fatty needs a break

i've been going through some rough times lately. my weight has consumed me, pun intended. dave and i started the paleo diet, and we chose to do the version specific to athletes. the only problem is, i hadn't been doing workouts, so i wasn't able to see any results. dave was. and then my aunt slipped into a coma, so going home for 1.5 weeks threw everything off. dieting away from home is rough. dieting paleo-style away from home is all but impossible. it's just not feasible, especially this diet. i did the best i could.

when i got back from albuquerque, i came home to an absolute shit storm at work. i missed yet another nursing strike, and this one turned very ugly. my doc and i got into over a particular parent. it was just bad. plus i hadn't been to the grocery store before starting the week, and paleo all but demands at least 2-3 trips per week. i chose my foods wisely, but i definitely wasn't taking in enough. i also decided not to go back home for all the funeral services, and i had a ton of guilt about that.

last wednesday i realized in the shower that i was too fat to race or even train safely. i have zero lateral meniscus left in one knee, arthritis in both. i've been training without my knee brace for months now. i'm just begging for surgery at this point. added weight is a surefire way to get there. within literally 5 minutes i decided i couldn't/wasn't going to do barb's race. my world crashed in on me at that point. that was a really bad day. this time last year, i was laid up on a couch just dreaming of running again. this year again i'm sidelined, but by my own doing. i'm ashamed, i'm distraught, i'm disgusted. i absolutely hate my body. i have zero self-confidence of my appearance at this point.

it's funny, some of the people close to me come back with 'oh all you have to do is...' and then proceed to tell me about some variation of diet and exercise that worked for them. i appreciate the words, but really, if it were that easy, i would've been doing it. for fuck's sake, i did a half ironman 2 months ago, and trained for it for 3 months, yet i continued to put on weight. something is wrong. period.

my solution as i see it is to enlist the help of a professional. i had all my bloodwork drawn this past friday, which is why i chose this particular weight loss program. i need to know for my own sanity that everything is ok, that i don't have a tumor grown inside my stomach, or have grown insulin resistant, or hypothyroid. the possibilities are endless. on the one hand i'm praying it's something like that, something fixable. on the other hand, duh. i'm exhausted at all times of the day. i cry just about daily now. poor dave is losing his damn mind. he's constantly doing his job, telling me i'm beautiful, but when you see those 3 numbers on the scale, everything else just becomes bullshit.

this program administers B12 i believe twice a week. on top of appetite suppressants. and diuretics. since i've not yet seen a doc, they started me on the natural products first. i haven't taken them for some reason. one of them was the diuretic, and that has really thrown me for a loop. i know as a nurse that hctz and any diuretic is good for about 3 days. so why give it to your clients? well because when they see that drop in weight they think 'it's working!!!' and they fork over more money. i don't know that i'll be taking that particular course. i plan on discussing it with the doc. i don't know why i've been so hesitant to start it all. i'm miserable. i'm not sure this is the route for me, but i see no formidable options besides this.

needless to say, it's been a rough few weeks. i gave 2 different diets adequate time to work, and got no results (in fact i got negative results, as in gain). i'm at this dead end, trying to find my way out...

the catch-up numbers game

it's 10am. i've been at work for 90 minutes. here's what my morning has consisted of so far:

13 minutes reviewing all my voicemails. and that's only because the mailbox has a capacity of 20 min of messages, so when it hits that limit my mailbox is full

45 minutes going through email inbox

2 projects due in the next month with only my name on them

8 families that need me to call them immediately. 1 of those super-annoying with 4 different voicemails in the last week alone

7 minutes of juicy, nursing-strike related gossip

3 stories (so far) of other people's loved ones with brain tumors and their tumultuous ends

about 8 minutes of getting my ass handed to me by my doc

43 things on my to-do list, so far

76 patient charts needing to be reviewed

8 more calls needing to be returned

8 emails needing to be dealt with

undeterminable amount of reports due now

and all i want to do is run. and take a nap

fun day so far

death and dying

3 weeks ago (this sunday) my aunt fell in the bathroom. she was found unconscious, but breathing. my dad spent the first week at her bedside with her husband and 2 girls when they could be there. last friday i made the trip to albuquerque. pic below is my uncle, giving attitude as only he knows how.

i spent this week watching a woman die. this week has sucked. so as not to bore you with the details, my aunt has had a history of brain tumors. her brain tissue remaining is very little, and her independence and functioning has taken a severe downturn over the last few years. when i met her she was remotely with it, but i was young so we never really got to know each other. her husband has become her sole caregiver, even helping to toilet her these last years. she is very stubborn, always has been from what i've known.

my parents were both there with me, so it was very nice to spend time with them. that's my dad above, somehow with a smile. saturday we all met with the chief of neuro in a family conference. for a doc, he did an excellent job of communicating. essentially he laid it out for us - her remaining shunts from 40 years ago were the source of infection now. her blood/csf cultures were now negative after a week of antibiotics, but he didn't have a doubt that if the antibiotics were stopped, it'd return. she wasn't ventilator dependent at this time, but if we extubated her pneumonia would set in. by day's end we decided to stop life support. it was a difficult situation for my family, my own little 3 person unit. none of us were related to them by blood, so we were walking that fine line of being supportive and educational while not trying to pressure anyone. that's a position i hope never to be in again. yes, she needed to be pulled off life support. but that isn't a fast process, and watching it is very gut-wrenching for anyone. but making sure everyone knew that and was prepared for it was impossible.

my little cousin needed her 2 year old there before we could pull her off, for her own reasons. which meant we didn't get her off the vent until monday morning. the family seemed to think she'd die instantly, even though we assured them it wouldn't happen. the actual act of extubation was done without us in the room, but everyone stayed right outside her door and cried. it was all very weird for me. i understood it, but then i didn't. it was just surreal.

monday night we went out to eat, all of us. to pf changs. 12 people in one of the loudest restaurants to begin with. needless to say, i hit my breaking point. i totally lost it. had to go outside and have dave talk me down over the phone. the dynamics of the family aren't the best. there's tons of catholic guilt floating around at any given time. so much so that it almost becomes a game of sorts. but not a fun one.

by tuesday i'd had just about all i could take. she was still ticking away with an oxygen sat steady in the 70's and HR in the 100-110 range. i made my flight arrangements to come home the next day. by wednesday afternoon the docs at UNMH felt comfortable with sending her to hospice, and she made it there by wednesday afternoon. thursday morning at 6:50 am, she was gone.

this week i saw the downside of nursing. sure it's great to be able to talk to any doctors, to be able to care for just about anyone. but the downside is that same thing. the knowledge. when i got there friday night, i knew she wouldn't make it. yet family was at the bedside all but begging her to wake up. that went on every single day. i've always been proud to be a nurse. this week i saw how it really sucks to be a nurse. knowing what's coming is ok, but watching it happen on the faces of your family blows. no matter what info you give them, no matter how much you warn them, they won't hear you. not in that situation. and then when your predictions come true, they look to you with this look that says 'how could you not have told me this would happen?!'. i did!!!

it was exhausting. i slept hard most nights. i would put on 2 alarms, one to wake me for a run, and the 2nd for the actual time i had to get up because i knew i wouldn't make that run. i just couldn't get up. the diet was rough to stick to. the average diet in albuquerque consists of at least one tortilla a day. which i've missed greatly. but now i couldn't have it. my mom views meals as an experience. this diet cuts out so much of that now, that meals were pretty rough.

i'm still exhausted. the rosary is sunday night, the funeral monday, and the burial monday or tuesday (the services are in Espanola, NM, while the burial is in Clovis, my hometown). i'm not going. i can't go. by the last couple days there, the family was starting to take their frustrations out on each other, and i honestly don't feel that close to most of those people to begin with. i have no desire to put myself back there.

dave and i have built such a cocoon around ourselves. rarely do we venture out of it. we stay home, we go shop, we go to races. we'll even make plans with friends and then cancel at the last minute. wtf is that? i tried explaining to my parents how overstimulated that entire process was for me. my dad didn't get it. my mom seems to.

today i got my first run in in a very long time. it felt good to be out. i think i'm just going to keep moving forward right now, just like in a race. maybe things will begin to make sense at some point...

tick tock tick tock

time. and vermin. both plaguing me lately.

my aunt is not doing well. last sunday she fell somehow or another, and was unconscious when she was found. luckily the time span was only minutes, but still. without being conscious, we're unable to tell what happened. she has 3-5 new bleeds in her brain. at the beginning of the week she was seizing regularly, but her most recent 24 hr eeg shows zero seizure activity. good and bad. good because, well duh. bad because now there's no reason for her to be in a coma. my parents, dave, and i all have a trip to las vegas scheduled for the end of the month, so i thought it time to mosey on albuquerque way...her prognosis is just a waiting game at this point.

dave and i recently went for a hike in chino hills state park. we took the little brown man with us, and ended up bring some souvenirs home with us. in the form of ticks. nasty nasty nasty. dave has had 2 on him. we've now pulled 2 off lucca. it's just sick. they freak me out. i always itch now. we frontlined the pup yesterday, and found an oh-so-close-to-dead tick on the floor this evening. just disgusting. so we're just waiting for them to die, so we can go back to life as normal. we did get some good pics:

i have yet another one of those 'my life is gonna suck for the next couple weeks' timeline. ready?

thursday - clinic

friday - work, then airport to abq

sat - abq

sun - abq

monday - abq to home

tuesday - clinic

wednesday - nurse strike AGAIN

thursday - LAS VEGAS!!!!

time is going by too quickly. before i know it, vineman will be here. luckily i've gotten in a few good workouts here lately. i was sick this weekend, but still managed to battle 15-25mph winds sunday for a ride on the river path. dave and i didn't have the best time, but we are glad we went.

ready to head home this weekend. needing to see some family...

oc half marathon - race report

dave and i went down to get our race packets yesterday in orange county. we stopped after for the best meal i've had in ages. it was amazing. my lunch was a half a biscuit, topped with scrambled egg, topped with chipotle gravy, topped with manchego cheese. can i just say, it was awesome. really spicy though. i only made it through half of it, and the side of berries was so yummy. you can tell i've been deprived on this damn diet.

anyway, we got up at the butt crack of dawn for this race. it was to start at 6am about 50 min away from us. plus a shuttle ride, since it was a point-to-point. dave decided against the full marathon, not having run at all in months.

the course was absolutely beautiful. it went right along the waterside, along the rows of breathtaking houses and boats. it was a bit hilly at certain points. the wind sucked - there's been a wind advisory in effect for us since yesterday so it was pretty windy. i was worried that i'd be overdressed in my knee-length running tights and a sleeveless shirt. the wind helped, as did the guy with the water hose at mile 9. the wind really hit in the last 2 miles, and that really sucked.

my overall time was 3:08. i was bummed for a second, because my half marathon at oceanside was a 3:01. but, then i reminded myself that i have had a handful of workouts in the last month, and the fact i was able to finish was plenty. i know in my mind that dealing with southern cal heat is going to be a challenge. today was a bit of a taste - i didn't sweat at all for the last 2 miles. not good. i ate 2 uncrustables, although i should've eaten three. the spicy lunch from yesterday attacked me again at mile 4. i have a rough time with the sugar content in gatorade during the race.

all-in-all, i'm pleased. there's more stuff i need to work on, but i finished! i'm pleased it's over. now i can start with my training for barb's race (half ironman distance again) late july!