How Not To Fuel the Fire

I have been a plus-size woman for the majority of my adult life.  Some years bigger than others (ahem…some DECADES bigger than others), but with the exception of a few years here and there, I have carried quite a bit of extra weight.  I have been extremely lucky, in that I have developed very few medical problems this extra weight.

Yes, I have sleep apnea and slightly high blood pressure, but both are easily treatable — one with a CPAP machine that I am devoted to wearing every time I lie down, and the blood pressure with a tiny dose of medication.  I again say, I have been extremely lucky, and I don’t really lose sight of that.  I know things could be much worse for my physical health because of my size (oy, and the smoking), but thanks to good genetics or the moon pulling the tides or what-have-you, I don’t suffer much with physical ills.

When I first started this blog over seven years ago, I was quite overweight, although not nearly to the degree I am now, and I actually DID have some health problems.  I joined Weight Watchers, dropped a bunch of weight, and walked three to ten miles a day (every day).  Unfortunately, I had a knee energy when I (foolishly) decided I was skinny enough to start running, and the scale has been on the uptick ever since.

For the past few months I have been feeling quite miserable physically, and I finally went and saw my primary care provider, who ran a bunch of labs.  It turned out that my fasting glucose was quite high, and she immediately decided that I had diabetes and she needed to prescribe Metformin (a diabetic medication) and all would be well.

Well, hellz no, lady!  With the 19 pills I take every morning and 24 I take every night for mental health issues, I’m not going to just throw another pill on top of things, all willy nilly.  SO, I asked her to test my A1C (it is more of an average of your blood sugar levels over a much longer period of time, rather than just the one instance).

And my A1C was NORMAL and my mononucleosis test came back NEGATIVE and so I am celebrating because…yay…I haven’t totally screwed my body up yet!  Now, of course, this doesn’t explain why I feel so awful physically, but at least I know that most of my labs are normal, so this is great news.

I spoke with my provider’s nurse, and my provider would like me to mostly eliminate carbohydrates and eat more fruits and vegetables.  I am going to take this under consideration, but I don’t want to do anything too extreme as I have a history of eating disorder, including but not limited to extreme preoccupation with food and calories.

I have not participated in *hardly* any eating disorder activity since LarBear and I have been together, and I want to keep it that way.  I don’t want to get really focused on a certain diet that I need to keep, and end up back where I used to be — all-consumed by anything that went into my mouth (and, similarly, that which was purged).  BUT, I do want to be a healthier person and I really do want to feel better physically so I can do more things.

There is the push and pull, now, that I need to lose weight and exercise more, and I do know that.  I am grateful I have yet to eff up the one body that I have been given on this planet (although I have really put it through quite the cycles of abuse) and so I feel very thankful for that.  I don’t want to worsen things, and turn that next A1C that I have to have drawn in two months into a problem number, but as stated before, don’t want to restart the eating disorder cycle (because it is the biggest bitch ever to get out of).

Any constructive thoughts are welcomed, desired, hoped-for, et cetera, ad nauseum!  😀

To Your Health

Living with a mental illness and being accident and illness-prone leave you spending long hours in doctor’s offices, in waiting rooms, in line to get your third CT this year or more “routine” labs, at the surgeon’s, at the medical supply company.  And then there’s the routine stuff — the dentist, pdoc appointment, therapy over phone, therapy in person, renew prescription, flu shot, ear infections, the dentist again.

You get the point and I am personally at a point where it feels like all I do is talk to medical and mental health professionals who prescribe tests and medication and specialists.  While all of this does aggravate me (obviously), I am grateful that I have good health insurance.  When I sigh about heading to the next appointment, I think to myself, ‘well at least I can, I have that option.’

I’m not sure what I’d do if I didn’t have any insurance.  I would probably be dead, with two broken feet.  No access to mental health care is unthinkable, unacceptable to me — as someone who has worked on the inside of the system and been a customer on the outside — because it is absolutely vital to many persons, even in a city this size, that meds, therapy, community support saves lives and improves lives and can in many cases make all the difference.

I picture me unmedicated, with my broken foot not in a cam walker, with all the gastro problems of the last year unsolved, no flu shot, no antibiotics for all the ear infections, and so on and so on and, well — I actually can  picture that.  I think you have to live the life of the uninsured or underinsured to really feel the strong pull for healthcare, that desire we all have to be (mostly) well, physically and mentally).

I spent years being underinsured and racking up credit card debt and owing debt to my parents just to pay for my medications.  Then a program was found and it turned out that if QoB laid enough battle down, she could get me on this program.  I’ve been on it for quite a while now, and have since never had to worry about prescription drug cost or what would happen if I broke my foot (again).   And now that I am on SSDI and have two years in, I just started Medicare which will improve my treatment options quite a bit.

What I want to know is — why is it that you must be disabled or elderly before you can get some really good insurance working for you?

Obsessive Tendencies Rosa

The theme of today’s Daily Prompt is:

Can’t Get it Out of My Head!

They ask “have you ever become obsessed with something?”

Me?  Obsessed?  Obsessive tendencies Rosa?  Ha!

It varies from day to day, but five constant obsessions include:

1) DSB’s health.  We’ve been in the ER most of the afternoon and evening, and DSB has pneumonia.  Like, in a bad BAD way.  They admitted him and, while we waited for a bed, he forced me to go home, laying on the guilt with, “the dogs need for someone to be home.  We left them in the middle of a thunderstorm.”  Gah.  So here I am, at home.  DSB is still sitting in the ER waiting on a bed.  And I am (in my head) writing my memoir, which at this point is stuck in the litany of illnesses, surgeries, accidents, and mishaps that DSB has had in the two years that I have known him.

2)  Blogging.  Not blogging well, mind you.  But blogging.  Putting something up every day, even if I have to do it at 6:00am in my underwear or at 9:00pm before I’ve had dinner.  Even if it’s complete drivel and no  one reads it.  Hey, I’m blogging.  Daily.  I’d like to get away from doing “list and picture posts,” but I think I’m becoming obsessed with those, too.

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3) Jelly beans. That’s right, it’s Easter bunny time and I am ALL about the jelly beans.  Year-round, actually, but right now, they’re everywhere!  Jelly Belly is my favorite, but I even like the $1 packages you can buy at Dollar General.  Jelly beans are my kryptonite.

These are Jelly Bellies…taken from Wikipedia of all places

4) My pups.  They mean everything to me and we treat them like they are itty bitty royals.  Treats, snacks, good (and expensive!) dog food, always up to date on shots and heartworm and flea/tick, fresh water, and a dog food bowl that never stands empty.  I can’t explain the love I have for these pups.  See below for yourself:

Kizzer Wizzer licking her chops

Rascal in Kansas waters for the first time in his life

Kizzie and Rascal wishing they didn’t have to be on leashes

5) Sticking to my schedule.  If there is only one non-medication thing I can do to treat my bipolar, to keep the bipolar demons at bay, it’s sticking to a schedule.  I have a wake-up schedule and an evening schedule and a bedtime schedule.  I take my meds at the same time each day.  I go to work on the same days, structure my days off, and generally not allow myself any down-time to brood over things.  If I’m not blogging or catching up on the 210 (yikes!!!) blogs I follow, I’m reading a book or scrubbing my kitchen or chatting up DSB.  Idle time is not good for me, and I learned that the hard way.

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I actually keep a day-planner. Love!

So, down goes another “list and picture post.”  They really are addictive!

Oh, Bother!

I am less than thrilled with the brains behind my insurance company at this point.  I called them to see about getting into Weight Watchers and, contrary to the literature on their website, they only provide the enrollment fee and four weeks of the program.  For those of you who are not familiar, WW is more of a long-term program.  I thought they could at least pay six months or a year.  Talk about disappointment!  So, for almost $40 a month, I could do WW longer-term and have my first month free.  It doesn’t sound like a lot of money, but I just can’t afford it right now.  I can barely afford to put gas in the car and buy a decent amount of groceries.  Frustrating, but I WILL persevere.  Because that’s what we do in our family, we persevere.

For more disappointment in the medical/health arena, DSB saw his primary care physician on Friday.  What a joke!  He dismissed DSB’s problems with anxiety totally, told him that sertraline (Zoloft) does not cause stomach upset or have sexual side effects, and was getting ready to just wrap up the exam without doing anything and then I started to get into it with him.  It ended up that, wow, after actually examining DSB, it is possible that his gallbladder is going bad.  He is scheduled to get some sort of imaging scan done in the next few weeks and we will go from there.  As for the anxiety and the side effects from sertraline, the doctor took him off that and put him on BuSpar.  Hopefully that will help.  Time can only tell!

In even more depressing health/medical news, my follow-up appoinment on my foot is Monday and I get to go get an x-ray and then advice from my PCP, who just so happens to be the same idiot that works with DSB.  I have consulted my physical therapist sister and my Internet-research-queen mother, and will likely be asking to be referred to an orthopaedic specialist, unless it has miraculously healed.  Stay tuned for more updates on that one, because I’m sure I’ll be pissed after the appointment Monday.

The Ritalin continues to treat me well.  My moods have been stable, my energy high, and my focus clear.  I am so annoyed with myself for going off of it, but am very pleased that I was able to make a quick turn-around.  This is not always the case when taking oneself off a medication…I know from experience!

After three days of QoB spearheading the mission, my house is all nice and clean!  I helped where I could, but mostly did a lot of supporting.  I’m still pretty gimp and have zero stamina from all of the time I have had to spend sitting around.  I did fold and hang and generally put away all clean laundry and am still working on the huge pile that awaits to be washed.  I can do laundry for the most part sitting down, so I’m glad I’m not totally helpless with that one.  

Now, I have a lot of laundry, and a lot of reading of blogs I follow to do.  I made it up to be current with my Grey’s Anatomy, so any suggestions of a new show to watch are appreciated!