Savor the Moment

So many things lead to this point in time. Tonight/tomorrow we are expecting snow.  Yes, snow in April.  Not only are we expecting snow, but we are expecting accumulation of several inches.  Last weekend we were outside spraying each other with the garden hose!  Last weekend I rode my bike on the trail.  Monday just past, it was in the 90s for the Boston Marathon.  Tomorrow, parts of PA and NY are going to get over a foot of snow.  I am thankful I spent most of last weekend outdoors.  Just as my title says, savor the moment.  Who knows what tomorrow will bring.

Exercise.  Many of us take it for granted.   Many of us don’t do it.  We always say we will.  But we never seem to start or if we do, we don’t continue. There is always tomorrow, or is there?  My hip is continuing to get worse.  I am still able to get about and I could still probably run or cycle but the payback pain isn’t worth it.  We walked for 3 hours with the kids at the mall on Saturday.  Today I struggled to walk around the supermarket.  For those who keep saying they will start tomorrow, my advice to you is start today and enjoy every moment of it.  I had hoped to train for my third marathon this summer and perhaps get a couple of short distance triathlons in.  Now I am wondering if I will be spending my summer recovering from surgery.  For those who can, savor the moment.

And how am I doing with the spring cleaning?  I devoured a bottle of wine on Friday night.  Not very pleased with myself for doing this but one slip up in about 3 weeks is pretty good.  I fought the temptation to refill my Ambien prescription today.  I have no reason to do this.  I don’t seem to need it right now and it wreaks havoc with my short-term memory.  It makes me sleep like a baby though!  Migraines/headaches have been responding well to Zomig and nothing has escalated to the point of requiring intervention from a health care provider.  This is good news.  Perhaps I am finally outgrowing my migraines!

Tomorrow it is back into the battle zone at work, but I do actually practice what I preach.  We had a fabulous weekend with the kids, even though the weather was miserable.  Littlest one fell asleep before 10 PM tonight which is a miracle!  Now I am going to savor some moments of responsibility-free time.

Life in the Fast Lane

Long time, no blog.  This isn’t an unusual phenomenon for me.  I have these wonderful intentions to write daily but life just gets in the way.  Take for instance, the fact that both kids got strep throat.  Before they had even finished their course of antibiotics, dear child number 1 wakes up with horrendous croup.  Several days later, dear child number 2 wakes up with even worse croup.  A day later, dear mom wakes up with a rotten sore throat.  And so it goes.

Work has been steady and ever challenging.  But this is a good thing.  I haven’t been as stressed as in previous weeks which means that I haven’t felt the need to self-medicate.  In fact, tonight, for the first time since, well, I am not sure, I would have to read back through my posts to see when the last drink I had was, I had some wine.  I bought a bottle (after much deliberation) to have with dinner.  I had one glass of wine with dinner and a second after dinner.  It was a very drawn out process though and it left me without any buzz whatsoever!  I had no desire to keep drinking to seek that buzz either.  This is a major breakthrough for me.  I wasn’t sure if I’d be capable of sensible drinking again and this gives me great hope.

Along with my sore throat, I have had really nasty headaches and so I have had to dig into the migraine meds the past two mornings.  But they did their thing – one pill each morning of the weekend – and I have managed to have a reasonable weekend.  I even wiped the cobwebs from my bike and went out for a ride on Saturday morning.  It has been a very long time since I have been on the bike.  It will be quite some time before I can sit on the seat again!  My hip pulled up sore after the ride and I continue to chase down a specialist who can give me a firm diagnosis for the source of pain.  Because the weather was relatively nice this weekend, I managed to get out into the garden to dig up weeds and plant new plants.  In a couple more weeks, I will head to the nursery to buy some seedlings.

I love to watch things grow.  Gardening is something that my boys can help me with too.  Last year, they each planted a gerbera daisy plant.  My older son delighted in watching it flower all summer.  I love gerberas so I plan to do this again this year.  They don’t seem to have much interest in vegetable gardening just yet!

Well that is about the sum of my life over the past few weeks.  I am proud of myself for not hitting the bottle and I am not feeling guilty for enjoying a drink tonight.  I never intended to quit drinking altogether, although there have been times when I wondered if I would need to.  I am still trying to figure out how to spend enough time with the kids in addition to working, keeping a clean house, and exercising.  Exercising has somewhat fallen by the wayside due to the hip pain, but the house still needs to be cleaned, meals to be cooked etc.  I wonder if working moms ever truly figure this out?  If so, please let me know how you do it!

Day 2: Make Me or Break Me Day

Usually on day two of a detox, I have convinced myself that I am not a problem drinker and that one beer after work isn’t going to hurt. And so, I have that one beer! Today I didn’t do it! I almost did because let’s face it, I felt like one. Just one. And I probably would have had just one. I don’t seem to need to keep going with beer like I do with wine. But, for two reasons, I didn’t reach for the beer. The first being that I am determined to do this. The second being, there is no beer in the house LOL. There is however, Black Cherry Lemonade which is very, very good. I don’t even like cherry flavored stuff but this stuff is gooooood!

Also on day two is the no unnecessary ingestion of Lortab. This was a pretty big battle today for two reasons. First, I had a headache. Wasn’t bad, but was annoying, and like all headaches, it had the potential to transform into a migraine. But I was feeling as though it probably wouldn’t, and I was correct. Second, I went for a 2 mile run this morning. Finally decided to check out the hip to see if any of my exercises were working. Turns out that 8 days of strengthening exercises and stretches do not help at all. By late afternoon, my hip was considerably painful. Now, instead of taking Lortab (I only have 8 left until sometime next month), I took Panadeine. This is an over-the-counter medicine available in Australia that contains acetaminophen and codeine. The codeine is in ridiculously miniscule doses which I doubt have any greater effect than the acetaminophen alone, but I took it just the same. I needed to at least try for a placebo effect. At least the pain got me on the phone making all sorts of appointments around town to try to sort this out.

Tonight I would like to introduce a third addiction of mine – Ambien. I have had sleep-onset insomnia all my life. This was a real problem as a kid and now it is just a real nuisance. Ambien changed my life. I could finally sleep again. I don’t even care if I am addicted to the stuff. There is just one problem with it, it DESTROYS my short term memory and probably has other more subtle effects on cognitive function. So, it is best for me not to keep it in the house. I have prescription refills that will give me enough for 1 a months for the next 3 months but for now, I am not filling it. I want to, but unless I can limit myself to using it only once or twice a week, I refuse to keep it in the house. Tonight will be night 2 without Ambien. In its place I have lorazepam (Ativan). This drug is OK. I use it sometimes. I believe that while I am detoxing from alcohol, Ambien and probably hydrocodone, popping a couple of lorazepams a night is probably a very sound thing to do. I don’t really notice its anxiolytic effects but I think I sleep better with it onboard. Eventually, my goal is to be drug-free except for when needed for the migraines and the arthritis.

I was the crankiest mom you could ever imagine tonight. I knew I was going to be. What with the premenstrual stuff going on which is probably also perimenopausal stuff AND detox, what can you expect? I feel a little sorry for my adorable little boys and a lot sorry for my lovely husband. They get the raw end of the deal when mommy/wifey is like this. But I can promise you all that I do not neglect my children or my husband. They are well taken care of both physically and emotionally. I am also the major breadwinner in this household and have managed to raise us to the social status of “soccer mom family”. Big house, big cars, big vacations, too many toys, a dog, a cat, a hamster and fish. Three fish at the moment. Just put 5 neon tetras into a 10 gal tank and two died right away. The other three look great so hears to hoping that they remain that way.

Ah, but blogging is therapeutic. Every time I thought about a drink or medicine today, I thought about my blog. Heck, no one has even read it yet but just the thought that it is public makes me want to stick to my guns. Now I just need some followers who can encourage or flame me. Tomorrow is going to be a great day!

Day 1, And So Begins the Spring Cleaning

Other than a rip-roaring hangover, which I might add, is very rare for a Monday, the day was perfectly OK. Even with all of my new resolutions, I’d have been hungover today. Yesterday was a retirement party for one of my favorite colleagues. I had to be there and I had to be sociable 🙂

No booze today. Not a drop. Of course, that isn’t uncommon for a Monday because I am usually at work all day and then doing karate in the evening. I have not yet been invited into the inner sanctum where I understand, beer is a favorite sustenance! No karate today either. Since injuring my hip several months ago, I have been very cautious about exercising. In fact, one might go so far as to suggest that I am using the injury as an excuse not to exercise. However, to prove the naysayers wrong, tomorrow morning I am scheduled to meet a friend to run at 8:30 AM. And tonight, it is supposed to reach a low of 25 F. WTF?

Another small feat today – no migraine or pain medicine other than my NSAID for my hip. This is great news for I tend to find a headache pops up whenever I think about my stash of Lortab. Another addiction? I surely hope not. I have to think seriously about this one. I don’t take it daily but I totally freak out if I don’t have any. It is my “emotional” crutch for when I have a migraine. Sure, my zolmitriptan works most of the time, but it doesn’t make me feel better emotionally! Today I hardly gave it a thought. This is a great sign.

Tomorrow I will be feeling less enthusiastic about my no alcohol, no drugs diet. I am yet to have added in the reduction of food-derived calories. That will come when I appear to no longer be losing weight from cutting out the booze. Hopefully, by adding some running back into the mix, this will be a few more weeks. Remember, 1 lb per week is the big goal.

I have been wondering a lot about menopause as of late. I have had some symptoms ever since my second child was born when I was 40. Now I am thinking more about it. I guess that until I stop cycling regularly, I can assume I am not yet there. However, I am a whole week early this week – and heavy. TMI? Too bad, this blog isn’t supposed to be for the faint of heart. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but ALL WOMEN GO THROUGH MENOPAUSE eventually. Yep, it is true. Even little old me. However, I wasn’t expecting it until later. After all, I had my babies at 37 yrs and 11 months, and 40 years and 5 months. Heck, I could keep popping them out for years to come, right? Hmm, maybe not. Ah well. If I could survive the hot flashes that I had a year or so ago, I can survive anything!

Bring on tomorrow…

New Beginnings

How many people start their blogs in exactly this way? Who am I to stray from the crowd? “Spring Cleaning” is a nice name for it. Perhaps “Dexoxing Mom” might be more appropriate. Makes me sound like a horrible drug addict or alcoholic, yet I am really neither of these. However, I am very impulsive and I do what I want when I want. This usually involves food or alcohol, and often, both. Long story short, tomorrow, this changes. Tomorrow, I get back on the proverbial wagon, although I have never intended, and still don’t, intend to remain on it permanently.

Who doesn’t love food? Well, to be honest, nearly every man who has ever been in my life (except for ones who I share various genes with), don’t really care less about food! I hear you gasping with disbelief, yet it is true. My very own husband eats to sustain himself, not for enjoyment. This is as foreign a concept to me as jumping out of a plane. I will never jump out of a plane and I will never be someone who doesn’t eat for pleasure. However, I have heard it said that even “foodies” can lose weight. Although I hardly qualify “Biggest Loser”, weighing in at a grand total of 134 lbs (my guess is that tonight, I would be closer to 140 if I dared get on a scale), my 5 ft 1 frame is not very forgiving when it comes to over-eating. Even the various height-weight scales put me at the high end of the “large frame” range. This never makes me feel good about myself. The second link I checked out after googling “height weight charts” told me that my ideal weight is 106-119 lbs. The last time I weighed that little was 3 months into a nasty bout of mono (glandular fever) at a time when my body was acidotic and showing signs of starvation! Oh, and I was only 119 lbs at that point! I cannot imagine weighing 106 lbs. I doubt that I have ever weighed that little, except sometime during my teens on my way up to where I am now (at a ripe old age of 43).

One pound a week. That is my usual goal. And it is realistic. I can usually achieve this for several weeks by making only one change – cutting out alcohol! I don’t consider myself to be an alcoholic, although I recently heard the term “functioning alcoholic” and wondered if I fit that definition. I have two little kids (5 and 3) and I work full time (as a college professor to boot!). I have never skipped a day of school due to a hangover, nor have I ever not looked after my kids because I am too ill from over-indulging. However, and yes, there is definitely a “however”, I have used LOTS of migraine medicine which one might argue was unnecessary, had I not lost count of the number of drinks that I had.

My migraine safe limit is 2 glasses of wine. Three is like playing Russian Roulette, but I feel the odds are in my favor. Four definitely tips the odds from me. I tried to implement a rule for 2012 – no wine in the house except on special occasions. It is now the end of March and I think I have only bought 3 bottles of wine since the new year. But, wine can be bought at restaurants and beer can be brought into the house. So I think a better policy might be “NO ALCOHOL DURING THE WEEK” and “NO EXCEEDING THE MIGRAINE-TRIGGER LIMIT (2)” on weekends, weekends being Friday and Saturday nights. Special occasions may be exempt if I submit an application for exemption to myself in advance. I will figure out the fine details later.

Being that it is late on a Sunday night, I need to go to bed and think about the new, spring-cleaned me.