing my brain to say "I need more calcium today so I'd better have more ice cream".  Ice cream is a treat, to me.  Yes, it is a source of calcium.  But no, it is not ok to have it every day.  It is a treat.  It is something to eat sparingly and it's consumption, to me, should imply a calorie deficit elsewhere.  Meaning, I have to earn it, in a sense.  Whether that deficit was created by me working out or whether it developed from eating less rice with dinner.


Going back to my old method of "calorie banking" and not "calorie counting", at the end of the week, for me, Monday through Sunday, I should have consumed no more than 8400 calories.  Whether I did that as 1200 a day every day or 1000 a day for four days, 1500 a day for two, and 1400 for one day of my week doesn't really matter.  I know, for me, that if I eat more than 8400 calories in a week that I am not losing and I'm probably actually gaining.  But how I do in a day matters less than how I do in a week.  I can have a treat or two in a week.  But I cannot have a treat a day.  And I have to understand that the foods that aren't part of my main nutrition, protein, veggies, and complex carbs, those are treats, and I need to eat them sparingly - and they are something I can look forward to.


It was an interesting "thing" to think about.


Anywho.  So I'm sure you noticed I mentioned time #2 and haven't yet mentioned time #1.  I didn't forget and I did that on purpose.


Time #1 was Wednesday night.  We went to see our PCP Wednesday afternoon for Husby's news.  The appt was at 3:40.  We weren't seen until 5:30.  We spent 45 minutes talking to the doc about the news.  And once we left there, it was a race to get the boys before we were "late" and therefore paying the late fee which is 5% of their tuition for every five minutes we are late.  That would get expensive FAST!


That's not why we "ate out".  No matter what, we had to get the boys first.  And we didn't "eat out". I went home with the boys and Husby went to pick up "his" comfort food - which is an appetizer from Saltgrass Steakhouse.  We knew "we" were after comfort food and given the news and therefore the circumstances "we" decided it was ok.  It's one thing to pursue comfort food and NOT realize that's what you're after.  But, to us, wanting comfort food and KNOWING that, it "can" be ok.  And while it was eating out and therefore it was the expense as well as the whole "not as healthy as a home-cooked meal" thing, it wasn't bad.  We split that appetizer and finished off with a plain salad for dinner.  That coulda been a helluva lot worse!


So there's my update for the week.  We did alright.  We ate at home for every other meal last week.  Planned ahead and took our lunches.  Drank our smoothies for breakfast and had homemade waffles for breakfast over the weekend.


We have no Doc appts this week so presumably that means no bad news for us.  We have all our meals planned for this week as well as leftovers.


And it feels good.  No, the scale isn't moving yet.  I am still drinking way too damned much soda right now.  But I am moving that in the right direction by drinking more and more water each day.  I've already gone from 3-4 sodas a day to 1-2.  Last week, two days, I actually had none.


So that's what I know.  Progress.


Not much other news to report.  "We" should get a call from the doc this week about Husby's initial visit with an endocrinologist.  And "we" are guessing we'll know more when that happens.    I still have to talk about what I wanted to talk about last week before I got into what I needed to talk about.  And I'm back to thinking I need to talk about it - moreso because I want to articulate it and see what else comes out.  I've alluded to endometriosis sucks.  And I think one of the things that sucks about what Husby has coming is that it means I get to "deal" with my crap that much longer.  To do anything to help me shuts down baby-making and we aren't done with that. But not having any end in sight, suddenly, hurts as much as the physical pain I always am dealing with now.  Yes, you see?  A whole 'nother blog is developing so I'll save this for tomorrow.


I hope y'all have a great week!  I plan to.  But we'll see how it goes...

06/01/2012: Thank you

A thousand times over.  Thank you!


It's funny.  As Jacquie described.  Numbess.  As the numbness wore off, I just knew, just knew THIS is why I blog.  There has been support here all along and it never fails.  People come and people go, yes.  But I have a core group of people I just know I can rely on here.  Through the triumphs and trials of the band, through the excitement of twins, and now this, the support here is undieing.  I was "gone" for 9'ish months with teensie little excerpts to let you know I was still there - and with no support from me at all, for you - and yet, y'all are still here for me.


I do not have friendships like that in real life.  I should.  That I know.  They are invaluable and they help in times like these.  But I do not.  I actually believe that someday I will.  But today, here and now, it has not worked that way thus far.  I have friendships.  I have people I have things in common with that I love to spend time with.  But I do not have that one person I can just call when I'm down.  Everyone is too busy for that.  I have people in my life that mean to be like that for me - as do I, for them, but it just doesn't work.


Anywho, a couple things.

1. Jacquie - email coming.  Good God that makes me cry.  
2. Barbara - I know you know.  Boy do I know you know.  Thank you.  Great advice and it touches me more than you know.  Such a simple thing - take a walk in a park, take a bath.  But simple things are confounding right now.
3. Sarah - when I read that last night, man, it was exactly what I needed.  You sent that right as I was gathering info.
1. I know it's ok to be mad.  And I'm letting myself be.  I think what's hard is this isn't only my feelings about what is happening to my husband.  This is also my feelings about what happened to my mom.  Baggage.  
4. Drazil - I know you think telling Fred is the right idea.  I understand why you think that.  I know you think you'd tell Rambo what you're feeling and dealing with if this were happening to him, too.  I promise you, you wouldn't.  
1. So much to say about that one.  It's at the heart of why I can't be turning to Fred.  Which is at the heart of why this hurts so bad.

And that will be the rest of this blog.  It's exactly what I need to get out, what I can't stew over.  It's exactly what I have to understand and address so that I can be all that I can be for Fred.

Fred is my everything.  I turn to him for everything.  I don't normally care that I don't have close friendships because I have Fred and Fred is who I want.  Fred is my everything.  He is my greatest ally, my greatest friend, my true supporter, and so much more.  He is the person I can tell all my deep dark secrets to.  And through all the everythings, I am the same for him.  It's such an awesome relationship.  

And here I am with fears and worries about him.

I know my sweetheart.  If I tell him his cancer scares me to death and I'm freaked out and mad and all that I am...he will take that to heart and feel guilty.

But he didn't "do" this.  I can't be the one to make him for guilty for something he never would have chosen.

If I tell my sweetheart what I'm feeling, I am taking his energy, his focus away from him.

I can't do that.

Drazil, in honor of what you "said", I did talk to him this morning.  I talked to him and told him why I won't be talking to him about this.  I told him if he asks a direct question, I'll answer it.  But if it comes to me being selfish and needing to vent about what I feel, I won't be taking it to him.

That hurts me as much as the cancer does.  I take everything to him.  To have to with-hold from him just hurts.

But you know what he said?

He said...

Thank you.

He agrees with me.  He lets me be selfish in every other arena of life.  He pampers me and spoils me and loves to do it.  He went through a pregnancy with me letting it be all about me (almost all, anyway).  He went through two surgeries with me and countless doctors visits and watched as I was poked and prodded and tested all to hell to learn I have endometriosis from hell - and he let it be all about me.

Letting this be about him is the least I can do.

It doesn't mean I don't have feelings and emotions and fears and anger and frustrations about it all.  But he cannot be my outlet.

He internalizes most everything.  If I don't ask him a direct question about how he's feeling about four months of bedrest, for example, he doesn't tell anyone.  I did ask him.

I am not an internalizer.  So, needing an outlet of some sort, I know this blog is it for me.

This blog is the place I go where people don't judge me.  If they don't like me, they don't have to follow.  This blog is how I found all y'all.  And (as of this point in time) seven comments have lifted me up and made me feel like I can handle this.

I believe he will ask me periodically, when he feels like he can handle it without my answer distracting him.  But just like I think, me putting my stuff on him is a distraction that isn't worth the potential price.

And, of course, a lot, A LOT of what I'm feeling has everything to do with what happened with my mom.

I will never tell anyone what I endured in caring for my mom.  You don't want to know what I had to do, what I saw, how it all went down.  You don't want to think that a human being could endure what she did, and that her loved ones had to escort her through that hell.  My mom's death was difficult to say the least.  She was 5'7" and by the time she died she weighed 67 pounds.  I cannot tell you how hard it is to literally watch your favorite person wither away.  If withering were the only difficult component of that, that'd be one thing.  But it wasn't.  It was a breeze compared to the "other" things she endured.

Cancer hurts.  And I am so scared of my husband enduring even 1/32nd of what my mom did.

Here's where it's good news.  It's thyroid cancer.  And thyroid cancer is "very curable".  

And that's why I can't talk to Fred about this.  My "baggage" is causing my reaction.  My baggage is making me unreasonable right now.

Odds are, this is "early".  Because of his age, it can't be higher than stage 2.  Stage 1 would mean surgery and he's done.  99% survival rate at 20 years out.  Stage 2 would mean surgery and radioactive iodine and he's done.  99% survival rate at 20 years out.  Odds are, he's gonna be fine.

I wasn't unreasonable to start.  Weds night, we were "fine".  Yeah, not the greatest of days and would have rather heard different news.  We call his dad.  His response, very nice.  They'll be there to help us with the babies on the day of surgery.  Good.  That's truly about all we need.  But then we call his mom.  Good Lord but the earth was crumbling around us.  She literally had to put the phone down and bawl her eyes out, a loud, earth-shattering cry that we heard all of.

Well crap.

Then we call our best friend.  Not happy to hear the news but not unreasonable.

Well, meanwhile, his mom sends an email to all of Fred's family yesterday.  Please pray.  This is devastating.  We don't know how it will all end.

What?

You know what that did to us?  It made both Fred and I feel like we were under-reacting.

All the while, I'm coping with this baggage from my mom, trying to not over-react to a "very curable" cancer.  And after all that, after Fred's cousins and aunts and uncles start sending emails saying "Good Lord, but we're here for you, we'll do whatever we can, we are praying for you"...two things happened to me.

1. I got mad.  NOT ONE person said "we are praying for your family, for your sons".
2. All that I saw and did with and for my mom came flooding back tenfold and I began to think "well, shit, it's cancer and cancer does this"

The good news is, in talking with Fred this morning, he realized a couple things.  

1. He made a statement to me yesterday that "he now knows what it's like to deal with cancer".
1. I got a little mad at that.  No, he doesn't.
1. It's like a mom of a 4 week old baby saying she loves being a mom.
1. At 4 weeks, you don't know much about being a mom.  At 4 weeks, you are mostly a care-giver.  Being a mom really starts when you start teaching right from wrong, safety, courtesy, etc. etc. etc. ad nauseum.  Changing diapers and feeding - that isn't "a mom".  That's a care-giver.  The mom of the baby will, of course, feel more about doing that for the baby and it is special and it is definitely the beginning of mommiehood.  But that act of changing a diaper, that doesn't really let you understand what being a mom is.  I am a mom, yes, but there is soooo much I have not uncovered yet that will only come with time.  I am nowhere near the same realm as women who have 4 year olds or 8 year olds or 11 year olds.  I do not yet understand the world those women, those moms, live in.  I am a baby-mom.  And eventually I'll become a toddler, too.  And eventually I'll go through the various stages.  And when kids #3 and #4 come along I will probably know more about what it means to be a mom.  But right now, I'm a baby-mom.  Right now I know the love, the tribulations.  I do not know the trials at all!
2. He will know what it's like to deal with cancer very soon.  He is getting indoctrinated right now.  What he "knows" today will change tomorrow as this journey unfolds.  But he doesn't "know" in the sense that a women with breast cancer post-mastectomy knows.  And a women post-mastectomy doesn't know in the sense that a 5 year survivor does.  When he gets to a future point, he will truly know.  Today, he is learning.  Today, he knows what he feels about the diagnosis.  But the diagnosis doesn't even begin to touch what he will ultimately deal with.
2. I know this is harsh.  It's what I feel.  I would never tell him this.  No good would come of it for him.
2. That statement made me realize how to summarize my experience with cancer concisely.
1. "I have been dealing with cancer since 2002."
2. No, I've never had it.  I have not endured the physical aspect of cancer.  But I sure have experienced it in every other way.
3. I told him last night that he does not know what it is like to stand beside the person with cancer.
4. It is hard.  It is hard because very few people ever think of that person.  But in a spousal relationship, this is happening to the spouse every bit as much as it is to the person who has cancer.  And more times than not, the spouse is left holding the baggage when the person who had cancer's journey is over.  More people die from cancer than survive it.  It's why we are so scared of the damn word!
5. I want to never stand beside someone with cancer again.  Once was too much.  And yet here I am for journey number two.  Journey number one ended horribly for me.  It opened new doors that changed my life, and good things came of it, but it was a horrible ending.  I don't want my favorite people to endure this.  Favorite person number one did.  I found a new favorite person.  And now he gets it.  Apparently it's bad to be Lori's favorite person!
3. In talking to him this morning, bringing that statement up, again, as well as a lot of points that are in here, he realized I'm probably more of a guide for him than he realized.
1. For example, left and right we are already hearing "let me know how I can help".
2. Don't.
3. It's that simple.
4. I learned this from my mom.
1. Most people want to help because it makes "them" feel better in spite of the fact that generally they are in the way and they aren't truly helping.
2. Generally they are in the way and become "visitors" and not helpers which means more work for the true caregive, the spouse or the children or the parent, etc.
3. Sure, bring a casserole over or send a card.  Otherwise, let us be.
4. The more closely we stay to normal, the more stress Fred avoids.
5. If you can't sustain what you are doing for us now, after this is over, then don't do it.  

Yesterday, Fred's mom called.  Yesterday our best friend called.  These two people NEVER call.  Fred's mom, really, NEVER.  Best friend, occasionally, when he needs a recipe, for example, but he texts and chats.  He does not call.

This is weird behavior.  We do not want that.  I told Fred this morning he CAN tell them to stop.  And I think he should.  In both cases, when we know something we'll tell you.  We will not leave them in the dark.  These phone calls...they are to make THEM feel better.  They are not really about Fred.  We don't want that.  Fred told me this morning, if they call again today, he will tell them to knock it off.  I'm beating him to the punch on the best friend.  His mom, well, now, that's on him.

Funny.  As I read that again, maybe it shouldn't be on Fred to tell his mom to stop.  I should shoulder more of the stress than he should.  When my grandmother started acting wonky with my mom, for example, my mom didn't have the heart to tell her to knock it off.  My step-dad stepped in.  My grandmother was going to hate whoever told her to chill and both my mom and step-dad agreed better him than her.  She didn't need the stress that would come of worrying about that.  Hmm...interesting.  

And that is why I write.  I typed out the whole thing, proof-read the whole thing, and that jumped at me.  I am not protecting Fred from stupid stressors by saying "You deal with it".  She already hates me, what's one more log on the fire?  She doesn't need to be mad at Fred for that and he doesn't need to be worried about if she is or isn't!

So anyway.  There's my thoughts today.  Big dump - and probably the worst of it, to be honest.  I already feel a gazillion times better.  And I know that if and when I am down, I can come back and read this and remember.  Or I can read comments and remember.  

If anyone wants to reach out privately, please do.  ldswims0808@gmail.com - if you don't already have an email address for me.  And it would mean a lot to me if you did, that I promise.

Disclaimer.  These are my thoughts and feelings.  They are not wrong and they are not always forefront on my mind.  This blog went all over the place and real truths, for me, were shared.  Please do not judge or tell me I am wrong.  I am happy to "hear" perspectives and welcome that, but I do not welcome "hearing" perspectives if it is meant to relay that I am wrong.  I am not up for a debate, just a sharing, if that makes sense.