Tuesday 6/22/21 Two Weeks

 Wow. It's been two weeks since my last post. I meant to blog last week but just didn't get around to it. Maybe because there's nothing much exciting going on.

Work is still busy and we're back to mandatory floating again. Which sucks. I hate floating to other units. But the whole hospital is busy. In fact, most days we're at capacity. On all units. And there have been a lot of psych patients apparently because our nurses and CNAs are floating to be "sitters" (you basically "sit" in the patient's room and watch them if they're a risk to themselves or others). Great fun. Ugh. But you do what you gotta do I guess. It just sucks. 

My brain is still being an asshole on occasion. If I'm busy I seem to do okay. But when I have downtime I tend to trend downwards. I've had a couple days where I've been pretty down. Depressive symptoms. Which really annoys me. I'm fighting it as much as I can because I don't want to lose my foothold on stability. So I fight it. And sometimes fighting it means taking a nap. Sometimes I need to escape. 

I saw my psychiatrist today, I haven't seen him in 7 months. He's very happy with how well I'm doing. We're not changing any of my meds and I'll see him again in 6 months (sooner, of course, if I need to, but I'm hoping I don't). Being on the Wellbutrin I'm still having trouble peeing. I can pee, it just takes me a couple of minutes to start going sometimes (usually worse at night). Dr. M said that now I know what it feels like to be an old man with an enlarged prostate! Yes, I guess I can sympathize now. Ha! We had a good laugh over that. Although, that's something I'd rather not sympathize with . . .

Aaaaaand, I'm getting my next tattoo July 23rd! Hooray!! I'm so excited! I'm seeing a new artist (my old one can't be bothered to call me back). He's a little more pricey but I think he'll be worth it. His work is amazing. Soon I'll have a little chickadee on my forearm. I can't wait! I wish I was getting it sooner, but I guess I can wait a month (I really have no choice . . . ). 

On the weight loss front I seem to be stuck where I'm at. Nineteen pounds lost. I had started a new plan called G Plans and since I've been following it I haven't lost any weight. It's very frustrating. It has me eating quite a bit of food. Too much I think. I know it's supposed to "ignite my fat burning potential", but now I'm just stuck. For two weeks now. I'm thinking I might stray off of it and do what I was doing before - modified paleo diet, cutting refined carbs and sugars, and watching my calories. Admittedly, I need to move more. In some manner I need to be working out. I still haven't started my yoga app and I've slipped behind on my face yoga. Last week I did however use my spin bike twice. It's a start. I'll get there. I know I will. One way or another.  

Tuesday 3/16/21 A Winter Storm

 I have a day off! Yay! I worked this past Saturday, Sunday, and Monday (three 12 hour shifts in a row is tiring) and I have today off before working again Wednesday and Thursday. Ugh. I'm drained. I slept in this morning, had breakfast and coffee, and then went back to bed for an hour. Took a nice long shower and I feel somewhat human again. It was a long weekend. And I lost an hour of sleep Sunday because of daylight savings. And we had a blizzard. It wasn't too crazy of a blizzard, but it definitely made driving home Sunday night dangerous (it was almost white out conditions with the blowing snow). I almost had to stay the night at work Sunday night as the hospital called an "external disaster" alarm. So I couldn't leave until my relief showed up. Thankfully she did and I could go home. 

So remember my lab work? I saw my doc last Thursday and my iron ratio was high (45% is the upper limit and I'm at 60%). So she drew an iron level to see if that was elevated too. Luckily, it came back within the normal range. Which is nice because the only way to treat high iron levels is blood letting. Seriously. I'd have to donate blood at least monthly to keep high levels down (high levels of iron can damage the liver and the kidneys - it's called hemachromatosis). I still may have hemachromatosis, but my levels aren't high enough to need to be treated. So that is wonderful news! 

I've still been feeling fatigued, I still have my other symptoms, but for now we're just "watching" them. Doc doesn't want to do a sleep study yet (which I'm thankful for because I was not looking forward to that). But it's still frustrating. I don't want to have to feel this way. I was having hot flashes at work yesterday. It was pretty miserable. But, We'll wait and see how it goes I guess. I'm most likely in peri menopause. Damn I'm old!

Paleo is still going well. I meal planned lunches, made some healthy dinners. I'm not craving sugar as much as I thought I would, which is a miracle. It makes the whole going paleo thing a lot more feasible.

I have no new artwork to share. I haven't been feeling creative for the past 3 or more weeks. I was going to force myself this week but all I'm doing is working. Maybe Friday. We'll see. 

Tuesday 3/9/21 Test Results

 Well, another week has gone by. My son turned 14 yesterday, which is crazy. He's going to be driving soon! Aaaaaaaaa! We went to a Japanese ramen place for dinner Saturday night to celebrate and got ice cream after. He got lots of Manga books, games for his Switch . . . But yeah. Makes me feel old. And time definitely seems to be flying by.

Do you remember me having lots of lab work drawn? For my fatigue and other symptoms? I got the results in the mail the other day and I'm a little disappointed. Because everything is "normal" (well, my iron was high, and my triglycerides are slightly elevated). But "normal". I was so sure something was going  to come back out of whack. This is frustrating. I see my doc this Thursday to go over the results which just seems pointless. She's going to want to do a sleep study to look for sleep apnea. Because I snore sometimes. The really frustrating thing is, sure, sleep apnea could explain why I'm so tired, but it doesn't explain hair thinning, dry scalp, dry skin, cold sensitivity, and hot flashes. What about my other symptoms? This is annoying. And stupid. I have symptoms of hypothyroid but my levels are "normal". So I won't be treated. Or probably taken seriously. After all, blood tests don't lie, right? So I'm annoyed and frustrated and angry. 

And I have another reason I could be feeling tired: depression. Yeah. Stupid, fucking depression. I think that because I tried going off of Wellbutrin my depression is trying to come back. I've had a lot more negative thoughts, heavy sighs (lame, I know, but it's a symptom I get), not wanting to go to work, not wanting to get out of bed, and wanting to sleep the day away. All are symptoms of depression for me. Now, I don't really feel depressed. But I think I was on my way there before restarting the Wellbutrin. I'm, of course, hoping I don't advance further. And I think the depression is most likely the cause of the fatigue, rather than sleep apnea. But depression doesn't explain the other symptoms either. Which is, again, frustrating. I wish there was a clear cut answer. 

In other news, I mentioned last week that I was going to try to go paleo with my eating. Well, I'm doing it. I ate healthier last week and we bought tons of paleo foods on Sunday (like almond and coconut flour, almond butter, coconut milk, almond milk, lots of nuts and seeds . . . you get the idea). So of course shopping was expensive because we had to get all of the staples. And I'll be eating more meat and fruits and veggies, so lots of fresh produce. I've done amazing over the past week at not snacking on crap (especially at work) and avoiding refined sugar. And I even lost 2 pounds. I'm really hoping this will be a good change for me. My therapist would be proud - he told me to go paleo 2 years ago. 

Going paleo will take a lot more planning though. For all meals - not just dinner. I can't just make myself a sandwich and call it good - because I can't have bread (unless I make a paleo version myself). So there's going to be a lot more cooking on my part. And some baking. And I'm going to have to learn to like almond butter. It's definitely different than the Skippy peanut butter I'm used to. But I know I can do it. I want to get healthy, I want to lose weight. I got this! And hey, who knows, maybe it will help with the fatigue and depression. One can hope. 

Tuesday 3/2/21 Paleo

 I saw the doctor last Friday for my fatigue and various other symptoms. She thinks it's most likely my thyroid causing the problems, but we drew boatloads of blood to test everything - thyroid, hormones, vitamin deficiencies, anemia . . . you name it, we're testing for it. She wants to be thorough. Which is fine by me. I should get the results back sometime this week and then meet next week to discuss them. 

In the meantime, I've decided to try a modified paleo diet to try and lose weight and to hopefully help me to feel better. So lots of seeds, nuts, fruits, and veggies for me! I'm actually excited to be trying it - I've been reading up on it quite a bit and it seems to make sense to me. I'm not giving up dairy completely however - I'll be cutting back but not giving it up (I love cheese too much!). I'm cutting out as much refined sugars as I can and focusing on healthy fats and protein. I'm hoping this will jumpstart some weight loss for me. *fingers crossed*

Nothing much else has gone on in the past week. It's been pretty boring. Work and reading and reading and work. Work continues to be busy, ridiculously busy. So many babies being born. I'm feeling a little burnt out, like I need a vacation. February was busy and March is looking to be even busier. Ugh. Job security I guess. 

Well, this has been a short post. I don't have any artwork to share as I haven't been motivated to sew or paint recently. I've been mostly reading. Which is a fine way to spend my time. Maybe Thursday or Friday I'll get creative. We'll see.