In Which We Have to Get Healthy

But first an update. I promised one. We DID, in fact, get the youngest's room under control. All toys are now on the shelves in her closet or stored in the garage for rotating later. The 137 baby dolls turned out to only be 16, but I feel that is a sufficient number for a young mom to handle. They are on a shelf. All that is in her room is her play kitchen, her $12 new-to-us baby care center, and that shelf of babies. Her clothes were organized too, but then we were blessed with 2 garbage bags of hand-me-downs that I thought we might put away for later.

So far, they have all fit.

How did she get so big? She's 6 1/2 and these are all size 8s.

Sniff.

Anyway, onto our health journey. We are not young like we once were and it is past time to be very serious about our health.

1. I believe I have mentioned changes at husband's work which means that we now pay health insurance and prescriptions out-of-pocket until we meet the deductible. This makes you strongly consider "do I NEED to go to the doctor?" Which is not how it should be.

2. I have had pain like back when I had ulcers/gastritis 7 years ago and also found a lump in my abdomen. Obviously, that is scary. I visited the g.i. doc, got scheduled for blood work, an ultrasound, and an EGD. So far, we have spent $1500.

3. I could have spent that money so many ways.

4. But it was good to have because now I know that I have a. 2 small ulcers b. a small hiatal hernia c. a slightly enlarged liver (fatty liver) and he thinks the lump is probably a hernia too. He will look at it more at my follow up next week.

So, add that to us not being able to afford the out-of-pocket diabetes meds for husband, and you've got a situation that requires action.

On New Year's Eve, we started eating Trim Healthy Mama. I did this plan back in 2014-2015 and lost 30 pounds. I know it works. And after I lost all that weight, a few things happened:

(there are a lot of lists today, huh?)

1. My Dad went into the hospital for 6 1/2 weeks and I took care of Mom, transportation, running back and forth, and our kids (youngest had *just* turned 3 at the time). Dad ended up passing away at the end of the summer so then of course....grief, grieving children, Mom, funeral, everything.

2. About 3 weeks after Dad's funeral, we took our second-born to the doctor for allergy testing. We found out she was allergic to...well, earth. But mostly soy. So, I spent months. MONTHS. Learning to not kill her when I cooked and grocery shopped.

3. Clearly, my THM ways went by the wayside.

So that is why I now have 40 pounds to lose. And some exercise to do. I have been walking nearly every day for a week (I forgot Sunday). It's a good way to start out. And our eating has been excellent ever since Dec. 31. It will take a bit for the weight to start dropping off, but it will.

And I'm taking meds for the ulcers.

We have gotten husband off of his short-acting insulin and one pill.

I think we are on the right road, headed in the right direction.

And we really don't have a choice. I desperately want to be healthy and energetic and to finish raising these girls. Plus my husband needs me as well. I need to be here for these people.

Signing off,

In Which I Have a Pain in the Neck

Well, actually make that two pains. I will tell you about each one.

1. An ACTUAL pain in my neck. 

Remember I had that horrible headache on Christmas day? well, it was Jan. 2 before I could get myself to my atlas chiropractor. She's so wonderful. I knew my atlas was out of place and I was right. It took 2 trips to get it back in place but my head hasn't hurt since. Headaches are so awful and they can truly be debilitating. I don't know how people live with them. I'm a little worried each time my neck hurts or I start to have a headache but I know there are other reasons for headaches and neck aches. It's not always going to be my atlas. I wouldn't even mind going to the chiropractor that much, but it's pretty far from our house. After having that much pain, I am very thankful to be pain free!

2. Cooking. And planning what to cook. And buying the food to cook. And cleaning up from the food we cooked. And doing it all again in a few hours.

So, some changes at husband's work resulted in some insurance changes, which resulted in us having to pay out of pocket for medicine this year. My husband has Type 2 Diabetes, which means his meds would cost us about $1,300 a month. Clearly, that's not do-able. So ever since New Year's Eve, we have been working on getting him off of some of his meds. 

The way I decided to do this was with Trim Healthy Mama. I know the plan. I know it works (I lost a lot of weight about 3-4 years ago BEFORE my dad died and BEFORE we found out our second-born daughter had food allergies. After that, I concentrated on learning to cook for her allergies and gained a lot back. Sigh) So we started THM and he is already off of his short-acting insulin! We are so happy about that! However, if the cost is not monetary, the cost is time. 

I am fixing THM breakfast and supper each day for him as well as planning and packing snacks and lunch. That's everything he eats, seven days a week. It's a LOT. Big deal you say? Perhaps you do that already. But there is never a time he can just grab some to-go food to give a break or just buy something at the convenience store when he's hungry. There is not a time for me to sleep in, either. This morning he did fix his own scrambled eggs and I got to sleep until just after 7. It was heavenly. 

It affects our lives greatly is what I'm saying. We have to go to bed earlier so we can get up earlier so we can do all the food things. 

The good news is that in comparison to all this meal stuff, homeschool is a breeze! We had our second day back today and its going fine. More on that later. 

I'm going to read a little now before I start cooking the next meal. 

P.S. I'm so busy I don't even post pictures on here! If you want to see what's going on with Project: Family, follow me on Instagram! 

Signing off, 

From Higher Education to the ER

I'll cover it all in this post!

Our oldest daughter is finally going to be starting her higher education in the morning! Working out a life-plan with her has been challenging. What do you DO when you still live at home and yet haven't started school yet? What about a job? A job with enough flexibility to allow you the time to study and be with your family?

What she's been doing, while she waited to start school, is a lot of housework. Not sure she'll look back on it as the most fun chapter of her life, but it sure has been a huge help to me!

So we think we have a plan worked out for that now...and a lot of my friends will be quite happy with it, I believe. She's excited, I'm excited, Dad's excited. So I feel like we finally have her starting on the right path.

I'm glad she's still home anyway because over the weekend I was ironing a pile of Steve's dress shirts and it occurred to me that she doesn't know how to iron a man's dress shirt. I taught her to iron many years ago, but it hasn't been practiced enough. Also what if one day she is married and her husband needs his shirts ironed? (I know a ton of people who just send everything to the cleaners but that isn't always in the budget!)

So she learned to do that. And it's just nice that she's still here and there is still time to teach her little things like that for adulthood.

We have another field trip this week. I'm so happy that we are getting to go on field trips again after several years of not really going on many (because oldest needed to finish school and also we had a lot of therapy and tutoring appointments). However, it stresses me out a little to see another day of school not getting done. Last week's field trip was at least educational, but this week's is pretty much just fun. That's OK. There will be other days to do book work, right?

My oldest sister has been taking my oldest daughter on Friday night fun nights for awhile now. They will go get some food that we normally cannot have due to food allergies, and then watch a movie that we can't watch around here because of little eyes and ears. It's nice for her to get to go do something "big" and stay out late. So this last Friday night, sister picked up the 2nd born for her turn. And now this coming Friday, she is planning a daytime fun day for the youngest. She's a good aunt.
They feel special getting to do something by themselves.

Brave Aunt T and 2nd born at her birthday last year. 

So while 2nd born was out with her aunt, the rest of us RAN NOT WALKED to Whataburger and ate. Whataburger has soy in pretty much everything except their drinks and ketchup packets. So we never get to eat there anymore. It was so cheap! It made me realize how when we do go out, it costs so much more than other families because we have to choose allergy-friendly places and make substitutions that cost more. Food allergies stink.

Steve in the ER last year. I'll spare you his face. He looked miserable. 

Speaking of food allergies, one year ago yesterday we found out that my husband also suddenly had food allergies. We found out through the fun of anaphylaxis. It was an hours-long ordeal and it took us way too long to figure out what was going on. In the end, he ended up taking a ride in the ambulance.

A picture of his side showing the hives he broke out in once he arrived at the ER. 

After seeing that anaphylaxis is a very scary beast, we got Epi-Pens for both he and our 2nd born. She had been diagnosed 2 years prior, but we were under the (very mistaken) belief that her allergies "weren't that bad" and no doctor even offered an Epi-Pen nor suggested that we needed one. We are wiser today and they carry them everywhere they go.

Which is why, tonight, I made banana bread from scratch. Daughter wanted something sweet and it's so nice to know exactly what's in the food because I made it. Actually, it's on my weight loss plan, which isn't actually going very well. But I have lost 2 pounds in a month or so....so there's that.

Signing off,

Project: Doctor Visits and a Small Rant

Today was a day of medical stuff. First of all, we had to take the cat to the vet. We've never been to an actual vet's office. Around here, we have a non-profit organization that does low-cost spay/neutering and vaccines. Our cat has always been healthy, so we've always just gone there.

But she's been sick, so we had to go to an actual vet. It was nice. It was much cleaner and the people were very nice. It wasn't as expensive as I feared, either.

She, however, was not pleased.

Back home and not speaking to us. She stayed gone most of the day. 

Kit-Cat got a shot of antibiotics and we hope she's feeling much better really soon. Poor baby.

By the way, if you want to follow Kit-Cat's Instagram page, go here. 

After the vet, I dropped the cat and older girls home and took the youngest to the doctor, where a urine sample was required. After explaining the process to her she said, "This is the weirdest thing I have ever done."

But she couldn't um...successfully complete the sample when we first got there. So the doctor had her drink water while walking around the exam room and then gave instructions for her to run around and get her heart rate up. It worked! But an 8x4 room is pretty hard to work in!

Enough medical stuff for awhile.

This weekend our local library had a knock off of the show Antiques Roadshow. Steve and I were given a book from my uncle last year and we discovered it was a pretty old specimen. We had done a little research online, but wanted to hear from an expert.

We invited my mom to go along and told her to bring some old stuff to have it looked at. She brought her old doll, my grandma's old doll (nearly 100 years old!) and another doll of hers from when she was a girl.

I'm not sure how much the antiques people knew about our particular items, but it was interesting discussing them with them and hearing their opinions. We're not interested in selling those dolls by any means, but I'm glad to know more about them!

Last week was our week off of school (which is why I didn't post much!) so Sunday the younger girls wanted to do one last fun thing. We drove to a mall so the youngest could play in the very awesome play area they have.

And the 2nd born and I did a little window shopping at the American Girl Store.

She loves this store so much.

Well, we did a little more than window shop. My girl wanted a book. Listen, I'll tell you some other time about our journey with her vision, but when this girl asks for a book ----to voluntarily read--- you get that book!!

Then we wanted to treat the girls to ice cream. There were several choices of ice cream stores at this particular mall. Big, national, chain ice cream stores whose names I will not mention here. But none of them could tell us the ingredients of their ice cream. Our 2nd born has food allergies. How can big, national, chain ice cream stores not supply us with a list of ingredients for their products?????

We once went to a place on vacation. Inside this place was a little, how do I say it best? Grill? Eatery? Snack bar? It wasn't a sit-down restaurant is what I'm saying. It was a walk-up-to-the-counter-and-look-at-the-board-and-get-your-food-in-a-paper-boat kind of place. 

And when we asked about allergy information, THEY HANDED US A BINDER WITH COPIES OF EVERY PACKAGE OF FOOD THEY USED. Want a corn dog? Here's a copy of the ingredients on the side of the corn dog box! 

Revolutionary, I'm telling you. Come on ice cream stores. Get it together. 

Signing off, 

Getting Healthy (Again)

This post contains an affiliate link. If you click through and make a purchase, we receive a small commission at no additional cost to you. Hope they are helpful!

About five years ago (I think), after having our third daughter, I started an eating plan. I lost weight and dress sizes like crazy. I hitched my pants up as they got looser, but was afraid to go shopping for more as I wasn't really sure I was down a whole size yet. When I finally went shopping, I had dropped two sizes! A bit later, I had dropped 2 more sizes. I really could not believe the numbers I was seeing on the tags. It was amazing. I felt amazing.

You know there's a "but", right? Well, what happened is a chain of events. First, my dad spent 6 weeks or so one summer in the hospital before passing away. Two or three weeks after that, our second daughter was diagnosed with all kinds of food allergies. So cooking and meal prep became about trying to not kill her. Or at least about not making her stomach hurt after every meal. It was a very steep learning curve figuring it all out.

Then, because my daughter was not allergic to wheat, my husband was diagnosed with food allergies as well. And he added the "no wheat" fun to the game. So of the top 8 allergens, we're hitting five of them over here at Project Family (plus a few other things that aren't listed in the top 8). Oh and the way we found out about his allergies, because we had no idea he had any, was that he took a little ambulance ride with anaphylaxis. I'm thankful he's OK and I worked on adding in his food allergies to my game.

During all of this, we were spending quite a bit of time taking care of my mom. Eating "on plan" was about #275 on my list of priorities.

So, three years after my daughter's diagnosis, I finally felt like "OK. It's time. I want to get back to where I was." I started back about a month ago. It was easier this time. The things I had learned started coming back to me pretty easily. And this time I know how to incorporate it all with the allergies, which has become second nature.

But the weight wasn't coming off. Hmm. I know I'm a little older. Maybe I'm not eating enough on-plan? No...I know for a fact I didn't do much more than this last time. I put on a familiar t-shirt last night and it was so tight! WHAT was going on?

Well, Google and I spent a few minutes and found out that the medicine I had been prescribed for my allergies 2 weeks ago causes weight gain. Especially around the middle. Now it's not listed as a side effect, but I found a thread of hundreds of people with anecdotal evidence and that many people can't be wrong. So needless to say, I am done with THAT medicine as of last night!

That made me remember that I had a bad sinus infection a few months ago and was given antibiotics + steroids. And those gave me gastritis so then I had to take a PPI for a month. All said, I realized I have taken a LOT of medicine lately! No wonder! My body needs some time to heal.

I will keep going. I will keep eating the way I know I'm supposed to. It may take awhile, but I will start to see a difference--it just may not be as quickly as I prefer!

Looking forward to there being less of me again!

Signing off,