Wednesday 30 January 2013

The MOVE IT! Challenge - Weeks 5, 6 & 7 - January 7-27

Week 5:

Monday - 60 mins
Tuesday - 60 mins
Wednesday - 180 mins
Thursday - 60 mins
Friday - 50 mins
Saturday - None
Sunday - 45 mins

Total: 455 mins.


Week 6:

Monday - 45 mins
Tuesday - 180 mins
Wednesday - 120 mins
Thursday - 55 mins
Friday - None
Saturday - 120 mins
Sunday - None

Total: 520 mins.


Week 7:

Monday - 120 mins
Tuesday - None
Wednesday - 60 mins
Thursday - 60 mins
Friday - None
Saturday - None
Sunday - 90 mins

Total: 330 mins. Boo. This is the first week that I haven't managed at least 360, knocking me down to the lower level of the challenge.

My Fitness Pal Blog - Day 27-52 - And Just Getting Back On Track...Maybe

Good God I've been sick lately.

Last time I wrote I mentioned that I felt flu-ish. What I thought was flu turned out to be a titanic abscess that had worked its way into my sinus cavity. Apparently bad abscesses mimic flu symptoms quite often - fever, chills, sweats, cotton wool for brains, whole body aches, nausea, that stuffed-up feeling in your sinuses. Well, maybe not usually the last part, maybe that was just the location of it.

Anyway, after weeks of feeling rough and not knowing why, and more weeks of that horrible taste in my mouth, and a few days of pain, I got rushed in for emergency surgery about three weeks ago. Which was painful and weird, because the anaesthetic only half-worked. Apparently it can be like that when you have a bad infection - something to do with the blood becoming acidic and deactivating the anaesthetic,  I dunno. I was only half awake to listen. And OH MY GOD the smell. I've worked in hospitals before, in various units (including burns and dermatology) and I've smelled some awful things, but I've seriously never smelled anything like that before. Even the nurses were gagging. They had to totally decontaminate the room after I was in there, and the smell still stuck to things. I wouldn't be surprised if they had to burn the furniture.

 I probably should not be feeling just the teeniest bit impressed with myself. Ehh, what can I say? My scientific mind is always curious. I just wish they'd been able to videotape it. Two huge, serious abscesses in the last quarter year, and I haven't been able to videotape either one. Boo.

This does, of course, raise the question of WHY I've had two huge, serious abscesses in the last quarter, when I've previously had two smaller, less serious ones in my LIFE. I have to go for blood tests, which I keep putting off. Probably the strep is behind it, it seems to be behind half of the things that have gone wrong with my health in the last year and change.

So anyway, I had the abscess drained and debrided, and then I had to go in three or four days later for a second operation to repair some of the damage and clear out the rest of the infection, and then a third one last week to build up my upper jaw again. My dentist told me last week that she thinks they've managed to save the jawbone, which is actually the first indication I had that it was really that serious.

So yeah. My exercise plan has been derailed. Again. There's always something. I have been walking, mostly doing things like grocery shopping and going to school, which does add up. Most weeks I average an hour of exercise a day, which isn't enough, but is better than nothing. I've lost three pounds, although this last week it seems to have gone back on again - I'm assuming this is only water weight due to it being the time of month, because there's no way that I've eaten enough to put on weight. I've eaten under my calorie goal every day since I started, although some days it's been very close. Other days I'm way below, which I'm trying to make myself believe is not good, because I'm still in that state of mind where less = always better, inside my head. Even though I know intellectually that this is not true. It's still very hard to reconcile what I now know to be true with what I've been taught for my whole life. I've been eating badly since I got sick - candy, sandwiches, junk food, potatoes - and while I'm always under my calorie goal, and under my fat goal 9 days in 10, I'm almost always above my sugar (although I'm not paying THAT much attention to it right now, since I go over it with a glass of orange juice and a carton of yoghurt; I'll worry more about sugar when and if I find that I'm not losing weight and / or I'm having problems with blood sugar) and never manage to get my fibre or protein. If I manage half of my daily recommendation of fibre and protein, I consider that a success, and that's not good. I'm trying. I really am. And now that I'm feeling a bit better - although not anywhere near normal, or even normal for me - I can try a bit harder each day.

I HAVE to get back to the gym, I know I feel better when I go, and I hate that I'm paying all that money for nothing when I have so little money to begin with. (It's extra tight at the moment too; I had to take two weeks off work this month with the operations, and two weeks off last month with the infections and broken jaw. I talk for a living, and I wasn't able to talk when the jaw was bad.)

Things ARE getting better though, however slowly, and they'll continue to do so. Touch wood. I just have to get my exercise and eating back on track.

Thursday 10 January 2013

The Problem With Protein


WARNING: Contains material that may be triggery, re. sexual abuse.

And with that out of the way...

I am scared of protein powders.

Probably several of you are laughing at that sentence, and that's a good thing. I approve of laughter - even in situations where it seems contraindicated, I think it's often people's best resource for holding off the dark.

Seven years ago a guy who I'd met once raped and tried to kill me. This all happened in my own home, in my own room. We'd mentioned the possibility of meeting for a drink earlier in the evening, but had never made concrete plans. So when he showed up at my door, angry and tired because he'd allegedly misunderstood the plans we made (or didn't) and traveled from London and gotten lost, I was surprised, but felt sorry enough to let him come in and spend the night.

He repeatedly raped and strangled me throughout the whole night, from about 11pm onwards. His original plan was to kill me whilst raping me, for some purposes that I won't go into here, but by 6.30 or 7am I'd pleased him enough that he decided to let me sleep for an hour or two, and then go off to work and come back later.

I did sleep, somewhat surprisingly. I was exhausted - I'd been up since 5 the previous morning, and I wasn't very well at the time. At 8 or 8.30 I was awakened by the most godawful smell. (It isn't unusual for aromas to wake me; I have a really sensitive nose and frequently wake up if my mom starts cooking.) It was a sour, slightly sweet, rotten smell, redolent of sulphur and vomit. When I opened my eyes, he was holding a bottle in front of my face with a pinky-brown, chunky substance in, and in my sleep deprived brain all I could think of was that he'd thrown up into a bottle and was now offering it to me.

He told me it was a protein shake, and that I should be drinking them. He said that he'd been really impressed with how strong I was in the night, how I'd almost fought him off (and that no girl had come so close to beating him before) and that he was going to put me on a strict regime to build my muscles and make me sleek and strong and teach me how to fight other people and win. That he could train me well. I think I was supposed to be flattered here. I'm not really sure.

Anyway, since then I've avoided protein shakes and powders like the plague. But I think it's time for me to get over that. Looking back at my diaries for the last month, it's a rare day when I even come near to my protein goals. I've tried upping them with foods, but I'm mildly intolerant of eggs (can eat one or two a week without symptoms, not more) and nuts (it's not a bad allergy like some people have, but I don't feel particularly well if I eat them more than occasionally - although I am going to try almond milk) and dairy (I can have cheese or milk once a day max unless I want major stomach cramps, although yoghurt doesn't seem to be a problem) and while I do eat meat, I can't afford to eat much. We're poor. Like, super-poor. I can afford to eat 1-2 oz of supermarket value brand chicken or pork 4-5 days a week, and beef on rare occasions. I'm allergic to seafood, although I manage to eat one particular brand of canned tuna.

And yes, I have tried siphoning money away from other things to pay for better food, but the only indulgences I have left that I could possibly give up are uni tuition, life insurance (I'm a full-time carer for my disabled mother, and worry about how she would survive if something happened to me) and my gym membership.

So it's time for me to start supplementing my diet. I want to try cutting the meat out, or at least severely down, so I'm looking around for trial packs (either free or not costing much) so I can find a protein powder that isn't going to trigger PTSD flashbacks when I smell it. A friend posted something about Sunwarrior lately, which is nicely serendipitous. They look very good, but I still don't want to spend forty bucks* on a kilo of the stuff until I've made sure the smell is okay.

Although - it's chocolate-flavoured. Which sways me a bit. :)

* Still cheaper than meat, though. And probably better for me.

Sunday 6 January 2013

The MOVE IT! Challenge - Week 4 - Dec 31-Jan 6

Monday - None
Tuesday - 90 mins
Wednesday - None
Thursday - 30 mins
Friday - None
Saturday - 180 mins
Sunday - 105 mins

Total: 405.

Yup, these are progressively getting worse - each week I seem to exercise a little less than the week before. This week averages out to 58 minutes a day, which is pretty weak.

I know I'm sick, I just can't work out what I'm sick with. I feel awful. Every muscle hurts, but the ones in my upper back are the worst. I can't bend or stretch. Exercise seems to make them worse.

Flu, I guess. *sigh*

Saturday 5 January 2013

My Fitness Pal Blog - Day 22-25 - And Getting Impatient


Come on scales. Arrive already.

Thank you. That is all.

Yeah, I can't get away with posting that little. It's hard, though. I'm not someone who feels like they can really track their progress without having the numbers in front of me. At this point, taking measurements of things like waist and hips is fairly useless - with the intestinal blockage, my stomach measurement can vary as much as eight inches in A DAY - so I'm really needing to rely on weight to see if I've actually lost anything. And they haven't arrived. I paid Amazon a fortune for what should have been express delivery, and ordered on the 26th...and I got an email the other day saying to expect them on the 8th of January. FFS.

Everything else is - well, slow. I've had these awful pains in my upper back and shoulders for a couple weeks now. At first I thought I could exercise it out, so I tried that, but then it got a lot worse. So I rested. And it still gets worse. I'm a bit lost as to what it is - usually when I pull a muscle (or more than one) it heals in a week or so, and this has been getting slowly but surely worse for two, maybe two and a half weeks now. It's worse when I get up, so I suppose I'll have to buy some new pillows and see if that helps at all. Might be something to do with my body recovering from the infections. I know that when I'm getting over one, I often get a whole load of hypersensitive nerves once my immune system gets back online.

I saw the dentist today, although she didn't do any treatment. She says she doesn't want to do any more tooth work for at least eight weeks, unless there's an emergency - the jaw needs time to heal. Which kind of sucks, in a way, because I have an infection (no real pain unless I bite on it, but awful taste and stinky breath) in one of my upper back teeth. The idea of walking around with halitosis for eight weeks is not a thrilling one, but I don't see that there's much I can do - I brush and floss and use mouthwash, then two minutes later I smell again, or at least I can smell and taste myself. Ugh. Unless it starts to hurt, though, stinky breath and a taste that makes me nauseous is (supposedly) preferable to chancing more damage to the mandible.

Sigh.

It's been a pretty exhausting couple weeks. It's just like, as soon as I get one thing feeling a bit better, something else starts up, you know? All my good intentions about health get scuppered because I can't seem to rid my body of infection. It was like this after the strep in Oct 2011 - I'd manage to get one part of my body feeling reasonably good and then it'd crop up elsewhere. But short of paying for a private hospital stay and IV antibiotics there's not much I can do aside from rest, exercise and eat cleanly. Which I haven't been great at doing. It's a vicious cycle with me - eating decent food requires energy, for shopping, for preparation, and sometimes for chewing and swallowing. At the worst points in my illness, I starved not because I was trying to not eat, but because I literally did not have the energy to chew and swallow food.

I'm also coming down onto the half dosage of my daily meds, which is going to be hard for a month or two. I was happily adjusted to the half dose, but when I got the eye abscess in October last year, it was so excruciating that I had to increase to the full dosage of painkillers. That was supposed to be temporary, but after the eye abscess was the broken jaw, and the infected socket, and then the ear infections...and now it's gone on for two and a half months, and it's going to take a lot of effort to get back to the half dose again.

So yeah, things are hard right now. I'm exhausted and swing between being ravenous all the time, and not having any appetite at all.

But there's nothing to do but keep plugging away, I guess. Things will get better soon, once I'm sleeping better.

Thursday 3 January 2013

In My Blood Like Holy Wine


I met a woman
She had a mouth like yours
She knew your life, she knew your devils and your demons,
And she said, "Go to him,
Stay with him if you can -
But be prepared to bleed."

~ Joni Mitchell, A Case of You

LadyEllary posted a parable-of-sorts on her FB profile the other day, which has been the subject of much thought since then on my part. Consider:

Once upon a time, a woman was picking up firewood. She came upon a poisonous snake frozen in the snow. She took the snake home and nursed it back to health. One day the snake bit her on the cheek. As she lay dying, she asked the snake, "Why have you done this to me?" And the snake answered, "Look, bitch, you knew I was a snake."

I find it interesting to see how different people's reactions are to moral stories like these. The Lady and I, who are alike enough that we react similarly to things more often than not, took away quite different lessons in this case. Her reaction - which is probably the more sensible of the two - was to recognize that snakes are snakes and snakes don't, or can't, or won't change.

Mine was to wonder if the bitten woman thought that it was worth it.

This is not a new thought for me. It's something that I mull over in my brain for a few days every so often, and eventually put away to marinate, only to bring it out again in a few weeks, or months. Is pain ever worth it? Is danger? Is self-sacrifice? Are those who allow themselves to be bitten time after time merely masochists, doormats, or blind idiots? Does it make a difference if they get more good out of the experience than bad, and even with the bite in the end the balance is still in their favor?

Because, of course, not all snakes are poisonous. And not all poisons are fatal.

I get bitten, metaphorically, on a fairly regular basis. Usually by the same handful of people. As yet, none of the bites have proven deadly, although some have festered for a good long time. Nearly all of these people are still in my life, by my choice, even with the knowledge that years from now I'll most likely have another dozen scars to add to the dozen I already have. Some people get into your blood, I think, and you come to tolerate things from them that you wouldn't from others. They feel like a part of us, and for most of us it's easier to forgive ourselves bad behavior than to forgive those who are separate from us. It's easy to judge when we see this happening to our loved ones - we call them out on it, use words like abuse (which, to be fair, are sometimes applicable) and ask the ones we love why they put up with being treated this way. Why do you let them get away with it? Why don't you leave? Don't you think you're worth more? Don't you deserve better? Rarely do we acknowledge that what one person finds tolerable another would find intolerable; that what one considers to be abuse another would consider to be merely a low point in their relationship.

It is very difficult to see through the eyes of another when their boundaries are so different from your own.

Sometimes, of course, the perspective of the person outside the relationship is much more reliable than those of the people inside it. Some relationships ARE abusive. Some people ARE mistreated. Some people DO let those they love get away with unacceptable behaviors, because they're afraid of being alone, or they think they don't deserve better. Others, though...others stay not because they're afraid, or lacking in self-confidence, but because they truly feel like they are getting more good out of a situation than bad.

Oftentimes, too, we put ourselves in a situation, or remain in a situation, for ourselves. The other person's actions are not as important to us as our own. Much like giving money to beggars on the Underground who may or may not be homeless, when we don't know if they'll spend the money either on food for their kids or crack cocaine, for some people the act of giving matters more than the deservedness (or not) of the recipient. The pleasure is gotten from giving, not receiving back. There is the need in many people to sacrifice, even if it's for people who can never return it. That, too, can be in a person's blood.

So, at the start of this brand new year, my wish for you all comes in the form of words from wiser minds than mine: Know Thyself. To thine ownself be true. That Polonius guy, not Mel Gibson. :)

Be honest with yourself. Know your own mind. Learn and explore. Discover what's important to you, and what you need from others. Figure out what you want, what you need to do to get it - and at what point it stops being worth it.