Category Archives: Health Stuff

Random Sunday bits

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* Diet/exercise update: I’ve been doing pretty well so far. Trying not to eat at night has been about as difficult as I expected, which is to say, VERY. I’m drinking a lot more water, although I’m probably still drinking too much Diet Coke. One step at a time, people. For me, Diet Coke is more addiction than habit, so that one’s a little tougher.

My sister talked me into trying out The Daily Plate to track my calories, and I guess I should’ve expected to be appalled by the amount of junk I was eating, but it still caught me by surprise. The website has its pros & cons: it doesn’t strike me as the most user-friendly, but on the plus side, it does have pretty much every food item imaginable in the database (even menus at chain restaurants). My main gripe with it, or any type of food journal, is that it’s just tedious to keep a log of every single food item you put in your mouth. (Of course, I also see the benefit, that it makes you think twice about it when you know you’re going to have to see the calories on the screen right in your face later.) I’m still debating on whether or not I’ll use it long-term.

I’ve worked out the last three days in a row. On Friday, I did pilates. Saturday, I did the first couch-to-5K workout (which was hard, but I survived), and then today I did the Biggest Loser Weight-Loss Yoga. Tomorrow it’s back to the couch-to-5K, and so on & so forth.

* We went to Target today and it was insane. We shop there all the time, so I didn’t account for the traffic increase on Sunday afternoon. That’s a mistake I won’t be repeating. But listen, I get that it’s August in North Carolina and it’s insanely hot outside, but y’all: wearing a teeny-tiny swimsuit cover-up and a pair of flip-flops (and nothing else) is not appropriate shopping attire. What happens if you have to bend over to pick up that 12-pack of soda? Lord help us all. And I’m not talking about one person, there were many women that I thought, “oh wow, she really should’ve put on a bra before leaving the house.” I saw lots of kids running around the store barefoot too, which, eww. Yuck. Seriously? Really, really not ok. I think we needed the fashion police up at Target today, is what I’m saying.

* Catie continues to be almost 100% successful at peeing in the potty (she had an accident in her Pull-Up at Target today, but it was her first mistake in 5 days, & she was distracted by the toy aisle, so I’m overlooking it). Still no poops in the potty, but I think she’ll get to it soon. I’ve been shaking her Pull-Ups into the potty so she’ll have the visual “this is where it’s supposed to go” clue. And she’s been acting out scenes in which one of her toys poops its diaper and she tells it, “no no, poop goes in da potty!” (my favorite was when Molly, one of her Thomas the Tank Engine trains, pooped her diaper; I can’t even begin to wrap my head around how that’d work).

* Random kid funny: Last night Beaumont climbed across Catie, trying to get within head-scratching distance of me. Somehow part of his giant cat self ended up on Catie’s foot, which made her irate. She screamed at him, “No, Bun-bun! It’s MY foot! It’s Catie’s!” I can’t explain why that made me laugh for the next 10 minutes, but god, it really did.

weighty issues

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I had a doctor’s appointment yesterday. I went to my OB/GYN and had my IUD taken out. So, yes, this means that technically we’re going to start trying for baby #2 – or at least, we’re no longer preventing the occurrence of baby #2. And I know that’s exciting, and yay! Squee! Baybeees!! But there’s something else about this doctor’s appointment that really bothered me, so we’ll leave the baby talk for another time (like, I don’t know, maybe after I get a positive pregnancy test, which could be a year from now, given my previous track record).

The thing that upset me? My weight.

I knew I’d have to step on the scale at the doctor’s office. You always do, right? I hate the scale. I avoid the scale at home. I’m almost never happy with whatever the number may be. But I thought I was mentally prepared. I had done a little calculation in my head on the way there – sure, most of my clothes are feeling a little tighter lately, but I can still button my size 12 jeans, so it’s not that bad, right? I had an idea of what the number on the scale would probably be.

Wrong.

I’m not brave enough to type the number here, but let’s just say that I have a mental block around a certain number – a weight that I haven’t been since my gastric bypass surgery. It’s a number that for the past 7 years, I have refused to ever see on the scale again. And now I’m dangerously close to that number. Like, I’m less than 10 pounds away from it. I can smell that number from where I am. And I don’t like it one bit.

And I know – I KNOW! – that it’s just a number and it’s all about how you feel and how your clothes fit and blah-blah-blah, but the thing is? I feel like crap most of the time. I feel comfortable in very few of the clothes that I own. So it’s not good, and I need to do something about it. I started a diet back in January, but I think it was too radical – I cut out ALL refined sugar and white flour, which is insanely hard to stick with when you have a 2 year-old in the house. But I did it faithfully for a month and lost a whopping zero pounds. That’s when I got frustrated and quit.

Since January, I’ve gained about 10 pounds, and I think I know why: I snack too much at night. I have always “grazed” in the evenings, but lately it’s gotten out of control. I would estimate that probably half of my day’s calories are consumed between 8 p.m. and midnight. Pretty much the worst possible time to eat, right? So that’s the biggest change I’m going to work on for now. I’m definitely going to be adding in healthier food choices and snacks during the day (plus drinking more water & less Diet Coke), but I also know that it’s pretty likely that I won’t be able to stay away from the occasional cookie. So for now, the main thing I’m going to do is stop eating at night.

I started last night. After I put Catie to bed, I had a cup of chamomile tea – because hot liquids trick your tummy into feeling full, plus it helped me start to feel sleepy. And you know? I didn’t die. In fact, it was fine.

I also need to work on getting in shape. I couldn’t do the 30-Day Shred because it hurt my knees too much, and I love the Wii Fit, but it’s more for fun & doesn’t feel like it’s giving me a really solid workout. So I’m thinking about trying Cool Running’s Couch-to-5K program. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to jog/run a 5K; I have wonky knees, and I doubt they’ll hold up for something like that. But I can try. The program only takes up 3 days a week, which seems do-able. Throw in one or two yoga/pilates workouts too, and I should be doing fine in no time.

Wish me luck. I’m going to need it.

of course, the perk of having a cold is that I can't smell the litter box

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When I got home from Chicago on Sunday, Dave was running late to pick me up at the airport. I got my bags and met him outside baggage claim. I gave him a big hug & kiss, and climbed into the backseat to sit with Catie for the ride home. I noticed that her voice seemed a little raspy, but didn’t think much of it. When we got home, she wanted me to carry into the house, which I was happy to do after not seeing her for 3 days. That’s when I noticed she was (very mildly) wheezing. Dave admitted that she’d come down with a cold over the weekend, but he didn’t tell me because he didn’t want me to freak out and fly home early. What can I say, the man knows me well.

(In my defense, a normal kid’s cold is not something to freak out about, and I know that. But for Catie, colds usually lead to asthma attacks, and after landing in the ER twice, I tend to be a little panicky. So there’s that.)

And really, her cold didn’t seem too bad. We had to give her albuterol a few times, but she seems mostly better now. Yesterday when we were playing, she threw her head back and laughed, and I noticed that her top two eye teeth (the “fangs”) are just barely poking through her gums. I figured, oh well, that’s what it is, then. It’s not a cold at all, she’s just congested because she’s teething again. No worries.

Then I woke up today and realized that she definitely did have a cold. And I know because I now have it too. Sore throat, runny nose, the whole nine. Now I’m just hoping that my cold passes as quickly as Catie’s did. Because I really don’t need to be sick right now.

In moving news, I spoke with our landlady about whether or not she’ll let us stay here for the month of August, since our closing date on our house has been bumped. Have I mentioned how horrible our landlady is? Oh yes, I have. First, she started in on me that a couple of people have complained about “a very strong cat odor” in the house. Well, yes, we have two cats. I try to keep the litter boxes scooped, especially when we have a house showing, but what can I do? Sometimes you still catch a whiff of them. I can’t believe her rudeness in trying to essentially blame me for the fact that the house hasn’t been rented yet. She even issued a mild threat by saying, “Well, if they’ve had accidents on the carpet, I don’t know what I’m going to tell the owners…” Um, well, you don’t have to tell them anything, because they haven’t had accidents on the carpet. (Admittedly, Teenie has had a couple of accidents on the hardwood floors, which I’ve cleaned immediately. So no worries there.) I reassured her that the cat odor will be gone as soon as we move out, then tried to ask again about whether or not we can stay. She’s impossible to pin down with a definite yes or no answer, so finally I just said, “Ok, how about if I bring you a check for the month of August, and then you can pro-rate a refund based on the day we move out?” She seemed satisfied with that.

So yeah. Apparently we won’t have to move twice. I guess. (I hope?) Oy. Such a pain. Now to figure out when we’re getting our money and can close on the new house. Good times.

the eye surgery follow-up

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My eye surgery last week was actually pretty uneventful, given how much I freaked out about it beforehand. I couldn’t find my Klonopin (my medicine cabinet is hopelessly disorganized), so Brittany very generously offered up two of her Ativan instead. Dave and I left while Catie was taking a nap, and my sister Tracy (who’d flown in the night before) and Brittany promised to keep Catie happy and entertained when she woke up.

I took one Ativan before we left the house, and since I was still shaky and panicky when we got the eye doctor’s office (and I found out that they do NOT give you drugs for this procedure), I asked for a cup of water so I could take the second one. They measured my eye pressure and put some drops in my eyes to make my pupils constrict (which was very weird), then sent me back to the waiting room to wait for the doctor. I sat with Dave, both of us playing with our iPhones – he was playing Scrabble, I was reading Twitter. Then I suddenly looked up and realized that heeeeey, I feel goooood. I was full-on stoned from the Ativan. I even whipped out my iPhone and took this picture of Dave and me.

all sedative'd up before my eye surgery

Flattering, no? Now you know what I look like when I’m stoned. (Um, not that I ever do that. Anymore.) (Also: how cute is Dave in that picture? He looks all, “yes yes, I’m tolerating my ridiculous goof of a wife quite well, thank you.”)

Anyway, the doctor finally showed up and brought me back. Honestly, the surgery wasn’t nearly as horrible as I was expecting. It was a little uncomfortable, but it wasn’t agonizing or anything. I can think of things (i.e., the dentist) that are far more painful.

After it was all done, we came home, just as Tracy and Brittany were about to take Catie shopping (an effort to keep her distracted from the fact that Mommy wasn’t around; they came back with at least half a dozen books and a stuffed elephant. Thanks, aunt Tracy!). I managed to sneak past them so Catie didn’t see me, and I went straight to bed. I slept for a couple of hours, and woke up feeling great.

And really, I’ve had no problems since then. I have to use some prednisone eye drops four times a day for the next week to prevent swelling, but that’s about it. I have a follow-up appointment in a few weeks, and… yeah. That’s pretty much all there is to it. I know, you’d think it’d be more dramatic, right? Meh.

Up next: moving drama. Oy.

blogging as a means to not think about lasers in my freakin' eyeballs (which, FAIL)

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My eye surgery is this afternoon. It occurred to me while I was getting dressed this morning that it was probably not the best day to apply both eyeliner and (non-waterproof) mascara, but it was too late by the time I realized it. I guess I’ll just look like a raccoon later when my eyes water it off.

And I forgot to say it earlier, but thank you to all of you who left kind words when I freaked out about the surgery last week. But I need to clarify, the surgery I’m having is not lasik. I’m still going to need my glasses after this is over. Basically what they’re doing is using a laser to poke a few holes in my iris (shudder), which will ensure that the fluid in my eyes can circulate. (If the fluid can’t continuously circulate, the optic nerve will die, hence the blindness.) You can read all about it here if you like – I started to read it and freaked out and had to close the window. But I think it’s relatively accurate.

Btw, I have no idea if they’re planning to drug me for this procedure or not. I forgot to ask beforehand. So I’m bringing my Klonopin with me, and if they don’t offer me any drugs, I’ll just go ahead and knock myself out, thank you very much.

And I have to say, it’s been a lot of fun having Brittany here this week. She has a great camera (that I totally want to steal) and we got some fantastic pictures of Catie, which I’m going to try to upload soon. As an added bonus, my sister flew in for the weekend last night, so I’ll have both Tracy and Brittany here to take care of Catie while I’m out of commission (and Dave will be, presumably, taking care of his drugged-up wife). Catie is in Happy Toddler Overload, she doesn’t know what to do with all the attention. So no worries on that end.

Oh, one random note: yesterday Catie was in a bad mood and I asked her if she wanted to watch a movie. She walked over to the shelf where all of her DVDs are stored, and pulled out “E.T.” (which I bought before she was born, but the cellophane was still on it because I rarely feel the need to reduce myself to a sobbing mess). I wasn’t sure if it would be too scary for her, so I skipped the beginning and started it at the point where Elliott and E.T. meet for the first time. She loved it. She walked over to the TV to pat Elliott and reassure him that he shouldn’t be scared, because E.T. was his friend. I can’t really say how great it is to see your kids enjoying movies that you loved when you were little, but yeah, it was fantastic.

are they at least ill-tempered sea bass?

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A couple of months ago I went to the eye doctor and got glasses. While I was there, my doctor told me that she thought I might be showing early signs of glaucoma, so she had me come back and do a really gross eye test that involved a little plastic doohickey touching the surface of my eyeball. (And yes, that really is just as squicky and gross as it sounds.) However, she couldn’t tell much from the test, so she sent me to a glaucoma specialist. Great.

That appointment was a couple of weeks ago, and I can’t believe I didn’t blog about it, but I think I was in some sort of “lalalala-I-can’t-hear-you-lalala!!!” denial mode about it. It turns out that yes, I actually am showing early signs of glaucoma (thanks for the crappy eye genes, Dad!) and I need to have laser surgery on my eyes to make sure that I don’t suddenly go COMPLETELY EFFING BLIND. Um, yay?

The doctor said he could do my eye surgery on August 4th, then said, “You aren’t traveling anywhere between now and then, are you?” I said actually, yes, I’m going to Chicago at the end of July (I didn’t tell him about BlogHer, I was worried he might look at me funny), and he said, “Oh no, that’s no good. Ok, in that case, we have to squeeze you in sooner.” Apparently the air pressure changes in an airplane could cause the fluid pressure in my eyes to change and again with the blindness and OMG are you kidding me with this?

So, I’m having laser eye surgery next Friday, July 10th. At 4 p.m., which sucks because it’s not a daycare day, and it’s right at the end of Catie’s naptime, and Dave has to be there at the eye doctor’s because I won’t be able to drive myself home afterward and blaaaaah I so do not want to deal with this. Also, I have no idea how I’m going to be feeling after the surgery, but we’ve had two invitations for fun stuff that weekend, and I’ve had to turn them down just because I’m worried that I’m going to be feeling weird, or at the very least I’m still going to be wearing those giant protective goggle sunglasses from the eye doctor’s.

Yeah. Laser eye surgery. Yippee. But let me tell you, if I walk into that doctor’s office and see a shark tank (sharks with frickin’ laser beams attached to their heads!), I am SO out of there.

random stuff

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1. My sister’s plane gets here tomorrow evening! Yay! She’ll be here in time for the March for Babies on Saturday, which is so cool, I’m really excited that she’ll be able to join us. The downside: the house is a mess, which I cannot deal with when we’re expecting company. So I need to get a-cleaning, and fast.

2. This house that we live in has a dual air-conditioning system, one for each floor. (It’s actually an energy saver; the A/C doesn’t have to work as hard when there’s two of them.) On Sunday, I went to get Catie up from her nap, and I heard a weird tap-tap-tap sound in her room. It was water leaking from her light fixture. Guess what’s above Catie’s bedroom? The attic. More specifically: the HVAC system in the attic. We had a guy come out here, who told us that the system is basically rotted and dying and we need a new one, and oh yeah we’ll probably need to replace the whole ceiling because the sheet rock has gotten wet, and we don’t want our asthmatic child to be breathing black mold in her bedroom. Fabulous.

Point being: yes, this sucks and all, but oh man, thank GOD we rent this place. I cannot imagine having to deal with that expense right now.

3. The eye test I was supposed to have that involved the plastic thingy on the surface of my eyeball? Well, it was supposed to happen last Thursday, but then I got sick, so I postponed it until today. Then they called me this morning and said that my eye doctor is sick, so now it’s been rescheduled for next Thursday. Which is fine by me, it’s not like I’m looking forward to this thing. (Incidentally, my eye doctor also has a baby. Want to bet that he gave her the exact same cold that Catie gave me? I wouldn’t doubt it.)

4. Random cute Catie things:
4a. Her newest song (to the tune of “Twinkle Twinkle”):
Ringo Ringo Ringo Starr
How I wonder what you are?

4b. Catie really loves to play in the car, specifically in the front seat. Witness:
Catie driving
Exhibit A.

The problem, of course, is that this isn’t exactly legal, what with those pesky child restraint laws and everything. (Damn government! Interfering with my right to endanger my child!) So, although she’s usually pretty good in the car, she does have occasional screamfests about the fact that she wants to be in the front seat with us. Yesterday, we went to the grocery store and stopped for gas on the way home. I let Catie get in the front with me while Dave pumped the gas, then we decided we’d let her hang out in the front seat while we went through the car wash.

In case you were wondering? That has got to be the best way to make a toddler’s day, EVER. She loved it. “Car have baff? Get all cwean?” I’m not sure if it was the car wash itself or the thrill of riding shotgun (in Dave’s lap), but either way, I’ll have to make a mental note to do that again sometime, because it was so much fun.

And it felt totally rebellious in a “breakin’ the law, breakin’ the law” kind of way, even though we weren’t moving inside the car wash, and as soon as it was done and we exited the car wash, I pulled over & Dave buckled her back into her seat. Still. It felt sort of naughty and fun. (Sad that this is my idea of excitement these days, no?)

4c. This is what bathtime looks like at our house lately.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8f_PLMF0HU
We usually end up with more water on the floor than in the tub, but whatever. You’re only 2 years old once, might as well let her enjoy some of this silly stuff before she’s too cool for it.