Here's Hopin'!!!

I've known for a long time I needed to get healthier but I just wasn't there mentally. Do you know what I mean? When you decide to get healthy it's such a mental change!!! It is for me anyway. If I haven't really done that it's not going to work!! Well, ever since I was thrust into this stupid world of drs and medicine and pain and CRAP I have felt such a lack of control. I really really hate having to take medicine. I really really hate drs appointments and wasting hours of my life in waiting rooms, on hold with receptionists, on hold with my insurance company, etc. Well, one of the stupid medicines I'm on causes you to gain weight. SUPER!!! As if all that elbow exercise I've been getting doesn't do enough damage on it's own I have to take a medication that makes me gain weight.When I was first diagnosed I was just totally grateful that my kids are healthy!!! I can handle having health problems better than I can handle having my kids have health problems!! I was also so incredibly grateful that I didn't have a brain tumor I didn't care what else they said. Now the realities of my "condition" or whatever you want to call it have sunk in and honestly it's HARD!!! It SUCKS!!!!!!! I hate it and I'm ANGRY!!! I'm not angry at anyone I'm just angry! It sucks and I'm angry! I can't help that! Probably natural to feel that way. I'm not living IN anger if that makes sense. I STILL feel so incredibly GRATEFUL for the kids good health and that I don't have a brain tumor I'm just mad about this stupid thing. I am trying to learn to function and deal with it to the best of my ability. When I bend over and my face explodes in pain I get MAD that this stupid thing effects me and the way I funciton and take care of my family. I am grateful for my freakishly long finger toes now because they help me pick stuff up! I knew there had to be a good reason for them!!! I'm hoping to get one of those little claw picker upper things for my birthday so that will help, too!! It's hard to not have control over my body. I may not be able to control the stupid medicine I take but I DO however have control over whether or not I get my fat @*# up and ride the exercise bike or what kinds of food I put in my mouth. Now that the medicines have gotten me back to a pretty decent functioning level (haven't helped pain but have helped dizziness and nausea, etc) I feel like exercising!! Brian asked for an exercise bike (see January 1st post) for Christmas and has been riding it faithfully for a couple weeks now. I've been trying to mentally be ready to do it. The end of last week I couldn't even button my fat pants. It's definitely TIME! I became mentally ready at that very moment!!! Seriously bad! Granted I just had that Essure procedure and there was some bloating and swelling but STILL!!! So, I have ridden Brian's bike twice so far. I feel fantastic when I'm done. Don't you just feel so good about yourself and your efforts after you've taken good care of your body and have exercised? And don't you feel so invigorated? It's the best! So I'm hoping that exercise and some food changes will help counter act the effects the medication has on my weight!!!

Here's hopin!!!!!

We survived...barely

Last year Matty and I got the H1N1 vaccine because we have asthma, just in time for Matty to come down with it after being exposed before getting the vaccine. Well, everyone in our little family got it except me. I just got to get up all night each time one of them got it so I could give them their ibuprofen to keep their fevers down. Poor Matty had such a rough time with it! He was one sick boy! Luckily he was able to make it through without being hospitalized. Course he later had pneumonia and was hospitalized for that. Well, Zack has started having asthma problems this year and has an inhaler and everything now so I decided we better ALL get the vaccine this year, except for Brian of course because he's stubborn  :). Last year when Matty got the shot I had Gracie with me and had to hold her while trying to drag him, literally, kicking and screaming to the room to get his shot. I begged Brian to come with me this year to help control kids and to help fill out paper work since we were getting them at the health department. Thank goodness he eventually agreed to come with me. We got in the van as soon as Matty and Zack got off the bus. Once we started driving down the road, Max broke the news to them that they were getting flu shots. They both started bawling! Poor guys! Then when we headed for the shot room Matty started freaking out! He does that thing where he goes completely limp. Gotta love it when they do that. Then he starts screaming...I want it in my bum, I want it in my bum.  hahahaha He thinks it hurts less to have a shot in his bum than in his arm. Once I pried his coat off of him and 3 of us held him down, he got the shot in his arm and immediately stopped crying. Poor guy! You should have seen poor Gracie's eyes at this point. She thought he was being murdered or something. We are quite an entertaining group for shots. Sheesh! But at least we survived...barely!!!