Updatedness

These are definitely the cutest shorts I've ever owned.

Hey, y'all!

Did ya miss me?

Listen, I warned you that I had no idea whether or not I was going to stick to any sort of schedule, so you can't be mad at me for posting sporadically. At least, that's what I'm telling myself, anyway.

So here's what's going on.

My first appointment with my new primary care physician (PCP) went well. It also resulted in 4 new appointments. One was just blood work, and I've already had it. Then I had my annual, an EMG, and a follow up, but we've rescheduled and set up my annual and follow up for the same day. Those are in July.

The EMG is to test the nerves in my arms.

When we moved here, two years ago this August, I spent an entire week on my hands and knees scrubbing floors and cabinets, and packing boxes. Then, the day of the move, we loaded and unloaded the truck in two hours. Then I unpacked and organized the vast majority of the new house in two days.

And then my fingertips were numb for months.

I didn't go to the doctor because my doctor, by this point, was an hour drive away, and if I'm to be honest, I didn't like her. She didn't listen to me when I tried to explain to her my issues with food and mental illness. She just made assumptions based on her experience with other people, patted me on the arm, and said, "You'll be fine."

Then the numbness went away, and I figured I didn't need to go to the doctor.

Since then, it's been an on again, off again struggle. There are nights that my hands go numb and keep me up. There are days when I can't do all the cleaning, gardening, knitting, whatever, that I'd like to do because my hands go numb. There are times when I'm out of commission for a day or so because I've done "too much" with my hands and my arms hurt from shoulders to fingertips.

What constitutes "too much" varies from day to day. Sometimes, it's flipping eggs for breakfast. Sometimes, it's spending the entire day using them. (I was going to say, "doing hand-heavy activities," but really, what activities—that you can actually call activities—aren't hand-heavy?)

So I'm getting them checked and hoping that I haven't let it go too long. I don't want to have to stop doing things I like doing (gardening, knitting, etc.) because my stupid hands won't cooperate.

The doctor put me on a med that I can't spell because my bottom blood pressure number is always high. It makes me pee and sweat a lot to rid my body of the salt at greater speeds. I already peed a lot, so it wasn't that much of a change. I started taking that in May. Yesterday was the first day that I took my blood pressure and it wasn't high.

The doctor assumed I eat a lot of salt. I don't. I do eat more than I used to, but when I say, "more than I used to," I mean that I used to avoid salt like the plague. When I cooked my own meals, I didn't put salt in them (which I know is silly), and I didn't salt them after I cooked, either. I've changed that. I still don't salt after, but I've realized that some foods need salt while cooking to reach their potential (thanks, Food Network! lol), and that a little bit of salt isn't going to kill me.

Turns out, salt isn't my issue. My sodium levels are average. There are other issues that Big keeps telling me to wait for the doctor before I freak out about them. My blood work seems to indicate that I have diabetes and I may be in danger of a stroke.

So, great! Could I be more of a fat girl stereotype?

My health may be in jeopardy, and all I can think is, "Way to prove the fat haters right, L'il. You are awesome!" Bleh.

But I'm not sitting here feeling sorry for myself, or acting like I didn't know this was the road I was headed down. I've been emotional eating and eating to have something to do my whole life. It feels like I can't stop. I try, but I always eventually find myself binging uncontrollably.

I do mostly cook fresh (and have for years), and we don't buy as much garbage food as we used to. We don't eat fast food as often as we used to because the closest McDonalds is literal garbage, and the next closest fast food place is 30 minutes away. By that point, we might as well go somewhere nice, ya know? And we don't do that, either. But I do fry our food too often, and I use a lot of oil.

I've been working on a low fat meal plan. I don't know how well I'm doing. I need to start tracking what I eat again. That worked out well for me. I've been avoiding it, though, because the amount of guilt I feel when I decide to eat when I'm still hungry after I've consumed all of my "allowed" calories or sugar or fat is honestly triggering, and I always go through a period of starving myself before I finally do things "the right way." I'm tired of the cycle. I need to break out of it.

I also need to stop allowing myself to believe I'm not ready. I'm ready when I say I'm ready. Only way out is through.

We've been walking as often as possible. We didn't walk yesterday because Big had a doctor appointment. He was meeting his doctor for the first time. It went well. He really likes him. This is a huge deal because Big is worse about doctors than I am. Now that we have relatively decent insurance, and he likes his doctor, he'll be more inclined to go when he needs to, which is a huge relief for me. I'd like to not be a widow before I'm in my forties if we can avoid it.

Plus, what would life be without Big? Empty and flavorless, I imagine. He gives me the strength to struggle through each day and the desire to heal and become my best me, whoever that may be.

We're probably not going to walk today. It's been overcast all day, and the boy cat has a vet appointment. The little shit has scratched his head completely raw and bleeding. I've been keeping it clean, and putting Neosporin on it at the advice of a vet. He hates the Neosporin and will spend the entire day licking himself when I put it on him. It's not infected, and today, it looked okay when I looked at it last, but no matter what I do, he won't leave it alone. As soon as it starts to heal, he rips it open again. I'm hoping they can figure out how to treat him because so far, I'm having no luck.

Life happens. Sometimes, you have to skip something you need to be doing. But tomorrow, if something prevents us from going for a walk, I'm going to have to get on the hated elliptical.

Mostly I'm just mad. At myself, I mean. How could I let it get this far? Why did I let it get this far?

I did the I did lists. I haven't done one in a couple of days. I should probably get back to it. It's helping a lot. When I feel like I haven't done anything, I just look at the list, and see that I've actually gotten a lot done in a day, and I don't just sit on my ass and tweet all day, and that's a pretty big boost of confidence right there.

Over the weekend, I wrote a short journal entry instead, which I figure is a step forward. I haven't really journaled in ages. It was just because I wanted to keep the day somewhere to look back on and remember.

We went shopping over the weekend and got new shoes and some new clothes, and for the first time in a long time, I feel cute in my clothes. I'm still fat. I'm gaining weight, not losing. But I like the way the clothes make me look and feel, and so I'm not worrying about those things too much.

When we weren't shopping, we were just hanging out outside. We read on the deck, and toasted marshmallows for S'mores over the side burner on our grill, and just spent time enjoying the outdoors and each other. It was peaceful and romantic and I'm just really grateful for everything I have, and especially for Big.

We've decided we're going to live the shit out of this summer. We don't have a lot of money for miscellaneous fun because we're trying to pay off our debt and get our credit scores up, so what we can do is limited. But we're happiest in the woods, anyway, and we've found a few really nice places to hike where parking is still free.

I keep coming back to the fact that our cat has a booboo and we can afford to take him to the vet, so things are looking up on the financial front. I actually felt cute in my new shorts and shirt, yesterday, and that's a huge improvement on the self esteem front. I'm not convinced that I don't do anything but sit on my ass and tweet anymore because it's simply not true.

I'm moving forward. It feels good. I hope I can keep it up.