Distressed

Me: Here I go, winning at this weight loss thing

GI system: The fuck you are

Me: Calm down there, slugger

GI system: The fuck I will

Me: Please?

GI system: Get fucked

<Entering GI distress mode>

For those of you just joining this broadcast, I've been taking ozempic/wegovy since about September of last year. Hit a major road block in December when I went up to 1.0mg and had literally 20-30 episodes of explosive diarrhea daily for 5-6 days. I stopped taking it and started all over in January and slowly titrated up my dose so as to avoid it this time around. Soooo, that didn't work. In case that wasn't painfully obvious by the above communication. 

That being said, Reyah had a GI bug two days ago, so it could also be that. I also majorly upped my fiber to try and avoid diarrhea with this increased dose, so maybe that backfired on me? Who knows, but suffice to say, work was not fun and a lot of explosions occurred. Thankfully, I was able to hold things in for between patients and then scurry home as fast as possible and take some zofran and lay in bed. Nasur has done all the evening duties so I could just worry about exploding when needed. Really hope this improves by tomorrow otherwise clinic will be miserable.

Send happy thoughts to my GI system!

Breakfast pre-GI distress

Lunch while distressed

Tried to settle my tummy with some toast - did not work

New Year, Same Me

Hey all. After setting some goals, I had a big ol' setback. I went up on my Ozempic dose maybe a bit too fast and had major diarrhea. I honestly thought I had a GI bug because it was just so much diarrhea. It took me two doses to put two and two together and realize it was the Ozempic killing me rather than anything else. I'm talking 30+ episodes of explosive diarrhea about 2 days after my 1mg dose and then multiple episodes for several days more. So, I decided to take a break from the Ozempic. During my break, I got whatever nasty respiratory virus that was going around. It was worse than when I had COVID. I took 3 days off work for it. It was impressive. So, with 2+ weeks of diarrhea followed by 1+ week of respiratory garbage, I'm not surprised I had a big ol' setback.

I head back to work on Tuesday (I took a week off for funsies between Christmas and New Year's) and will get back on track. Other than making good food choices, not beating myself up for indulging, and working to get back to the gym, I don't have any other big plans. I've found restricting myself is more harmful than helpful, so that's out. I've found that being kind to myself is also better than beating myself up. And I've found that if I can just get myself to the gym, I'm always happy I went.

Anywho, photo dump and moving on (and blogging more)!

Nana and the babies

Zayd got his first hair cut

Kiddos got spoiled for Christmas

Looking cute by the tree

Commitment issues

Hello again, adoring fans! Sorry for the long break. My mom came to visit and I was trying to put in as much time with her as possible while juggling quite a bit of call and I lapsed on blogging. But, I'm going to recommit! 

In terms of new things, I don't have much to report. The ozempic continues to go okay. The reflux is pretty unfortunate, but other than that, I don't have any exciting side effects. I'll do a weigh-in tomorrow for following the actual numbers. I haven't weighed myself in a while because the battery was dead. Again. I've had to replace the scale battery 3 times in like 6 months, so it may be time to upgrade. I've had this one for 10+ years, so I've gotten my fair use out of it. But, let's hope it can keep up.

I also made a trip to Costco today to replenish our fresh fruit stores. My obesity med doc told me that she'd like me to up my veggies over upping my fruit, but fruit requires so much less work, so here is me ignoring her advice. Whoops?

I'll also be snapping photos of my eats to help with accountability, but I have mostly stopped calorie counting as it's just gotten to be too much work. I'll reevaluate in the coming weeks, but I think it may just be too much with how busy my life is.

Anywho, hoping everyone's start to the holiday season is going well! Here are some snow photos to hold you over until I do a legit post!

Acne here to stay?

You know how sometimes when you're doing awesome at something, but maybe don't think you deserve to be doing awesome so you sorta kinda sabotage it? Well, I sorta kinda did that, but like not to the degree I have in the past. I have just been so, so exhausted lately that the prioritizing of the gym has fallen by the wayside. Additionally, I have had so few clinic days lately that my schedule change to accommodate more gym time hasn't really worked out. I've been doing a ton of OR time lately, which is great, but not great for getting to the gym. Also, we have been eating out a lot more than usual. With Nasur in school and how busy I've been, we have been getting home later and Nasur doesn't feel like cooking or he's on the fence and I push him to the takeout side. So, that's gotta stop and we've gotta work more on prepped foods so we don't run into that problem as much. Thankfully, my mom is coming for 2 weeks as of this Wednesday, so I may have someone who can help with that!

I'm currently doing a little experiment to see what's causing my fatigue. Because this fatigue is real. I told a girlfriend of mine that it's like first trimester of pregnancy fatigue level. Which, for those of you who have not been pregnant, it is extreme. I am not pregnant, or rather I shouldn't be, so I thought maybe the spironolactone was contributing to my fatigue. I started the spironolactone for the embarrassing back acne I have. I didn't start it until ~1 week after I started my ozempic because I wanted to be able to clearly define which side effects were coming from which med. Ozempic is well-known for a lot of GI side effects and I guess less well known for causing fatigue. One of my primary care pals warned me about the fatigue, though the medication insert did not. So, I've been a bit panicky that it's the ozempic making me so exhausted given that it's been such a game changer in my appetite. However, I recall thinking I had a lot of energy during that first week after my first dose of ozempic. And I recall starting to get more tired the next week. I attributed this to all the call and long OR days, but now I'm thinking it could have been the spironolactone. So, I opted to pause its use. I haven't taken it since Saturday and am already feeling like I have a little bit more energy. I think I'll keep that pause going for a full week to really evaluate my thoughts on its use. I'd rather have the embarrassing acne than deal with this level of exhaustion.

Other things? Hmm. Not a lot. We had a fun weekend - soccer, shopping, birthday parties, park trips, etc. I tried to work on my grazing this weekend and sit down for actual meals. I've also gotta up my game on photos again. I was really good when I restarted this journey and now my photo level is sad, sad, sad.

Post-journal club lunch. Cheese is life

Nugget happy to wake me up

Salad with some awesome tomatoes

This made me laugh

Weigh-in and wrecked

Yesterday was a tough call day. The calls, questions, consults, and patients were nonstop. I got very little sleep and felt like human garbage. It's really hard to function as a normal human being when you haven't slept much in 24 hours. I was supposed to have a massage postcall, but I canceled because even a heavenly massage felt like asking too much. I did, however, keep my appointment with my student loan guy, because I need to get my PSLF stuff going.

I ended up taking my ozempic to work and taking it in the evening, mostly because that's what I've been doing and I hate to break tradition...ish?

Once home, after sleeping for a good 6 hours, I woke up and felt so tired that it felt like even my bones were tired. I had enough time to do a gym trip before my student loan appointment, but I decided against it. I felt absolutely wrecked and a workout would have made it worse. So, I ate my leftover gyro, had some cookie portions, and played on the interwebs until my appointment. After my appointment, I laid on the couch reading my book until the kiddos got home. 

After dinner, I took the kids for a walk so Nasur could have a little down time sans kids and then we came home, did bath time, spruced up Reyah's windows with some Halloween Paw Patrol window things, and then did bed time. 

Now I'm pooped. I'm likely going to head to bed shortly. I'm in the OR again tomorrow and it's going to be another long day. I feel like I'm dying slowly. Only up side is that if I go to bed now, I could get like 9 hours of sleep, which sounds amazing.

I did do a weigh-in today. Down some more ell-bees. Happy about that. I will say that the ozempic is definitely helping with my appetite and eating appropriate portions. Typically, when home alone, with 3 cookies, those cookies would not have been safe. However, I ate a small section of 2 of my favorites and that was that. Also, because I didn't eat lunch until 3:30, I didn't eat much dinner because I just wasn't hungry. Now I'm feeling the beginnings of hunger, but I'm just too tired to make anything to eat.

Yesterday's lunch: mediocre chimichangas with salsa and sun chips (there were no tortilla chips)

Today's weigh-in: 3.4 lbs down from last week

Man, I am slacking on food photos. I'll try to work on it!

Off day

Today was an off day. My mom sent me news this morning that she had finally made the hard decision to put her dog Bailey down. It has been coming for a while. Bailey is 13.5 years old and her health has been on a slow decline. Despite that, I knew this would be devastating for my mom because Bailey was the first puppy she got once we were all of out of the house. She was her little companion. And it's hard knowing that my mom is far away, sad, and that I can't be with her. 

I spent the day in the OR. It was a long day and my plantar fasciitis has been kicking my butt lately, so all that standing didn't feel great. However, I was done shortly before 3pm, so I zipped over to the gym. At the gym, I just wasn't feeling it. I was excited to get an hour walk in, but about 25 minutes in, I was over it. I didn't do a great job hydrating during the day and I felt lethargic and wasn't having any fun. So, I opted to wrap it up at 30 minutes and get the kiddos. 

On our way home, we stopped to get some Mary's Mountain Cookies. These cookies are large and delicious. I've been craving something sweet for the past 2-3 days and I decided to stop and grab some cookies. These were a good choice and I didn't feel compelled to eat like 3 of them, like I usually do. Once home, Nasur realized we didn't have any meat defrosted for dinner, so we got Greek gryos. I only ate half my gyro and fries. Not typical for me, but it felt right at the time. Since then, I have been snagging some leftover fries, but again, no compulsion to finish off my food or eat in secret.

Tomorrow I'm on call again and I'm not excited about it. I'm pretty tired. Three 24 hour shifts in less than 7 days is exhausting.

Anywho, I'm soaking my feet in my fancy ass little foot thing my mom gave me for Christmas a few years ago and then I'm going to do my little plantar fasciitis stretches and head to bed. Tomorrow, I plan to do my ozempic at home prior to my shift. I've never done it in the AM before, so I may also pack it up and take it to the hospital. Unsure. I also typically try to do a Wednesday weigh-in, but I think I may wait until I'm postcall on Thursday. We shall see. No food photos today because I simply forgot. I'll try for some tomorrow!

Ozempic and food

Oof. Didn't realize I'd taken such a long time between posts. My deepest apologies, millions of fans!

This weekend was busy on call and sleep was hard to come by. Despite that, I have survived. Only to be on call again on Wednesday. Major facepalm on that one. 

Over the weekend, I didn't do much advanced planning in terms of meals, but I can tell the ozempic is definitely helping. Ordered a sandwich on Friday and only ate half and didn't obsess about the other half - I save it for my Sunday night call. I got breakfast for us on my way home on Saturday. I only ate half of that too and had the other half for lunch. And, again, no overly obsessing about it or feeling compelled to finish it. Saturday night, we watched Mulan (again). I made popcorn for the kids and stopped at one small bowl for myself rather than finishing off the bag. These changes are certainly helping with my weight loss. And you know what, at first I kind of felt like a failure in that I needed to be on a medication to lose weight, but now I'm glad I reached out and started the medication. It is really helping me.

In other news, I went to the gym today. I just walked for an hour on the treadmill again. Last time I did an hour on the treadmill was Thursday and I wore my brace because, without it, my knee really gives me trouble. But my brace just would not stay in the right spot and I was adjusting it every 2-5 minutes, which was highly annoying. Today, I pulled my old knee brace out and it was a way better fit. I only had to stope to adjust it at the beginning. Also, despite some advance planning, my Netflix episodes apparently didn't download, so I read my kindle and listened to music and really enjoyed my walk. I know walking isn't much, but I'm really happy with what I'm doing so far.

Tomorrow's an OR day. Hoping I get out at a reasonable hour so that I can do another walk tomorrow. 

My panini from the cafeteria that left a lot to be desired on Friday

Reyah excited about wearing a Halloween shirt

Weigh-in Wednesday

Today was my day off for the week. Thankfully, as this was not a postcall day, it allowed me to get quite a bit done. I went to breakfast with my one of my pals at a new-to-me restaurant that was excellent, I got a massage at my place, I met with our financial advisor to put some money into some investments, I sorted through some of Reyah's old clothes to pull out anything we could use with Zayd before we sell/donate her stuff, I cleaned up the kitchen, I did a ginormous load of laundry, I scrounged up all our fall décor and put it up/around our house, I programmed the timer for our outdoor lights, I did a workout in the basement (it was cold and rainy and I couldn't muster up the willpower to brave the weather when I have an awesome elliptical and set of weights downstairs), and I got to chat with my mom a bit to tell her happy birthday. Phew. Big day.

Now I'm waiting to put another ginormous load of laundry away once it's done in the dryer and then I need to prep my charts for tomorrow. No rest for the weary!

Today is also my Ozempic dose day, so I just gave myself my second dose. I also took my first dose of spironolactone today (for my back acne). I've had it for a while, but wanted to give my Ozempic enough time by itself before I added in another med to make sure I knew for certain which side effects were coming from which med, if I were to have any.

I also decided to do a weigh-in today. Truthfully, since my last weigh-in, I've been up and down. But, given my inability to eat hard to chew foods and Ozempic helping me control my appetite, I am happy to report, I'm not longer in the 290s!

Also, I want to give a shout out to myself. I really did not want to go to the gym. It's in the 60s today and rainy and I was ready for some veg time since I had been running around all day. But, I told myself that today I was going to lift, so I did an elliptical warm up and some weights in the basement. So, I'm proud of myself. I stuck to "going to the gym [in the basement]" and since I didn't have to add in the drive time, it was an effective use of time too. Also, my playlist was fire and I was really enjoying some dancing inbetween sets.

Weigh-in

The undecided: One traditional benedict, one with sausage and gravy

Side of bacon because I need bacon always

Zayders playing in the basement

Our Old Navy family pajamas arrived today!

GMSTW: Day 3

Today was do what you want without guilt day, sorta. Basically, after Reyah woke me up to say goodbye, I decided to go back to bed and sleep as long as I wanted because I didn't need to be up until at least noon. I also decided that I would have two mini pizzas for lunch because I'm always still hungry after one. So, the morning was lazy and lovely and I honestly can't remember the last time I let myself do that. 

Then, I headed off to my orthodontist appointment. It was meant to be a consultation appointment. The orthodontist confirmed that yes, my teeth are all wonky since I had #14 out without putting something in its place. He also said invisalign wouldn't work to push the teeth back apart. So, he recommended normal braces. I was not thrilled about it, but I also assumed that was going to be the case, so it wasn't earth-shattering. After getting the cost set (thankfully I pay for the expensive dental insurance that covers $1750 of orthodontic work), the lady helping me told me they had an opening at 3:10 and if I wanted to stay, I could get my braces today. In the spirit of getting my shit together, I decided to stay. So, now I have braces on my top teeth. In about 6 months, I'll get braces on my bottom teeth to correct my bite on that side. Should take about 12 months total. Thankfully, my brackets and rubber bands are clear, so the braces themselves are inconspicuous. The bottom braces can't be clear, so I'll have metal ones on my lower teeth. I'm a bit embarrassed that I have braces as a 35 year old, but I figure that I wear a mask most of the time, so it won't actually be that noticeable.

After the orthodontist, I went to King Soopers to grab a few things and then I headed to Walmart to pick up my Ozempic and some zofran. Some of my primary care pals told me that the first day or two after an injection can cause a lot of nausea, so I wanted to be prepared. I will do my injection in just a little bit. I wanted to read all the drug information first, like a true nerd. 

Anyone else have braces? I had them for the first time in 3rd grade, but so did a lot of kids, so not nearly as embarrassing...

Mini pizzas

GMSTW: Day 2

Yesterday was day one of getting my shit together week (GMSTW). I did make it to the optometrist. I've ordered new frames and new lenses for my current frames as they are pretty nicely scratched. I also pondered how people without vision insurance can afford to see properly. That was stupidly expensive. 

Today, I had a meeting with my tax guy to figure out how to manipulate my deductions to neither pay nor get a refund next year. He told me what to do - had to contact my HR. Contacted said HR. Updated my financial planner. Awaited a reply to my email. The reply was basically, "Here. Fill out this form that makes no sense despite the fact that you're not an idiot." So, I've forwarded it to my tax guy. Perhaps he will take pity on me and just fill it out. Here's hoping.

Then I had breakfast and got ready to go to my obesity medicine appointment. I was both looking forward to this appointment and dreading it. I have real anxiety surrounding going to the doctor. I worry that they're going to give me bad news. "What kind of bad news?" you ask. Well, I imagine the conversation going something like this:

    "Oh, wow. You haven't had a preventative visit since like high school outside of your pregnancy care?"

    "Um, yes. That is correct."

    "Ah. Well, you have high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes. You need to lose a ton of weight and you will have to take tons of medication and you will never be healthy again."

So, naturally, I have avoided the doctor. Can't get bad news if you never go. Now, do I know that this is stupid? Yes, I do. Very much so. But, nevertheless, I have avoided the doctor. Additionally, I have severe white coat hypertension. This started when I was pregnant with Reyah. I had gestational hypertension and every time my BP was high, I was always worried that it was going to hurt her somehow. But, there was literally nothing I could do to stop it. So, I knew something was wrong and was helpless to do anything about it. It felt terrible. So, now I can't have my blood pressure taken like a normal person. Embarrassingly, I have literally cried when it's time to get my BP taken. Maybe it's like a tiny amount of PTSD? I'm not sure. 

Anywho, all of that is to illustrate how I was dreading going. However, I was looking forward to it at the same time because I can't imagine trying to lose weight again with diet and exercise and gaining it all back. Again. And I knew that this doc is an expert in her field and would have options to help me. After a 90 minute consultation and a lot of tears, I left with a plan to start ozempic and have a follow up visit in 3 weeks. I shall update you on how that goes, but I'm hopeful that it'll help with the eating part of things as well as my bingeing. 

Tomorrow, I have an orthodontist appointment. Back in 2011, when I had my wisdom teeth removed, I had tooth #14 removed as well. 

I went to the dentist after some time away from dental care and they told me that tooth died. Can teeth just randomly do that? I guess so. I went to an endodontist who confirmed deadness and then I had it out when I got my wisdom teeth out. However, that gap has allowed my other teeth to shift and now my current dentist thinks those teeth need to be straightened out before I get something put in to fill that space. So, tomorrow's appointment is to determine if that is indeed true. I'm hopeful if it is that we don't have to do traditional braces. In 2012, I started using invisalign to straighten out my wonky teeth and fix my cross bite and I'm hoping if I need braces, we can do that again. We shall see.

Photos from today before I let you guys return to your normal life.

Breakfast

View of downtown Denver from the doctor's office

Reyah and her favorite Spider-Man