Necessary Mutilation

Weight: 183.6 lbs.

My tummy hurts becasue I am stupid and ate 2 bowls of air popped popcorn before bed last night. I can still feel the kernels attacking me. I had it sprinkled with a little parmesan cheese, some spray butter and hot sauce. I know that I am wierd. It sure was tasty at the time, and rounded off my dinner of a Healthy Choice entree. Not such a healthy choice after all however!

Plus, during the day, I ate a strawberry and granola filled yogurt that had been left from our casino excursion and purchased with “free” casino money when we were last there. I had brought it to work and ate the whole thing on “lunch” break. I put “lunch” in italics because I don’t really get a lunch break, so lunch or snack or whatever is just whenever I may have a moment between clients. Anyway, as is typical of my hypoglycemia, I tanked about two hours later, or right during one of my afternoon sessions. My eyesight got all wierd and my tongue numb, and I started making even less sense than usual. It is a horrible feeling of being possessed and almost being able to view oneself from a distance. Luckily I was winding down the session, although I had another client waiting. Interestingly, the next client has a seizure disorder and comes to session with her helping dog who helps detect them and tends to her if she is having problems. I was worried that he might sense MY altered state and get all barky or something. I asked the staff and the client who brought her to wait a moment, and quickly downed whatever sweet items I could find. Unfortunately for my co-worker Nancy, she came to ask me a question in these brief moments, and I wasn’t hardly able to register the question, let alone answer it. She gave me her orange, but it is still sitting on my desk as by then I had plied myself with so much candy, that I feared a rebound if I ate anymore sugar. Which, once I recovered enough to go through the motions with this client, I did in fact suffer, and had to “rinse and repeat”. I am not sure if I am terminally stupid and bringing this on myself, or if I am sensitive at only certain times or to certain combinations or quantities of foods, such that one day I can be fine on a certain item, and the next it could seemingly kill me. I didn’t think that this same yogurt product that I’ve eaten so many times before would do this to me.

So, today I guess that I have to be that much more careful, whatever that means, and stick with just pure protein foods, I suppose. I will likely pack a cheese stick or two and my typical south beach bar. And I always have nuts in my drawers. No pun intended!

I do feel funky already today and even had a hard time sleeping, but I imagine that it is the gut full o’ popcorn that did it. And why I didn’t tank on it is beyond me, seeing as it is a pure starch and all.

But, I will try to ensure that today is a better day all around, including weather wise, I hope. Although obviously I have no control over nature, I certainly can hope that it doesn’t like “blizzard” as it seemed to yesterday, especially as the snowblower was boxed in by tables and items all ready set for our spring garage sale. Clearly indicating that WE have moved on from winter mode, and expect nature to do the same!

Weight: 182.7 lbs.

I feel like crud. Crampy crud. But at least I survived yesterday, when I got hypoglycemic during a counseling session. This was the first time I recall this happening to this degree at work, let alone while I was in the middle of trying to help someone. My tongue and lips got numb, and my vision got all freaky. But worse, things started to feel all fadey, and I knew that I wasn’t making much sense. I was with a woman who relies on a computer to talk due to severe CP, and her staff. Mercifully, they were bantering and shouldering much of the weight of the session together, so I am imagining that it was less obvious that I was about to crap out on them. I did discreetly say that I was going to whet my whistle with a piece of candy, and asked if they’d like one. Fortunately I have a container of hard candies near my desk for my clients, and could grab one. I did feel bad though when it dawned on me that the client can only eat pureed food due to the choking hazard that solids would present her, so it was rude of me to offer up candy. But, it allowed me to slip a piece in me, and then another when I didn’t recover quick enough.

I can’t say that I remember much of the session from there, except that I just prayed that it would end soon and I could get something more substantial in me. I did have someone scheduled for immediately afterwards, but mercifully they cancelled, and this allowed me to down a yogurt which no doubt was better for me than candy. I felt fuzzy for a while afterwards, but good enough soon to continue rather uneventfully with my afternoon.

But, I am as dumb as a doornail to not have thought through my “lunch” choices better, given the hormonal state I am in and my recent recognition of how sensitive to carbs that I become at this time. I had brought a cheese sandwich (on whole wheat), the yogurt, and some grapes for lunch. But due to time constraints and a desire to munch instead, reached for some leftover chex mix in my drawer, and skipped the above better foods! I munched mindlessly while I wrote my notes around 1:30, and it was around 3:30 that I got wierd. The doomed session was for 3:00-4:00….

Now today, I will do my best to lead an entirely snack and carb free life, and even will rethink the idea of fruit. Debbie is due over for dinner, and I will have to work around whatever meal we order or eat out, although at least if I blow it, I will be amongst family and friends and home at the time. Not that this feels any better or is any guarantee that I am not endangering myself, mind you. But at least here, if I start talking smack and making no sense, people are used to it!!

Weight: 182.7 lbs.

Debbie came over last night and we actually made a home cooked meal and ate in together. Given the snowy weather and the state of my diet these days, I was very glad for this. Not that we made the healthiest of meals, but the salad, taquitos and baby potatoes were tasty and still better than what I likely would have ended up eating out. And, I didn’t have a single hypoglycemic episode off it. I remain convinced that I am more sensitve to sugars at that time of the month, and in that I am past PMS and into “P” now, I especially believe this because I get so symptomatic and sensitive otherwise.

And speaking of which, we went to bed relatively late given Debbie’s visit, and I was wound up, but exhausted. It took me a while to drift off, and then my c-pap acted up so badly, that I ultimately ripped off the damn leaky mask and slept without it. And slept so deeply and fitfully, that at one point I startled both Tom and myself by screaming out from a nightmare I was having that my brother had hired bad men to accost me in the night.

I then fell back off, and woke to the sound of Tom loudly yawning and stretching and making morning sounds. He wasn’t just awake, he was awake with conviction. And, as an extrovert, whatever the thinks and feels is verbalized aloud, including “ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch!!” when his feet hit the floor, and “hi kitty, kitty, kitty!” when he ran into the cat. Followed by: “good girl, yes you are, YES YOU ARE, are you hungry, yeah, here you go, good girl!”

By now, I was sure that it must be noon and I had surely overslept the whole day. I wondered why I was so exhausted that I couldn’t even life my head from the pillow to see what time it actually was. I felt plastered to the sheets and beated up, and despite the sound of so much life occuring around me, I chose to try and get a few more winks in.

But, after what seemed like forever of every morning sound possible, and the smell of fresh coffee brewing, combined with the growing guilt that I had slept the whole day away, I made myself arise.

It was 4:26 a.m.

So, now here I am blogging instead of sleeping, my stomach in crampy knots and my mind already racing and unwilling to reattempt sleep. And my dear husband happily prepping for his day, including the early church service he has decided to go to (no doubt to pray for his soul before I murder him!)

I have decided that if I must be up that I may as well be productive, and have spent a little time researching both hypoglycemia and the stress echo that I have scheduled for tomorrow. I have hit the road running, in fact.

I am rather excited because I found some articles on delayed dumping syndrome, whereby instead of the typical crampiness, nausea and diarrhea that is better known when one eats too much sugars after gastric bypass, there is a lesser known type that strikes from 1-3 hours later, in which hypoglycemia is the primary symptom. For the same reasons as the first, however, making it a factor of the surgery itself. Which for me would both explain why I now have it and never did that I know of before, and why it can exist in isolation from diabetes. It also helps identify the source as a sudden overload of sugar that overwhelms the system, forcing a surge of insulin and adreniline that flushes the system, and brings on sudden hypoglycemic symptoms. Or something like that.

But, the best description and reason I have seen yet. And to me, may also explain why I am more prone when my other hormones are also more likely to be out of kilter or surging.

The other thing I looked up, especially after watching the Barbara Walter’s special on heart disease with Debbie and Tom last night, is stuff about the stress echo. I now feel prepared for what is to come, but a little more anxious then I was about the possibility of them finding something. I have had a dull boring chest pain intemittently the last few days, which seems timely given everything. I am “eager” to see what this may or may not be…hopefully the latter. I’ll certainly say more here tomorrow…

In any case, the day is still young (hardly born yet, if you ask me!) and when I sign off here I plan to check into a few more things. But mostly, I plan to enjoy the fact that I now have such a long day ahead of me. Although I am not likely to share THIS version with Tom!!