Robbed the wrong gal...

You know I am ready for this year to be done. It looks like not much good will come of 2009.

This morning my wallet was stolen.

Out of my purse in my own office. You wanna see someone get pissed off. Done.The jerk didn't get much. I may have had $20-30 in the wallet and I got my cards all canceled before he had any time. Notified the police and they are fairly certain it is someone they have had problems with in the past that walks into offices and takes small things he can put in his pocket.Well he isn't getting much outta me. I already called the police the banks and the credit report people and flagged all my accounts. This means I can't do anything for 90 days but I will be damned if I let this guy steal my identity.

He is gonna have to find someone else to victimize. I will NOT be his victim. Grrrrrrrr...I don't know that I have been this resolved to stop someone from doing anything in my life. I hope he enjoys the $30. I hope he needed it more then I do.

Happy Friday the 13th.
Leslie

Fear

Fear:

A feeling of agitation and anxiety caused by the presence or imminence of danger.
A state or condition marked by this feeling: living in fear.
A feeling of disquiet or apprehension: a fear of looking foolish.
Extreme reverence or awe, as toward a supreme power.
A reason for dread or apprehension: Being alone is my greatest fear.

Dentophobia is the fear of dentists.
What are you afraid of? Me? I have a fear of dentists. It stems from an episode when I was a kid. Today I went to the dentist for the cleaning I have needed for 15 years. Today was torment like I have not experienced in a very long time. I know I have a fear of dentists and I have managed to avoid it for a long time. After my initial consultation I was feeling much better about it. After I went to the oral surgeon and they knocked me clean out and pulled several of my teeth I was beginning to wonder what I had been afraid of for so long. So this morning after only a minor amount of stomach cramping and headaches I went in for my first cleaning. Now, I remember why I have avoided it . 2 hours of scraping and pressure washing my teeth. 6 doses of Novocain because I am wired wrong (the hygienists words). I am still numb several hours later and the parts that aren’t are still bleeding. Some might think I sound like a big baby and honestly I kind of feel like it.

What do you fear? Snakes? Spiders? Heights? Small spaces? Basically this morning would be the equivalent of someone with a fear of snakes being lied down and snakes wrapped around his neck for 2 hours. So maybe not so much a baby as a chicken. Heh

Well anyway my bottom teeth feel nice and squeaky and I am glad I did it. On Monday I get to go back and do the top half and then when I am done healing up from all the poking I will be scheduling my root canals. It will be nice to have clean teeth and no infections in my gums for the first time in as long as I can remember.

Now maybe I can try and find some other fear to face off against. LOL Any suggestions? Maybe I could go leap off the side of a mountain? How about getting locked in an elevator with too many people? Any suggestions?

Tuesday

So I have actually had a quiet couple of weeks. Got through my teeth extractions and Bill has been conscious the whole week. I am really becoming grateful for the “down” times when no one ends up in the hospital or has major drama.

So I was sitting at work last Thursday and the nurse from my doctor’s office calls. The doctor wants to see me for a “review” of my last check up. The nurse wouldn’t say anything more so I scheduled my appointment for yesterday and set holding my breath. I get to the doctor and as I sit in the waiting room it dawns on me. I had my blood draw 7 days after I had my teeth pulled. I laugh and then when I go back to talk to the doctor I mention it. She had called me in because my blood had come back with high white blood count, high platelets, etc. The teeth problems explains a lot of it but she also noticed that my glucose level was far too high for me and I am back up in the pre-diabetic stage. I have not been back in this realm for a few years and so she is concerned.

This is an interesting discover because the last few months I have been overly thirsty and tired and just blah and I have had a dickens of a time losing weight. So I am pre-diabetic again. The problem with this is I also have PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome) and IR (insulin resistance) so when my sugar is high my body is not using my insulin properly which means I don’t lose weight. She and I talked and I am going to try Metformin (a diabetic medicine) again to see if it can help stabilize me so I can drop more of the weight. Now the last time I took this I was having huge problems with my IBS (irritable bowel syndrome) and I was also eating fast food about 10 times a week if not more. I was not eating healthy at all and God knows I wasn’t exercising. So I had endless problems with the medicine and after a short period of time I gave up on it. Now I am eating better (most of the time) and am much more aware of my body and how it works and what causes problems. So I am feeling better about getting myself back on track and actually seeing results. J

Emergency Rooms

When you wake up in the morning do you ever anticipate that, Today I will be spending the day in the emergency room? I don’t.If my calculations are correct I have only been in a hospital about 9 or 10 times total in my life. Only 2 of those were for me the rest were for friends. This morning Bill had a dentist appointment at 7:30. Originally I was going to go with him and take the car and go have my blood drawn for my yearly check up. When I woke up I had a headache from the left over pain in my jaw from the teeth extractions so instead of having my blood drawn and then waiting in a dentist waiting room for 30 mins I decided to sleep an extra hour and Bill would come back by and pick me up. So I go back to sleep and wake up at 8 feeling much better and take a nice long shower and get ready for Bill to pick me up. He was supposed to call when he left the dentist about 8:30 to let me know he was on the way. I sat here on the couch for a few mins after 8:30 when finally he called. I pick up and he tells me that we have a problem. Apparently on his way to the dentist he had another episode. It was not as bad. He was driving and felt that he was getting ill again. Bill being the luckiest man I know was of course only a short distance from a Fire Department. He pulled into the FD’s front lot, got out knocked on the door and when they opened it proceeded to crash to the floor. This time, however, he did not lose consciousness fully. The firemen rushed around taking his vitals and contacted the paramedics that didn’t happen to be in the building and shortly thereafter (a little over an hour) he started feeling better. At which point the firemen loaded him up and hauled him down to the hospital near his personal physician (different hospital then last time). Unfortunately since it had snowed this morning Bill had taken the Jeep. After my initial freak out I made phone calls until I could find a wonderful friend (Thank you Tanya!!) to pick me up and take me to the Jeep so that I could then get to the hospital. I get to the hospital and we wait and wait. Since this time he did not pass out and stop breathing so he was not a priority. They ran a few tests before I got there and X-rayed his chest again. The new ER Doctor (Doctor Spies) was much better at communicating with us then the prior ER doctor whom I did not like the first time I saw him. This doctor was determined that “These things DON’T just happen.” After a few other tests and the results continuing to come back negative he decided Bill needed to see a Cardiologist. Bill’s cardiologist was in the building next door but he was not in today. By this time (3:30pm) they decided to send us next door to the Cardiologist that was on staff. We went next door and sat in the room for almost an hour before we got to see the doctor. The doctor reviewed all of the files, The ER documents from Bellevue, the ER documents from Renton, the doctors’ reports of all 5 of the doctors Bill has seen in the last month. He walked in the room and said that he is 95% sure it is Vasovagal Syncope. It is causes a drop in blood pressure so that your brain is not getting enough blood so your body just… stops. It is apparently very common. The blood pressure medicine he is taking apparently is known to aggravate this condition. The Cardiologist changed the medicine Bill takes and sent us home.

So we think this may be the resolution. We are still hesitant to accept something that sounds so simple and also because Bill has taken this particular Blood pressure medicine for over 10 years. I am glad that we may have an accurate diagnosis and hope that it is truly this simple. I guess at this point only time will tell. Needless to say Bill won’t be driving anytime soon. LOL So that’s the deal. Sucks to sit in the ER all day and sucks that it happened again but glad we had someone else that was more determined to get it figured out. At least tomorrow is Friday. I think I need a vacation.

Stress Level?

How do you determine what your stress level is? This is something I have battled this week. In the past my stress has manifested as physical ailments. Upset stomach, headache, etc. or it has been obvious through my level of crankiness. The past week I have been upbeat and not much in the way of stomach problems. Last night I finally broke. I have not felt like I am stressed. I have been sleeping well and no more headaches then I would say is normal but knowing this morning I am going to the dentist I thought I would see more signs of stress. It turns out that over the years I have trained myself to just ignore stress. This is not something I feel is entirely healthy. I am sure it serves a purpose of getting the "job" done but is it really healthy to completely ignore your stress? This morning I am completely aware of my stress. LOL My stomach is churning, I feel like hiding in the closet and crying about it. I HATE the dentist. I am terrified about how I am going to do and what might happen. I know I have to do this. The pain I have been living with is not healthy and the infections I have had in my mouth are causing harm to the rest of me. If I am going to work hard to lose weight and become healthy I have to be healthy all over.

This morning the funniest thing is that the thing upsetting me the most is I can't drink water. They are going to put me out and I can not have anything in my stomach. I have trained myself for several years to drink water at every available oppurtunity. I usually drink about 3 liters a day and it is almost painful to be so dry like I am this morning. I don't trust myself to even stand in the kitchen or brush my teeth because I know my intinct will be to down some water. LOL I walked past a bottle of baby oil and thought how soothing that would be on my dry mouth. UGH!

Well I am leaving in 6 minutes. Wish me luck!

Leslie

Facing a fear - Dentists

I have an insane fear of dentists. In the past I have had a few very disturbing experiences at the dentist. One in particular was when I was 8 years old and was kicked in the mouth with a rollerskate and lost about 8 teeth in 2 seconds (luckily baby teeth). I remember waking up on an empty roller-rink floor lying in a pool of blood with dozens of people staring at me in horror. Then I don't remember anything more until I was strapped to a dentist chair and they were doing surgery (they hadn’t given me enough NO to knock me out so I came to in the middle of the surgery).

Because of this and of course the insanity that is the COST of going to the dentist I have made excuses for over 16 years not to go. I brush my teeth and floss fairly regularly (gotta love my SonicCare). I found out this week that I have an unnatural quantity of Cavity causing bacteria in my mouth. On the good side my gums are in decent condition except for a couple small areas where bone loss has caused them to recede.

Off track: Did you know that the first person to kiss a baby transfers their MOUTH health to the baby? Unlucky for me both of my parents have a high level of cavity causing bacteria (my mom had her last few teeth pulled before she was 30 and my dad only has about 6 teeth left, dentures were a normal part of my youth). If you are pregnant or plan to be pregnant make sure they whoever in your family that has the best teeth is the first to kiss the baby. J Back on track.

With the help of my doctor I have finally been able to make an appointment to have my teeth and gums assessed. My doctor has been talking to me about it for over a year because mouth disease can affect your whole body. With me trying to (finally) do the right thing and get my body in shape I HAVE to address the infections and bacteria in my mouth or I will only be partially healthy even if I get to my goal weight. I went to the dentist yesterday (without throwing up which is HUGE) and this morning I went to an oral surgeon. I am going to have to have a few teeth pulled including my impacted wisdom teeth. This will be happening next Friday. I am terrified but I am resolved that this is something I HAVE to do. I have justified in my mind that the pain I will go through getting things back on track will be far less then the pain I have lived with almost daily for the last 15 or so years. With the loss of several fillings over the years my teeth have fallen into a serious state of disrepair. It will cost me a ton of money but I also know that I cannot wait any longer to fix this. The hygienist at my dentist is wonderful. She put me at ease very quickly and as soon as the Oral surgeon walked into the room I felt comfortable. This is so odd to me since I have spent so many years absolutely terrified to even think about making an appointment.

If you are like me and have put off going to the dentist please do me and yourself a favor and go. Even if you are not in pain there could still be infections that can cause problems.

On a funny note the hygienist was so funny. When she saw the plaque that has accumulated on my teeth she was so excited by the “challenge” LOL. I think I like her. Heh

Stay healthy and whatever you are putting off for whatever your reason… get over it. I am.

On a side note: Shadow is getting healthier everyday and will go in for a sonogram of his liver next week.

Bill is doing fine. He had his 24 hour blood pressure monitor the other day and his blood pressure is higher then it should be. They think his "incident" may have been caused by that. More tests to be run soon so I will keep you informed.

Also: Any suggestions for soft foods I can eat after the surgery? Ice Cream is NOT a good plan with my cold sensitivity. :-)

SSDD

Just a note for anyone that may be concerned about Bill’s job (Microsoft laid off 1400 last week) he is still doing ok. As for his health, he got squeezed in to an early nephrologist’s appointment to look at his kidneys. They seem to be working okay but again another precaution.

I have been doing pretty well this week. We are working at getting our diet and exercise back on track and the one thing I realize is I do a darn good job of kicking my own butt. I was watching “Run Fat Boy Run” this weekend and it really made me laugh. I would suggest if you like a good comedy with some romantic under tones you should check it out.

Shadow is doing ok. He has eaten some on his own but not enough to sustain so Mike has been continuing to force feed him. His foot seems to be getting somewhat better. At least he is not dragging it behind him at this point.

All in all things are getting better. I had a by-annual check up with the doctor this morning and everything seems ok.

Nothing really new… go to work, come home, clean house, do laundry… SSDD.

Tests and no results

I have reached a level of frustration with Doctors that I have not felt since my grandfather was ill. I am old enough now to know not all Doctors are idiots. Even if some days I feel that way. I also know that not all doctors are lazy and care more about their paycheck then they do the patient that they have sitting in front of them. I do however know WHY people often believe this. I am tired of tests being taken and having no results. Also why is it that Endocrinologists don't deem someone passing out and not breathing as serious enough to get an appointment without waiting 3 WEEKS?!?!

I don't know about you... but if I were a doctor with a case like this I might be willing to work late one fricking night to see the patient. Grumble Argh really trying to contain my frustration but it is just bursting at the seams.

Anyway updates. BIll had his EEG and Doppler yesterday. It really wore him out. He is still doing ok. The eating before bed has not seemed to help th way we hoped it would. We are starting to test his blood glucose levels several times a day to get a baseline on where he is currently. His morning glucose has been all over the place. As low as 120 and as high as 157. I can't find anywhere online where I can even find if this is good or bad or how good or bad. Also without knowing what his BG was the morning he passed out I don't have any idea what these numbers even mean. In many ways this week has been harder on me than last week because I just keep waiting for answers and we have gotten none.

Shadow finally had a BM last night. Gross I know but it is a positive. He seems to be improving a little each day but is still not eating on his own. I don't even know what to think about it. I am supposed to take him in for an updated CBC but I am worried the stress of going to the vet might push him back from the progress we have made so far this week. I will call the vet and discuss it with her. I also don't want to take him back and have him catch anything else. His head cold that has caused him so much sneezing and yucky he caught while he was there.

For today I want to scream and more likely I would like to scream at doctors. People say they deserve all the money they make but I am just not seeing why. When Bill and I had to go through dozens of tests and 2 full days in the hospital for them to know nothing and he and I figured out the likely culprit with some online research. Stupid Doctors. Hopefully we will find a smart one or two in the bunch when we FINALLY get to see the endocrinologist. I will attempt not to go in with an attitude. I am not happy to have to wait though. His appointment is Feb 5th.

I need a nap. Nothing seems important at work today. These are the days I really want to just go. Run away. Hide even. Why do we spend our whole lives wasted at these stupid jobs? Some people do important things. I have never had a job that was truly necessary.

I was commenting to a friend that if people weren't lazy I wouldn't have a job... this has really become a true statement in my current role and at times I just have to wonder why me?

Now I am having my own little pity party. I have a good life. I have good friends. I have Bill. I need to be happy with these things. I'll keep telling myself this today. Maybe we will go RV shopping this weekend. It is supposed to be "Not rainy" which is rare for January. :-) Maybe it is a message for us to go.

Thank you again for all your thoughts and support.

Monday again

So this morning I discovered what some would call Post-traumatic stress disorder. Upon leaving for work this morning we took our usual route over highway 18. Bill wanted to go to work to try and get a few things done and I definitely needed to come in to meet the new boss and get some work done. I have left my poor co-worker Kim to fight all of my battles for a week.

As we started our commute I just felt ill in my stomach. As we reached the spot where we pulled over I felt like I would throw up. Ugh. I became emotional and really began to re-think leaving Bill in the hands of his co-workers. This is where the trust issues I have had over the years really come forth. I can not control every waking moment of Bill’s existence. I know this but I will be damned if I don’t want to try. I think after his appointments on Wednesday I will feel somewhat better and we have seen over the last week that it is only effecting him in the morning hours. The problem becomes he will be at work for 6 hours without me to watch over him. Bill thinks I am being somewhat ridiculous but I really feel paranoid that something may happen and no one in his office will notice until it is too late. The good part of it is he had warning before he passed out. He felt faint and sweaty and hot. So we are very clear that if he feels odd at all he is to go sit in an office with another person.

I want to stop worrying but I am just beside myself as to how to let go.

So in researching Diabetes and people that only have problems in the morning I ran across a few articles about something called the “Dawn Phenomenon” (sounds like a good sci-fi novel if you ask me) It turns out that many diabetics have very high blood sugar in the morning even if their sugar is lower throughout the day. The suggestion was that the person eats something with a natural carb (juice, fruit) with a fat (peanut butter) before bed. This will help regulate their sugar through the night. So last night Bill had an apple and peanut butter before bed and this morning his blood sugar was the closest to normal it has been all week. This may be a big step towards where we need to be. At least it affected something we could see.

Shadow is still not eating on his own. This is really a concern because I know what fatty liver disease does to a cat and from most of what I read if a cat goes even 24 hours without food can cause this very quickly. My brother is doing a great job of shoving food down his gullet but again I worry.

I finally broke down the other night after being with Shadow most of the day. I cried for about 2 hours and then in my state of curiosity I had to go online and research why people cry. It appears that when we cry we release all the extra hormones we have pent up in our bodies. Fascinating. I still have not found a website that covers why our noses become leaky faucets but I am guessing it is similar to the crying.

I am feeling disjointed and I guess you can probably tell by reading this. Guess that’s about it today.

It's sometimes the simple things that really matter

How often have you looked at your pet while he was eating or just simply walking across the room and thought nothing of it? Well today I can say the only thing I want is for Shadow to walk normally and to eat on his own.

Bill is doing ok. We still are waiting for some test results. His doctor perscribed us a sugar monitor and his sugar has been high every morning and his blood pressure is way up as well. We had several specialists in the hospital looking at his case and Bill and I figure out the frickin diagnosis. With the help of his doctor we are fairly certain Bill went into a diabetic coma. A scary thing but something that will be fairly easily controllable with diet and exercise but for the time being is a pretty dangerous until we can get his sugar back on track. We still have appointments for his EEG and Doppler (I think it's funny that they want to check his weather ;-)

I am concerned but at least we are headed in A direction rather then simply "these things happen". I will probably not update for a day or two unless anything else happens until then we are in a holding pattern.

Thanks to everyone for your thoughts!
Leslie

Update 1

Went to Bill's general doctor today and he also disliked the "sometimes these things just happen" diagnosis. He is sending Bill for 2 new tests next week (EEG and Doppler) These will test to see if Bill had a seizure and also to see if his veins to his brain are clot free. We also discovered something new this morning. Shortly after breakfast Bill was not feeling well again and was clammy, thank goodness he did not pass out again. So we are thinking that it might have something to do with his blood sugar levels (also considering he has gained back much of the weight he lost) so even though we had already planned to get healthy and both of us exercising again we are really in a push for it now.

After the doctor I went up to see Shadow and he was sleeping. He did not seem any better but sometimes when he just wakes up he is groggy. I put the hot compress on his foot and massaged it like the doctor said to and then tried to get him to eat with no luck. I had to run by work and so I decided to try food again later.

I thought my week was done with drama for the most part or that it would be confined to my personal life until I went in to work this afternoon only for an hour to pick up some stuff to do from home to find out that my office is laying off 3 of the employees. 2 appraisers and my boss, the 2 appraisers I will not miss much but my boss I am upset about. She was one of the better bosses I have had and really all around a great lady. However, I do think this may be a good thing for her. I am hoping to see a great oppurtunity in her future in a job she can really be happy in.

After all the drama at work took longer then I anticipated I realized I had better head home before the rain washed out all paths to my house (we have had so much snow and rain that several roads in the area are currently closed due to floods.) I came home much disappointed that I hadn't spent much time with Shadow. Later Mike (my brother) called to tell me Shadow was eating treats on his own. This is huge. Cats, at times, can forget how to eat. He had shown interest in food by sniffing but had not been eating anything that wasn't forced on him. So with him eating treats we know he can eat and now we just have to see if we can stimulate his appetite enough to get him back in the ball game.

More updates as I can. Thanks for all the thoughts and prayers they seem to be helping!
Love all of you and kiss or hug a loved one. Make sure you are appreciating them because you never can tell what tomorrow will bring!
Leslie

Worst Week (tv show or my life?)

What a week…

First I need to specify that Bill is ok and Shadow is doing better. Last Friday night my brother called to tell me Shadow has been lethargic that afternoon. We agreed to give it the night and see first thing in the morning what our options were. The next day he was worse and so I drove to Bellevue and picked Mike and Shadow up and went to my vet. After speaking with the nurse they decided I should go to the Emergency Pet Hospital. After a few hours in the emergency vet we went home with an antibiotic and a cat with a fever. I had a feeling there was something more but the vet just couldn’t find anything. Sunday morning I call Mike and Shadow is now limping with his back leg and barely walking at all. I rush to Bellevue and back up to Kirkland to see the vet again. A blood clot in a cat is an extremely serious matter so they admit him and do an ultrasound and a ton of blood tests. Everything is off. There is a mass on his liver that may be cancerous and is abscessed. After a few more tests they are keeping him to give IV Antibiotics. Mike and I head home hoping but not high hopes. I now have not slept well for 2 nights and am not looking forward to a good night’s sleep again.

Monday morning I wake up. The world seems to be moving slowly. I don’t know why. I am just tired and it’s snowing again. There is a huge accident on 405 and so Bill and I decide that instead of driving different cars we will just drive the Jeep so we can both make it over Tiger Mountain (Highway 18) in the snow and avoid 405. Because I am tired Bill and I decide he should drive until we get to his work and then at that point I will drive to my office so I can go see Shadow if I get a call. We head out the door and start up the highway. Bill suddenly coughs and grabs his chest and tells me he is really hot. I feel his forehead and he is burning up and sweaty. He tells me he has to pull over. I talk him into continuing about a ¼ mile or so to an area where the road goes from 2 lanes down to 1 since we can’t pull off the road due to the snow drifts about 3-4 feet tall. We get to the spot and he pulls over. I throw the car into park while I call 911. He stops responding to me and his breathing becomes very shallow. The emergency people on the phone send people to us and the woman tells me I should start CPR because Bill is not breathing right. I can’t pull him out of the car because to our right is a 3 foot snow drift and the other is a highway during Monday rush hour traffic. I push his seat back as far as it can go and mine as well. I started CPR as best I could in the situation (thank you Kindercare fo r sending me to a CPR class). Time seems to go by at a pace I can’t even begin to describe. I was terrified. I just knew I had to keep him breathing. The Fire Dept. showed up finally after what seemed forever and yet no time at all. They pulled Bill out of the car and quickly got a pulse and blood pressure. This is a good sign and I have watched enough doctor shows to know that much. While the Fire Dept. worked on him one of them took our information. I don’t remember much about this except for all of them telling me what a great job I did and me sitting there feeling like an idiot. Finally they loaded Bill into the Ambulance and after I grabbed everything out of the Jeep I thought I might need they put me in the front. Off we went to the hospital.

If you ever have to have an incident like this or similar I highly suggest doing it in King County. We have a fantastic group of Fire Dept guys and great ER staff at Overlake Hospital.

They got us to the hospital and put us in a room. After an hour or so Bill started to come to. The FD had pumped him full of valium in the ambulance when they were trying to intubate him (his tongue if too big hehe) Bill’s blood pressure dropped to 75/50 but his respiration and heart rate were ok. I called Bill’s ex and so after a bit she and his son came by. Finally after a few hours they moved him upstairs to an ICU room and he was coherent again. They ran EKG, Cat Scans, X-rayed his heart and his lungs, ran blood test after blood test. Hooked him up to every machine they had and they can’t find anything other than a high white cell count. After spending the majority of my day waiting to hear something from the doctors I went and picked Mike up and we went to the vet to visit Shadow and see if he would eat. After 2 hours we gave up. I headed back to the hospital and found Lex back from Portland. Bill was upset that they wouldn’t let him leave because he was feeling “fine”. The night nurse convinced me that Bill would sleep better if I wasn’t there so Lex and I came back to the house to sleep for a couple hours. After waking up way too early we headed back to the hospital to sit with Bill. The doctor came in and told us all his tests were negative. No heart attack enzymes, nothing of note except a high white cell count. They know it is an infection but no guess as to where and why it would have caused him to black out and have trouble breathing. They discharged him about 5 (just in time to get stuck in rush hour traffic.)

Today he has been fine from all accounts. The Vet called and told me we could pick up Shadow. We drove up to Bellevue, picked up Mike and went and picked up Shadow. He is doing ok. The blood clot in his foot may make his foot useless or it might break up and it will be fine. We have to give him 2 weeks of antibiotics and then take him back in for more blood work and an ultra sound to look at the mass on his liver. There is a potential it is benign or to determine if he will need surgery to remove it.

So that is the last 5 days or so for me… Bill goes back to his general practitioner tomorrow morning and I am probably going to ask for a second opinion or to see someone that might have a better idea of what might have happened. I am not satisfied with the “Sometimes things just happen” diagnosis.

Thank you to everyone for your thoughts and prayers. I will post an update soon if I have any more news.

Trip to Disney

Upon request here are some of the pictures from our trip to Disney World. Bill had a great first time and we did everything under the sun. :-)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/twotwistedlimes/

Enjoy!
Leslie

Embrace change and enjoy it.

So recently I was having a conversation with someone about questions you get asked at a job interview. The one I am most inane question to me is “Where do you see yourself in 5 years?” Well as most of you know I did not grow up in the kind of household where I could ever even begin to guess where I would be in 5 years. I moved 6 times before graduating from High School. I attended 11 different schools. (5 elementary schools, 4 middle schools, and 2 high schools) We were so mobile I thought I should have been raised as a gypsy and then at least I would have a legit excuse for all my moving. Generally I allow people to assume that I moved because my dad was in the military. He was in fact in the military and so it is a very easy assumption. The truth was (and is) that my parents are religious fanatics. Instead of settling down into a house and raising their 3 children they would move the whole family across the county whenever they felt the church they were attending was not quite what they wanted. (yeah I know that strange look on your face… it’s ok you don’t have to understand, I sure as hell don’t.) So when I was 12 my mother cashed out my father pension plan and packed the 5 of us up and moved us to Boston from Florida. When I was 16 they again threw all the money they had and probably maxed out a few credit cards movie the 4 of us (Mike had already moved out) back to Florida from Boston. I never was allowed a concept of “where” I wanted to be in 5 years because for half of my teen life I practically lived out of a suit case.

Back to the point. So here I am as an adult. I have never been able to figure out how to tie myself down. This has caused a number of ill effects but none I can’t live with. Once I start to feel settled I get an itch. I start looking for an out. At the majority of the jobs I have held in my life I stop learning new things about 12-18 months into the process. At which point I become bored. Me and boredom do not mix. When I become bored I become dissatisfied. When I become dissatisfied I want to move on. In the jobs with companies where I stayed longer then 18 months I was generally transferred to different depts. I was taught new things or in the case of WizKids I just was too emotionally attached to the customers to let go.

So after my conversation I sat and thought “Where DO I want to be in 5 years?” After staring blanking at the wall for a fairly extended period of time I realized I have no answer at all. After realizing this I thought to myself, “Just how hard is it to think of where I want to be in 5 years?” Then I stopped and realized. Where was I 5 years ago? So? Class? Where was I 5 years ago?

5 years ago October 2003. In October 2003 I had come to the realization that I was actually considering the un-considerable. The horrible thing I never thought would happen to me happened, Divorce. Leading off this year a few things happened. Some of you may not know that I have had 2 miscarriages. Neither pregnancy was planned. The first really was a relief. My ex and I were not making enough money to provide. Life would have been hell but I figured I would find a way to cope. Others did more with less. I lost the first one at about 6 weeks. It happened so quickly that I barely had time to become attached to the idea. The second one came at a time where our financials were better (not great) and I wanted it. (or so I thought at the time) I lost the second at 8 weeks. I had plenty of time to form things in my mind and accept that this was happening. I was devastated. My ex knowing that in discussions we had had that I did not want children because I still had so many things I wanted to do in life tried to point out the “good” things about the miscarriage. To me, at the time, I only saw how much I had accepted it and how little he wanted to have kids. He was not cruel about anything but his relief came across very badly to me as I lay knowing that I would likely never have a child and hurting because I felt broken. The one most horrifying thing any doctor ever told me was that I was not going to be able to have children. For me there were 2 responses. The immediate response was my “Rebel” that stepped up and said “You can’t tell me that I can’t do something DAMN IT!” I wanted in many ways to prove that doctor wrong. I wanted to show her. Common Sense fell back into place quickly enough that I didn’t do anything I would regret. The second response was the one I hear from so many other women in similar positions, “I am a woman… my only natural requirement in life is to procreate and I can’t do that right?” Well I thought to myself if I can’t even get pregnant, which every drunken teenager has the ability to do, well then what the hell use am I? Oy! Those were not the best times. The second miscarriage happened in the beginning of 2003. This began the downfall of my marriage. So by October several other things piled on top of the camels back and there I was watching my marriage dissipate into a cloud of gas. Within a few months I would be spending my first Christmas completely alone in a house I hated with no car to even get me out to the movies, no friends because most were happily celebrating the holidays with their families to stop and realize that Leslie was sitting at home alone contemplating how she got herself into this particular pickle.

Funny that I use that word. Pickle. For those of you that have never worked with metal I will give you a definition. This weekend I learned about a pickle. According to Wikipedia: Pickling is a treatment of metallic surfaces in order to remove impurities, stains, rust or scale with a solution called pickle liquor. So over the course of that winter I was in a pickle. It helped me remove many impurities, some left over stains and rust and helped me to work on me. Not something I have ever done before. If you had told me 5 years ago where I would be now, I would just have shaken my head and told you that you were nutty. I was hurt and lonely and wanted to be my own little island. I just wouldn’t have even begun to know what to expect from 5 years later.

So here I am 5 years later and what has changed? I am living about 3600 miles from where I was then. I have lost about 50 pounds from that time mostly due to not eating the fast food I was constantly gorging on in Florida. I am enjoying the outdoors which if you had told me 2 years ago I would be doing I would have laughed you out of the room. Now instead of Mage Knight or HeroClix I Kayak and hike. Now instead of spending the weekends staring at the TV or playing on the computer I am going to jewelry making classes and festivals, Instead of working in a dead end receptionist position at a good company, I am working in a dead end Admin position at a good company (no offense LOL.) I am, just recently, happily moved in with Bill and while we have our issues as any couple does we understand each other on a deep level. We know we don’t have to spend every moment of the day together and yet we still enjoy grocery shopping together from time to time. Heh

I could never have guessed where I wanted to be 5 years ago and really honestly I wouldn’t have wanted to try and guess. I like my “transient-like” lifestyle. I like not knowing what is around the corner and while I will never know what it is like to have kids of my own, I still have plenty of friends and their kids to spoil not to mention Bill’s 2. So as I stress this week about getting the house cleaned up for Thanksgiving and making out my menu for the big day I don’t have to worry where I will be in 5 years. I just take one day at a time and watch where it leads me. The one and only constant in life is change. Well and taxes. ;-) Embrace change and enjoy it.

A Time for Change

Fair warning long post. I kinda ramble.

So the past 2 years or so I have been living in 2 houses. I share a house with a roommate and my brother and my 2 kitties and the other half of the week I have been staying with Bill. Bill is my “boyfriend”. I don’t really feel like that term really fits because I am not 16 yrs old. LOL Bill is more my “significant other” but I tend to hate that term to because “what am I insignificant?” hehe Bill is Bill. So anyway back to the point. I am officially moving into Bill’s house. Prior to now Bill was hoping to sell his house so it didn’t make a whole lot of sense for me to move into this house just to move out again. Also this is the house he raised his kids in with his ex-wife and there was a bit of an odd feeling about me living there. Well with the market where it is and time being what it is I have decided it is too much of a pain for me to continue living in 2 homes and Bill’s house has really begun to feel like home. So in the next month I am moving completely into one home.

Of course in doing this, complications occur. My 2 lovely children (cats) have grown extremely attached to my brother. My brother is a home body and spoils my children hideously. With this decision to move I realize that taking my older cat, Shadow, away from my brother is not a good plan. They are 2 of the same. Also if I am serious about taking my life on the road in an RV at some point in the future neither of my kitties would be happy living that way. This means when I officially move I am leaving them with him. This has been a very hard decision for me to make and I know it is the best thing for them. I will be able to stop by and love on them from time to time but I will not have them wake me in the morning for a belly rub or wake to find them sleeping on my head.

This month has been very emotional for me. I am happy to begin my new life with Bill but I am also sad to leave my old life behind. This has been coming out in so many ways. My old life was also very much the fat me. In moving I have begun going through my boxes to get rid of anything I do not want to keep. My prior job was with a game company. I traveled to conventions and organized fans that played our games. It was in reality my dream job. My wardrobe for this job consisted of Jeans and t-shirts. I became the proud owner of over 25 different comic t-shirts (batman, superman, and other comic book heroes and villains) I have always loved comics and so it was very fun to be able to wear these shirts as part of my work. All of these t-shirts are 2XL since that was the most comfortable fit for me at the weight I was then. Well as I have begun going through my closet and boxes of clothes that are now too big for me all of these shirts have to go. Oh the bittersweetness that comes from losing weight. So in the process of this move I am in many ways having to let go of a prior life. This is a big part of what has been holding me back this month (I have realized recently.) I am not one to dislike change. I have had a very gypsy-like life but to give up all of these t-shirts and to move and leave my kitties behind and just moving on towards a different future then I ever imagined for myself is quite scary. I never in my wildest imagination ever thought I would ever actually lose the weight and keep it off. Through journaling and talking with a close friend I have really begun to realize that mentally this is going to be the biggest move I have ever made. That is saying something since just 4 years ago I sold everything I owned and packed 15 boxes and 2 cats and flew from Florida to Seattle (I had never been west of Minnesota prior) and moved my entire life here but this is a deeply emotional move for me because I am moving into an “area” of my life that I never could have begun to imagine before now. A life where I am more important than I have ever been.

So anyway there is a little bit of where my brain is at. Sometimes in our “diets” when we get stuck we really have to stop and realize it could be things effecting us from the outside in.

Something you just gotta see

Ok so I only have 2 minutes but I totally had to throw this out there for anyone that hasn't seen it yet.

http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com/

It's just too good.
Enjoy

Obsess Much?

For those of you that didn't know 2 weeks ago Bill and I went to a "Life on Wheels" Conference in Lewiston, Idaho. I will have to share more about that in the future. :-) Onto the real topic:


So over the course of the past few weeks I have come to a realization (yes sometimes I can be slow…) I have become obsessed with losing weight. I am not at a point where every thought of every day is consumed with thoughts of eating right and exercising but I would say the majority of my day revolves around it. As many of you know I have been reading the Beck’s Diet Solution. The book is really good at a few things, showing you how you sabotage yourself with your thinking and how to work around it. The thing the book does that I dislike is they want you to plan every single thing that goes into your mouth. It also wants you to pre-plan every moment of your exercise. While I don’t suppose it is the intention of the author, for people like me with an OCD tendency to begin with, it can really make you obsess about the whole thing.


For an update: As of this morning I am down a few more pounds 21 pounds from my February start date but 31 total from my original start. I am actually pretty impressed that I am still going strong (even if a little too strong at times.)

My plan is to change my diet in a way that I can maintain it the rest of my life. The things I am truly beginning to discover are the following:

I don’t like fast food in general. If given a choice and money not being an option I will generally choose a healthier meal. With time and money being an issue we all have to live with it is unreasonable for me to expect that I will never have to eat on the run. This weekend I went to the movies. I ate a good health breakfast before we headed out so it was not difficult to bypass the popcorn, nachos, etc. The movie was nearly 3 hours long (The Dark Knight a.k.a. Batman) and once we were done we had to head over to the store to buy all the things we needed to make our lunches for the week. I was starving and knew it would be a mistake to go to the store that way and also knew that being 30 minutes from home that a snack wasn’t going to satisfy so we stopped at Burger King. This is very acceptable to me because I know that there will be times you just have to do it.

When I went on my trip I obsessed for weeks before planning for exercising and planning to try and make my own meals at times. Much of the obsession was completely useless and in the end just stressed me out. Now I am not saying people shouldn’t prepare but I think I took it a few steps beyond preparing and well into obsession.

Friday of last week things came to a head. I went to Costco with Bill and I went hungry. I knew it was a problem but there was nothing I could do about it. I had eaten all my back up snacks and part of the reason for the trip was to get more of those back-up snacks. Now sometimes I wonder why they set up stores the way they do… Why would you have to walk through the bakery to get to the fruits and veggies. Well now I really know. I stood there surrounded by fresh baked bread smells. With Croissants to my left, muffins to my right and bagels behind me. You ever feel like carbs are cornering you? Well there I was and I had already been PMSing that day. Bill keeps doing the usual “You don’t really want that…” I was on the verge of telling him where to go when it dawned on me that I was going to make myself crazy. I stopped and took inventory on myself and moved away from the carbs. After I left the store I realized I really did want the croissants but the rest of it I didn’t. I wish they sold the croissants in smaller packages because I can not justify buying a dozen of them. In the end I did win out by bypassing them all but I realized that I was really and truly becoming obsessed and so is Bill. We have both spent so much time convincing ourselves that we don’t want things we really do want because they are “bad” for us.

If this is going to be a lifestyle change for me I am going to have to be able to live with this, day in and day out. I am going to have to be able to have a croissant when I want one. Even if it is fairly empty calories and more fat then I really need. I am going to have to be able to take a week off from my exercise if I am feeling yucky without beating myself up for days. Last week I just felt awful most of the week. My joints were all sore and my muscles were achy. I wanted a break and I think I needed one. You can only push yourself so hard and do so much before it is time to relax. This week I am devoting to relaxing. Sometimes you just have to relax.

Enjoy Exercise? Are you crazy? Well yeah I guess so...

The art of losing weight is finding activities (exercise) that you enjoy doing. Now I have heard this hundreds of times in my life and generally I tend to giggle at the person saying it but as I continue to grow as a person I discover new things about myself that I didn’t really know. I feel like I should whisper this one… kinda like a “pssst… you won’t believe this…” I like being active. Now I can hear the gasps from several of you that have known me for year and the I can feel the waves of disbelief. I never thought I would be saying this but here I am. Some people might think I have met a new guy that is an exercise fanatic… nope that’s not it… still seeing Bill. Some of you may think that maybe it’s the allergy medicine I am taking. Heh

The truth is that I have begun to discover new and interesting things I can do for exercise (no I am not talking about sex.) Last year on my vacation I really began to see my physical limitations. We went hiking in Arches National Park and I would get tired quickly. Walking through the Grand Canyon National Park was equally as exhausting and I wanted to do more then I was physically able. With the idea that I needed to be more active and build my stamina last December I bought an elliptical machine. I paid good money for a nice NordicTrack and I was determined it would not become a clothes rack. Thus far I have been doing pretty well. I have been on my elliptical machine at minimum a day or two each week some weeks three or four times. In the process of making myself do it I started thinking… this is boring so what can I do that won’t be boring?

The past few months Bill and I have been discussing the possibility of hiking this summer (if it ever gets here.) I have no excuse not to hike. I live in “The Great Northwest” after all and the mountains, hills, and countryside are beautiful. There are ample opportunities for me to hike around every corner, literally. So last month when REI sent out 25% off coupons I jumped on it and bought myself a new pair of hiking boots. My old hiking boots, which I bought to “hike” to work in the rain, were worn. This weekend we decided to go over to REI to pick up some books on hiking trails in the area so that we could be prepared. While there, they were having a dosey of a sale. I had been thinking about getting a pair of hiking poles. I have read website of people that use them and I figure with my knees anything can help. According to the website it says it takes the equivalent of 15 pounds of pressure off your joints PER STEP. I have been procrastinating buying the poles because I wanted the shock absorbing kind and they cost a pretty penny. So 20% off I thought was a great deal. I picked up the Leki Cor-Tec Anti-shock poles. I am going hiking! Heh
Oh and last but not least an update. This week I am down 4.5 pounds (woot!) that puts me at 10 pounds down and 40 to go. November here I come!!

My Sweet Evelyn I shall always remember you.

Today one of the greatest people I have ever known has passed on. I began working with Evelyn when I was 20. I had gotten a job at Fidelity National Title. She was an assistant to the Attorneys in the company and I was an entry level processing employee. I sat and entered numbered data into the computer all day. Evelyn saw me and realized what a hard worker I was. I have never been a ladder climber. It is not something that concerns me, however, I was concerned about making more money in order to become more comfortable in my life and at the time I thought I might one day have children and kids are expensive. Having been raised to put in work when needed whenever Evelyn needed help I would volunteer to help. At the time I was doing pretty good at the ladder climbing thing just by doing what I had been taught to do… work hard. So Evelyn and I spent a good many nights and even some weekends doing horrible things like stuffing envelopes and binding hundreds of convention notebooks. As time went by I was transferred into another job working more closely with her. I loved her. She was witty and just good all around. She had a wonderful husband and they were perfect for each other. She had a terrific daughter who was the gleam in Evelyns eyes. Through the years Evelyn had some hard times but if ever there was a Pollyanna that woman was it. I grew and became who I am with Evelyn’s help. When I landed in a dead end reception position that truly wasted many of my talents she challenged me to Bloom where I was planted and with her help I did. I grew as a person and learned new things. The woman was amazing in every aspect. She helped me through so much in my life. She helped me plan my wedding and then helped me through my divorce. She was with me when I made the decision to move to Seattle and rooted me on towards moving forward in my life. She meant so much to me and I know that she knows that.
When I got the call a month ago that she was sick I was devistated. How is it that the good people in this world are the ones we lose? Maybe it’s because they have acomplished what they need to and it’s time for them to move on? If that’s the case then I wonder about people that live to be 90 or 100. Are they just slower? Do they not get done what needs to be done? It’s amazing how we go along in life and think we know how things work and then something like this hits and we become dumbfounded and everything we think or even know becomes wrong. Yesterday I was riding around town carefree and singing along when the radio played “only the good die young” I have heard this song hundreds of times but to me it was just an upbeat tune that I never really got. It’s just so sad.

Well today has been a rainy day which truly suited my mood. The wind is blowing and the clouds have blocked out the sun that peeked through a little earlier. Evelyn would have loved the cherry blossoms.

Save the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus!

Anyone out there that really knows me knows that in general I hold animals in higher esteem than I do humans. I came across a creature recently that I would like to bring to the attention of all my friends. It is the great northwest tree octopus. The pictures of these creatures are amazing. They are apparently very rare to the area and are on the verge of extinction. For more information on this amazing creature check out this website:

http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/

If you are interested in even more info there are dozens of sites dedicated to this oddity. You should google them it is quite fascinating. If you live here in the northwest keep an eye out for them. If I come across any in my future hiking excursions I will make sure to post pictures. I hope to spread the word about this amazing oddity of nature.

Enjoy!