My Bariatric Journey ~ Video Blog

https://youtu.be/1gixELqurNw 

Monday? Really?

What do you do when you are forced to come to the realization that your life is not going the way you once planned? How about if you know that time is running out  on achieving a goal but you realize that it's probably not going to come to fruition? I can tell you that it's not fun. In fact it can be down right depressing. 

That's how I have been feeling ever since I found out that I can't transfer my job back to Ohio right now. I don't want to stay in Tennesee much longer for a lot of reasons.. The main one being financial. But I guess it could be a lot worse than it is right now. 

So today I must reevaluate what I am going to do with my life. Will I hold off and hope that come January things will change for us? Or do I just give up and continue to be completely unhappy? 

Sunday night thoughts...

Tonight lying in bed doing the same thing I always do on Sunday nights; watching all of the tv programs that I have become interested in a great sadness suddenly came over me and I started to cry, almost uncontrollably.

 Recently we chose to give Karey the SmartTV that was in the living room and basically took her old 19" tube tv out of service for now. But with this change, it means that when you have 3 stubborn & opionated people who all want to watch different things, there has to be sacrifice. So I watch all of my shows on the family iPad. It is propped up on a bamboo tablet stand that I purchased from my "Pampered Chef Lady" (who by the way happens to be my big sister) I plug in my earbuds and open the app for the correct station I want to watch; mainly abc family and Xfinity TV on demand. Thanks to Netflix, I learned of some Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC) programs that I have absolutely become obsessed with. Like a teenage girl with a crush on Luke Perry, the "bad boy", on Beverly Hills 90210 in the 90's. I know most of my readers know what I am talking about because most of you had Luke's posters all over your bedroom walls! But back to what I was going share. 

Now where was I? Ahh yes, the overwhelming feeling of sadness. You know how sometimes you will be watching a show & think "Oh my Gosh that could be me!" I get lost in these shows and sometimes they take me to another place and time but never have I felt the power I felt tonight while catching up on the latest episodes of Monica the Medium on ABC Family. Listening to the readings she gives I think back to when Jeff & I first met. I can't remember which number date we were on but we had only known each other for a few weeks at most. He hadn't shared a lot of deeply personal things with me at first. Sitting in a pool hall waiting for my turn at Karaoke, I stood in front of Jeff as he was sitting in a bar stool. To the average individual it appeared that the stool next to him was empty, but I kept seeing a faint image of an older man with his fishing rod. I described the man to Jeff but Jeff swears he could not see the image of the man. 

The old man started talking to me and said that he wanted Jeff to know that he always thought of Jeff as part of the family and he was honored to be Jeff's personally appointed Grandfather. Jeff about fell of his stiool that night. Several months later I was blessed to have to chance to meet that mans wife, Juanita. We call her Grandma Potter, even though we aren't really family by blood or marriage. Grandma & Grandpa Potter helped to raise Jeff's best friend David.And because the boys were pretty much always getting into something Keff became an unofficial adopted brother to David. 

There had been many other times where my own deceased family members would try to send me messages or help me to see that they were there with me. But after I had open heart surgery in 2010 their visits stopped. Sometimes little things will happen that remind me of them and then I start telling them about my day. Or I will be having a hard day at work & I close my eyes and there is my Grandpa Prezioso in the basement of their house in Perry, OH and he is preparing vegetables to be part of whatever meal we were having  that night. I can almost hear his voice calling my name as he rolled the "r" sound like it is done in Spanisg & Italian. 

It is comforting to me to know they are watching me. But a part of me wishes I could have that higher level of continued contacts with my loved ones, especially those that I would love to be able to ask questions to about the a family history and other question as like are they proud of me? Was there anything left usnaid or undone when they passed away that they need help to rectify? 

Maybe one day where en I can get back to who I am; when I am not on brain overload. Someday. Maybe. 

Living with Hashimoto's

I'm having one of those days where I wonder why I even got out of bed. It seems I have more & more of these kind of days. I have had these kind of days every now and again over the last 13 1/2 years. But up until about 5 months ago, my doctors never could figure out what was wrong so they guessed at treatments. Sometimes things would work and other times they wouldn't. 

Now that I have been diagnosed with Hashimoto's Thyroiditis one would think that I would start to feel better. The truth is since I started synthetic thyroid hormones my body has been on this strange roller coaster. The first few weeks on Levothyroxine 50mcg I felt as thought I was getting a little bit of energy back and I also felt like I was thinking a bit clearer. I was a fat way from feeling like a lively 38 year old, but I could feel a small difference. My first blood test after being on Levo for 6 weeks show a very scary result -- my TSH went from a little over 18 to 27.62. WHAT?!?! How can I be getting worse?! My doctor increased the dose to 75 mcg.  Time to wait another 6-8 weeks to yeah my TSH levels again. 

This time when the medication was increased I had a symptoms flare up. I have to stop here and say that when I was first diagnosed with thyroid disease my doctor did not tell me it was Hashimoto's; instead she simply told my husband & I that I had an under active thyroid. While the majority of people with UT have Hashimoto's, not everyone does. We left the office in March knowing that an autoimmune disease was highly possible. 

Back to the medication- so I was on 75 mcg for 7 weeks and when I had my  blood test this time I asked for a full thyroid work up. Thyroid antibodies, TSH, Free T3 & T4. That is when I learned I was in the middle of a full blown attack on my body. TPOab - also known as Thyroperoxidase antibody- according to the lab that processed the test, should not be any higher than 59 UI/ml. My TPOab factor was over 3300. Yes that means that the thyroid antibodies are going to town in my body. 

Right now I am on 100 mcg of Levo per morning and I still don't feel much of an improvement. If anything my insomnia has gotten much worse, my hair is falling out, I am still over 300 lbs and can't get my weight loss surgery until my Thyroid is under control. I don't like the way my face looks and I hate looking at myself in the mirror.   

I have to continue to pray that the medical professionals know what they are doing. I have to have faith that I will get my life back. I know strangers look at me and they are disgusted with my looks. They don't know that this is a result of a disease. I didn't ask for this disease but I have it and all I can do now is fight and try to overcome it. 

Genealogy Do-Over Cycle 2: Schedule of Topics

Genealogy Do-Over Cycle 2: Schedule of Topics

It's an Underactive Thyroid!

I am perhaps the very worst "blogger" ever.  It has been way too long since I took time to sit back and share my thoughts with all of you.  I don't even remember what was happening the last time I posted. Blogging is supposed to be my way of sharing my life with the world, and in true "CeCe" style, I gave up when it became hard.  That seems to have been the theme throughout many things in my life over the last 10-15 years.  I didn't used to be that way though.  I used to be one of those people who when they started something, they didn't stop until it was finished.  But not anymore. 

As you all know, life keeps moving on - one day at a time - in a wave of ups and downs.  My life is like that.  There have been times over the last year or so that I wasn't sure what was going to happen from day to day and over the last year I have been struggling with many things.  One of the biggest issues has been my health  I don't want to bore everyone today with all of the boring details of the last 10 years, but I will say that, for me, my health has progressively declined.  The worst decline began after my open heart surgery in 2010.  But the last 12 months have been absolutely horrible for me. 

All  I wanted was answers to why I was feeling the way that I was and why I had no energy at all to do the things I needed to do, much less achieve the tasks that I wanted to do.  Two months ago I finally got the answers that I had been searching for.  The problem?  An Underactive Thyroid.  A chronic, treatable, but not curable, disorder that I will have to for the rest of my life. 

After getting the diagnosis I was relieved but terrified.  What does this mean for my life going forward?  Does this mean that I will never be able to live a normal existance again?  Will this get worse?  What does it mean for my family?  My PCP could only answer those questions in general terms.  You know how medical professionals are.  They are so worried about saying something wrong and being sued that they won't give you a straight answer when you start asking quesions about your prognosis.  So what does any normal obsessive neurotic personality like me do?  Start searching the web for any and all information available about the disorder - and it is a disorder.  It's one of those non-visible illnesses that wreck havoc on your body and your life, but everyone around you doesn't believe you are sick.

For a long time I was accused of being a hypochondriac because I had all these "symptoms" but every blood test, every procedure, every exam that I had from 2002 until March 2015 came back "normal".  Doctor after doctor - specialist after specialist.  They all said the same thing - "There is nothing wrong.  Everything is normal.  Maybe you should just lose weight."  And I was one of those people that the harder I tried to lose weight, the more I gained.  At one point I was down to 800 calories a day.  I ate 4 small meals of 200 calories a piece, but I still was gaining.  So then I was told "You have to eat to lose."  I went to a 1500-2000 calorie a day diet; diligently keeping track of each and every thing that went into my body.  Still, I continued to gain.

So, April 1, 2015 was the medical day of my life, yet it was also the worst.  I have had to start to learn about things like TSH, Free T4 and Free T3.  I also now pay attention to signs of Adrenal Fatigue and Pituitary Gland malfunction.  At 38 years old, I don't want to have a lifelong condition that is going to keep me on medication for the rest of my life; but this is my new reality.

The ironic thing is that I have been trying to figure out what it is that I want my blog to be about.  Now I have my subject - Me.  Hopefully I will be able to share my experiences so that it could help someone else.