A PR and a PR and then a Pee R!

This will be quick because I just got home from the gym and I'm starving.  So that means no pics either.  Yes, I suck.

Ran the Chocolatathon (spell that three times fast) 5K in February.  Official time 0:33:16.  That was a PR for me.

Ran the Luckython 5K in March.  Official time 0:31:22.  Killed it.

Ran the Shamrock 15K the next day.  The last time I ran this my time was 2:11.  I was hoping for under two hours this time.  Pie in the sky I'll never manage it goal was under 1:45.  Official time 1:39:24.  I crushed it.

Needed to use a porta potty a good part of the race but didn't want to stop.  When I crossed the finish line, I was so relieved to be done my bladder went "Me too!" and opened the floodgates.  Luckily for only a split second.  You can see me in the finish line photos going "Where the fuck are the medals?  I need to pee!!"

This Saturday is the Hop Hop Half Marathon.  Hoping to get in under three hours.  Wish me luck!

Cheers,
the CilleyGirl

P.S.   Today marks one year since I started all of this.  Down about 40 pounds.  Went from an XL shirt to a M and sometimes a S, depending on the shirt.  Started at size 14/16 pants; just bought size 6 this weekend.  My ta tas?  Lost four inches off my band size to a 32.  DID NOT LOSE A CUP SIZE.  You read that right.  The girls aren't going anywhere.  Maybe I'll get that pony instead.

My 600th Post, aka She’s back - again!

Hello to any followers I still have left!

It’s been a long while since I’ve posted, about two and a half years.

To recap some of the last parts of this blog, in 2014 I got really sick following sinus surgery.  I think I ran only a few times that year.  The rest of the time I was driving the porcelain bus or going in and out of the hospital.  Then I got on gastroparesis meds and quit the pill and voila!  All better!

Except not really.  I lost about 35 lbs when I was sick.  I tried to start running again in 2015 and did not succeed.  My last post here was on Day 3 of C25K.  Then I pretty much stopped.  Still down about 30 lbs but soft.

Then the weight started to come back on.  I gained back most of it.  Got laid off from my job of twelve and a half years.  Got hired at the first place I applied.  That was the beginning of 2016.

New job is great, I really like the people and the culture, but there tends to be a lot of food around.  Like Bagel Thursdays.  Found myself at 190 in August 2016.

Lost about ten pounds by “dieting” but got stalled.  Then At the end of February 2017, something changed.  I don’t know what, or why, but a switch flipped.  I found myself asking, if not now, when?

I thought I wasn’t losing any weight because I was eating too few calories so I started logging my food into My Fitness Pal.  Which I hate.  The logging, not the app.  But I made myself stick with it for three weeks.

I definitely was not eating too few calories.

I used the app to set a calorie goal to lose one pound per week and then worked on sticking to that calorie limit.  I didn’t change what I was eating.  I actually ate a lot of spaghetti o’s and grilled ham and cheese.  I started losing weight.  I kept on logging.

Some time in I think May, I decided to start walking 30 minutes twice a week during my lunch hour.  I quickly bumped that up to three times a week and almost immediately knew I needed to start eating quality foods.  No more spaghetti o’s.  I figured out a breakfast, lunch, and dinner, still within that calorie limit.

Then it got damn hot in Oregon and I went back to the gym.  At the end of July I started C25K again. Took one week off due to illness and picked it right back up.  The program is eight weeks but because I’d taken that one week off I still hadn’t finished by the time I ran a turkey day 5k.  At a PR of 0:36:03.  And I’d ran the whole thing, something I’ve only done once before in a 5k.

In 2016 my rent had gone up about 15% and in the fall of 2017 I got notice it would be raised almost that much again.  I had some tough decisions facing me, finally let a friend know about it and we decided to bump up out timetable of being roommates to now.  The moral of the story is I took a month off from the gym and thanks to the stress of looking for a place and moving and living on coffee and Starbucks snowman cookies, I gained about five pounds over the holidays.

Oh, forgot to mention I’d hit my first weight loss goal in the meantime.  Was about 180.5 when I started in February.  Hit 154, this number I’d had in my head to get back to for twenty years, sometime in November.

We moved and the week before Christmas I went back to the gym.  Went back and repeated a week in C25K and finally finished the program two weeks ago.  Came in the following day to the gym and ran a 5K for fun.  On a Saturday.  I don’t even recognize myself anymore!  Who runs a 5K at the gym on a weekend for fun?

Me, I guess.

So, here I am.  When I hit that first weight loss goal, I set a second one of 15 more pounds, if my body will do it.  I’m down to a size 8 pants and medium shirts.  Yes, I finally got some smaller ta tas. I’m probably the only woman who wanted smaller boobs.  Even I don’t lose weight I want to lose fat and gain muscle back, tone up my body composition.  I’m two weeks in to the 10K training program, which picks up where C25K ends.  Last week I added a fourth day of running in preparation for running Shamrock 15K and then a half marathon at the end of March.

I’m still sticking to making one achievable goal at a time -logging my food, holding to a calorie limit, exercising three days a week - and letting that take hold for three to four weeks before moving on to another goal.  At one point this fall I was going to the gym five days a week, running, elliptical, and weights.  In two or three more weeks I’ll add cross training back in.  One day at first, then two.  Weights and elliptical.

Slow and steady and achievable above all.

If you’re still reading, thanks!  It’s good to be back.

Cheers,
The CilleyGirl

Day 3 - C25K

Day 3 and the end of Week 1 on the program was actually yesterday but I never had time to post.   It has been going well.  I have been walking at a 3.5 mph pace and running at 4.5 mph.  For Week 2 I'd like to bump up the running to 4.6 mph.   Baby steps!

I had planned to start Week 2 this morning but talked myself out of going.  Bad me :(

I started at 177.2 lbs and was at 176.0 today.  21 lbs to goal.  I know I can, I know I can, I know I can....

Cheers,
the CilleyGirl

Day 2: C25K

Good evening and welcome to Day 2.

I made it to the gym.  I did the program.  Yay me!

Then I went out and saw Magic Mike XXL.  Om nom nom.

It's a rough life I lead, I tell you.

Cheers,
the CilleyGirl

Day 1 - C25K

MUST EAT ALL THE THINGS!

This is my reaction to completing Day 1 of the C25K program.  I forgot about this part of running.  Or really, doing any physical activity farther than the couch to the bathroom.

But I did complete Day 1, nearly two weeks after I planned to start the program.  Last week I came down with a wicked sore throat that lasted an entire week.  Then I slept for a whole weekend (just about, really -- think I was awake about 12 hours out of 48).  Then I procrastinated all damn week this week.  Finally I recruited my friend Julie to get my ass to the gym, and today was that day!

As you may recall, I lost about 35 pounds last year when I got sick.  I've been curious to see how that impacts my running.  They say you gain two seconds per mile per pound lost.  That should make me a minute ten faster overall.  Today I stuck to 4.5 mph running on the treadmill, which I think translated into under a 14 minute mile.  I felt like I could definitely go faster but decided not to break myself on the first day.  We go back to the gym tomorrow, and I think Julie is going to do the program with me.  At least, she downloaded the app.  Now I need to find a 5K to do, maybe something in September.  I do want to run the Halloweenathon again this year (the bling!) but want to do something earlier than that.  There is a 5K in Beaverton on September 5, maybe I'll do that one.  And it's only $10 without the commemorative t-shirt (which I'm guessing is cotton).  And it starts at 9:00 a.m.  Hmm...

Think I'll go grab some trail mix for a snack.  Thanks for reading!

Cheers,
the CilleyGirl

A long, strange year

Blogger tells me I last posted in June 2014.  At that time, I was still really sick as a result of gastroparesis.  I'd stopped running, I'd stopped working out (such that I was), and I'd stopped eating anything resembling a balanced diet.

Skip forward a tad to August 2014, when the attacks suddenly stopped.  The only thing I did differently around that time was go off the pill.  Could be the reason, could be a contributing factor, could just be that this thing stopped as suddenly as it came on.  I still have nausea on a regular basis (usually in the mornings) but I haven't made a trip to the ER or the hospital since August 2014.

Between then and now, not much has changed in terms of healthy habits.  Still no running, no working out, no balanced diet.  Still maintaining a 35 pound weight loss, though I've lost all that muscle tone I had when I was running.  There's less of me to be jiggly, but what's left is soft.  And I'm less than 20 pounds from my goal weight.

Something needs to change.

That something is me.

Let's start with exercise.  I get in around 4,000 steps a day in my normal life.  I miss running.  Well, maybe not the actual physical process of running, which tends to involve a lot of early mornings and exertion, but the fitness I received from it, the friends I made, the feeling you get when you complete a run, and of course doing the races.  While I may not break any land-speed records ever, I do get to brag that I've run two marathons, about a dozen half marathons, and many, many 5Ks.  Most people I know will only run if on fire.  Since the beginning of 2014 I'm not even sure I would've run even then.

I've got a long way to go to get back into running on a regular basis.  My goal is to start with the Couch to 5K program.  I've got the app and everything.  I want to do a Monday-Wednesday-Friday schedule for this program so Monday is D Day.  Or maybe R Day.  My ultimate goal here is one more marathon.  I know I've got one more in me.  I also want to do Shamrock and Rock 'n Roll again.
I also want to get back into belly dancing.  Unfortunately there are pretty much no places for classes on the westside of town.  Pretty much everything is across the river or downtown, which makes getting to a 6:00 p.m. class nearly impossible when you work until 5:30 p.m.  I could start work earlier on those days, but traffic would still be tough and money is a factor.  So instead I ordered several DVDs plus a new coin belt (in purple!).  The core benefits you get from belly dancing are amazing, and it's fun to do.  I want to get really competent in the basics and then maybe I'll be in a position to take some intermediate or higher classes.

I am also determined to start doing yoga.  I like the idea of yoga more than actually doing it, but I need the flexibility you get from it.

Then there's weights.  I need muscle tone, especially in my sad, flabby arms.

As for food, I need to think on that some more.  There are some veggies I believe I should still avoid (high fiber ones like broccoli, cauliflower, and green beans) for GI purposes.  Salad needs to be eased back into.  That leaves mushrooms, cucumber, and carrots as my main veggies.  I may do a Whole 30 once I get used to eating veggies again (and fruit -- I seem determined to court a case a scurvy).  Again, lots of planning that needs to go into getting back into a balanced diet.

Of course now you're thinking "Wow!  That's really ambitious and you're setting yourself up for failure!"  Don't worry, I'm thinking that too.  So I'm going to be doing all this very, very slowly.  I should be able to do the C25K program for starters -- that's three days a week for 30 minutes per day.  Who can't do that?  Then I'll add in a cross training day per week, belly dancing or yoga, maybe in about a month.  Until then I'll do it randomly when the mood hits.  Again, belly dancing is really fun and there's cardio involved.  Yoga is relaxing.  It'll depend on my mood.

Food I'll be tweaking throughout.  I've got to get used to say having a sweet potato with dinner, or some carrots.  A real protein source.  Some fruit.  And then add from there.  God knows I've got enough cookbooks to do this.  I used to do it fairly well.  Just need to plan, plan, plan, plan, plan.

Well, that's me.  How have you all been doing?

Cheers,
the CilleyGirl

The magic of a $99.99 special

Hi everyone!

Guess what I've been doing these days?

If you answered with vomiting and getting admitted yet again to the hospital, you would be correct!

New gastro issue this time, my small intestine decided the stomach was getting way too much attention so it got inflamed to the point that (a) they thought I had appendicitis and (b) it triggered a gastroparesis attack.  So off to the ER I went.  Tip for you:  Never go to the ER on a Monday morning if you can help it.  Everybody suffers through the weekend with their crap and then Monday morning decide they just can't face the office and perhaps they should go to the ER.  I waited over three hours -- start at 6:30 a.m. -- to get a bed.  By about one they had ruled out appendicitis and ruled in enteritis (inflammation of the small intestine) and decided to admit me.  Luckily only a 24 hour stay this time; I swear you can hear a taxi meter chiming off the dollars every second you're in the hospital.

The title of this post refers to me believing that maybe I can actually lose weight.  Around Christmastime I got myself a Fitbit Flex.  Right after that I got really sick with all of this GI stuff so it wasn't until about a month ago that I set up some of the dashboard stuff like a weight goal.  Back in my high school days I weighed 154 lbs for forever.  No matter what I did or didn't do, I was at 154 and I was (mostly) happy there.  Freshman year in college I was walking everywhere and got down to 145 which was great but 154 seems like a better goal.  For one thing, 50+ pounds is easier to lose than 60+ pounds.

And hence the title.  When I put in my weight goal, the Fitbit dashboard tells you how many pounds you have to lose to get there.  And apparently the Fitbit can do math better than I can, or maybe it just did the actual math.  At any rate, suddenly I didn't have to lose 50+ pounds.  I only had to lose 48.   Which is better than 50.  Fifty sounds like such an impossible goal.  "I'd have to never eat and work out five times a week to lose 50 pounds!"  But less than fifty?  Totally doable.  Forty-eight pounds is nearly 45 pounds.  Then you're almost to 40 and once you hit 40 that's practically 30.  Once you've got less than 30 pounds to lose that's almost 20 and then you're nearly at your goal weight.  Right?

With the fun flare up last week, the gastroparesis seems to be stuck.  Not in the ER but not eating very well.  I get hungry, which is a good sign, but then I get full really quickly.  Consequently today I only have 41.8 lbs to lose.  That's almost only 30 pounds left to go!

And this is why everybody wants to shop in Oregon where there's no sales tax.   Your purchase will be $104.23?  Too much.  Only $99.99?  Sign me up!

I'm off to try to eat some Spaghetti-Os.  Nice, squishy, there's-kind-of-a-vegetable-in-there Spaghetti-Os.

Cheers,
the CilleyGirl

Catching up

I've actually been up to quite a bit lately and that even includes some exercise!  As promised, at the bottom are some pictures from the Tulip Festival from when I ran ("ran") the Blooms to Brews 10K.  It was an incredibly bright day when I took these but the overexposure really makes the colors pop.

The weekend after Blooms to Brews I went to Bend to visit my friend S's dog Kip (the black dog smiling below).  Okay, also my friend S and her husband and her other dog Lily (the white dog below) and the four kittens they were fostering.  S is the one who fostered my two gigantoids; she raises good pets.  We've been friends since about 1997 and when she lived here we used to hike all the time.  In the early days she had an awesome Collie named Jasper and then later it was Kip and I had my dogs and then later Lily joined in.  My dogs got too old to hike and Kip -- a tripawd -- is also a senior dog and can't go very far anymore either.  But every time I go visit we do go hiking and this time we took Lily and some other friends out to hike the Falls River trail.  As you can see, absolutely beautiful and really great weather -- it snowed like a week later down there.  

I also got in a kitten fix.  Two boys and two girls, only a few weeks old and about as big as your hand.  Sadly the buff colored boy didn't thrive with them (from a different litter) so he's now being fostered by a vet tech to give him some extra attention and medical-y stuff.  The other three are definitely thriving and growing like gangbusters.  So cute!

In other news, I finally made it to the gym I joined.  Planet Fitness is right up the street from my house and I find all of the purple amusing as well as the fact that they spelled judgment wrong everywhere (no extra "e" people!).  My friend Julie joined too so now we've set up a schedule of three times a week, Tuesday and Thursday at o'dark thirty and then Saturday mornings.  Julie still can't run and won't for quite a while so this is a good way for me not only to get my butt into the gym (failure to show up means being hassled unmercifully by text message) but to take it easy in building a base back up.  Plus, weights; I have zero upper body strength.  Really, I don't know how I manage to keep upright with these boobs.

I also joined a Meetup group that does walks and hikes on the westside at times I can actually go.  I did my first four mile hilly walk with them on Monday (and got in a dog fix, we had three corgis, a weimeraner, and a greyhound) and plan to hike with them on Sunday.  I'll be running again in no time!

Cheers,

the CilleyGirl

Race Recap: Blooms to Brews

I know, I know:  What on earth is a race recap doing on this blog?  I promise, I'll mention something about vomit in here somewhere.

I spent my weekend up in Woodland, Washington, which is about 20 minutes north of Portland, for the second running of the Blooms to Brews.  They have both a half and a 10K, I ran the 10K.  And I actually did do some running!

I drove up Saturday, late morning.  It's about a 40 minute drive from my house to Woodland.  Blooms to Brews is part of the Woodland Tulip Festival and I've finally been ready to see some tulips after The Great Tulip Overdose of 1995.  Don't ask.  Okay, ask:  In 1995 my mom and I went to La Conner, Washington, where tulips are A Big Deal.  There are three bulb companies up there and acres of tulips.  And irises and daffodils.  We spent a whole day touring tulip fields and shooting photos.  I shot eight rolls of film.  I never wanted to see another tulip after that for a very, very long time.  And I hadn't until this weekend.

Anyhow.  The tulip festival is just one company and a couple of fields.  They have a small display garden showing off the niftier varieties of tulips other than your standard red and yellow smooth petaled tulips.  I haven't downloaded the photos yet but if they turned out well (it was really sunny, I think everything turned out overexposed) I'll post a few here some time.  I did not get tulip'd out.  I did get sugar'd out though; there were about 15 vendors and I bought way too much sugar.  Some amazing almond toffee (like almond roca but with extra added crack), some caramel macchiato spiced almonds (great post-race snack), and I bought some really great raw blackberry honey from a guy who looked just like Uncle Sy from Duck Dynasty.  Can't wait to have that in my tea!  Also bought some yummy mustard called "Fool's Gold" that I think is a honey dijon'ish taste.

Stayed overnight in Woodland even though this is fairly close to home but I wanted a mini break and it turned out so did a lot of my fellow Portlanders, which was cool.  Sunday morning was the race and despite an initially chilly wind it was perfect weather, about mid 50s at start and into the 60s by the end.

I spent the first five minutes cursing myself and wondering why I'd ever thought I could do this on zero training.  My right quad had been tight going in to the race and it bugged me throughout.  But after the first mile I started warming up and enjoying myself.  Although we were on roads that were not closed to traffic -- and some drivers don't understand moving aside for runners, we have a permit to be out here dammit, we all almost got hit a couple of times -- the race went past Horseshoe Lake, the tulip fields, and then the Lewis River.  It was an out and back.  I walked part of mile one, all of mile two and a smidge of three with a couple of lovely ladies down from Spokane and then at the water stop they stopped to take their time and I decided to try some running.

Look at some of those negative splits!  Official finish time was 1:38:38.

As part of your race entry, everyone got a BBQ pulled pork sandwich and beer afterwards.  My stomach laughed at the thought of beer ("Try it and I'll vomit!" - obligatory vomit reference) but the pulled pork was really good.  As I was eating I ended up chatting with the ten year old son of the people who had put on the race.  So cute, he was a one-man PR machine.  They're adding a marathon next year and the boy told me they were going to have finisher medals for the 10K too next year.  Speaking of the medal, check out that link above to see the medal; it's a purple Solo cup that's a bottle opener and it is about the size of my hand.  I was deeply jealous the 10Kers didn't get one too.

Post-race my quad was shredded and my legs were tired but on the whole I felt pretty good.  Probably better than I should, considering my lack of fitness and training.  Glad I did the race though!  I'd enjoy doing it again next year, here's hoping I'll be in shape for that one.

Cheers,
the CilleyGirl

Exciting times

Yes, very exciting times.  I'm still struggling with daily life with full-blown gastroparesis.  My Fitbit Flex goes off three times a day to remind me to take my GP meds.   I'm constantly evaluating whether I'm having a regular old "blah" moment in my day or if I'm getting nauseous, and if I'm nauseous how bad it is:  Do I need some anti-erp meds and it will pass or am I headed for a trip to the ER?  I've got that going on right now.

A day where I eat two actual meals is a good day.  Three meals makes for a stellar day.  When the stomach muscles aren't working properly, I get full very fast, and thankfully I'm learning that even a few bites too many can mean the difference between feeling alright and feeling like I'm going to erp.  I'm getting good at boxing up food to go or putting it back in the fridge or just tossing it out, rather than surrendering to the "you must clean your plate" mentality so many of us grew up with.  I'm eating lots of ramen noodles and drinking lots of protein shakes.  Today I'm at about a five on a scale of 1 to 10.  I had a protein shake for breakfast and I expect to have an Everything bagel with salmon cream cheese and chicken noodle soup for lunch.  Dinner could go either way, either "real food" (like a grass fed beef burrito or salisbury steak with mashed potatoes) or ramen.  At this minute, I'm thinking ramen will be all I can handle.

Keeping hydrated is a big challenge.  I saw my GI on Tuesday and spent a lot of time waiting in the little room so I studied the charts on the wall.  Quick anatomy refresher:  A few things are absorbed through your stomach and a few through your large intestine, but most is absorbed through the small intestine which is last in line.  I can drink but the fluids just don't get that far in a timely fashion and so I get easily dehydrated and stay that way longer.  I just filled my 32 ounce cup with water and got some sparkling water but I'm feeling like I'll be lucky to get through the 32 ounces today.  Oh, and an extra added bonus:  when water isn't being absorbed properly into your system, it causes -- shall we say -- some congestion issues?  GP is the gift that just keeps on giving.

I ended up not running Shamrock and I think I'm going to skip Rock 'n Roll as well.  I am doing a 10K this Sunday though.  The weather is supposed to be beautiful and the race is part of the local tulip festival so I'm heading up Saturday to tour the tulip fields and then spending the night. to race in the morning.  Kind of a mini-break for me.  I'm looking forward to having hopefully something of a normal weekend.

Cheers,
the CilleyGirl

Moving along

My last post got lots of views but zero comments.  Do you all not like talking about vomit or something?

Life continues to go forward as I work on learning how to deal with this chronic illness.  No return visits to the ER -- yay! -- but the last several days have been very blah, culminating in -- spoiler alert! -- a quick tossing of my cookies.  I think it was the high carb lunch that tipped the scales.  Low carb is what I need to do.  What I will do.

Because of the major blahs, I decided not to try to pull a 15K out of my ass and handed off my Shamrock bib to someone else this year.  Who may become a new running buddy so that's nice!  She's slow like me and lives very close.  I was sad not to be doing my fifth Shamrock race though.  Speaking of running, yes I plan to begin again as I still have April and May races on my calendar.  I feel better today than I have in about a week so finger crossed that that feeling sticks.  One of the more bizarre aspects of this gastroparesis thing is that I can be stuffed and starving at the same time.  I have to listen to the stuffed feeling over the starving feeling, else bad things happen.  I keep telling myself I can have more to eat later if I'm still hungry.  Usually though the stuffed feeling fades and so does the hunger if I do it right, leaving me just right in terms of what my stomach can handle without reversing the process.

I have to admit, it is nice to have a real live medical reason not to be eating a lot of vegetables and fruit.  "No, no salad for me -- doctor's orders!"  Totally wish I'd had this excuse when I was a kid.  Okay, not really.

Cheers,
the CilleyGirl

To make a long story short(ish)

Since my sinus surgery on January 7, I've been in the ER twice and the hospital for three days.  Chronic nausea and vomiting that led to the natural conclusion of severe dehydration and electrolyte imbalance.  I've got prescriptions for four different anti-nausea meds.  I've been tested from stem to stern and back again.  I've finally stopped looking like a junkie from IVs and repeated blood draws, including one just above my ankle.  Little tip:  If they ever want to put an IV in the underside of your wrist, beg them to find another spot.  It not only hurts like hell, visually it's creepy as all get out.

My primary care physician is fabulous -- she spent an hour with me going over everything, immediately scheduled two more tests to rule out a couple more things they had yet to test for, and when that came back normal immediately got me in for a GI consult.  He was fabulous too -- not only went over the novel that my medical history is by this point, but went back two years in my medical history, then immediately scheduled me for an upper GI endoscopy.  That's where they put a camera down your throat to see what your stomach is up to.  Kind of like a colonoscopy, but from the other end.  This was Monday.

By the end of it, I finally had what they think is the answer.  The fancy name is gastroparesis.  The layman's term is lazy stomach.  Basically, my stomach is not emptying as fast as it should.  For example, after you eat your stomach muscles should be processing then pushing out everything in like an hour or so.  I had last eaten about 12 hours before they did the endoscopy and last drank some water close to five hours prior.  During the scope, my stomach was still about half full of water plus I still had parts of last night's dinner in there.

In doing research -- which I'm still doing, and I'm going to write down questions for follow up with my GI -- it seems that thankfully I may have a mild case, at least now that the attacks seem to have stopped.  Knock on wood.  (Knock on lots of wood!  Twenty four hours of straight nausea sucks rocks, let's me tell you.)  But I also think I've had a very mild case for at least two years or so.  That was about the time my appetite changed, that I got full fairly quickly while eating, and random bouts of nausea with rare instances of vomiting.  By the way, I hope nobody is eating while reading this.  They took some biopsies during the endoscopy which showed inflammation.  So I really need to make some diet changes to manage this and prevent future attacks.  And strong memories of constant nausea and vomiting really inspire you to make changes in your life.  Ironically, it needs to be a low fat, low fiber diet.  Meaning, very few raw veggies.  I was treating this without even knowing it!  Cooked veggies, little or no peels on fruit or veg, lean protein.  Sounds to me like paleo/primal with a few adjustments in how things are prepared.  At least I know how to do that!

And how is your 2014 going?

Cheers,
the CilleyGirl

When last we left our heroine...

...she was totally rocking a mustache bandage.  The sinus surgery went very well.  Me thereafter, not so much.

Surgery was January 7.  It took about half the time they had expected and then I came out of recovery in fairly short order.  Surgery was at 7:30 a.m., I was home before noon.

My friend S, to my undying gratitude, came up to take of me for several days.  She works from home so with an internet connection and my office she was able to do this for me.  Mostly it was making sure that I was taking my pain pills on a regular basis; otherwise, I was pretty much a lump on the sofa or asleep in my room.  They put me on Percocet, and I think I was taking too much for the first few days.  By the time S left on Thursday, I had cut back and felt decent.  I could breathe through my nose since waking up from the surgery.

By Sunday I started to not feel so great.  I still didn't have much of an appetite -- my sense of taste/smell disappeared altogether for a couple of days, even chocolate tasted like paste which is so not fair -- and was having a hard time getting enough fluids in me as well.  The latter was more of a fatigue issue in a lot of ways, I think if I'd had a camelbak so that I didn't have to move to drink I would've been better off.  I kept having hot flashes, which I think was from the Percocet, and then I'd freeze and I was dizzy a lot.

Monday I had my first post-op appointment.  Which involved being 'scoped again -- fine -- and then having my head suctioning out -- not so fine.  I wasn't feeling well to begin the appointment and apparently some people do pass out in the middle of this procedure.  Like me.  Well, almost passed out.  It was very close.  They covered my head, throat and neck in cold packs and I recovered enough so that my doc could finish sucking stuff out of my head.  (It was the packing material they were taking out., along with some "debris.")

I went home and ate and drank a lot of fluids but Tuesday I still was feeling off and on Wednesday the fun started.  I actually felt great Wednesday morning, made myself eat something very small (a Honey Stinger waffle) and then a banana and then I had some Chef Boyardee ravioli (I know, but it was the only thing that sounded good while I was recovering).  About an hour after that I started vomiting.  I called my ENT's office because I felt like I also had a fever and asked them what I should do.  He prescribed Zofran, an anti-nausea drug.  I got that, took that, and it did not work.  And then 18 hours later I still hadn't stopped vomiting.  Urgent care wouldn't take me, they sent me off to the ER because I'd almost certainly need an IV.

Which I did.  At the ER they gave me a shot of Phenergan, a stronger anti-nausea drug, and two liters of saline.  I felt a lot better after they discharged me, went home and ate a meal and then got a good night's sleep.  Woke up the next morning, had another meal.  And promptly threw it all up an hour later.  Took a Phenergan pill, which they'd sent me home with.  Up it came.  Tried the Zofran again, the taste of the pill actually triggered a round of vomiting.  Tried another Phenergan but kept vomiting.  Yippee!  Two hours of that was enough this time, so I called a cab to take me back to the ER.  This was Friday, by the way, about four o'clock in the afternoon.  Yes, Friday night at the ER.  Takes them a while to see you.  When they were triaging me after I arrived, the poor guy thought I was going to go down like a rock right there in his office so they had me on a gurney in the waiting room.  Fine with me; at that point, I had nothing left in my system but I had this constant wave of nausea.  I spent eight hours that day feeling like I might throw up any second.

It took them three hours to get me in, at which point they gave me Zofran (told them it wasn't working so far) and hooked me up to the saline again.  And an EKG, and they did this thing called a GI cocktail (Maalox and lidocaine) because they could not figure out why I was vomiting.  In the meantime, I'm sucking down three liters total of saline IV plus they gave me six doses of anti-nausea medication before it finally started to work.  Oh, and here's the fun part:  Did you know that when you cannot keep anti-nausea medication down and you either are not able to get an injection of it or the injection isn't working, you get to get anal suppositories instead?  And did you know that when you are in the hospital, somebody's going to be inserting it for you?  I was having the time of my life in the ER on a Friday night, let me tell you.  But damned if it wasn't the suppository that finally did the trick.

Oh, and an even funner part:  Telling this story later on to my mother, she didn't get it that they do that so that you absorb the medication in a blood-rich area of the body.  She thought it was like, plug your butt, stop vomiting.  I laughed so hard when I figured that out.  "No, mom, it's not like tug your earlobe, your ankle stops hurting."  Hee!

Anyhow, I'm much better now.  The one week medical leave stretched to two, and I could've used a few more days to recuperate but I absolutely, positively had to be back in the office.  Thought I had gotten a sinus infection again, maybe from being in the hospital, but had my second post-op appointment on Friday and it turns out there was still more packing in my sinuses that needed to be taken out and that was what was causing the pain and pressure.  Well, that and my ENT thinks I instead picked up a slight cold from the ER.  I didn't pass out during the suctioning this time, but holy cow it felt like he was vacuuming the pulp from my teeth and that hurts.

It did make feel better enough that I was able to attend the first session of the Runner Chicks running clinic I'm doing.  I did a half marathon clinic with her before, this is an intro to running clinic but it sounded perfect for me to get back into running.  Today we did two miles in beautiful Portland sunshine.  I was exhausted and hurting a little (in my face) when I was done, but I'm glad I did it.  Fanconi Anemia 5K is in two weeks, I should be close to 100% by then.  Health comes one step at a time!  I also signed up for my April race, the Blooms to Brews 10K up in Woodland.  I may make an overnight out of it so that I can do the tulip tour while I'm there.

Cheers,
the CilleyGirl

All is well

I predict that the mustache bandage will be all the rage in Paris this year.

I'm a lot less puffy and dopey and not currently having to wear the bandage at the moment.  More later.

Cheers,
the CilleyGirl

Apparently I was very well rested.

This morning was the New Yearathon 5K and all I can say about my performance is that I must have been very well rested because I finished in 0:45:58 and ran all but about six minutes of that.  I ran slowly, but I ran it.

As I was running -- and wondering why I was still running -- I was trying to figure out how many times I ran in 2013.  I guessed six.  Garmin says:  five.  And crazy running too:  two miles, two miles, the Shamrock 15K, the Portland Rock 'n Roll Half, and then the Halloweenathon 5K.  Apparently if there are races, I will go.  So, good on me for my 2014 plan, eh?

Oh, and out of those five times, all but one were slower than what I ran today.  Only the 15K had a faster pace, by six seconds per mile.  Crazy!

This is the massive bling I earned this morning.  It's a little bigger than my palm and weighs a few pounds.  I could beat people to death with it!  Uberthons puts on some excellent races.  The weather was even beautiful -- about 32 degrees but sunny -- and I saw an old running buddy that I hadn't seen in a while.  They keep the participants pretty small for most of their races; I think today was 225 people.

Next up is surgery on Tuesday.  I found out only yesterday afternoon that nobody told me I was supposed to get pre-op blood work so after the race I sat in the Urgent Care waiting room for 45 minutes (the lab is next door) waiting for the lab guy to be free.  He did kind of a crap job on me too, I've got a big purple hematoma under the skin the size of a nickel.

Well, boy kitty is peeking longingly at me around the edge of the laptop, which means he wants to be my laptop instead of you all so I'm off.  I'll check in some time after all the drugs wear off and let you  know how the surgery went.

Cheers,
the CilleyGirl

This is how the world ends. Not with a bang, but with a *snorfle*.

A happily unstressful end to the New Year here at CilleyGirl central.  That's not to say there was not year-end craziness at the work; we were just as busy as normal but a lot of things all came together to make this one of the easiest year-end deadlines I've managed.

Although right now there is an uptick in crazy in the office and I may have to get violent.

Okay, I'm back.  I had to beat a few people with a stick but we've closed the books on another successful year.  And I have the big stinky bonus check in the bank to show for it.

Anyhow.  Big changes coming for me.  A week from today I go in for sinus surgery.  I had a CT scan done earlier this month and turns out I have not only a deviated septum which the ENT thinks may just be the source of all the pain and pressure plus infection on the left side, I also have a big bone spur in my nose.  Which, okay.  So he'll remodel the inside of my nose to straight it out and make the sinus on the left a little wider to improve air flow (ideally preventing future infections) and take out any inflamed/infected tissue stuff while he's in there.  Like I'm a pumpkin.  I've been on prednisone for about two weeks (so that I could survive until the surgery) and today I started the pre-op antibiotics.

And hopefully that will be the last round of drugs I need for a long time.  Everyone is predicting this will be life changing for me, and I agree.  I'm already wishing I'd had it done years ago.  Once I can breathe again, I can get back to becoming healthy again.  One of my 2014 goals is to do one race a month.  This Saturday is the New Yearathon, put on by Uberthons, the same folks who handed out that awesome Halloween race medal I got this year.  The New Yearathon medal -all of their medals really - is just as nifty.  In February I'll do the Fanconi Anemia 5k, which was the first race I ever did when I started running in 2009.  March will see me taking on my fifth consecutive Shamrock 15k; they're promising the medal situation will not be a repeat of last year's clusterfuck.  I haven't decided on an April race yet - if you don't like Race for the Roses, which I don't, then the pickings are slim for Portland in April.  May however will be my third Portland Rock 'n Roll and where I'm hoping to finally get my half PR.

For other goals, I will continue to work on my physical health, such as going back to acupuncture, finding a new chiropractor, and consulting with a naturopath to determine if I had food allergies or sensitivities such as to wheat.  Without your health, you have nothing.

Happy new year to you all, and thanks for sticking with me through a lackluster year.  I'm looking forward to 2014!

Cheers,
The CilleyGirl

Yet another post in which the only news is that I am still alive.

Exciting, I know!

Okay, I'll try to come up with something.  Let's see.... I had a birthday last month, and in a conversation today realized that I am now more than twice the legal age for buying alcohol.  It's a weird way to look at it.

I did the Halloweenathon 5K, which had some awesome bling.  Did I already write about that?  I ended up with negative splits -- I walked the first half of the race then tried to run the second half, so something like an 18 minute mile, then a 16 minute mile, then a 14 minute mile -- and a deep understanding of just how out of shape I've gotten.

And you could bludgeon somebody to death with this medal if you have to.  It's about four inches high if that gives you perspective.

I didn't make my cats wear their costumes on Halloween but I did download the additional pics of when I did dress them up.  Love this one of Ru, pole dancing in his spider costume.

My friend S treated us to a quick overnight at the Kah-Nee-Ta resort over in Warm Springs, and brought the dogs.   We got ourselves a short massage and a soak in the hot springs jetted tubs, the latter of which really left us feeling like limp noodles.

This is Kip the Wonder Dog.  If you look close, you'll realize there is only one paw on the front end.

We had beautiful, dry weather.

That's been pretty much it as I'm heading into the busy season at work.  Meaning I'll really not be posting!

Hope everyone is having a lovely fall.  I'm working on being more interesting :)

Cheers,
the CilleyGirl

Better living through chemistry, Chapter 1,072

Today I started half of the megadoses of sinus infection fighting drugs.  And if you've ever wondered what a big freaking dose of prednisone looks like, it looks like the dose I took this morning.  Before, at most I had to take two pills in one dose.  Now I have four.  I was happy that this was the first day since -- well, since the last time I took prednisone -- that I haven't felt like my head was going to explode, but apparently prednisone can be used to treat migraines and tension headaches.  Still a yay all around, right?

As a side note, never read the side effects for any drug you are taking -- that you are going to keep taking -- in any depth.  Apparently I am at a high risk to turn into a large blob of sugary jelly over the next 30 days.

The pharmacy could not fill my prescription for the antibiotics; they didn't have enough on hand to complete the prescription.  I'm not sure if that means that they put me on some really serious antibiotic, or just an uncommon one.  I mean, you'd hope your pharmacy has on hand plenty of the antibiotics needed to combat stuff like anthrax and MRSA.  If I'm just on one that fights boogers, that's okay that they didn't have enough in stock, particularly if they needed more room for the anthrax/MRSA ones.  It's all about the trade off.

Anybody have any experience with taking a steroid or antibiotic long term?  Was it just a barrel of laughs?

Cheers,
the CilleyGirl

Moses supposes his toes are roses

I am signed up for a Hallowe'en themed 5K at the end of the month.  I signed up for this race because of (a) the awesome medal (a glow in the dark coffin that opens) and (b) it's the day before my birthday.  I had thought to do the Couch25K plan for this, then I collapsed in a puddle of my own nasal goo.  As in, sinus infection!  Or probably more accurately, the same sinus infection I've had for about five years now that gets partly better but never all the way but I've developed such a high threshold when it comes to my sinuses that I don't really comprehend that I'm still sick until I can barely get out of bed and/or stay awake all day.

Yay me!

Took the five days of prednisone and the ten days of antibiotics.  Felt amazing for the first five days, which you might notice coincides with stopping the prednisone.  Felt so-so through the end of the antibiotics, then gradually not so great in the few days since.  But, I've finally bitten the bullet (very metallic taste, don't recommend biting bullets) and committed to fixing this sinus shit once and for all.  This morning I had an appointment with an ENT -- that's Ear, Nose and Throat -- where I had (I think) a nasal endoscopy.  I'm not sure, because I think I just had the look-see part of it; apparently it can also be used to do things in there more than look around.  It looks like a flexible tiny telescoping telescope.  Which is basically what it is.

Good news is I don't have gigantic gnomes living in my sinuses.  Or even tiny gnomes.  No polyps either, just a massive amount of swelling and some puddles of infection. There is a small physical thing which normally wouldn't be an issue but with the swelling it's cutting off airflow.  Science is fun!  I also learned that you have to wait about 45 minutes after having your nasal passages and throat anesthetized because, choking.

The long and the short of it (mostly the long) is that they're going to culture the goo from my head and then put me on a month-long course of targeted antibiotics.  Targeted, as in antibiotics for whatever particular bugs are teeming in my goo.  Most common is strep.  Also possible is MRSA.  So that should be fun!  To go with the antibiotics I'll have a 30 day course of prednisone too.

Hopefully I will be feeling much better by the 5K and be able to run part of it.  And, continue to torture my cat:

He actually kind of liked being dressed up like a purple furry spider.

He didn't like the hood -- every time I pulled it up he'd tip his head back -- and it's kind of heavy and hot for him, but otherwise he was in it for about ten minutes before I took pity on him.  I think he'll wear one without a hood just fine (mwuhahahahahahaha).  Josie on the other hand (or paw, ba dump bump!) is still keeping her distance.

Cheers,
the CilleyGirl

I may not know where I'm going, but I sure know where I've been

I had no idea it's been nearly a month since I last posted.  It's been a mix of busy and hermitage.  But there are pictures!

Two weekends ago I went up to central Washington where my mom and I had rented a cabin for a couple of nights.  It was a great cabin with two bedrooms and lots of wood.  I forgot to take pictures of the inside, but this was our view:

  The fancy cabins are duplexes.  Unfortunately, we were next to a family of like a zillion.  Many opportunities to mock the crazy people in this family.  My favorite was the teenage daughter, who apparently wanted to go off and spend time with her (kind of creepy looking) boyfriend:  "Don't you know how happy I am?  Are you mad at me?  Don't you know how much I love you?"  Over and over.  It was weird.  I promptly adopted the phrase "Don't you know how much I love you" to say to my mom over and over again.  

We got lots of reading done, rented a paddle boat and tooled around the lake until our legs got tired, and then drove towards "town" to stop off at Dry Falls.  Which looks like this:

There used to be a gigantic water fall in the back where that big depression is.  A long long long time ago.

This was the area we were staying at from up above:

Over the Labor Day weekend, I decided to be somewhat social so I headed out to the Oregon State Fair.

Moo. 

It was the next to the last day for the fair, but sadly that did not stop the hordes of humanity from descending.  It did, however, mean that some of the animals were gone.  It was really creepy going through a big horse barn with nobody else around.

This was one of maybe six horses I saw in the entire place.

Made me want to have a beer.

There were lots of pigs still, so I took lots of pics of them for my mom, who loves pigs.

I have no idea why many of the pigs were numbered.  Oh, and guess what the name of one of the 4-H clubs was?

It just seems mean, doesn't it?

I got the obligatory butt shot to text to RR:

Saw a frankenllama:

And there were diving dogs!

I managed to not kill any of the humanity at the fair.  I capped it off by taking myself to a movie (The World's End, really good although I'm not sure I liked the very very end) and then for a pizza.  I like to treat myself well.

Cheers,
the CilleyGirl