I did it!

From May 7, when I had my tonsils out, to yesterday, I have lost 19 pounds! I feel like singing the Dora song when she gets to where she is going. You know the one, "We did it, we did it, we did it, yay!".

Anyway, what I am most proud of is the fact that I did it without any diet aids. I went from a snug size 8 in pants, that had to be hemmed, to a perfect 6 petite. In regular sizes, I can do a 4, but they still have to be shortened. I never realized I was so short, until my pants started hitting at the right part of my body.

So, yesterday, I went shopping. Oh boy, did I go shopping. I spent way, way too much. I ended up taking a lot of it back today, but all together I think I am out over $400. That said, when I added up the regular price of the clothes, before all of the discounts, it was over $800, so I think I did pretty good. You figure, I had to pretty much buy an entirely new fall wardrobe. I literally had 2 pairs of nice work pants that fit. And, for some reason, I have sleeveless shirts galore, but no short sleeve. It jumped right to long sleeve. So, I bought a lot of short sleeve too. I was surprised to see that I went from a Medium to a Small in most of the shirts as well.

In all, it was a very good weekend! I will definitely keep the weight off too. I figure if I keep it off all winter, I may end up selling my nice dress slacks on eBay next Fall. I am afraid to now, although I definitely don't want to gain that back! I really would like to drop about 3 more as well.

In case you are wondering how I actually lost the weight, it was actually pretty simple. I have been eating Quaker Weight Control Oatmeal for breakfast most days. Other days I cheat. I have a healthy lunch, salad greens with chicken or South Beach Diet frozen meals or Lean Cuisines. Of course, there are days I cheat. I don't really deprive myself. In the afternoon, I have a cup of Activia yogurt and some fresh fruit. I usually end up snacking on a few Hershey kisses (the ones filled with caramel) and some actual caramels as well. Then, I have a smaller dinner. I eat whatever the rest of the family is having, although we do try to make them healthy meals. I just don't eat as much or as late. Every weekend, I relax and eat what I want. At first, I really splurged, and there are still some weekends I do. Others, I don't really bother. As for drinks, I don't drink anything except water (flavored with True Lemon or Crystal Light), milk and some juices. I dropped soda a long time ago. Of course, on the weekends, there are the occasional cocktails. Can't do without those Key Lime Pie Martini's!

As for exercise. I have been walking 2.25 miles three mornings a week. I go out at 5:30 am with a neighbor and am back by 6:00 am. Three mornings a week, I also do 16 minutes of other exercises. I do Jorge Cruises 8 Minutes in the Morning to a Flat Belly and his 8 Minutes in the Morning to Lean Hips and Thighs.

That's it. I wish I had done this all much sooner instead of wasting on that money on Lipo 6. What a complete waste of money that was. If I can do it, anyone can!

Withdrawal Update

For the most part, the brain zaps have stopped. I don't really feel anything else. Sometimes when I am yelling at the kids (which happened on the drug as well) I wonder if the Lexapro would have helped. But, I don't think so.

So, I am happy to report that I think I have most of the drug out of my system! Yay!!!

Withdrawal

Something you don't know about me is that I started taking the anti-depressant Lexapro a few years ago. I honestly cannot remember if it has been two, three or almost four years since I started. I definitely had something going on at the time. I would cry at the drop of a hat. Usually a song would come on the radio while I was driving that would remind me of my deceased ex-fiance and I would just start bawling. (The deceased ex-fiance is a story for another day.)

Anyway, I started taking the Lexapro and things were good. I have been wanting to try to stop taking it for a while now. I didn't want to do it over the holidays last year and gradually kept putting it off. When I had my tonsils out, I couldn't swallow pills really, so I only took it sporadically over those miserable two weeks. After that, I decided it was time to try it. I quit cold turkey.

A few days later, I started getting dizzy and having what I would have described as head rushes. I did a little research and found those are withdrawal symptoms of the drug. The are typically called brain zaps. I also found that some people weaned themselves and others went cold turkey. Of those that went cold turkey, the time period for the withdrawal symptoms was anywhere from one to eight weeks, with three being the average.

I am now in week two of quiting cold turkey. I am still getting the brain zaps, although not as regularly. I think I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Will I be ok without it? I hope so. I really want to try to not take unnecessary medications. I'll keep you posted on my progress.

Back to the Daily Grind

Well, I saw my ENT yesterday. He released me to come back to work full time, so here I am! Also, no cancerous cells showed up in the pathology report for my tonsils. There was just lots of bad bacteria. So, yeah!!!

No more narcotics!

Well, Friday I took off the Fentanyl patch. After physically getting sick in the afternoon, I figured enough was enough and removed it. I have been surviving all weekend on just Tylenol. I am feeling much better, but my throat is still very sore. It feels like the muscles that are on the side of my throat are bruised. I really hurts to yawn - an aside, do you ever notice how even just typing the word y-a-w-n that it makes you do it? crazy huh? - it hurts like hell to sneeze too. I didn't realize that part. I knew about the yawn (made you do it huh?) part, as I have been fighting that daily, but yesterday I sneezed. Holy mother of all that is good! That hurt!!! So, from now on, if I have to sneeze, I am holding that one in!

On a related note, DQ woke up last night a little before 3am because she wet the bed. After getting her cleaned up and settled in on her little pull out couch on the floor in our room, I could not go back to sleep. The last time I looked at the clock, it read 4:38. BD's alarm goes off at 4:50. I got him up and promptly passed back out until 7:30. I am heading off to catch a few more hours (hopefully) of zzzz's before I get up and go to work for the first time in over two weeks. I got the doctor to at least let me work half days until my appointment on Wednesday afternoon. Then hopefully, he'll let me go back full days Thursday and Friday.

Venturing Out

Well, I decided this afternoon/evening would be my first trip out. I removed the Fentanyl patch around 1Pm or so after feeling like it really wasn't doing anything for me but making me sweat and be dizzy all the time. Boy was I wrong. By this afternoon, my throat was on fire! So, I put another patch on.

I still was able to go with BD to PM's soccer game. It was a good game and PM scored his first goal of the season! A few of our friends also have their kids in the league and they all came over to say hi and see how I was doing. It felt good to get out. One of the moms mentioned it looked like I had lost weight. I felt proud to tell her that was one benefit and I am down eleven pounds now!

After the game we hit the McDonald's drive through. I got just a hamburger and a vanilla milkshake. Breaking off baby size bites, I was able to eat just about all of the hamburger. I only drank a little of the milkshake then though, as I was stuffed. I am now dizzy and flat our exhausted and my throat is sore. So, I am off to bed. Keep your fingers crossed for a good update tomorrow!

Almost done whining

So, today and yesterday, feels like my throat is raw. It hurts to eat anything. Who knew getting your tonsils out as an adult was really this bad? Yes, I know they told me, but I didn't really believe them, not after seeing PM do it at 3 and it wasn't all that bad.

Yesterday, BD even stopped at Chick-Fil-A and picked me up one of these:

Yeah baby, that's a Cookies-n-Creme milkshake. My absolute favorite! And guess what, it hurt too bad to drink! All I had all day yesterday was a cup of red jello with fruit in it, courtesy of PM.

Today I get up hoping it will be better, but no luck. Heck, it hurts just to eat a piece of ice. I tried jello, no go. So, when BD, PM and DQ sat down to dinner, I warmed up some good 'ole Egg Drop Soup. And guess what, it worked! So, BD decided to get me some water that was a little bit warm and that worked ok too! I even managed to get through the pain and eat a 100 calorie chocolate and vanilla pudding cup while watching American Idol, which we'll talk about that later.

I think for these few days, while the scabbing is coming off and the new skin is being exposed, I need to stick with lukewarm things. Tomorrow, I shall polish off the rest of that Egg Drop Soup for lunch, but I plan to try Oatmeal for breakfast.

On to American Idol... I was ok with the decision to send Melinda home. I mean Jordin I can see as very marketable and Blake too. Melinda is an awesome singer, don't get me wrong, I think she blows the other two away, but I just can't see her as a very marketable individual. So, don't shoot me, but I think it was the right decision. Oh, and if you didn't already see who got the boot, sorry for the give away there.

Still alive, though just not kicking

Today was a really, really bad day on the recovery front. I barely slept last night, then I finally slept from about 6:30 this morning until about 11 am. The last time I had taken pain medicine was some time during the night and I am starting to think that it is what is causing me not to sleep. On top of that, I must have caught some type of stomach virus that lets just say, wasn't pretty and required me to drink even more liquids for fear of getting dehydrated.

Anyway, the whole day was pretty much a blur. I got up at 11 am and watched recorded episodes of "Two and a Half Men" and "The New Life of Old Christine" or whatever it's called. I was so miserable and couldn't even barely eat the Egg Drop soup or pudding I had. I finally called the doctors office and asked for a different pain medicine. Unfortunately, the problem I was having was not caused by the pain medicine, as that causes just the opposite of constipation. So, I guess it really was a virus. After feeling awful, I passed out in the bed for a little bit, only to be hounded by the phone ringing a few times. When I woke up, the phone rang, I was drenched in sweat, and I do mean drenched. It looked like I had just got down doing a spin class for three hours straight. I took a quick body shower and waited for BD to get home.

After he got home, I was feeling a little bit better and decided to go ahead and take some of the pain medicine I had to try to eat. And I ate!! Big News!!! I had a single scrambled egg (no salt or anything). Then, I had two pieces of toast with butter cinnamon and sugar on them, no crust. Yippee!!! BD is going back this evening to pick up the new pain medicine prescription. It is a patch and I am praying it will let me sleep. I still keep having hot flashes where I get all sweaty, and I don't know what is up with that. I pray that it isn't early menopause or something on top of all of this crap!

Enough of a pity party, I ate!! When BD goes to pick up my new medication, he is going to also get me an Oreo Blizzard!!!

Can't eat, can't sleep, I toss and turn

Well, I think I slept too much during the day yesterday or something, as I cannot sleep to save my life tonight. I am still taking the pain meds every four hours and believe me, when it starts getting close I am counting down the minutes! Tonight I have been pretty much falling asleep, only to awaken about ten minutes later. So, I have given up and figure I will surf the net and read a book for a little bit.

I guess the recovery is going well. It seems to be going as expected, according to the doctor. I am still shocked that it is this difficult after seeing PM go through it a few years ago and it was pretty much a piece of cake. I am very, very, very tempted to see if our ENT thinks DQ's tonsils are large enough to take out now, rather than wait until she is older so as to not put her through all of the pain later in life.

As I said, I am taking the pain medicine (liquid percocet) every four hours. I have had to take the phenegren a few times for naseua, but that is it. I have had a low fever that has spiked as high as 102.2. According the the ENT, that is normal and fine. He said to just keep pushing the liquids. I read online that as long as you stay hydrated, the fever will stay down. It seems to be true. If I start not drinking as much, it goes back up.

My tongue still feels swollen and out of place. Apparently, whatever they clamp your tongue down out of the way does a lot of "damage". Nothing permanent, but my tongue and the inside of the molars feels bruised and he said that it is from the clamps and such. Once that part feels better, a lot of the discomfort will be gone I think.

As for the throat, I made the mistake and checked it out. EWWWW!!!! Gross!!!! I won't be doing that again any time soon!

The kids have been pretty good and BD has been great! He has really taken over. I am so lucky to have a great husband like him! When all is said and done, I think he deserves a free weekend or something (actually, I know he has one in Sept or Oct, so I guess I just won't make him feel guilty for going!) So far, all I have had to eat is jello, oatmeal, pudding, ice cream, ice cream cake and egg drop soup. I feel the weight loss plan kicking into high gear! I can't eat too much ice cream or ice cream cake, as they are too cold. My good friend brought the ice cream cake from Dairy Queen. So, it is torture, because it is really good, but it is very hard to eat the crunchy layer in the middle. About the most I have had to eat of anything is the egg drop soup. I just let it cool so that it isn't too hot and go to town. I have had a whole quart the last two nights in a row!

The downers have been that I have missed two of PM's soccer games and one of DQ's through all of this. I really want to be better enough to not miss his game this coming Thursday.
Well, that is the update for now. I guess I am off to read a book for a little bit now...

Coblation

That is the procedure they will use when they remove both of my tonsils on May 7. While I am very excited to finally get this over and be done once and for all with being sick, I am now petrified after watching the video on this site. I'll warn you, don't go there if you can't handle a little bit of blood...

My Ongoing Tonsil Saga

Well, after being on an antibiotic and prednisone while at Disney for the week, of course it flared back up about 4 days after I was done with the treatment. I went back last Friday and was told to try this other antibiotic and they would get me in with the ENT that I want to see (he is the same one that took care of both of my kids). Well, he is the head guy at the practice now, as the founder of the practice died suddenly last year, so he is now swamped.

I started the new antibiotic Friday night, so I will be done Monday (9th) morning with it. They say that they spoke to the doc and he said I could push it out 2-3 weeks and if I needed a refill before then, I could call in. DAMMIT, I don't want another refill, I want to see him and get this thing taken care of. I am scared of what is going on that it is something bad and want to either start treating it or have reassurance that it is not. So, my appointment is April 24, yes, you are seeing that right.

I have been on four different classes of antibiotics. As my one friend (who is an ER Physicians Assistant) put it, all the bacteria in my body are dead except the strep!

ARGH!!!!!!! I am so sick and tired of having pain in my neck/ear from my tonsil and lymph nodes. I am sick and tired of being tired all the time and having body aches (kind of like when you have the flu). I am sick of being grumpy with the kids because I don't feel well.

Back from the dead (well almost)

Friday I wasn't feeling all that well, but decided to go ahead and tough it out (as we mothers tend to do) and head out to a restaurant after my kids basketball game. I met about 6 other mothers there and we proceeded to have a wonderful time. After one glass of Pinot Noir and two margaritas, I called it quits on the drinking and headed for a potty break. When I came back, another margarita had magically appeared. I tried to drink a sip, but realized that no, I didn't want or need it, so I passed it off. That should have been a clue that I really was sick. Instead of fessing up, I headed home and crawled in bed, thinking I would be fine by the morning.

WRONG! At 2AM, I was up puking my guts out and had a fever of 102.2 (which for me is really high because my normal range is 96.5 - 97.3). So, after getting BD to get me the only adult medicine we had in the house, Aleve, and an extra blanket, I drifted back off into oblivion. BD slept on the couch and called the doctor at 8AM to find out what time their Urgent Care opened. I dragged myself out of bed and to the urgent care. Luckily, getting there before 8:30 allows you to not have to wait hours on end. Turns out my enormous tonsils were seething with the lovely strep bacteria yet again. So, back on antibiotics it was for me.

That was Saturday morning. Today, my fever has only been up to 99.5. Yeah! Seriously, at least I don't feel like I want to shoot myself anymore... I'll be back with more humor hopefully in the next few days. Right now though, I need to evacuate the room I am in on the computer because it also houses my cats litter box and she just left a heft deposit in there!

Out of commision

Right now, I feel like I have one of these in my throat:

In reality, it is just a tonsil... So, I'll be at home in bed for a while.

Incoherent Today

After watching this...