Update

Not that anyone is reading this, she said quasi-bitterly.  But anyway.

I saw the doctor.  The results were less than stellar.  In spite of my having overhauled my eating habits....probably 60%, maybe a bit better, my cholesterol, specifically, my triglycerides, were way up.  So I am now taking meds for that, too, that is, when I remember to take it, which is coming out to about every other day.

My blood sugar was lower, though still high.  But apparently the downward trend was enough to keep me off diabetes meds and keep me away from a diagnosis of that.  So that made me happy. 

I lost 19 pounds from Easter.  I think that's pretty okay.  I haven't weighed myself recently.  Why?  Don't know.  I haven't been as consistent as I was, plus it's been HOT.  But--there are clothes that fit now that didn't, and clothes that used to fit that don't now (falling off).  I bought a pair of pants--I think they're meant to be capris, but they were regular length on me--with a side zip--in 18 and they fit.  So honestly, there I'm fairly satisfied.  I'm making progress.  It may be slow, but it's progress.

I'm still in pain.  Sometimes not bad, sometimes astonishing.  I'm coming more and more to terms with the surgery.  I needed the time.  I'm sort of worrying about what I can do and how I can move afterwards, but I suppose I will find that out. 

But yesterday was my foster daughter's birthday.  She's married and has kids and lives maybe 10 minutes away.  Her birthday dinner of choice has always been lobster, salad, Italian bread and my chocolate layer cake, which is not healthy by any stretch of the imagination but which is everyone's favorite.  Her husband said they would have it there, which means that he gets his mother to do it.

So, instead of lobster cooked in the big canning pots, we had "lazy man's lobster"--cold lobster meat.  Instead of the light Caesar salad I get (bagged, I'll admit it!) we had bagged iceberg lettuce, with cherry tomatoes, and a sliced cucumber thrown in, and ranch and French dressing.  (Okay, Italian too, I'll be fair).  Pilsbury crescent rolls, which I know for a fact are fat bombs, and the pinnacle.  I don't even know what it's called, but it's strawberries (so far so good), a package of jello and a container of Cool Whip.  Yes.  I thought--okay, you managed to make strawberries unhealthy without even baking.  Trailer park food.  Honky food.  Am I a snob?  Absolutely.  Am I repentant?  Absolutely not. 

Sorry (not really).

What I learned

It's all a learning process, isn't it.  I suppose there are people, like Rene Zellweger, who learned healthy eating at her mother's knee, but for the rest of us, it's a process. 

I thought that this weekend, either Susan or I would win, in the clash of the titans.  I thought either I would succumb and eat everything in sight, or Susan would suddenly take up eating salads with no dressing as well.  Well, the truth was somewhere in the middle, where the truth usually hangs out.  I indulged.  She held back.  I'm not sure anyone won, because neither one of us ate especially healthily, but it was better than it could have been.

Today I stopped on my way home to see another friend, and we went to lunch.  I had a salad of fresh spinach, cucumbers, onions, and a lovely piece of grilled salmon, with four tasteful breadsticks (I ate one) on the side, as was the dressing.  I was so happy.  I was so happy to be eating that bowl of raw spinach, I kid you not. 

However, then the drive home was stressful and I sort of indulged, so it wasn't as good as it could have been, but at least I got that bowl of spinach in me. 

So I learned that it's harder than you think to eat out and eat clean.  Unless you turn into one of THOSE woman, can you grill this, make sure no one uses butter, etc, etc, etc.  I don't want to be one of those women.  I'd rather stay home.  I learned that your habits can influence those of the people around you, even over the course of three days.  I learned that a month seems to be enough time to root good habits at least a little bit.  I was in that funny place of enjoying and not enjoying.  Some of me liked the stuff--the intensely flavorful meat at Olive Garden, because, of course, of the enormous amount of salt they use.  I liked the zeppoli too, because who wouldn't, really?  Sort of beignets, with chocolate dipping sauce.  What's not to like?  But I could taste the fat more than I ever could before. 

I learned, I suppose, that it feels better in the end, to have eaten well, as in healthily.  The momentary pleasure of the "false" food doesn't begin to measure up to the way you feel, day in, day out, when you feed yourself good food.

I only have one question.  Why did it take a health scare and 56 years to learn this?

Oh well.

Going Back

This weekend has been an exercise in going back, back to my old habits. I must say, I feel awful this morning. I have pain issues, but mostly i feel bloated and nasty and not the way I have been accustomed to feeling. I am all full of salt, all the fat places are puffed up and I miss all my veggies and fruit. We went to olive garden last night. the salad was only iceberg, the breadstick was precoated with grease, and really, I simply don't find the ubiquitous cheese grinder at all necessary. I wondered about those people, the ones who purposely ate un healthy for whatever reason, and truly I thought they were exaggerating, I thought they were making it up or at least being holier than thou.No. Not at all. A weekend was enough.I'll eat the breakfast of the house this morning, but I will be extremely happy to go back to what is now normal for me tomorrow.

R & R

I am spending the weekend at my friend Susan's house.  I was meant to teach at a bead shop here, in the Philly area, but my classes didn't run.  I decided to come anyway.  The time was blocked out, I had shuffled around appointments, no reason not to come.

I have known Susan since 1975.  One of the things (besides similar, very off, senses of humor and love of words and languages) that has connected us all these years is the fact that we are both, Not Small Girls.  We've been Not Small Girls together for all that time.  There's a picture of us on a teeter-totter at the Copenhagen harbor.  We were both so happy that day, since it had never been easy, for either of us, to find partners for that particular piece of playground equipment.

I was a bit apprehensive about coming here this weekend because of this.  Clearly, we did not get to be Not Small Girls by eating lettuce leaves and exercising frenetically, though when I could walk without pain, we did take very long, brisk walks together.  I was more concerned about the food.  Simply put, I viewed weekends here as a license to eat.  To overeat.  It started with the trip down:  a bag of chips, one notable time I managed to eat Brie and crackers while driving, plus probably a specialty Starbucks something or other from one of the rest stops on the Jersey Turnpike. 

I came supplied with chocolate, partly for me and partly for my putative students.  The dark chocolate is one of my daily indulgences (I'm allowed!  It's good for me!) and keeps me from eating worse things.  The other, I brought because I didn't let on that I'm not teaching.  I also had a box of skinny Triscuits (you didn't seriously think there wouldn't be Triscuits in this story, did you?).  I managed to eat maybe a third of those, but I also had a salad for lunch, on the way down. 

It's Sunday morning.  How has it gone so far?  Well,  Friday night was Friendly's and I had a prime rib supermelt.  I also had a side salad, and I only ate maybe a third of the fries.  I did have a Happy Ending Sundae, though, with honest-to-God full fat ice cream and unreconstructed caramel sauce.  I was stuffed.

Yesterday I had an English muffin with butter and a hard-boiled egg for breakfast, and light cream in my coffee, because that's what there is here and I'm not putting in skim milk.  Just not.  Lunch was  steak panini at a previously untested place and it was very good.  It was also huge (I should have only eat half and I knew it, but I went on) and a smattering of home-made chips and fries, but not many of either.  And then I said I had to have a salad for dinner, so we went to Panera where I had the strawberry poppyseed chicken salad, which was primarily lettuce and fruit.  And it felt so good to be eating that.  I literally had felt off balance from not getting my greens.

Susan also took me to a delightful sort-of, not really gourmet grocery store, The Fresh Market http://www.thefreshmarket.com/
and I bought all manner of wonderful cookies, etc, there.  I also bought no-salt cashews (I just ate a handful) and olive oil and champagne vinegar.  But I had to taste all the cookies, and a cookie here and a cookie there is more than I've been doing.

The balance so far?  Passable.  Not the stuff-fest it would have been (which right there is proof of the ripple effect of healthful eating.  I'm sure I was the reason we held off from the mozzarella stuffed breadsticks yesterday) but not what I've been doing at home.  So in the middle.  I feel puffier, I'm sure there was way more salt than I've been accustomed to.  But I took my blood test before I left, and I moved the appointment to July 3, so I have lots of time to get over this weekend.  Get back on the wagon.

The other aspect of this weekend has been the R&R of the title.  I was terribly stressed.  Partly from constant pain, yada yada yada, but also from a variety of outside influences in my life.  A lot of people have been leaning on me fairly hard, as well as a couple of occurrences outside of anyone's control, and I was majorly stressed.  It was manifesting itself in a herpes flareup, a quite bad one--and that seems to have vanished from Friday to today.  Also, my husband works from home and seldom goes out and all the constant companionship was taking a toll on me. 

This morning Susan went to play golf.  I will soon leave to visit the shop where I was to teach, but the morning alone has been delightful.  I didn't have to talk, explain myself, interact, be nice, be anything but me.  I read.  I mostly read, I played a little Scrabble on the phone and other than that--nothing.  Silence, blessed silence. 

I spent money instead of making it this weekend, but I needed this time.

Clothes, again

My room is silting up with clothes.  As "they" do every summer, this summer, "they" declared it the summer of brights!  And for one, "they" and I were in synch.  So I've embraced them, the brights.  They make me happy.  But now I'm at the point where I have to keep cycling things in and out.  I'm not really complaining.  This is a dandy little problem to have. 

Back in April, when I hauled myself off to the doctor, I could barely fit into size 22 skirts. They were getting snug.  That's fat, I'm sorry.  Just fat.  I'm not that tall.  Jeans were a joke and I'm sure that in them I bordered on the risible. 

I like fashion, and clothes, though, so I just kept switching off to things that I could wear, where I looked presentable, but those choices were getting smaller and smaller.  I did order some new clothes, though. 

I like them.  I really like the skirt in blurred shades of red, yellow, orange--a bit of green thrown in.  A pencil skirt.  The last time I wore that pencil skirt, though, I took it off without undoing it.  It's a 22.  I can probably wear it a while longer.  I think, because of my Caesarean flap (my little pet...) that a garment has to be at least two sizes too big before it falls off.  So anyway, I probably have a bit longer, but IT is a bit longer than it used to be, too.  I have a sateen skirt from Talbots that I also really like. It's red.  I like red.  It comes off without being unfastened, as well.  Both of these are pretty nice skirts and so I can't just wash them hot and hope they'll shrink, as I've done before.

I ordered some new clothes.  All the summer stuff is on sale.  (This is ironic, since today is the Solstice).  I decided to go with 20s.  (There is a whole thing about plus-size women never trying on clothes before they buy them, and I agree.  I do that.  Dressing rooms are simply too dispiriting for me).  A cargo skirt, size 20, is sort of big.  I'm not sure about it.  I went way out on a limb and ordered red skinny jeans.  Well, they're skinny at the bottom, but not so skinny at the top.  So I'll try them, and they might fit for a while--and there are always belts, which I probably last wore in 1992.  A long top.  But then, a size 20 skirt that I ordered in a fit of optimism, prior to April, certainly fits better than it did, but is not quite comfortable. I'm afraid we're going to go right through fits to doesn't fit, because I'll have neglected to try it on one week.  It wasn't cheap, that's the thing. 

Where did I first notice that my clothes were getting bigger?  My nightgown, of all things.  I noticed one day that it was hitting my knees and I hadn't ever felt it hit my knees before.  The bathrobe that I got for Mother's Day is also getting bigger and bigger.  Again, these are good problems to have.  I'm not sure if I'll give them away, or stash them--I know you're supposed to give them away, and in the past I have, but then gained the weight back, and my beloved wardrobe was gone.  But you are supposed to give them away.  As incentive.  So I probably will.....

Added to the problems of trying clothes on today is the fact that it hit 101 and who knows how anything fits? 

And, in other news--tomorrow I go for my blood test.  This will determine if I have to go on cholesterol meds, and more importantly, where I stand in the diabetes sweepstakes.  All I can say is cross your fingers.  I don't want more meds.  This is what all this is about, not the clothes.  The clothes are an off-label side-effect, more or less.  The point is to be healthier.  The point is to take charge of my life.

My cousin...who is more obese than I am, trust me on this one....is on blood pressure and cholesterol meds and is flirting, too, with diabetes.  But her side of the family doesn't have it and mine does, so my chances are better than hers.  But--and I'm truly NOT trying to be holier than thou, here--I look at her, and I wonder why she won't do anything.  Of course, all my salads may not have amounted to a row of beans (get it, that's funny, right?) and I'll be there whether I want to or not.  In which case I can throw my words into one of my salads and eat them. 

The Breast Stuff

As I mentioned earlier, besides the business of having to have a hip replaced (once in a while this really hits me), I had some issues following a mammogram.

I'm writing this partly for the women who have dubious mammograms and have to go for additional tests, so that they can see there can be a good outcome.  I'm also writing it simply so that women who have to have additional tests have some clear idea, in plain language, of what happens to them.  I googled a lot, and all I got was a whole lot of statistics.

I had not had a mammogram for probably 10 years.  My self-exam schedule was spotty at best.  I'm not sure why.  I'm not sure if it was denial, indifference, stupidity, or just what.  It was dumb, in any case, since my mother died of breast cancer.  Following my visit to the doctor, in early April, I got myself to the imaging center as well.

The initial mammogram was fine.  The technician made it as easy for me as possible.  I was able to maintain my dignity while the two of us hefted my breasts around.  Was it painful?  I think not as the last one was.  There were, though, a few moments where yes, it was quite painful, and I might have bitten my lip.  As I left, she said that the letters had just gone out that morning, but if they needed additional images they would call me.

So when I got the phone call, I knew that it was not exactly good news.  I started googling at that point, about what it could be, what happened from there and what the chances were.  In the end, though, you can google till the cows come home and you're not that much further than you were, because what you're reading about is all those other people and this is you and no one can say what will happen to you until it happens.  I read a lot about calcifications and honestly couldn't figure out if they were good or bad.  (Indifferent, as it seems to have turned out, and useful as markers, in the vast wilderness that is a breast).

I told someone very close to me, who assured me, IMMEDIATELY, that they always, always, always err on the side of caution and that I shouldn't worry.  I'm not sure how much that helped me, but the sentiment was nice.  I did not, however, tell my grown daughters.  I most emphatically did NOT want them to worry.  Let them worry if there was something to worry about. 

I went back for the additional images.  The mood was a tad more somber.  They show you the  images.  What I had was two cloudy bunches, more or less, that no matter how much they squished, they couldn't quite make go away.  The doctor who reads the mammograms came out to tell me that, more or less, and that I was going to have to see someone more specialized.

The GP's office sent me to the office of a woman doctor.  I googled her, of course, and was somewhat consoled.  She specialized in breast-conserving surgery and it looked like the treatment of choice was targeted radiation, that only took a week.  That made me feel better.  As it turns out, I never saw her, I only saw her PA.  She, again, was very nice to me.  She used her little netbook style ultrasound to try to find the masses.  I think my rather large breast defeated it.  But I was most thoroughly palpated (felt up if it's not a medical professional doing it) and I was most thoroughly ultrasounded, with the result of exactly nothing.  "I can't tell one way or the other," she told me earnestly.  "I can't send you away feeling warm and fuzzy and I can't tell you anything to help you get your head around an eventual diagnosis."  So I left there sort of up in the air, with an appointment for the premiere place in the area, for a mammogram, real ultrasound and possible biopsy.

I won't lie.  I spent some time in panic.  I couldn't look at a shampoo or hair product commercial, for wondering if I was going to lose mine.  Every time I put on makeup, I'd contemplate my eyelashes--I am inordinately vain about my long (still long at 56!) eyelashes--and wonder if I was going to lose them, and then go through the hierarchy of awfulness.  Hair--awful, of course, because, well, it's HAIR, but then again, camoflageable, sort of.  And if all else failed, I saw some pictures of women who had lost their hair to chemo and had mehndi done on their heads.  I sort of liked that route. But eyelashes?  Really?  Oh, no.  OH, no.  And seeing the above person, close to me?  Like that?  Probably not something I could do.  And so I'd have all these thoughts, in way less time than it took for me to type them, and then I would put them out of my mind, because what good does stewing do?  None.  But sometimes I would have all those thoughts, and I would cry some very bitter little tears.  Not for long, but I would cry.  And think of my mother, too, whose cancer was diagnosed much too late to cure, but who went through chemo and who eventually died because it attacked her liver.  And I didn't want to die like that, so I supposed that not having eyelashes was indeed a fair enough trade.  And then I would just stop thinking about it for an hour or so.

All of this happened fairly quickly, so there was not a lot of time between appointments.  I went to the Women's Health Center, where they were also very nice---of course they were, because they could see I was there because I had suspicious mammograms. They weren't going to be not nice to me.

I was shown to a waiting area and told to put my belongings in a locker and wear the key, and to strip to the waist and wear the kimono thing.  So I did. They got me very quickly.  I didn't like this part mostly because I don't like not wearing a bra.  I find it hard to feel dignified with them flapping below my chin.  But I did my best.

I had more, even more targeted mammograms.  Smaller plates, to isolate the areas.  It hurt.  They finally arrived at two areas and then sent me down to the ultrasound room.  The technician there had me lie down, and there was more sliding of the roller on my breast--which sounds like not a lot, but is quite a lot.  After a while, she went off and got the doctor, a young woman, who also ultrasounded for a while and finally said she wanted to do a stereotactic needle biopsy.

In this procedure, you lie down on a table with a hole in it and the breast in question hangs through.  More mammogram images are obtained and they find the places to do a needle biopsy.  Oh, boy.

So I was all lined up to do this.  The young woman doctor was talking to me and then we got to medications.  Remember, I have a very bad hip--and I was, at that point, taking ibuprofen like it was candy and had recently been started on Meloxicam.  I fessed up.  It's idiotic not to.

I couldn't have it that day.  I had to let all the NSAIDs get out of my system.  They increase bleeding risk.  As she said, I wasn't going to bleed out from a needle biopsy, but there was a chance of a hemotoma, or infection.  So I was to go home, take only Tramadol for the pain and come back in a week.

Told the person close to me--got what showed me the true feelings--"You mean you have to go through all that AGAIN?"  Well, yeah.

So I virtuously avoided NSAIDs.  Back to, oh, 1979, before they could be had over the counter and any pain I had just had to be suffered through. I spent more time shedding bitter little tears in corners and wistfully thinking about my hair.   I finally reported back, freshly showered, no deodorant, no body powder and wearing the bra I had designated the mammogram bra, since it had never been touched by either of those things and it was easier, at this point, to just keep one for that.  Since it seemed that getting mammograms had become part of my life.

Since I had done all the preliminary work, I was to go straight to the biopsy.  I was in the chill room with the table with the hole, half undressed.  They made me tell them what was about to happen and handed me a marker and mark the proper breast.  I made an X.  The doctor marked the proper breast.  There was a social worker type woman there, who I think was supposed to distract me, but ended up merely annoying me, but it was for my good and my comfort, I'm sure. I climbed up on the table and they were very kind and concerned about my bad hip, made sure I was comfortable, because once they start, you can't move.  The table was in the air.  The technician was on a chair, arranging the plates. The doctor was asking for the views she wanted.  They took pictures upon pictures upon pictures.  A little to the left.  A little to the right.  On and on.  My breast got very sore and they weren't even close to the biopsy part, where I was to get some numbing stuff.

And then.   The doctor, a brash, confident, likable young woman, said, "I've looked for a good half hour and I can't find anything at all I can justify sticking a needle into."

In other words, I got a get out of jail free card.  Where did they go?  No one knows.  I know (and I could not conceivably make this next bit up) that someone I know but have never met, in Calgary, was praying for me, hard, and she believes that when she prays unselfishly, God answers her prayers.  My cousin was certainly praying, and my husband as well (his mother also died of breast cancer).  The person close to me might have, in their own way, have been praying.  In any case, I saw the pictures when it was there and I saw the pictures when it wasn't there.  And they were gone.  So I can't tell you what a stereotactic mammogram is like, because I never really had one.  I have to go back in October.  I got to keep my hair, and my eyelashes.  I never had to worry my daughters.  I suspect that I will have more images done on that breast--it was always a little different than the other, a little odd.  Not bad odd, just eccentric, sort of.

I am relieved.  All the people who knew were relieved. I  get to worry about regular things, like what to make for dinner, and why is that piece of hair pointing up like a horn, and I understand, even now, even with my little brush with the C word, that I am very, very lucky and that I'm part of the statistic where the need for additional images turns out to be nothing.  I will indeed go back in October.  I know now that I need to.

I also understand that this is inconclusive and that I really didn't go through anything except being slightly incommoded and a little scared.  Nothing like women who have real diagnoses, lose their hair, their breasts, (their eyelashes)--everything but their spirit.  I salute them.  I'm a lightweight.  But, if there is someone starting on this path and this helps them a tiny bit, then I'm glad I could.

Father's Day

My husband has been endeavoring to eat better, get healthier, whatever, since Ash Wednesday.  He gives up most indulgences for Lent (making it annoying to live with him, since I give up things like driving really slow in front of people who are tailgating me, instead pulling over for them to pass, but that doesn't show up the way not eating chocolate does).  After Lent, instead of going back to his evil ways, he kept on eating healthier.  And, then, just over a month ago, I caught up with him.  In honor of Father's Day, however, I decided that I would get him his favorite treats, or at least some of them.

His gift was M&Ms with the Mets logo, and a dispenser.  He didn't scarf those down, those are still on his desk.  I made guacamole, with 6 avocados.  He ate most of two bowls of it, with the attendant tortilla chips.  I had some of that--and a few more chips after I was done with the guac.  I also got him gelato, and the piece de resistance was dinner.  It was, drum roll please:  hot dogs on the grill.  My husband would live on hot dogs if not for the fact that they shorten your life.  But not a dog except for Hebrew National 99% fat-free franks has crossed our threshold in months--so it was Deutchmacher on the grill.  He asked for three.  He ate three hot dogs for dinner.  I also made potato salad.  My father taught me to make potato salad.  It's not a complex recipe and the entire secret lies in adding the potatoes to everything else, not dumping stuff on top of the potatoes.  Over the years, though, I've lightened it up substantially.  I've omitted the oil for years.  I use light mayo.  More carrots go in.  More eggs, for protein.  It's still good, and indulgent, and tasty, but not what it started as.  So today....vinegar and oil.  The dash of sugar.  Liberal salt.  And real mayo, lashings of it, as the Brits would say.  The result?  A time machine to 1967.  God was it good.  Rich.  Tasted SO good.  But here's the amazing thing.  I knew it was going to be different, so I only took a bit.  That bit was more than enough. 

In fact, I let my hair down a bit today, too.  I had a turkey sandwich with my own home-made garlic mayo on it.  (It was good).  No salad.  And guess what.  I felt hungry afterwards, where I previously felt that a sandwich was the only thing that made me feel as though I'd had lunch and could possibly fill me up.  No one stopped me from eating a salad, I just chose not to.  I think I decided to let today be a day from the past, to see what it was like and how I would feel.

Well, my husband spent the evening on the couch passing gas and belching, from all the unaccustomed food and said that he might need to take a Prilosec to sleep.  I have no such issues, but I will say I noticed a difference.  I still feel full.  In the past, I would have had that food, and more and now, instead of writing about food, I'd probably be grazing for more.  The truth?  I would probably manage to have another small meal before I went to bed.  With dessert.  That would be an important part.  Okay.  More truth.  I might have a forkful each of a couple of things--the beans, so shoot me!, and the brown rice salad.  Shoot me again.  But if I ate, really ate, I'd be so uncomfortable--!

It's nice to see how far I've come.  It's nice to see how the portions are sort of regulating themselves now.  (Sort of).  I have to be honest, though, and say that I found the case of the potato salad sort of fascinating.  So is it better to make my "light" salad, so that you can have more of it, or is it better to make the retro, extremely tasty version, and be satisfied with really just a spoonful? I know why it's better, of course, and why it's more satisfying.  It's the fat. The fat conveys the flavor better and the fat satiates better.  I'm wondering if this isn't also sort of a part of clean eating--make more stuff with normal amounts of fat, rather than striving for absolute low-fat this and that--and let the nature of the beast dictate the amounts?  However, I am well aware that it's early days.  I could backslide, oh, so easily.  I could be at that table, scarfing down God knows what, before I know it. 

Today was interesting. I feel like we were living like Henry VIII before this.  I'm surprised there's not a picture of one of us heaving a turkey leg over his shoulder.  I also feel like I--not held back, because I didn't, actually, but was held back, by my new habits.  I wonder how I'll feel tomorrow, but I think possibly not bad, because I was not that indulgent today.