Stuffed and Content

Yesterday I tried dim sum for the first time. Here is a wikipedia article about it. It was quite interesting. I'm not sure how much I actually liked, but I am willing to give it another chance. It certainly helped that I was with someone who spoke fluent Cantonese so that I could have some idea about what it was eating. There were a lot of mushrooms involved, which I do not like (it's a fungus!!!!) and I think that contributed to why I did not enjoy it that much. It also could be just the restaurant because I have nothing else to compare it to.

Later, I went out to eat with my dad and some of his friends. We went to a really nice Italian restaurant and the food was really good. I got a dish called chicken Mediterranean which was chicken, pasta, feta cheese, tomatoes and spinach in a lemon sauce. It was so good. The only thing I did not like was that there was no sangria on the menu ;-).

All this eating out stands pretty much against the way I am trying to change my eating habits. I'm all about the home cooked meals, especially as I wage war against prednisone and it's weight-gaining ways. It is so much easier to control what you are eating when you know you prepared it yourself. For example, there is an Au Bon Pain at the hospital that I use. I spent most of the morning and afternoon there on Tuesday and did not feel like paying for parking so my dad went with me to the first appointment and then came back to pick me up after the second. While I was waiting I got some lunch at Au Bon Pain and decided to get their southwestern cornbread for me and my dad. When I got home I looked up the nutritional information of the cornbread and found that it contains 560 calories and 30 grams of fat (!!!). This is over half, and almost all, of the fat that try to eat in one day.

I'm fairly certain that I can make my own cornbread without all the fat and calories. Since I really, really enjoy cooking, I don't mind trying to remake recipes. I'm very happy that restaurants have started to post the caloric content of their menu items because it makes it so much easier when you are eating out. But it also dissuades me from eating out a lot because I can see exactly what I am eating.

Anyway, Merry Christmas Eve to all those who celebrate it!

No Answers, But What Else Is Knew?

I had my appointment with the endocrinologist today and while something being off was definitely noted, what that something may be was not. As I have said before, my calcium levels are high and I have a problem with kidney stones. I currently have a about 4-6 sitting in each kidney and every once in a while it goes acute and causes me a lot of pain. I have never been able to have one of these stones analyzed to find out what they are made of, but with my calcium issues it has always been assumed they are made out of calcium.

The endocrinologists seemed to want to get a better handle on what the stones are made of. Usually when calcium is high, another hormone called the parathyroid hormone will also be abnormal. In my case, the doctor called it "inappropriately normal". This confused them and opens up other possibilities for why my calcium is high. None of which are that good, and none of which I really want to get into right now mainly because it's kind of scary.

The plan for now is to redo the calcium, parathyroid and all of those tests. I'm getting more kidney function tests and some other hormone tests. Then we can make a decision as to whether imaging needs to be done of the parathyroid gland to check for masses and if the doctors need to actually retrieve the stones from my kidneys to verify the stone's composition. Just hearing how the stones would be retrieved made me cringe.

I also saw my endometriosis specialist today and I am reducing my Aygestin. He basically said anytime my prednisone doses are changed around it will interact with my Aygestin and cause the problems I have been having. But since my lungs like to swell up so much, getting off the prednisone is proving kind of difficult.

I'm pretty discouraged. I just want my body to work. There were other alternatives mentioned that are too hard to really think about right now, and my mind is spinning a little bit. It just seems like every time something starts to do right, I fall back into another medical quagmire. And I am getting very sick of it.

Back to School

So I leave to go back to school tomorrow. I am not packed, but I just finished my last shopping trip so I really have no excuse. Well, actually, not all the clothes are dry, so...

Anyway, this semester is gearing up to be just as crazy as all the other ones. I am going to continue working both jobs and take six classes, plus I just signed up for intramural soccer. It's a little bit of a crazy schedule, but I am hoping all this activity helps me keep off the prednisone weight. My biggest fear, of course, is weight gain. I can stand gaining it in my face, as I definitely have, but not anywhere else. The face will go down once I stop, but I have worked too hard to lose the weight everywhere else to go through it again.

I do not have a meal plan this semester so I will be entirely on my own for food. This is both good and bad. I can have control over everything I eat and control the fat, calories, sodium, whatever else, but I also will have to do more planning out of what I eat. Of course, I think I will be able to get into the dining halls sometimes when I eat with friends.

I'm looking forward to starting this year. It's my last as an undergrad (finally!!) so hopefully it will go well!

Doing Better

I'm doing a lot better than yesterday. My stomach feels better and I only have a mild headache, not a migraine. Today was pretty unventful. I only had 2 classes and got to go back to my apartment for lunch. Then I went to work and now I am back in my apartment. I have a paper due tomorrow and a meeting tonight. So I will be busy for the rest of the evening.

I can't wait until Spring Break starts on Friday. I don't want to go into work on that day, but I need the money. I guess I will decide by Wednesday so I can let my boss know. I already asked my dad to buy a cornish hen so I can have my favorite dinner. I can't seem to find cornish hens out here.

I Have to Brag...

I just made a really good dinner. The apartment smelled amazing. I bought some chicken legs and seasoned them with dried thyme, garlic powder, salt and pepper. Then I sliced some onion and put that into the baking pan. I put some minced garlic in there too and covered the bottom of the pan with some chicken broth. I stuck it in the oven at 375 for 55 minutes and out came delicious-ness on a plate. Next time I will add some lemon and season the chicken a little heavier. I accompanied the chicken with spinach with garlic and herb chicken couscous.

I am pleasantly stuffed now.

I think my headache has finally broken, but I have not stopped bleeding yet. I took my migraine medicine Midrin last night with 600 mg of ibuprofen. I woke up with my head aching a little, but I might have finally beat this headache. The bleeding has not slowed down as much as I hoped it would. Another double dose of Aygestin. I also need to start taking my weekly superdose of Vitamin D again tonight as my levels are low.

I do not have my first class tomorrow...thank goodness. I'm almost done reading a book that needs to be done by Wednesday and I started making flashcards for the next chapter of Spanish. I'm hoping to get some reading done for Media Programming done also tonight, but I will see if that happens.

Hope everyones upcoming week goes great!

P.S. That weight post is coming!

Slowly but Surely?

This bleeding thing I hope is beginning to resolve. I think it may have slowed down tonight, but I'm not entirely sure. I will take another double dose of Aygestin tonight. Unfortunately, I have been dealing with a headache since last night and I have been running a fever over 100 today.

In better news, I have made really nice dinners for myself the past couple days. I made chicken fajitas last night and lemon caper chicken tonight. DEE-licious. Tomorrow I will make oatmeal chicken, which is really just a way of making mock fried chicken. I'm really loving this cooking thing.

I really hope I stop bleeding soon. I'm not sure why it is happening, but I really don't want to go through another ultrasound, more tests, etc. I'm sick and tired of doctors. I want to be LEFT ALONE. Every two weeks I am poked, prodded and stuck with needles. I am so tired of it. I hate having to take time out of my life to schedule in a doctors appointment or a lab visit. My rheumatologist mentioned having me see a kidney specialist due to the radiology report I got when I was having my gall bladder removed. Ugh. NO MORE DOCTORS.

I'm heading to bed soon. This headache won't quit and I am supposed to go to the gym in the morning.

Dates

So I am having my gall bladder removed on January 11, which is a little later than I hoped. From everything I read it can take about 2 weeks to start to feel normal again, even with a laproscopic approach. Hopefully that will not be the case because I move back to school January 18. I decided to hold off on my wisdom teeth until May 28 because I do not think my body will handle both surgeries in such a small amount of time.

Also having the surgery later means I have more time to worry about it. And of course I am. I have had surgery before, but always because they were looking for something or removing something that was not supposed to be there. Not to remove a whole organ. I handle anesthesia pretty well - I had a small problem with my heart racing too fast and making me feel short of breath the first time - but that went away in a day or two. I never got sick to my stomach and, really, I spent most of the next few days sleeping. Thats not the part that bothers me. It's the part about removing part of my internal plumbing.

But anyway, I have done nothing but relax the past couple days. I am going to roast my very first chicken tonight, so we will see how that goes. I love to cook, and I love chicken. But I have never cooked anything bigger than a cornish hen (my favorite dinner). So this much larger chicken should be intersting. I am making it with thyme and lemon and it will be accompanied with roasted pecan and gralic bulgur and garlic spinach. Should be tasty!