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,

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,

Getting Healthy (Again)

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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,