Snake Oil Pellets

I had three hormone pellets (estrogen, testosterone and I believe, progesterone) inserted in the subcutaneous fat of my upper left buttock 8 days ago.  This miraculous treatment is supposed to infuse me with energy and make me feel GREAT!  The benefit of the pellet method, rather than cream or pill, is that there is a constant dose of beneficial hormones released, so there are no differing hormone levels that may make the treatment less effective.  The promotional brochures, the video on continuous loop in the doctor's waiting room, the testimonials--all indicate that this treatment will erase all my ills.  Joint pain, hot flashes, night sweats, fatigue, low libido, mood swings--all the maladies of menopausal life will be GONE!!!

Something has to give.  My hormone levels verify that I have definitely gone through menopause.  I have gained a massive amount of weight and am almost 200 pounds (I'm 5'2").  I experience crushing depression.  My default state is tired.  Cognitively I am shot:  I cannot remember what I have said from one minute to the next.  Really. I literally forget what I am conversing about when I am conversing.  This happens at work, too.  The hot flashes seem to have stopped, but other than that, I feel dreadful.  I lumber around.  I am lazy.  I am managing to keep up with the laundry and do some minor straightening, but other housework is just beyond me.  My bathrooms are grimy, my kitchen disgusting.  Litter boxes overflow and reek, floors are sticky and spotted, dust thick.  I still exercise, which I find miraculous, but it doesn't help me maintain my weight and it makes my hip joints ache and my knees creak.  Arthritis and weight, or just arthritis, I have no idea, it just hurts.  I exist, rather than live.  I have put all my hope on this hormone pellet treatment, because going on the way I am now is just unacceptable. 

Except . . . when they tout the pellet therapy (About the size of a grain of rice!  Easy to insert!  You will feel better than you ever have!) they don't tell you that after they insert them, they will be writing you several prescriptions--for oral hormone pills!  And that you will be expected to purchase SUPPLEMENTS!  Yes, bottles of vitamins, or some sort of proprietary blend of something, without which the pellets will not be as effective.  These supplements and oral hormones must be taken on a STRICT schedule. And the pellets will wear off in 3-4 months, so you have to keep getting your hormone levels checked and once they get low, you get new pellets inserted! And of course (and I knew this going in), insurance doesn't cover this treatment so it is all on my dime.

So, the jury is still out.  It's only been eight days, and so far, I don't feel any different.  The supplement part of this treatment plan makes me suspicious that this is nothing but a bunch of SNAKE OIL.  But, I trust my doctor completely, he's been my doctor for almost 15 years and he's been a good one, and I don't think he would steer me wrong.  And, like I said before, something has to give, because living and feeling the way I do now is just not going to work.

I'll check back in in a few days.  As they say, don't give up before the miracle.  And maybe these pellets in my butt will be the miracle I have been waiting for.

I Got Fat

I wrote this piece a few days ago about being fat, and my relationship with weight issues and my body for my entire life. 

 

I Got Fat

I was one of those incredibly annoying adolescents and young women.  You know the type: mincing around in a 110-pound body, I would complain incessantly to anyone who would listen about how “fat” I was.  Yes, in all fairness, I wasn’t skinny, and my hips and thighs did have some ripe curves (in retrospect, I must have been luscious).  But when 113 is your “fat” weight, and you have reached an adult height of over 5 feet, there is really nothing for you to complain about.

Yes, I was horribly irritating but some of it I came by from the less-than-stellar influence of my family.  My dad seemed to have a horror of fat, and made no secret of his scorn and derision for the overweight.  My mother was very pretty and obsessed with her body.  As a Connecticut housewife in the late 60’s-early 70’s, she worked out incessantly at a ballet studio, wrapping her legs and torso in saran wrap (!) before donning her leotard and tights and heading off to the “gym”.  She did barre work, and even strength training work with weights, decades before it was common for women.  She would diet restrictively—there were ketone strips on the back of the toilet when she was on Atkins (yes, Atkins actually came out in the 1970’s), Ayds candy, swordfish galore when she was on Weight Watchers, diet pills that were actually speed, you name it—then binge on sweets and puke it all up.  A spoon sat at the ready on the toilet tank, for quick and easy gagging when she needed to throw up.  I remember vividly her lying on the couch, sobbing, holding her leg in the air and railing about her “fat” thighs.  Nice healthy body image modeling for your ten-year-old—not.  It’s amazing I didn’t become bulimic.

I was actually on “diets” most of my childhood.  Always on the high normal side of the pediatric weight curve, my mother was told by the doctor, “she’s fine, but don’t let her gain any more”.  With her penchant for “health food” and nutrition, I would bring a lunch to school of cheese and fruit while my friends enjoyed white bread sandwiches, little bags of chips and Ding-Dongs.  How I longed for those foods!  But no, my food intake was determined by whatever diet or fad my mother had adopted at the time.  Adele Davis (brewers yeast, kale) lasted particularly long, as did macrobiotic (brown rice!).  My friends laughed at my lunches, and I wished I could eat “normal” food. 

At almost 13, I got a major slam to my body image.  My parents had divorced and my dad remarried, to a young widow with two small children who was also obsessed with her body.  It was truly her main topic of conversation.  She taught “Slimnastics” for the local YWCA and played tennis all the time and was extremely critical of my (completely normal and not overweight) early teenage body.  She had been a cheerleader and had had a 21-inch waist, and my pubescent straight up and down body was deemed somehow inferior.  I took her exercise classes, listened to her brag about her great body and how many men had admired her when she went to the grocery store that day, and became even more warped when it came to my body image.  Of course, pictures of me during that time show a completely normal -sized adolescent, but because I wasn’t a wasp-waisted hourglass like she had been, I was somehow “fat”. 

By my late teens I had a cute figure (small breasted but curvy and strong with what I’ve been told was a magnificent rear end) and weighed in the 105-110 range but I was completely on the I-Hate-My-Body bandwagon by that point, restricting my eating, exercising, and talking incessantly about it.  At 5’2”, I was never going to look “willowy”, and my sturdy body didn’t look conventionally “skinny”, but I had a great body.  That I had absolutely no appreciation for.

My 20’s were just as bad.  I started running and adopted the Covert Bailey “Fit or Fat” plan and became pretty lean.  I had my first baby at 23, gained 48 pounds during pregnancy and lost it all through breastfeeding and running.  Pictures of me taken at that time show me with a body free of fat, my abdominal muscles in stark relief under the skin of my fatless abdomen, but with monstrous, lactating breasts.  And of course, a horrid 80’s perm.  And other than taking care of my baby, exercising and making sure I didn’t consume a gram of fat consumed my days.  And it worked—I weighed 108.

After I had my second child at age 27, I weighed 135 at my six-week post-partum checkup.  I was absolutely HORRIFIED at such a massive weight.  I remember confidently telling my (also appearance-obsessed) grandmother once that I would NEVER weigh more than 125 pounds, EVER, in my entire life. Oops. After that baby I stayed in the high 110's, low 120’s for years.  I exercised.  I counted fat grams.  I could wear a size 4 or 6.  And I bemoaned my “fat” all the time.

I was a horrid, self-absorbed boring person who probably made the actually overweight want to slap her.  Or maybe deck her.  I cringe to think of it now.

As I got into my 30’s and started my professional career, I started to inch up into the low 130’s.  I was very distressed by this, but I could still wear size six cute little business suits and I was still the annoying not-overweight person who bemoaned her “fat” all the time.  I did The Firm exercise videos and took up in-line skating.  I was very fit.  My stomach was flat, my legs muscular, my core strong.  But was I grateful?  No!  I always wanted to be thinner, thinner, thinner.

I did the really twisted thing that many young women do. I bonded with other women through complaining about fat, dieting, exercising and being completely body-obsessed.  I could always strike up a conversation with a woman I didn’t know at a social event by commenting on caloric content of food, how I “shouldn’t eat that”, or by bemoaning the arduous exercise I would have to endure in order to burn off whatever treat I had eaten. My friends were all the same way.  Fat grams (later, net carbs). Eating chocolate chip cookie dough and then taking long, long walks to burn it off.  Dieting all week and going out together for a big Dairy Queen Blizzard on Friday nights. Hating our bodies, which were vigorous, healthy and fit, and at the same time competing with each other to be thinner, fitter.  I remember when my dearest friend lost a lot of weight during her divorce and became thinner than me, I wasn’t happy for her.  I was insanely envious.  I didn’t even want to look at her.

I started to really gain weight after a “nervous breakdown” in my mid-30’s and being put on lithium, a mood-stabilizing medication known for causing weight gain.  I ended up weighing in the 160’s.  It was a nightmare and it seemed like I couldn’t do anything to stop the weight gain. I’ve never regretted taking the lithium because I believe it saved my life, but it did seem to start me on a trend of settling at a higher weight than normal for my height.  I finally lost most of the weight after I went off the lithium and starved myself, and by the time I was in my late 30’s, early 40’s, I had stabilized at 138 pounds. 

138 is technically, actuarially, overweight for someone 5’ 2”.  But I was healthy, fit, and still wore a size six.  I considered my foray into the 160’s to be an anomaly, a blip on the bell curve of life, and it truly didn’t occur to me that I would ever weigh that much again.  And you know, I started to realize that some people actually were overweight, and that talking about real or imagined fat all the time was really, really boring.  And irritating.  And self-absorbed. Plus, I had teenage children by then and real life issues and there were more important things going on.

That’s not to say that I didn’t still think about it—all the time.  But I didn’t TALK about it—as much.

Having a mid-life baby at 43 kicked my weight back up again. But I lost it—most of it.  I think I settled into the low 140’s.  But it was good enough for me.  I could wear my pre-baby clothes. I could wear a size six suit or dress to work.  I could wear tank tops and shorts—even in public!  I felt fine and it was a good enough weight.  But it was not to last. 

As I sit here writing this, I weigh 190.  My arms are fat (when I was younger, I didn’t realize that arms could even GET fat).  My shoulders are fat. My once-A cup breasts are massive DD’s.  My mid-section is rolled with fat, my lower abdomen scarred and sagging from c-sections and a bowel resection surgery for colon cancer.  My sagging abdomen touches my thighs when I sit down.  I try not to look at my thighs—they bear no resemblance to a normal human-shaped leg.  They are ripply, huge, and rub together from my crotch to my knees.  My calves are still relatively normal looking, but definitely bigger than they used to be.  My face is round, I have a double chin.  I keep my hair longer than I used to in order to try to balance my large body with my head.  Sometimes I retain water and I can actually feel my skin being pulled taut by the extra volume—mostly in my upper arms, neck, and face.  It’s embarrassing to run into people I haven’t seen for a long time.  I am wide.  Shirts don’t button properly and pull at my chest.  Short-sleeved t-shirt sleeves roll up over my arm fat and bunch under my arms. Many of my tops just don’t even fit anymore, or don’t come down far enough over my stomach, revealing pasty white midsection rolls, because my chest has gotten so big.  I also don’t look at my once-spectacular rear end, but I imagine it is huge and misshapen and ripply with fat.  I can’t even see my crotch area any more. I haven’t seen my pubic hair in years.

I don’t know what happened.  Sure, I eat too much, but I don’t eat enough to weigh almost 200.  Gamely, I still exercise: hiking, riding my bike, taking long walks and doing exercise videos.  My poor knees creak and my hips ache and my jeans wear out where my thighs rub together, but I still plod on.  The exercise helps my overall health—my lipid profile is good, my blood pressure lower than average, I have no blood sugar issues--but it doesn’t do anything for my weight.  I’m not a candidate for gastric bypass because I’m not morbidly obese, only obese, and at my weight you have to have co-morbidities (high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, etc.) to qualify for the surgery, and I don’t.  Except for being fat and having had a brush with colon cancer, I’m the picture of health.  And after colon cancer surgery, I don’t really want to have elective, non-essential surgery that will alter my digestive tract even more.

I chuckle at my 27-year old horror at weighing 135 six weeks after childbirth.  Even if I ever lose weight, I doubt I’ll ever see 135 again—or even 145.  I’d be ecstatic now to get into the 150’s. 

I look at my old body-hating buddies on Facebook. (Not stalking, we are “friends”.) I am the only one who has gotten fat.  I marvel at their triathlons, marathon-running, epic bike rides, one of them even does those new acrobatic workouts.  They look great.  I wonder what they eat.  I wonder if they’re still obsessed with their bodies. Once you’re over 50, as all of us are, it takes a lot of work to maintain a body like that.  I think.  I actually wouldn’t know, because I got fat.

My 77-year old father who is as lean as a whippet, exercises for HOURS a day to maintain his fitness.  It’s basically his job. My mom, 73, just restricts her eating.  She isn’t fat either.  At family reunions, I am always the fattest one there—by far. 

But, I have found that there is still life after fat.  Life continues and I still get out of bed every day, even though I’m FAT!  Imagine that! I still enjoy being out in the mountains, marvel over the beautiful sunrises and sunsets of the desert southwest, get joy from my family, enjoy a hard hike up a mountain peak, a job well done, a good book, a symphony concert, and the contented sighs of my tired dogs after I’ve taken them hiking, and I feel grateful and good (most of the time).

What caused this weight gain? Who knows.  Middle age, working motherhood (my mid-life baby is now 9 years old), work stress, menopause, hormone imbalance, bouts of deep clinical depression, Stage III colon cancer, chemo—I’ve dealt with all these things over the past couple of years.  I take the bulk of the responsibility for being fat.  I certainly tend to use food for comfort, recreation, relaxation.  I probably eat too much most of the time.  But I exercise and I KNOW I’m not eating enough to weigh this much.  It’s like my body has turned on me.

Young women who are obsessed with their bodies never dream they will become fat.  They claim to fear and dread it but deep down, they are convinced it will never happen to them. They are too knowledgeable about nutrition and exercise and diet and they are certain that they will be in the same shape at 45 as they are at 25.  And some may very well be.  But I imagine that it will take single-minded devotion, hours of exercise and some serious food restriction.  And when life gets hard, or you have a health issue or just get older, even that devotion may not be enough to maintain that low weight.

Do I wish I wasn’t fat?  Of course.  Do I hate running into people I haven’t seen for years?  Absolutely.  Do I still think about my body and how fat it is?  Yes! All the time! But are there worse things than being fat? Yes, most definitely. In some ways, I have a better body image now at age 52 than when I was young and thin. I think more about how my body functions than how it looks. And I’m not going to starve or exercise obsessively to try to lose weight.  And if I never lose weight, and am always this way, I can live with that.

You could say I am the loser (no pun intended) in the body competition with my friends over the various stages of my life.  They all seem to be thin (even my body-obsessed mother and stepmother, now in their 70’s, are still thin).  I am the only one who got fat.  Is it karma for being such an annoying, self-absorbed little twit when I was younger?  Maybe.  But I think I have gained some perspective, lost a lot of my hubris and narcissism, and learned how to be a better, more compassionate and balanced person. 

At least I hope I have.

 

Banana Smoothie

I'm flailing.  Trying everything.  Went to a Meeting on Monday night.  Back on the Shr*nk Yo*rself website yesterday (darn my Windows phone, I can't get their wonderful Pock*t Hung*er Coach app because it only works for Android or Iphone.  Not that the PHC app would even work for me).  Reading OA literature.  Reading other weight-loss books.  Just flailing.  I weighed more than EVER when I was at the doctor's office on Monday.  The number is too terrible to even type, let alone utter.

Right now I'm reeling from having to drink a horrid 'banana smoothie' for the CT scan I had this morning.  It was actually a barium solution but a dreadful banana flavor had been added to it, I guess to make it more palatable.  I had to drink one bottle at 6:30 am and most of the next one at 7:00 am.  Then, right before I went into the CT donut machine, I had to drink the rest of it.  It was horrible.  I'm still having residual gags just from remembering the taste and texture of the vile liquid. 

However, the label of the barium solution bottle did amuse me greatly.  It portrays a bunch of bananas, realistically rendered, carefully shaded--a work of art.  However, next to the lovely artwork of bananas, sort of down and to the left, barely fitting on the label and placed as if it was an afterthought, is a crude, anatomically incorrect rendering of a digestive tract.  The juxtaposition of these two images struck me as quite amusing and I got plenty of chuckles just looking at the label.

That is until this morning, until I actually had to drink the Readi-Cat Banana Smoothie Barium Sulfate Suspension Solution.

Fortunately, the CT scan went smoothly, no allergic reaction to the creepy iodine solution being injected into my veins, and the CT scanner is way less claustrophobic than the PET scan machine. 

So, no real progress on the eating front, yet.  But I'm not giving up.  Few clothes fit.  In fact, I'm wearing a 12W sized blouse this morning. Not a 12, a 12W.  Must get it back.  But going through my recent health challenges, having to fast, or eat a modified diet, or drink large amounts of various vile solutions in preparation for various tests makes it very hard to stick to any sort of regular eating plan.

 

Here is the barium solution label that amused me so greatly.  Note the odd juxtaposition of images.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Annus Horribilis

It has been a horrible year.  Starting in late August 2013, my 75-year-old father, the Mysterious Septuagenarian, developed a massive chest infection that required him to have brutal, barbaric chest surgery to clear out all the gunk, then be on IV antibiotics for weeks.  He was in the hospital for 11 days, and we weren't sure if he would ever "get it back".  He did, through hard work requiring great effort, and he is back to climbing fourteeners and being his normal self.  Thank God, and I say that reverently!  But it was a horrible few weeks.

Then, in December 2013, I found out I had a malignant tumor in my sigmoid colon.  Right before Christmas, which is a terrible time to find out you have cancer because everyone is off work and getting test results, let alone doctor's appointments, takes a long time.  I finally had surgery to remove the tumor in January, but as it had spread to a lymph node, I had to have six months of oral chemotherapy which finally ended in late August of 2014.  I tolerated the chemo pills pretty well, but it was still a big deal.  I am still awaiting an appointment for a scan and a 'scope to see if we got all the cancer out or if I'm going to need additional treatment.

Next, in mid-August, my mother-in-law sickened from complications of diabetes, was put in home hospice, and ended up passing away in early September.  She was a strong woman who raised four children successfully and kept the family going after her husband suffered a crippling stroke and then succumbed a few years later to lung cancer.  It's been very hard on my husband and his siblings, because she was their rock and her last year of dementia and decline was very traumatic for all of them.

Finally, last week my oldest had an ectopic pregnancy scare, which thankfully ended up being just a cyst, but it scared us all to death and she suffered, not just from the physical pain but also from the emotional turmoil, as she and her husband really want a baby.

So, August 2014 to September 2014 have been very difficult for the family.  My eight-year-old has had to go through all this as well.  Somehow we all manage to get up in the morning and keep going, but it has been hard, so hard.  Other things have happened that aren't blogosphere fodder but have worsened the burdens we have carried.  It has been a true Annus Horribilis.

But in the good news, my eight year old is healthy and adjusting to the rigors of third grade, I still have a job, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that my scans will be clear and I will be deemed an offical Cancer Survivor. 

Begone, Annus Horribilis.  We need some happy news around here. 

This is a picture of my cat sleeping in a dog cave bed.

You Saw it Here

I had three good sugar-free days.  Then I messed up last night, eating some Whoppers, which weren't even GOOD!  They were semi-stale.  The chocolate coating was waxy. 

I'm retaining water and my feet and ankles are puffy.  Even my arms feel puffed, they sort of stand out from my sides in an odd way.  I don't think they could have gotten fatter that fast, so there is probably retained water in my arms as well.

My poor mother-in-law died day before yesterday.  I believe a major cause of her death was complications of diabetes. 

I'm 52 in a few days.  I'm never going to look really good again, so it's time to focus my efforts at fixing my eating problem towards protecting my health.

I don't know that much about diabetes but it seems like a terrible disease.  One to NOT GET. 

I had/have colon cancer, which may be diet related.  That's big.  Major stuff.

I decide today that I will not let the slip-up last night ruin my efforts.  Today is a new day to eat well.

So, today I will eat well.  Oatmeal for breakfast, salad for lunch.  Bean burgers for dinner, if my husband feels well enough to make them.

You saw it here.  I'm not going to be "off and running", as is my usual behavior, after "messing up" last night. 

Posting a picture of my dogs, happy in their secret pond during a walk. I may have major eating issues, but at least I don't mind exercising. 

Happy Dog 1 and Happy Dog 2 in secret pond

It's Serious, Folks

Eating this way is going to kill me.

My poor mother-in-law lies, desperately ill, in a hospital bed right now, from a constellation of problems caused largely by the fact that she has Type 2 diabetes.

I have to stop eating this way.

My body sends me subtle signs when I'm pushing the boundaries of sugar consumption, and I'm to that point again.

I must get off the junk. 

It doesn't matter if I had a tough childhood or if my husband is distant or my job is stressful or the house is a cluttered wreck.

Life is hard enough without making it harder by suffering with AVOIDABLE health problems.

Must stop, now.

Get it back!

2014 Update

Well, a lot has happened.

Weight-wise, I'm back up to new heights of fat-ness.  Probably heavier than I've ever been.  I lumber.  My upper arms are ripply sausages.  My legs have moved into fat lady territory, they don't have any regular leg shape to them any more.  And my midsection is just thick and stout, there is no other way to describe it.  Just big, big all over. 

I think I went through menopause because if being fat wasn't enough, my face has taken on the appearance of a crone.  And my neck  . . . lets just not talk about my neck.

But my health  . . . my always great health . . .  is no more.  Back in December I was diagnosed with Stage III colon cancer.  Surgery in January.  We think they got all the tumor but one lymph node was positive for cancer so I've been on a regimen of oral chemotherapy for the last six months.  I call it Chemo-Lite, because I haven't lost my hair and it doesn't make me sick to my stomach.  It does, however, cause neuropathy in my hands and feet (feels sort of like dull shards of glass in your hands, weird) and makes my eyes red and itchy, like an allergy attack.  And I'm not very peppy. Usually I'm okay but sometimes I get pretty tired.  For the past few months, the only exercise I've been getting is walking my dogs, usually for about 45 minutes.

I try to act like I'm normal but I'm really not.  In fact, I've been off of work for almost two months on the orders of my doctor(s) and I can't go back until at least mid-September.  I don't miss work, but I do miss the people I work with.  But my 8-year-old and I have had a great summer together.  She was happy not to have to go to summer program and we had some good times.  She's back in school now, but I can pick her up at the dismissal bell and she doesn't have to go to after school program, which she loves. 

So, I can do pretty well eating-wise for a while but I always, always, always blow it.  I couldn't even sleep well last night due to all the butter pecan ice cream I had eaten forming an immovable lump in my stomach.  Ugh.  And now that I'm older, I've noticed that my body is much less tolerant of my poor eating habits.  I won't go into detail, but my body lets me know in unpleasant ways when I've been hitting the junk food too hard.  And I'm terrified of tipping over into Type II diabetes.  Which is completely avoidable, if I could get my eating act together.

Must. Do. Better.

I always felt that if I could get some down time, just some time to breathe, that I could get my eating on track.  But I've had several weeks of down time and no, I haven't gotten my eating on track.  At least not for any significant amount of time. 

There is no magic bullet!  There is nothing for me to do but to just do it, to quote Nike.  Just don't eat the junk. Actually, just don't do it is probably more appropriate in my particular situation.

So, I'm back with my First World Problems and Middle-Aged-Fat-Lady angst.  More to follow!