Monday, April 18, 2011

How Do You Know He Loves You?


Enchanted is definitely one of my favorite "feel-good" movies thus this song if often stuck in my head. In fact I have been thinking a lot about this very thing over the last few weeks.

My mom and I were talking recently about the need women have for their husbands to show and tell their wives constantly how much they love him.

My prince has yet to fail me. If anything I'm pretty sure his love for me has grown regardless of the difficulties we face.

How do I know?

1.) He hasn't left me or even thought of it despite the fact that I often feel like the crazy lady.
2.) The other night he offered to start looking right now for jobs in a different city where I
would be able to find a job in my field as well. (No this isn't an announcement)
3.) He will bring flowers home when I'm feeling a little bit down.
4.) He doesn't chastise me when I don't get as much done as I could/should.
5.) He finds ways to distract me from my current ailments such as puzzles and games.
6.) He takes care of the chores and meals when I can't and usually does so without much
complaint.
7.) He's pretty good about not solving my problems but rather being supportive and trying to be
understanding.
8.) He is constantly trying to build me up.
9.) My dreams and aspirations are just as important as his.
10.) He tells me ALL the time.

Oh and did I forget to mention that even after a week of doing little more than showering and putting on the pair of pajamas he still tells me I'm the most beautiful girl he's ever seen? That's right, absolutely no make-up, sometimes even the hair was lucky to get combed, no keeping up with the eyebrows, nothing. Best of all, I'm pretty sure he actually meant it regardless of how I felt about myself.

This list could go on and on. I have just felt his love these last few weeks when I needed it most and know that I am truly blessed to have someone like him in my life. It's how I am able to move on.

Sunday, April 10, 2011

So Sick of Being Sick

This is going to be one of the venting posts, continue at your own risk.

So after my awesome ER visit for the stomach flu the doctor wrote up three prescriptions: 1.) To help my stomach problems 2.) To ease the nausea and 3.) To battle my anxiety. I left the hospital knowing that the next week wouldn't be fun and it would be a recovery week, after all I was pretty sure my esophagus and stomach had been left raw.

I didn't mind so much taking those three medications for a while. They relieved some of the pain and I slept through the rest. However, when I would fight the urge to sleep I apparently looked stoned. I went into my regular doctor a week later and she was shocked to see my prescription for the anxiety given my history and hate of a previous medicine. I had been given another anxiety medicine that was highly addictive, at the highest dose which could mean a terrible withdrawal process. Lucky for me I had only taken it for a week so it wasn't as bad as it could have been.

My doctor kindly put me onto an anxiety medicine that was supposed to be easy to get on and off. What she didn't tell me was her definition of easy and what I should expect. From day one I was as sick as a dog. Not only was I feeling extremely nauseous but in a lot of physical pain. (Prepare yourself for a TMI). One side effect was the kind that sends you to the toilet every few minutes, and it wasn't to throw up thank goodness. Because of this side effect there were hours and hours of painful gas that blew through my stomach like that of train. When it was all over I could hardly move, my stomach was in so much pain. I would feel my "best" about and hour or more before I needed to take my next dose and then the whole process was repeated.

This led to many sleepless nights and days upon days of sitting on the sofa with a hot pad on my stomach as much as possible. My ability to eat or want to eat has gone way downhill. Last time I took an anxiety medicine it took me a week before I started to feel normal. My counselor also said it was a good thing my body was reacting the way it was so quickly to such a low dose. It was a sign that it was working and my body was recognizing it. I made it five days and to no avail none of the symptoms were showing any mercy and my anxiety and stress were actually going up. That's when I decided I couldn't go on another day. I couldn't even make it a week.

Yesterday I skipped my first dose. I was hoping that things would start to feel a little better but so far I feel as crappy as ever. I have mixed feelings about my decision which of course in turn causes more stress but I made a choice and now need to stick by it.

I hate feeling so sick! I hate medicines! I hate that there is really nothing at this point I can do to improve any of this except wait and hope that my choice was a correct one and in a few days I will feel more like myself, something I haven't felt for over two weeks.

The good thing? I have a very patient and loving husband who is trying his best to help me as best he can through this.

I'm ready to step out of this personal hell and move forward.

Friday, April 1, 2011

Keeping Up With the Healthy

So after coming home from a Spring Break filled with a bunch of crap food I made some serious goals to improve my eating habits. For one week The Prince and I were not going to eat any processed sugar but rather substitute it with things like this bowl of plain cheerios and strawberries (one of my fav's). In addition I was aiming to drink 8 glasses of water a day and working out.

I did really well the first few days, I found my snacking cravings went up as I got rid of the treats but that too became manageable.

Then I got sick and not just any ordinary sickness (no I'm not pregnant). I caught the worst case of stomach flu known to man last Friday. I had hardly eaten anything. To be exact I had one small bowl of cheerios and glass of milk in the morning and a glass of water in the after. Starting around four it all started coming out. To keep from going into grotesque details just know that for about five hours strait me and my toilet or were held together by strong bonds.

At that point The Prince took me to the er. I can't tell you enough what a great man he is. He stood patiently by the door listening to all those wonderful sounds just to make sure I wasn't dying, because I sure felt like it. There was even one particular time he came in to hold my hair back which was not exactly dry if you know what I mean. The hospital hydrated me, got my heartbeat down to an acceptable level, gave me some medicine for the nausea and some sort of medical cocktail to numb my throat and stomach so I didn't have to feel the pain for a while.

Here I am a week later still terrified of food and have thus thrown anything health related out the door. My stomach is still raw and having a hard time with digestion. One again the Prince came to my rescue buy going to the grocery store and stock piling on things I could eat like jello and pudding, crackers, juice, basically soft things.

I'm hoping that I won't always feel this way and I can someday return to a normal schedule.