health

When It Rains, It Pours

/ Courtney / Leave a comment

It makes me really sad that I haven’t had the mental or emotional energy to write in so long. There has been A LOT going on and it will take many blog posts and many nights to really do it all justice, but here’s a short recap:

  • Diagnosed with sleep apnea – slept an average of about 2 hours a night for the first 6 weeks after I got my CPAP machine. They keep telling me I’ll die an early death without it, but so far all it’s done is spike my blood pressure and anxiety and prevent me from sleeping through the night.
  • Was in the ER for mystery stomach pain and abnormal blood work. Many tests and almost $6K out of pocket later, still no definitive answer other than ovarian cysts and possibly IBS.
  • Found out there was extensive gum damage and swelling as a result of the sleep apnea and a medication I was on, and wound up having to have multiple gum surgeries (another $7K out of pocket).
  • Somewhere in all this, decided moving to Colorado was really too far away from my (and Gil’s) family, so completely overhauled our relocation plans.
  • Sold my condo.
  • Bought a new house on 7 acres, 3 hours away from where we are now.
  • Struggled to find homeowners insurance on said house. Finally able to obtain it if we were classified as a HOBBY GOAT FARM.
  • Oh, and Gil proposed on a trip to Colorado so now we’re technically engaged. I say “technically” because we were already committed and we’re waiting til he finishes school to get married, and then we’re eloping so no one will even know it’s happening until it’s already happened. But I have a badass ring and am officially his property now… wait, no, that doesn’t sound right. But we’re engaged, and that makes me happy.

So to recap my recap…. it’s been really overwhelming the last few months, but things are turning around. And I’m getting GOATS. So there’s that.

Right now is all about talking about packing (we move in less than 2 weeks and haven’t exactly started) and debating over which kind of goats we’re going to get. Essentially the only thing my brain can handle at this point is researching different kinds of pygmy goats and how friendly each different breed is – not thinking about all the work that has to be done on the house, or the headaches I’ll have getting my new home office set-up, or all my unresolved health stuff and the fact I have to find all new doctors and specialists.

I’m focused more on the goats than the packing, because that’s way more fun. Gil also keeps threatening to eat our future pet goats, so I don’t think we’re done debating about this.

Also, I decided it would be a fabulous plan to go on the hunt for a 12 foot tall dinosaur that I could park at the end of our dirt driveway at the new house so people could ALWAYS find us, and I could say things like “Just turn left at the dinosaur.” I’d seen them in Half Moon Bay, so this past weekend my parents and I went out looking. We found it. And it was glorious.

dinosaur

Unfortunately for me, it turns out that “glorious” comes with a hefty price tag: $3K. Considering the numbers on all that house paperwork I just signed and all the medical expenses this year so far, even I couldn’t justify that cost. Trust me, I tried. I really did. But also, I’d like to live in that house for years, and I’m not sure parking a 12 foot tall dinosaur in the road is the best way to get off on the right foot with all my new neighbors.

So I went on the hunt for something more “appropriate” – and just 100 feet into the metal gallery I was shopping in, I FOUND IT. My beautiful new rooster. Literally just a couple inches shorter than me, and as loud and obnoxious as you can imagine – it’s like my metal spirit animal.

rooster

And I checked with Gil – it’s definitely a rooster, not a chicken. I asked how you can tell the difference and he just shook his head at me. Then again, when he told me he wanted to have chickens on our property so we could have eggs, my first question was if you could just rent a rooster instead of owning one, since I didn’t want to be woken up at 5AM. Turns out chickens make eggs all on their own, without a rent-a-rooster making the rounds. I had no idea. I’m totally going to rock this whole living in the country, having a goat farm thing.

But back to my amazing find at the metal gallery.  It’s ALMOST $3K cheaper than my initial pick, so it would be really irresponsible for me NOT to buy it. Because not having some sort of animal statue at the end of the drive just really isn’t an option. PLUS, now I can tell people to turn left AT THE GIANT COCK.

I couldn’t fit it in my car, so he’s not actually mine yet, but he will be. Gil agreed to go get him for me (it’s about 45 minutes away) with his truck and then bring him back to pack him into the moving truck we’re renting. Forget engagement rings – THAT is true love.

So basically I’m living exactly the life I want right now – where transporting a 5 foot tall metal rooster is my number one priority, and the only thing I’m allowing myself to stress about is what I’m going to name him.

Considering the year I’ve had so far, everything else can just wait.

So. Much. Rage.

/ Courtney / Leave a comment

I hate when people make me be mean. I would rather be nice. I have worked in sales and customer service for years… I know you catch more flies with honey, or whatever that ridiculous analogy is.

However, I have recently been exposed to the 7th circle of hell otherwise known as Mazda, and the experience has required me to go into full bitch mode more times than I care to count just to advocate for myself and prevent arrogant pricks from completely jerking me around. When a company so grossly mistreats a customer who has literally just spent $30,000+ and that customer is ME, I find myself getting very worked up over it.

So much so in fact, that I recently landed in the ER with unbearable abdominal pain, only to be told to that it was due partly to an ovarian cyst, and partly due to other stress-induced medical issues. Thanks Mazda, I’ll be sure to forward my ER bill to you.

I am hopefully coming to the end of my almost 2 month battle with Mazda at this point, and I think we are going to reach an outcome I’m comfortable with. If for no other reason, than that they have literally worn me out and I just want to be done. I can’t afford to spend hours of my life every week fighting these battles anymore – I already have a full-time job.

But now what I’m finding is that as a result of this nightmare with Mazda, along with all the personal health issues I’ve had going on lately, I am becoming more and more filled with rage.

This is a total 180 from the other night, when Mazda called to basically tell me to fuck off, that they weren’t going to try to work with me to replace my brand new car, and were now claiming zero responsibility for the issue. That was the night I had to have Gil drive me to one of my many doctor’s offices for a sleep study, so I could be observed like a zoo animal all night. As if I wasn’t stressed enough about that, getting the call from Mazda pushed me over the edge, and I literally sobbed the whole drive over there.

That was 2 days ago though. Today… today I am filled with violent anger.

Not only at Mazda, but at the ER who discharged me with papers telling me I had been diagnosed with hepatitis, when THEY HADN’T EVEN RUN A HEPATITIS PANEL. (For the record, I do not have hepatitis – my primary care doctor ordered the panel herself when I showed her that, and everything came back negative.)

Rage at the ultrasound tech who was checking for the pancreatic lesion the ER thought they saw, who thought it would be helpful to tell me that the pancreas is the one organ that once they do realize something is wrong with it, it’s already too advanced to do much about it. (I do not, in fact, have any pancreatic lesions.)

Rage towards one of the other doctors I saw who basically said, yeah, I don’t know what it could be, you’ll probably just have to learn to deal with the pain, and by the way, I know you didn’t ask me and I’m not your regular doctor, but I think you should really have weight loss surgery.

That day, tears. Today, in hindsight, rage. So much rage.

I suppose I’d rather be full of piss and vinegar than sorrow, but honestly I don’t think either one really suits me all that well. I find myself wanting to snap at everyone, when I know damn well that’s not fair. Although the reality is that life isn’t fair, as the universe has so kindly reminded me time and time again over the last couple months.

So I find myself at what I wonder may be a crossroads… I feel like it would be so easy to completely cross over into just becoming an angry person. Adopting that as part of my regular personality. Angry at the world, and angry at all the idiots who have done me wrong. I would be justified I think.

But I would also become someone I don’t think I would like very much. I love that I can get in peoples’ faces when I need to, that I don’t back down from a challenge, and that I always make sure my voice is heard, but I don’t want to become someone who is in that kind of battle mode all the time, looking for a fight.

I need to find a way to let this all go… and maybe just sharing it with you guys is what’s going to let me do that. Well, that and finally putting this mess with Mazda behind me, which is hopefully happening very soon.

I Love You, I’m Proud of You… Now Shut Up

/ Courtney / Leave a comment

I am fat. I have been, to varying degrees, for a significant period of my adult life. I have always struggled with my weight, so it’s never far from my mind.

scale

In turn, I struggle with my self-image quite a bit as well. I place way too much emphasis on the correlation between size and happiness. That’s not to say I don’t need to lose weight to be happier – at this point, I certainly do. I’ve had multiple ankle surgeries and had limited mobility for the last couple years, so being more active and losing some of the weight I’ve gained is important to me, for my own personal happiness.

I’ll never be a size 6, and that’s fine. I don’t need to be. But I do need to be healthier and more active to start really feeling like me again, regardless of the number on the scale. In the meantime though, I need to really work on loving myself in spite of the fact that I’m not where I want to be right now.

One of the people who has been most instrumental in helping me do this is Gil. He is the most supportive partner I could ever ask for. He loves me no matter what, and he tells me how beautiful I am every single day, and how attracted he is to me. He tells me and shows me in a million ways how much he appreciates everything about me, including my body.

He is also very much supportive of me wanting to make changes, which is another point in the “wonderful boyfriend” column. He himself has made a ton of positive changes in the last year and a half. He cut out regular soda, fast food, most sugar, and he got a job as a coach working with kids, so he is literally active all day long. And recently he has even taken up running and is getting even more serious about getting in shape. He’s lost over 40 pounds and counting. It’s incredible.

And I hate it. I mean, I love him and I’m proud of him, and it’s amazing. But I HATE IT.

I say that with as much love in my heart as possible. But we are both people who have struggled with our weight over the years, and for him to be making such drastic progress when I’m not is extremely challenging. Don’t get me wrong, I AM proud of him. But when he comes into the living room and complains that there is no way he’ll be able to eat all of his allotted calories on MyFitnessPal for the day, or how he lost another 3 pounds, I want to stab him in the eye with a fork. And then use that fork to finish a giant bowl of pasta.

My mom works for Weight Watchers and she sees this all the time. Couples come in together, and almost immediately the man starts losing weight faster than the woman (because biology SUCKS), and she inevitably gets frustrated. It’s one of the biggest challenges my mom sees her members having, when their spouse is losing and they aren’t.

When Gil and I started dating, we went the way of many couples. Lots of dinners out, weekend trips, and nights ordering in, not watching what we were eating at all. If he had a third piece of pizza, so did I. If he was going to sit and each chips and salsa, so was I.  And surprise, surprise, I gained at least 20 or 30 pounds in the first year of our relationship. Him? Probably none.

I’m not blaming him by any means. I did it to myself – it’s easy to give yourself so much leeway in the beginning of a relationship, and most of the women I know have fallen into this trap at one time or another. And if you struggle with weight and your relationship with food the way I do, it can become this weird free pass to do all the things you know are going to take you to the dark side. The side where nothing in your closet fits even though you JUST caved in and bought things a size up to get you through last season.

My mom always tells me how she would be struggling to diet and lose weight when she was dating my dad, and he would just announce one day that he planned to lose 10 pounds that week. AND HE WOULD. How he lived to father 2 children, I’m not sure.

When Gil needed to make some changes to his diet for medical reasons, I was all over it and helped get us stocked up on my healthy go-to’s. Gil wasn’t even trying to lose weight that first year – it just happened. I have never, in my entire life, known a woman who just “accidentally” lost weight.

And now that he’s actually actively working on getting in shape and really trying to watch his diet more, I can only imagine how successful he will be. And even if it makes me a horrible person for saying it, that’s really hard for me.

I have gone through so many attempts to “get started” on my fitness goals over the years, whether it was with MyFitnessPal or Weight Watchers, or whatever, but it is a daily struggle for me and it’s very slow going. There are a million reasons why, but none of that really matters. All that matters is that I am struggling to make the changes I so desperately want to make, and the opposite is true for my partner.

And I am completely terrified of being the fat girlfriend with a fit boyfriend.

It was different when we were both big – it was just part of our charm as a couple. Big people, big personalities. But now I feel this pressure that if I don’t lose a bunch of weight with him, that I’m failing in some way. That people will judge. That he might decide he wants someone who can keep up with him.

It’s a terrible feeling, but one I’m going to have to come to terms with. Because I want him to share his successes with me. When he is excited about losing another 5 pounds, I want him to feel like he can celebrate that with me. I don’t want to be threatened by his progress. But today, I still am. There is still a little part of me that can’t stand hearing how well he is doing, when I am still struggling to get on track. But that’s OK – I am giving myself permission to feel that way.

Because I’ll get there. Whether or not I actually lose as much weight as he does is not the point. I’ll get to a point where I can fully accept myself. Maybe that involves losing a bunch of weight, and maybe it doesn’t. All I know is that I want us to be able to fully support each other no matter what. And even if I get struck with the occasional urge to hurl heavy objects at his head when he announces that none of his pants fit anymore, or that he COULDN’T POSSIBLY have one more bite as I’m cleaning my plate… well, I’m only human.

Activity Trackers And Me

/ Courtney / Leave a comment

OK, let me just start by saying I have a bit of a shopping addiction. I have in under control (mostly) but I’m kind of an impulse purchase type of girl. If it’s new and it’s trendy, I’m probably paying attention. You may have seen my post the other day about wearable vibrators … I’m not embarrassed to tell you I pre-ordered mine. I mean, how could I resist?

I’m lucky enough to have disposable income and no hefty financial responsibilities other than myself and my mortgage, so I play it a little fast and loose sometimes. Which is why when the Fitbit Flex was announced in 2012, I pre-ordered one of those bad boys too. I was trying to get healthier and did my research on the different wrist trackers out there – I really wanted one that was compatible with MyFitnessPal and I liked the idea of a bracelet. And even though I think some of the other options were more stylish, I went with the Flex because it met all of my needs.

Only problem was that by the time it arrived, I had shattered my ankle and had major surgery. I was on crutches for three months and in physical therapy for months after that. I wasn’t so much concerned with tracking my steps as I was being able to make them at all.

Fast forward a few months and I finally got excited about my activity tracker again. And by then, the Flex was popular enough that a lot of my friends had gotten one as well. It was a great way to track which days we were really moving enough and personally, I found the sleep tracker really eye opening as well.

They’re not for everyone, I get it. And just because I own one doesn’t mean I’m getting my 10,000 steps a day like I know I should. But it does help keep me accountable. And small changes and improvements are better than no changes at all. As I type this, mine is laying dead and sad in the bathroom – I have been slacking lately and need to throw it back in the charger. Baby steps.

Anyway, I really like it except for the fact that it’s not the fashion statement I would typically choose to make. I ordered the bright pink replacement band, and that helps some. But I’m not ready to shell out the hundreds of dollars for the designer Fitbit bracelets that are just hitting the market and I just wish it looked better sometimes.

And then I saw this pop up in my news feed on Facebook today: Cuff Activity Tracker

I was weak guys. I clicked. And it was kind of awesome. Admittedly, the basic cuff band looks similar to my Flex, but what I’m really excited about are the other bracelet options. Which actually look like – wait for it – BRACELETS. Not just a rubber wrist band, but stylish arm candy.

cuff2

photo via The Verge

Now that’s not really enough to sucker me into trying this out and comparing it my Flex. I don’t need two trackers. BUT, the element that really caught my attention is the emergency alert feature. Basically, you press a button on the bracelet, and it sends out an SOS.

From the Cuff site:

The Cuff app will alert the people you designate as your “first responders” when you need help. You can program one person or your entire Facebook network as your “first responders.” Cuff will send your SOS to the people you choose, and it will not stop until someone responds. Your designated people will receive your location, live audio, and other relevant information to get you (or your loved one) the help you need.

This appeals to me as a woman. Which I know is exactly what they were going for – just call me the ultimate consumer. I have probably watched one too many episodes of Criminal Minds, but I do think about what I would do in the whole “trapped in the trunk of a car without my phone” scenario. You know, after I peed myself.

For single women out at the bars or walking to their cars alone at night, it’s not a bad idea, even if it was designed as a marketing hook. As someone who carries a taser because I’ve been followed/threatened once or twice, I’m probably a little more aware of these things. But I have to say, it has me considering a test run. If it can hold up to the functionality of my Fitbit while offering more stylish options and a “get out of trunk free” card, I might be switching teams.