Not Your Mama's Diet

I Made It Through...

2008-09-03T13:04:00.001-04:00

I made it through the MIL visit. And aside from one piece of chocolate, I didn't eat a thing I shouldn't have. So YAY me!

But the junk she sent home is another thing altogether. She sent chips (my weakness) along with all the carbie stuff like potato salad and beans etc. I did eat some chips, but I'm trying to eat very small portions and balance them with protein.

The good news is the cute doctor called back and said my blood glucose was 98, perfectly normal. (For pregnant women, they say under 95, but hey, that's pretty darned close!) The problem with that is, I have a tendency to start getting lax, once I hear numbers.

I need Harley to get new test strips, so I can keep testing. I'm out, and when I'm not testing, I'm nowhere near as diligent as I should be.

Next week is the baby-doctor appt. If things go as well as they have been, I'll start interviewing home birth midwives soon. Hard to believe it's only three more weeks to the end of the first trimester!

Doctor Doctor

2008-08-29T10:07:00.002-04:00

Went to a new doc today.

He's a really nice guy - young, cute (hey, that doesn't hurt!) and actually listens. Bonus!

I showed him the list of supplements I was taking, told him about my concern about my blood glucose levels, showed him the numbers from the past two weeks. He said my fasting was borderline, but not enough to warrant meds or insulin - but that we'd have to watch it, because as we all know, pregnant women become more and more insulin resistant as pregnancy progresses.

But it was good to hear what I already knew from a doc. And it actually alleviated a little of my worry about the possibility of something going wrong in utero. He said my numbers weren't high or erratic enough to cause too much of a problem at this point. Whew.

And after looking over my list of supplements, of which he approved (What? No "You don't need these herbal things - why are you taking so many? You know, research hasn't proven they do anything..." blah blah blah...) he also suggested fish oil - a doc who suggests fish oil instead of jumping to meds! What a find!

They took blood and are running labs, and will call if they turn out abnormal. "No news is good news."

Now I just have to wait for my OB appt a week from Tuesday.

The good news is I'm still managing to keep the sugar and carbs to a minimum most of the day. Had to stop at McDonald's for dinner last night, and got a salad while the kids ate burgers (at least they had apple dippers and milk instead of fries and pop, though :) What I wanted was a Big Mac and fries and a huge regular Coke (imagine the sugar in all of it right?)... but I got a salad. And it was good and it filled me up. It just didn't satisfy that psychological craving, that's all.

I can tell the food addict and I are going to go 'round and 'round this pregnancy. But I'm putting on the gloves and am ready to go as many rounds as I have to. (Of course, I say that now... a month from now? Two? *sigh* I might look like Rocky at the end of round 16...)

We're going to the MIL's this weekend. The same MIL who cooks 800 pounds of carb-loaded food to send home. Right. So my plan is to stick to the protein and salad - and make my own sugar free dessert. The hard part will be all the stuff we bring home, but hopefully the kiddos will eat most of that. And hopefully Harley won't.

Harley went to the same doc, btw, and has renewed his own commitment to "eating healthy." Cutting carbs... and for him, portion control. The doc said to me, "Listen, you have to keep on him - or I'M going to have a heart attack!" :)

But the truth is, while I love Harley and I definitely don't want to lose him... I can't be responsible for what he puts on his plate. I just can't. I'm barely responsible for what I put on mine!

Hello, Blog

2008-08-27T09:33:00.005-04:00

Well, hello, blog!

What happened?

I got mad at Harley for not writing here, and in my usual way, just gave up on the whole thing. If he wasn't going to do it, why should I? Can you say codependent, boys and girls? I knew you could!

So what am I doing back there again after 6 months? Well, I got back up to 285... go figure. And we kept trying to get pregnant. And finally, it stuck. I found out about a month ago. I'm due April 8, 2009.

And of course I was thrilled. And renewed my vow to get healthier while I was pregnant. But that's hard to do when you're packing up an entire house for a second move in a year's time. Yeah, we needed a bigger house and a room for the baby, but did I need more stress? That would be a big fat NO, thankyouverymuch...

So about 2 weeks ago, just for chucks and giggles, I checked my blood sugar. Harley's diabetic and has all the testing equipment (not that he ever, ever tests... he doesn't... it just sits there... so I thought, well, someone should use it!) Poked my finger, checked out the results...

183. After eating Taco Bell and having one of those yummy new Fruitista drinks.

EEK! So the next day, I vowed to be "good."

Fasting: 103

1 hour after breakfast (oatmeal made with milk): 130

1 hour after lunch (tuna fish sandwich and a glass of milk): 132

2 hours after dinner (tuna on toast, glass of milk): 114

Hmm. 103 is a high fasting. It should be under 95 (especially for pregnant women.) The other numbers weren't tooooo bad - should be under 140 one hour after you eat and under 120 two hours after you eat.

The next day's numbers were interesting, too:

Fasting: 120 (ouch!)

1 hour after breakfast (oatmeal made with water - we were out of milk): 150 !!!

But look at this:

1 hour after lunch (4 oz. steak): 94

Well then... looks like it's the carbs. Even "good" ones like oatmeal, that aren't tempered with protein. It's official - I'm pre-diabetic.

The question now is... is it enough? Is it enough to get me to stop slowly killing myself with food? Is the thought of a child with congenital anomalies enough to make me stop? Is ~~heroin~~ food more important to me than that... than anything?

Because after I discovered my sugars were elevated, I started doing the research, and it's not good. Women with pre-diabetes and undiagnosed diabetes have a risk of having babies with birth defects - specifically heart and neural tube abnormalities.

So now I'm opting for all the genetic testing - the neural translucency scan, the quad screen, the whole she-bang. Because I didn't catch this, really, until I was about 6 weeks along - and by that time, the heart was already formed and beating. And I know if my sugar was 183 after Taco Bell - imagine what it was after a piece of cake with no protein to balance it?

In the past two weeks, I've gone from 285 to 272. But that's rather irrelevant, considering. I've been checking my sugars, and for the most part, they've been fine, except for my fasting number, which is always borderline-highish. But I've cut out sugar entirely. No more junk food, no more fast food, no more regular soda. No more carbs in the form of white bread, rice, pasta, potatoes.

Two weeks. Only ... 223 days to go. :x

I honestly don't know if I can make it...

Appetite

2008-02-02T10:52:00.000-05:00

I boiled eighteen eggs to make deviled eggs.

I cut up eight big, fat cucumbers to make cucumbers and vinegar.

I put out the eggs and cucumbers when my parents came over... and within an hour, they were gone. All of them. Just gone.

We need some laying chickens and an organic garden... soon!

Is it spring yet?

Junk Food as Stress Reliever

2008-02-01T01:09:00.000-05:00

It's official.

Junk food reduces stress.

Duh!

Really, did they need a study to prove it?

I've been using it as a fairly effective solution to the stress issue for years. Oreos are the poor man's Prozac. Sugar is cheap and it does for me just what heroin does for a junkie, bay-bee.

Not that I'm not - a junkie. I am. I even nod in the mid-afternoon after a binge like a heroin junkie. Sad but true. How is it that no one else has made this connection is such a big way? We look around and say, "Oh, look, people are getting fatter, I wonder why?"

Hello!

Sugar. They're putting a highly addictive drug into our food. Almost all of our food, actually, especially anything processed. Anyone remember when Coca-Cola actually contained cocaine? It's true... talk about addictive.

My drug of choice is legal, sanctioned, and makes business owners billions a year. It also keeps their customers coming back for more... and more... and more.

Not that I think banning sugar is gonna help. Prohibition didn't work either. People who can use sugar in moderation - wow, I bow down to you folks. I don't know how you do it.

Junk food relieves stress - like this is news? I've self-prescribed it for years, and so has over half the country, if the obesity stats are to be believed. It's still better for you than heroin... right?

Right?

Thursday Thirteen #4: 13 Inspirational Quotes

2008-01-31T01:22:00.000-05:00

1. The significance of a man is not in what he attains but in what he longs to attain. - Kahil Gibran

2. If you don't know where you are going,you'll end up someplace else. - Yogi Berra

3. We can always redeem the man who aspires and strives. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

4. In absence of clearly defined goals, we become strangely loyal to performing daily acts of trivia. - Author Unknown

5. There are two things to aim at in life; first to get what you want, and after that to enjoy it. Only the wisest of mankind has achieved the second. - Logan Pearsall Smith

6. Life can be pulled by goals just as surely as it can be pushed by drives. - Viktor Frankl

7. The only journey is the journey within. - Rainer Maria Rilke

8. Insist on yourself. Never imitate. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

9. Everybody wants to be somebody;nobody wants to grow. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

10. If we all did the things we are capable of,we would astound ourselves. - Thomas Edison

11. Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake. - Henry David Thoreau

12. The best way to make your dreams come true is to wake up. - Paul Valery

13. They can because they think they can. - Virgil

Wordless Wednesday #3

2008-01-30T00:15:00.000-05:00

Cherry on the Cake of My Day

2008-01-29T21:39:00.000-05:00

I'm mad at Harley for not posting here. One more thing in a long list of things he committed to and said he would do that he hasn't followed through on.

And that's just one of the things on my peeved list. The kids didn't have school today. A snow day - or rather, an ice day. Threw off my whole schedule. And of course, it was rainy and wet, so the kids couldn't go outside, which meant they were inside all day driving me insane. Harley worked extra late today, and the Princess is getting over some sort of stomach flu that keeps coming and going. Can you get re-infected with stomach flu? I'm just waiting for it to hit the rest of us.

Oh joy.

I had an editing job, too, I didn't want to finish that's been hanging over my head for a month. Finally got it done, though, pushed through and now I have a headache and I'm tired. My neck is so stiff and sore you'd think I'd been sleeping on nails lately. Sure feels like it.

Oh great.

The Princess just puked all over her bed.

Perfect.

Cherry on the cake of my day.

The Sweet Witch

2008-01-28T21:46:00.000-05:00

Whenever we go over to my inlaws, my mother-in-law makes enough food to feed an army. No, that's not a metaphor.

She's already cooked enough and packaged it up in Ziploc and Glad containers to feed an army for a week and put it into the fridge. That's for us to take home. That doesn't include the food she sets out on the table. It's always some sort of meat, usually red - prime rib, steak, ribs - plus at least one meat side dish, usually sausage. And there's always shrimp as an appetizer. Harley's a big meat eater, and it's clear she's cooking for him.

But there's plenty of carbs, too, don't get me wrong. Baked beans, cheesy potatoes, macaroni and cheese. Occasionally there's a vegetable - green bean casserole (the kind with fried onions on the top) or buttered carrots. Once in a while, a salad.

We went to my in-laws for my birthday yesterday. My mother-in-law likes to find reasons for us to come over at least once a month. My birthday is a good reason in January. We came home loaded down with food. Going there, for a food addict, is like asking an alcoholic to go to a New Year's Eve party at Cheers.

Of course, if you're going to meetings and doing what you need to do, it wouldn't matter if someone set a drink in front of you, right? You'd say no.

Me, I'm not so good at the "saying no" part. I clearly haven't gotten there yet. So my lunch today consisted of cheesy potatoes and baked beans. No protein in sight. And then there was leftover birthday cake. And she sent home two boxes of cookies. And a bag full of candy. And a gallon of ice cream, packed in ice. Of course she did.

Harley often likens her to the witch in the candy house in Hansel and Gretel. Sometimes I think he's right. And sometimes, when I'm lying in a stupid migraine-inducing sugar/carb coma after a trip to the in-laws, I wish we wouldn't keep leaving a trail of breadcrumbs that lead right back there again.

Say It Ain't So!

2008-01-27T05:24:00.000-05:00

I adore Queen Latifah.

She is, after all, my namesake :)

I can't think of a more beautiful, stunning, strong, confident woman - of both color and size. She's always been someone I greatly admired, and I think she's an underrated actress, an amazing singer, and just an amazing human being.

Today, I saw her on television - a commercial.

For Jenny Craig.

*sigh*

So Queen Latifah is going to join the ranks of Sarah Ferguson

Kirstie Alley

and Valerie Bertinelli...

Once again making the implied if not direct statement: "I can't be beautiful or happy until I'm thin."

I'm just so sad. :(

Queen Bee - Weigh In

2008-01-26T20:27:00.000-05:00

276

That was the number on the scale.

The last time we did low-carb the weight literally melted off without any effort. And I was eating cream cheese and salami and pork rinds and deviled eggs... and I still managed to lose forty-ish pounds.

We'll see what happens this time. I haven't been 100% on "plan" so to speak. There was that chocolate. And that box of macaroni and cheese. And birthday cake.

One day at a time, one bite at a time, I suppose. I haven't been perfect. Which usually means, it's time to give up and grab for the Doritos. But instead, I've just been picking myself up and trying again.

I suppose the scale is reflecting that. I'm a pound lighter than when I started out (and the scale started going in the wrong direction!)

Progress, not perfection. Isn't that what they say?

Magic Chocolate?

2008-01-25T11:49:00.000-05:00

Harley couldn't decide which card to get me for my birthday...

So he got one for both of my "sides"... :)

The kids drew me pictures. And I got a bunch of Burt's Bee's honey lip balm (my favorite) and some sugar-free Russell Stover's and Whitman's chocolate.

As you can tell from the picture, I'm either 83... or 383... :D

They asked if they could have some of my chocolate.

"No, it's got fake sugar in it. It's candy that won't make mommy fat." -er... fatter... I'm thinking...

"Oh... so it will make you thin?"

Ha! I wish :)

Thursday Thirteen #3: 13 Funny Diet Tips

2008-01-24T01:07:00.000-05:00

13 Funny Diet Tips

1. If you eat something, but no one else sees you eat it, it has no calories.

2. When drinking a diet soda while eating a candy bar, the calories in the candy bar are cancelled by the diet soda.

3. Foods use for medicinal purposes NEVER count. e.g. hot chocolate, brandy, toast, Sara Lee Cheesecake

4. Movie-related foods do not have calories because they are part of the entertainment package and not part of one's personal fuel. e.g. milk duds, buttered popcorn, junior mints and Tootsie Rolls.

5. Cookie pieces contain no calories. The process of breaking the cookie causes calorie leakage.

6. Late-night snacks have no calories. The refrigerator light is not strong enough for the calories to see their way into the calorie counter.

7. If you are in the process of preparing something, food licked off knives and spoons have no calories. e.g. peanut butter on a knife, ice cream on a spoon.

8. Food of the same color have the same number of calories. Examples are spinach and pistachio ice cream, mushrooms and white chocolate.

9. Chocolate is a universal color and may be substituted for any other color.

10. 100 laughs a day is equal to 10 minutes of exercise!

11. Go to the paint store. You can get thinner there.

12. Relish today. Catchup tomorrow.

13. Carrot cake counts as a serving of vegetables.

Wordless Wednesday #2

2008-01-23T00:14:00.000-05:00

see other wordless wednesdays

Happy Birthday To Me

2008-01-22T17:56:00.001-05:00

I feel incredibly old. I'm sure my body is much older than my years, actually. Which is rather depressing.

This day always meant a good excuse to eat cake. I miss cake. And frosting. God, I love frosting. Why would something exist in the world that's so incredibly bad for you?

I saw an Intervention the other night - the first one I'd seen with a food addict. A young man, over 500 lbs. The therapist said, "Being addicted to food is like being addicted to heroin. You take it to numb out. That's the goal."

Yep. That's about right. Food is my heroin.

Whenever I complain about having another birthday, Harley says, "Well, it's better than the alternative." Ha. But some days I wonder.

5 Sticky Notes On My Computer That I Want To Have Made Into Refrigerator Magnets

2008-01-21T22:18:00.000-05:00

1. Life is hard.

2. I am not that important.

3. My life is not about me.

4. I am not in control.

5. You are going to die.

These strike me as true in my heart. They come from a man named Richard Rohr. He didn't invent them. They are timeless truths.

They sound harsh to many people when I tell them they are a code by which I strive to live. I don't know if they're harsh. If anyone would like to know how I understand them, how they apply to my challenges with food, eating, body, and addiction, please comment and ask. I would be glad to offer my 2 cents.

King Harley

Some Friends

2008-01-21T20:44:00.000-05:00

Why are women so nasty to each other?

My mother never had girlfriends when I was growing up. When I once asked her why, she said to me, "You can't trust women. They'll stab you in the back the minute you turn around. It's better just to avoid them."

Nice, huh?

I haven't gone my mother's route completely and kept friends out of my life entirely. But I do have a hard time trusting people, and usually I have one or two really good friends at a time. I'm still in contact with a friend who was my "best friend" from middle through high school, although we've grown apart over the years, keeping up with each other in Christmas letters and lately, blogs.

My other "best friend" as an adult died of breast cancer last year (her birthday was just a few days ago actually...) but even with her, we both kept a bit of distance. I'm not sharing type. I don't spill my guts. And I usually find people who like to focus on themselves a lot - mostly so we don't have to focus on me. Nicely avoidant, isn't it?

I discovered an online mommy group back when I had my third baby, and it opened up a new world of friendships. I still wouldn't let people get too close... but for the first time, I had a group of friends. That was very different, and rather scary for me. When Harley nearly died, that mommy group really rallied around me, brought me meals, offered me support. I attended a lot of their home births, did blessingways for many of them, went to potlucks and playdates.

Then we moved, and I couldn't do much of that anymore. We just lived too far away. The group changed venues from an email group to a bulletin board, and I stopped keeping up. So they unsubscribed me for "lurking." Twice. Finally, I gave up. I was too far to do too much in person anymore anyway. I got the feeling it was "personal" but I just let it go. It wasn't worth the hassle. But I did miss the connection...

Someone from the group contacted me recently to tell me that she was kicked off, too. And for her it was definitely personal. They had basically ganged up on her and ripped her reputation to shreds. I couldn't believe the things I was hearing. These were women who had been kind and supportive... and now they were turning into a pack of rabid dogs attacking an innocent victim.

I don't understand women sometimes. It's like there's a nasty switch in there that gets flipped and they just go ballistic. Things snowball out of control, they gossip and pick up on each other's energy like sharks in some feeding frenzy. It makes me sad.

I know my mother always said, "Don't trust women," but I hoped it wasn't really true. Things like this... make me wonder.

Oh, and I found and ate real chocolate today. Welcome to the world of stress-eating.

Self-Preservation

2008-01-20T17:39:00.000-05:00

Harley and I both have issues with scarcity - they just manifest in different ways. Harley prepares for the apocalpyse. He wants to be prepared for the End of Days, no two ways about it, and if that means making sure we have an alternate power source and canned food to last until 2080, so be it. A few months ago, we heard a town siren go off (we live in a very little town now) and didn't know what it was. We later discovered it was just a fire call (for the local volunteer fire department.) But Harley took it as a sign that we needed flashlights and a crank emergency radio and all sorts of various and sundry things.

Not that I wasn't grateful to have them when the power went out at 2 am a few weeks ago. But, of course, by the time he got them all powered up and ready and we listened to the weather, the power was back on again... and I could have been sleeping from two until four, instead of cranking the radio.

Harley's a planner. Me, I'm a worrier. He's preparing for the worst and hoping for the best. I'm worrying about the worst and putting my head in the sand in the meantime. I have to admit, his way it a bit more logical - and proactive.

When it comes to food, I'm a hoarder. Whatever I buy, I want to keep. Forever. Preserved so I know it's there when I want it. And I can't stand to see it disappear. Which is why junk food is so appealing to me. Twinkies have a shelf life of, what, a million years? Twinkies and a couple cockroaches, that's what would be around if we survived a nuclear blast. (And if Harley had anything to say about it, we certainly would!)

When it comes to produce, though, I freak out when it starts going bad. And produce, damnit, goes bad fast! So people have to eat it. Right away. And I can't hide it in my dresser drawers or in my secret cubbyhole hiding places. All week, I've been thinking about having my special strawberry-pecan salad. I love this salad, and I totally came to associate it with low-carbing, because it's deliciously sweet and yummy - and still low-carb, yay!

And all week long, my family has been eating strawberries. Like they grow on vines or something! :x So today, I finally made my salad, using the last of the strawberries - and it is, admittedly, just as good as I remembered it. Quite delicious. I'll give you the recipe.

But that's not my point.

The point is, I can't hoard low-carb food like I do junk food. I can't "save" it. The minute it comes out of the ground, it's on it's way to a sure death, either on my plate, or in the compost pile. If I try to "save" it, it will surely be the latter. And that seems like such a waste, especially considering the price of strawberries at the market this time of year!

But there's something to this idea that's hovering right at the edge of my awareness for the first time. I always knew I had a scarcity consciousness. But it never occurred to me that one of the great appeals of "junk" foods were that they were already preserved. I could save a box of Ho-Ho's for practically forever, and all the while carry around the secret knowledge that they were there for me. That seems important somehow.

I wonder if it will make a difference, when we're growing our own food, that I'll be able to go out and pick a quart of strawberries anytime I want? I won't have to worry about the price of fruit, whether California was having unusually cold weather this year, or whether or not Harley and the kids were going to eat them all before I get to make my yummy salad.

Anyway, here's the recipe... and if you have any more insights, I'd be glad to hear them! Sometimes we're so close to something, we can't really see what in the heck it really is...

Strawberry-Pecan Salad

1/2 head of Romaine lettuce, chopped

1/2 quart of strawberries, sliced

1/2 cup pecans, chopped

Dressing: 2 TBSP lemon juice, 2 TBSP red wine vinegar, 1 TBSP sweetener (I prefer Splenda)

Drizzle 1 TBSP oil over salad, mix dressing, and pour over lettuce, strawberries, and pecans.

Easy peasy, and oh so yummy!

Fad Diets

2008-01-19T23:27:00.000-05:00

I was watching a show last week about the dangers of various fad diets. Harley and I seem drawn like moths to a flame to all the shows about weight on the tube (wow, that's an inaccurate metaphor isn't it... there really aren't tubes inside televisions anymore, huh?) Whether it's shows about losing weight, anorexia, bulemia, obesity, it doesn't matter.

I was amazed at how many of the "diets" listed that I've tried over the years. I've highlighted in red the ones that the program mentioned that I've given the old college try:

Liquid diet
Atkins
Suzanne somers
Weight Watchers
Jenny Craig
Medical Weight Loss
Metabolife
Detox
Colonics
Juicing
Raw foods
Maple Syrup Diet
Astrology Diet
Blood Type Diet
Cookie Diet
Tapeworm

The cookie diet sounds good, but they're not talking real cookies. They're talking fake "whole meal" cookies. *sigh* If it sounds too good to be true...

Note that I have NOT tried using a tapeworm. Although, I remember when I was a teenager, learning about tapeworms, and thinking, "Hey! That would be a perfect solution!" Eat all you want... and still lose weight!?

Eek!

It's amazing the lengths we'll go to, isn't it? I once considered ingesting a parasite in order to make myself thin... wow. What's wrong with this picture?

Sugar Alcohol

2008-01-18T19:35:00.000-05:00

Sugar substitutes that end in "ol" are evil incarnate. At least, that's what my intestines think. They are definitely making a protest at the three Russell Stover Pecan Delights I ate this afternoon. They were yummy... but I don't know if they were worth it. Yeeeeouch!

These particular chocolates had malitol in them. And it does say on the package: Excessive consumption may cause a laxative effect.

Fun!

Guess that's a good way to curb chocolate consumption. :x

p.s. actually I ate four. If I'm gonna be honest, I guess I should come fully clean, right? *sigh*

Thursday Thirteen #2: 13 Refrigerator Magnets About Fat

2008-01-17T01:46:00.000-05:00

13 Refrigerator Magnets About Fat

1. If we really are what we eat, I'm fast, cheap and easy.

2. I'm out of chocolate and I have a gun.

3. Eat, drink and be merry - for tomorrow they may cancel your Visa.

4. Everyone who diets gains in the end.

5. I am not fat, I am calorically gifted.

6. Life is unsure, so always eat your dessert first.

7. You are overweight if you are living beyond your seams.

8. Diet and exercise to fight hazardous waists.

9. The Joy of Not Cooking.

10. The older you get, the tougher it is to lose weight, because by then your body and your fat are really good friends.

11. I have flabby thighs, but fortunately my stomach covers them.

12. I'm not overweight, I'm just undertall.

13. On a scale of 1 to 10......We'd weigh a lot less!

Check out Thursday Thirteen!

Wordless Wednesday #1

2008-01-15T23:56:00.000-05:00

Check out Wordless Wednesday!

Scars

2008-01-15T08:38:00.001-05:00

Harley's having surgery today.

This is just a follow-up, his third cosmetic procedure to fix his neck (as much as they can, anyway.) But I'm not looking forward to being in the hospital with him. All sorts of memories flood back every time I go to that particular hospital. Waiting for Harley to be brought over from one hospital to the other, wondering if he would be alive still... a friend sitting with me and holding my hand. He was the only one who came, that first day, and I don't know what I would have done without him. It was a pleasant surprise, and a relief, to have that human contact.

Today it's just routine surgery. They don't even put him under! Just a local and they'll do what they have to do in terms of revising the scar.

His scar is looking lots better. Especially much better than the hole in his neck originally looked. There was once an 8"x4" hole in it, while he was in Intensive Care for 8 days and the hospital for 2 weeks. Who knew an abscessed tooth could turn into flesh-eating bacteria and bankrupt us three days before our insurance kicked in?!

Ah life...

After the life-saving part was over, they decided to do chest flap surgery and take a part of Harley's chest muscle and tissue/skin and put it into the hole in his neck. It was almost science fiction, I swear.

I will spare you the pics of the huge hole in his neck (suffice to say, I could watch him swallow! We used to joke about him having a "flip-top head!") - you can find lots on the Internet if you're really curious, just Google "necrotizing fasciitis" and you'll see how much worse off he could have been... dead might have been preferable, in some of the cases I've seen.

He easily could have died from it, and I'm so grateful he didn't. It could have been an upper tooth instead of a lower one (which, as one of the nurses told us, would have eaten into his brain...) So much could have happened that didn't... I keep having images/visions of him talking about it in front of groups, showing people the scar... I don't know in what context, but I just have a feeling...

So we're off to take the kiddos to grandma's and then I'll wait in the same waiting room I did, wondering if they were going to come tell me that I was going to raise my children alone. It still gives me the creeps. :x

A Surprise Visit

2008-01-14T17:52:00.001-05:00

Maybe Dr. Evil isn't so evil after all...

I went in this morning for fasting blood work, plus my annual pelvic and pap (yeee-ouch!). I also got my IUD out. This is the second IUD I've had, and I love them as a form of birth control. It allows for total spontaneity, there are no hormonal effects, and the side effects, for me, are minor. So why did I get it removed?

Because Harley and I are going to get pregnant!

Well, I'm going to get pregnant. Harley's going to get me pregnant. And I better stop there, because this blog is PG-rated. :D

We have four kids total - but the oldest two are mine from a previous marriage, teenagers (almost 18 and almost 15) who live with their father. Harley and I have two children together, and they're 5 and 6 now. I'm 37, and edging into that gray area of fertility, and we had to decide - are we really done? Do we want more kids?

So...we're having another one!

I was so nervous about going into this doc for an exam, and even more anxious to tell her I wanted to get pregnant. I was sure she was going to say, "You're too old! You're too fat! You're much too unhealthy!"

Instead, she said, "I'm so excited! I'll write you a prescription for prenatal vitamins!"

Wow. I went out of the office feeling elated, in spite of the lower belly crampy stuff going on. I hardly even noticed it. I couldn't believe how supportive and kind the doc was. Made me want to run right home and make Harley make me pregnant NOW!

Not that Harley would object... *grin* But, since Harley switched jobs, we have to wait, because our new insurance won't kick in until April. So we'll have to be careful until May. By then, I hope to be down about forty pounds. Being pregnant is always a great motivator to eat well. What better reason is there? So far, the low-carbing thing is going well. Of course, this is only day two...

Sugar Cravings

2008-01-13T18:06:00.001-05:00

Well the grocery shopping was successful. The boys went in, got what was on the list, and got out. I'm amazed by the masculine's ability to do that.

Of course, now I'm going through sugar withdrawal. Migraine-inducing sugar withdrawal. Hasn't even been twenty-four hours yet, for pete's sake! I know from experience this only lasts a short time, but man... it's killer. I want to crawl under a rock and die.

Or eat a Snickers.

Same difference, I suppose. *sigh*

Off to get bloodwork tomorrow at Dr. Evil's. Should be... fun. Not.