Steroids are nasty

So I’m pretty sure that my high blood pressure was caused by a combination of pain and the methylprednisolone that I was put on to relieve the pain from my swollen tonsils. This stuff is evil.

I took my last dose of the stuff last Thursday and my blood pressure has been slowly coming back down. But by Friday it had not decreased enough for my concerned coworkers and I had significantly different BP readings from my left and right arms, which apparently is a bad sign. So they gave me an EKG.

Nothing like having to lift up your boob for your coworker to stick electrodes under. The EKG was abnormal, but not heart attack kind of abnormal. My doctor friend who reviewed it said that it was probably nothing and could be connected to the steroids, but that I definitely needed to see my PCP about the high blood pressure. At the doctor yesterday, they took another abnormal EKG and numerous blood pressure readings. By the time I had finally calmed down, it was down to 128/88. Much better than my previous readings of 140/110 and 158/108. Goes to show you how much pain and stress can affect those things. 

My primary care physician agreed that it was most likely nothing, but she is sending me to a cardiologist for an evaluation and stress test just in case. On my 33^rd birthday, I get to go see Dr. Okun. 

This is not how I envisioned spending part of my birthday, but oh well. Jay is probably happy because it means that I’m bailing on book club and now we get to go to dinner instead. And since we’ll be on “the other side of the bridge,” we will have plenty of great restaurant options in Annapolis and Baltimore. I’m sure that everything will be okay, but it will be nice to have him with me at my appointment.

All of that said, I’m not really sure what is going on with my diet right now. I’ve been committed to recording everything I eat with LoseIt, and have remained under my target calories for the past 8 weeks. However, somehow I’ve gained 2 pounds in the last week, while as long as I stick to my plan, I should be losing a pound a week. I think it is probably all water retention from the steroids and that this time of the month isn’t great for me. So I’m trying to be patient. I'm still exercising every other day, if not every day. I've been walking, doing the elliptical, and swimming. Over the weekend I did the stationary cycle and used the rowing machine. So my body seriously needs to get its act together.

Since I’m not sure how the diet is affecting me health-wise, I am trying to keep my saturated fats and sodium low. I caved a bit in the carbs department, but I haven’t completely caved to the point of eating pizza, French bread and French fries. But I did have a rough day last Friday. I had two tater tots, a big slice of delicious pineapple, part of a chocolate dipped banana from Edible Arrangements  and several fried green beans. And too many cocktails at Harry’s. I’m now trying to keep around/under 40-60 net grams of carbs a day and under or around 20 grams of saturated fat a day. My current struggle is with nuts. I am shoveling fistfuls of almonds and walnuts into my mouth. I convince myself that since almonds and walnuts are heart healthy that eating a pound in one sitting is perfectly acceptable.

Okay, I may be exaggerating with eating an entire pound of nuts, but I haven't exactly been counting them out.

In other news, we are running out of time to figure out who is taking care of our critters while we’re away. 

Mind you, this is when we LAND in Brisbane. We are down to 31 days before our flight leaves.

Normally I’d be fine with asking our friends to take care of the chickens, but three weeks is a lot to ask of someone. Plus this vacation is going to require cleaning litter boxes, and I don’t want to ask that of my friends. When you’re spending over ten grand on a vacation, another few hundred bucks for a pet/house sitter shouldn’t be an issue. However, Jay still won’t make a decision on whether he is going to ask a slightly odd guy he knows from the Masons. So I think he just wants me to take care of it. I sent out a message to our book club to ask for recommendations… some of the women have college age kids who might want to earn a few easy bucks. Fingers crossed.

My aunt Nancy has been sending these photos almost daily. I can almost smell the salt in the air.

This picture was taken FROM A McDONALD'S! Seriously, how beautiful is this place that even the McDonald's has this kind of view?

Hey, I just met you... but this could kill you!

Well, there must be something going on around the Blogosphere (or maybe my Atkins buddies) because my friend Kelly had a bit of a health scare a few weeks ago.

It looks like it’s my turn! I’ve been doing Atkins for seven weeks now and have lost 12-ish pounds. The first week I felt weird, but I attributed it to being an out of balance electrolyte thing. I had some chicken stock and everything was fine. Clearly the diuretic effect of the Atkins diet is screwing with me. Or maybe it was just the Atkins flu. 

Fast forward to last weekend where I was completely miserable. My throat was disgusting. My tonsils were enormous and covered in puss. I considered sharing the photo on the blog, but decided that was just TMI. So, I showed the photo to one of my doctor friends at work and she told me that I needed to get antibiotics. On Saturday, I took my sick butt to Your Doc’s In. The PA took one look at my throat and burst out laughing, “YEAH! You NEED ANTIBIOTICS!!” I told her that I knew that already.

Then she says, “There must be some mistake… you say that you’re not on blood pressure medication.” I said no, my blood pressure is always low – 110/70. She shakes her head and says, “No, you’re hypertensive. Your BP is 140/110. Are you sure you aren’t on any blood pressure medications, because you should be.” I convince her that it must just be because I’m in so much pain. My discharge papers list my first condition as hypertension instead of the strep throat that I came in with.

Great.

So I’m thinking this must be some kind of mistake. For the last month and a half, I’ve been dieting and exercising my ass off, have lost weight, and now I’m hypertensive?

So all this week I’ve been stressed about it and my chest has felt tight. I chalk it up to anxiety. I still think that a lot of it has to do with anxiety. If I could just freaking relax, it would be better. But now the seed of doubt has been sowed and every weird pain or tightness doubtlessly sends my blood pressure into stroke country. Which makes me more anxious. Which makes my pulse race and my blood pressure skyrocket. 

It's a vicious cycle.

Earlier this week, I mentioned my doctor's office experience to my friend at work Grace, who also happens to be the ED manager and my favorite coffee buddy. 

“That’s really high. You need to check it. Landra is in triage, ask her to check it for you.”

I suppose that I inherited some of my dad’s stubbornness when it comes to health problems. I’m in denial. Oh… and yes, my dad suffered from high blood pressure. So my denial is stupid, since I know these things can be genetic.

So of course, I put it off. Grace asked me again today how my blood pressure was. I sheepishly told her that I hadn’t had it checked.

She hauled me out to triage and checked it herself. It was 133/105. Still high. She said that it’s the diastolic (bottom) number that is the concern moreso than the top. She gave me a bit of a lecture on how important it is that I take this seriously. Consider me admonished.

I think that it may have something to do with my sodium intake. I also mentioned it to my boss, who agreed that the high blood pressure could be due to my excess ingestion of sodium. Looking back through my LoseIt app, I’ve been consuming between 500 and 1000 more mg of salt than is recommended. So I’m going to be reducing my sodium intake big time. Hopefully reducing my sodium to a normal level will make my blood pressure decrease to something that won’t kill me. Like back to my usual 110/70.

That said, I’ll be checking my blood pressure each day at work and I’ve agreed to call my doctor next week if it’s not lowered by then.

Fingers crossed that salt is the problem. If not, I suppose that genetics are finally catching up with me. Which sucks, since diabetes also runs in my family. 

On the bright side, at least I work in the ER where medical help is only steps away!

Wordless Wednesday - not missing those 11 pounds

Another fabulous day

Today, Jay and I are consumer-debt free. Jay is also an official home-owner. I figured that he deserved it after all of his hard work on "my" house.

Tonight we are booking our flights to Australia and New Zealand. We depart for our trip in just 51 days! The itinerary has changed somewhat, as we begin making actual inquiries and plans.

My aunt and uncle will be picking us up in Brisbane and taking us to her home in Surfer's Paradise. We'll stay with her for two days, then the four of us will go down to Coolangatta and stay at the Sebel for three days in a lovely 2 BR apartment. There is a place called Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary where we can cuddle koalas on the way to Coolangatta, so there is no need to visit the place in Brisbane when we arrive jet-lagged. Another thing that we're planning to do in Coolangatta is try out diving . I'd rather realize that I hate diving early in our trip rather than dive for my first time at the Great Barrier Reef, have a panic attack and then be eaten by sharks. We'll then travel back to Surfer's with Nancy & Darryl for our final night. The next morning (Sunday May 19th), we'll be at the airport early for our flight to Airlie Beach and our Whitsunday Cruise.

So that is the trip update!

I've thought a lot over the past year (especially with having a blog) that I would like to get back into photography. It kinda runs in the family. My dad was an excellent photographer, my cousin is an incredible photographer... my mom is an avid photographer,  so hey, it's in my blood. I was into photography in my youth and even won a few prizes entering my photos in the county fair. Back then we shot with film, of course. A month ago I asked my photographer friend Laura for advice on  buying an inexpensive but decent DSLR. After considering her advice, I've decided to go with a refurbished Nikon D80 from B&H photo with a 18-55mm zoom lens.  My new toy should arrive before the weekend! So hopefully my next posts will have some REAL photos in them.

On to the diet... I am down a total of 9 pounds. I think that I'm actually down 10, but the scale wasn't as friendly to me today.

I'm debating whether I should go to the next step down in Atkins - the OWL stage. In OWL, you gradually increase your net carb intake to 25 grams of net carbs the first week. The next week, you increase the net carbs to 30, and so on until you find the right amount without gaining weight.

I'm 22 pounds from my ultimate goal weight, but only 11 pounds from no longer being considered overweight.

I'm happy to report that I've been consistent about exercise as well. I've been to the gym or exercised every other day for at least the past two weeks. My exercise buddy has an injured knee and can't do the regular machines or classes, so tomorrow we are going to attempt to swim laps at the Y. And hoping to not look like complete fools. The doggie paddle is my best stroke, so I might be in trouble!

Oh and I almost forgot - we will have new babies coming next week! My boss is hatching out some of our eggs, so we will have silkie and gold/black star crosses hatching around Friday. Should be some interesting looking chicks. Those are on top of the 15 chicks that I ordered back in November. It sure seemed like a good idea at the time! I'm thinking of giving away or selling 5 or 6 of them, plus a few of my girls that are already laying. A few people I've talked to were interested in trying out chickens. I told them that they could borrow some of mine and if they discovered it wasn't for them that they could give them back.

That's it for now. Fingers crossed for some decent photos to appear next week!

Today is a fabulous day

After several setbacks in our refinancing saga, we closed on our loan today - at 3.75% fixed for 30 years. AWESOME. I've never been so excited to pay off bills. As of next Wednesday, Jay and I will have $0 in consumer debt, have the funds available to finish our house (HVAC, crawlspace insulation, new shed/shop, privacy fence), have 4 months worth of emergency savings, and last but not least will have our Australia/New Zealand trip paid for. Oh, and did I mention that the refinance will also be saving us $500 a month? So with our new savings plan, we will be socking away 10% of our income, which we should really be doing anyway. We had been doing a great job with our savings, but car repairs or other unexpected expenses would always chip away at the account. My 401k is also quite happy these days. Financial stability is feeling mighty great.

To save even more, we've been thinking of getting rid of DirecTV, but our favorite shows are on SyFy, which doesn't work well with Hulu Plus or Netflix. Rather annoying. In three more years, we will also have paid off our DR timeshare (although I expect that we'll get suckered into the next level when we go back) and Jay's student loan will also be paid off, saving us even more money each month. We're keeping his student loan since the interest rate is so low.

I'm also getting a massage after work (a gift from one of my coworkers that I finally booked - great timing!)... plus Jay and I are going out to dinner to celebrate our loan closing! 

I've lost 8 pounds so far on Atkins. Not as much weight as I was hoping to lose in a month, but it's progress. I'm hoping to lose at least 16 pounds before our trip. However, as long as I lose at least 12 pounds before May, I will be back within "normal" limits. To weigh what I did when Jay and I started dating, I will need to lose about 25 more pounds. However, I would be happy with a 23.1 BMI (losing an additional 18 lbs or total weight loss of 26 lbs).

That's it for now! Hope to post about some of our New Zealand activities over the weekend. :)

 

I haven’t had a slice of bread in three weeks

It’s probably the longest I’ve gone without having bread, rice, or pasta in my life. What I wouldn’t give for a fresh crusty piece of French bread slathered in mashed potatoes and angel hair pasta. Mmmm.

In reality, Atkins is not that bad. The first week was the worst for sure… I felt so bad on the fifth day that I had a PA at work check my blood sugar because I thought I was dying. Turned out that I just needed some delicious salty chicken broth. Your electrolytes can get all out of whack on Atkins, especially during that first week.

There have been some other discoveries, like when I realized that this delicious Caffe Breve that I’m drinking is full of carbs. Crap. I looked at a carton of half & half and assumed that they don’t put that much in the drink. Well… yeah. This drink has at least 16 grams of carbs in it. Crap. Crap. Crap. I decided to search the interwebs about the amount of carbs in a Caffe Breve and it was bad news. So no more lattes, breves or anything. From now on, I’m sticking to brewed coffee with heavy cream and sugar free sweetener.

The other discovery I’ve made is that the Atkins bars and shakes have made me stall. I bought them probably a week or week & a half into the diet when I thought I was going to die. I needed something crunchy and sweet, and they fit the bill. Depending on my cravings, I’ve been eating anywhere from 1 and 3 of those Atkins shakes/bars/treats. Well, the last week hasn’t been good. I drank too many sprite zero & vodkas at a party over the weekend and have probably not been counting carbs as well as I should. This weekend will be another challenge – a one year old’s birthday party and a fun night out with my girlfriends in Baltimore. I think that I’ll choose a drink like vodka and club soda so that I can pace myself better. Those Bacardi & diet cokes and sprite zero & vodkas just go down entirely too smoothly.

My results? The first two weeks were great! The first week I lost 4 lbs and the second week I lost 3 lbs. Week 3 = 0 pounds. In all fairness, I haven’t been great about going to the gym. I’ve only been going about once a week. Starting today, I’m going to be more disciplined. No more Atkins shakes/bars/treats or fancy coffee drinks. Gym no less than three times a week. No alcohol other than vodka & club soda – and those sparingly.

So last weekend I faced a dilemma… what to make for a party. I googled “low carb appetizers” and came up with a bunch of different recipes for stuffed mushrooms. Most of them called for mayo mixed with cheese and artichokes. YUCK. Straight mayo? No thanks, I’ll make my own concoction.

I ended up making shrimp cocktail and my own version of artichoke dip stuffed mushrooms. Both were gone in fifteen minutes… so I’d say that people liked them!

Here is the recipe… it was incredibly simple!

Artichoke Dip Stuffed Mushrooms

Ingredients:

 8 oz softened cream cheese

1 cup Italian blend cheese – parmesan, romano & asiago

14 oz. can of artichoke hearts

2 lbs baby bella mushrooms, cleaned & stems removed

This made about 40 stuffed mushrooms with 1/4 cup of dip leftover.

Drain and finely chop artichoke hearts. I removed a few of the outer leaves if they were too fibrous.

Mix cream cheese, artichokes & cheese.

Stuff mixture into mushroom caps.

Bake on foil-lined tray at 425 for 25-30 minutes, until tops begin to brown.

Enjoy!

Tom Petty had it right

The waiting really is the hardest part.

 The good news is that we are officially approved for the refinance and the commitment letter has been signed. The bad news is that we are still waiting for the appraisal, which is a condition of the approval. As each day passes, I get more anxious about our home’s value. On Wednesday, our loan officer said that the appraisal was in the review process with the in-between company and that hopefully it would be released tomorrow. Gah!! Well, it’s Friday and the main thing standing between an incredibly fast closing is this stupid appraisal. The appraisal could make or break this refinance. If the appraiser wants to be picky, she could throw in a bunch of things like we have to install railings for our steps or repaint/cover the fascia and soffit. Or maybe she could throw in other things that I haven’t even thought of or noticed.

We’ve wanted to finish the fascia for quite some time, but didn’t know anyone who had a brake. We were not planning to repaint the wood yet again. The plan was to cover the wood with metal, which stands up to the elements much better than wood. It also stands up to birds much better. And squirrels. These critters love to gnaw and peck through wood and nest in our attic. We also haven’t installed railings yet because we are planning to get rid of the brick steps and replace them with wood. So obviously we will do those things, but we just have been busy with the inside of the house. So if we have to do those things first, it will probably put us out another few weeks with the refinance. We’ll have to get the work done and then the appraiser will have to come back out and confirm that those things have been taken care of. I would hope that she would be more lenient since it’s a refinance and not a new purchase.

Part of my relentless obsession over the dollar amount of the appraisal? How much was all of this work really worth? The blood, sweat, tears, stress and the amount of money that we actually put into the house. Will it pay off? Would it have been cheaper to tear the whole thing down and start over? Emotionally, I don't think I could have done that. This was the place I grew up and the place I want to raise my future family. We have put about $80,000 or more into this project, so I am going to be heartbroken if our appraisal doesn't equal the amount of money we put into it.

So… if the appraisal comes back today in the amount that we need with no “subject to” repairs or conditions, I will be a happy camper.

On to the more gooderer stuff!  I’ve been looking forward to this weekend for a long time - this is the first weekend since the beginning of November that we a) haven’t had guests b) have no plans and/or c) Jay hasn’t had to work. We are making a trip to the grocery store tonight and after we get home, our cars are not moving until Monday. I might make it to the gym sometime this weekend, but we’ll see. The Atkins diet is crazy hard, but I’ve had amazing results already. I lost 4 pounds the first week! I know that a few pounds might be water weight. However, I’ve been tracking my exercise and food using LoseIt, and according to that app, I should have lost at least 2 or 3 pounds last week. My clothes feel looser (hurray for less sausage legs) and even though it hasn’t been easy, the quick results have been worth it! I’m hoping that I can stick with the induction phase for at least a month. I do have some challenges coming up – wine and chocolates for the Women’s Club event next Wednesday,  a birthday shindig for a friend next Saturday, more festivities the following weekend. There are plenty of things to get me off track. My plan is that if I’m going to cheat in any way that I have to make up the difference at the gym. I’m going to try hard not to cheat and to stick to a single drink at each event – or have no more than two rum & diet cokes. Or club soda and vodka. Which is disgusting and makes me not want to drink anyway.

So that’s what is up in my world this week. What's up with you?

Before and After

We are nearly done. I am beyond exhausted and hurt all over.

There was a mad rush to get everything done this weekend - getting the porch painted to improve curb appeal, straightening the yard, painting trim in the house, straightening, dusting, sweeping, mopping, shining, staging. You would not believe how filthy the house was - and I feel like we just cleaned it! Constant construction = constant dirt and dust. Jay had to work yesterday, so I busted my ass from the time I got up to the time I crawled into bed. We had hoped to finish the stairs, but at 10 pm last night, I gave up. The steps still needed to be sanded before we stain and poly them and there was no way I had another 2 hours in me. Overall, we spent 51 man hours from Friday through Sunday working on our project. Jay spent 21 hours between Friday and Saturday, I spent 27 hours between Friday and Sunday, and my girlfriend Angela came over and helped us paint for about 3 hours on Saturday.

Why the mad rush? Our house is being appraised today for refinancing. When my dad died, I inherited a substantial sum of money. However, since he wasn't planning on dying anytime soon, the majority of the money was in an IRA. I don't think he knew much about how IRA's work, because the money that he had inherited from my grandparents was all in cash, which he converted to the IRA. Since I wasn't a surviving spouse, nor of retirement age, I took a HUGE hit on taxes, which left me with less than half of the original amount. I won't lie - I spent about half of the remainder on a ring to wear in my dad's memory, furnishing my Odenton apartment, paying the disparity in rent between what I was putting in to make up for my ex not making much money, Ann Taylor clothes for work (and good makeup & skincare products) and took some nice vacations with the ex (which was also mostly on my dime). The rest of the money went to dumpster rental and some emergency repairs with the house, mainly the roof and porch to the tune of $30,000. By the time I met Jay, most of the money was gone - so I had to take out a home equity line of credit for the actual rehab project. And of course aforementioned rehab project ended up taking more time and costing way more than what I took out from the HELOC. So that is the long story short of why we are refinancing. Once the new conventional mortgage is in place, we will be saving almost $500 a month - or more, if the appraiser gives us a better LTV (loan to value).

Add all of this work to the Atkins diet that I started last Wednesday? My body is screaming for more nourishment. I probably should have eaten more this weekend, but we were so busy. The thing that I've noticed about Atkins is that I'm not as hungry, and things with the least number of carbs suddenly tastes ultra sweet. We had green beans on Saturday and they tasted sugary to me. Weird! So that's going pretty well, but I need to force myself to eat more often. Today is day six and I feel pretty shaky this morning. I'm sure it's because I didn't eat enough this weekend and I put my body through hell.

Unfortunately I don't have photos of every room for the before comparison.

So, without further ado... I give you the final comparison (and some in-between) photos:

Not too shabby, eh? :)