Still Icy

It's epically bad out there. We heard almost no cars today, which is good honestly because people do not need to be out in that. 

It's supposed to get better. Hopefully, it will be melted off by Friday, if not, things will be put on hold until it is. Snow is one thing. Ice is a whole other situation. 

Sometimes I don't think people understand the impracticality of people like me (very fat, lots of mobility issues) going out in weather like this. If I fall or end up in a ditch, it isn't as simple as me just getting back up. It's hard for me to get back up in good weather. On the ice, it would be almost impossible. It would be terrifying, and humiliating. Depending on how long it took help to get there and how badly I fell, it could be potentially dangerous.

If I break a bone, it isn't like I can just use crutches until it heals. It takes all I have to balance as it is. Even breaking a wrist would cause a lot of issues because I have to brace myself as I walk, as I sit down, and as I stand up. 

Next week it's supposed to warm up. I'm happy about that. Winter has done its thing. Now it can kindly fuck off and let us live our lives in peace. 

Ice Ice Baby

Schools around the area were out today because of ice on the road. I was a bit concerned but by the time we went shopping, all of the ice had melted to the point that the roads were even dry.

It started sleeting again later in the afternoon. It sounds pretty crusty out there now and we're expected to get more ice tomorrow morning. It's uncertain how the rest of the week will go. Thankfully by Friday, it should be warming up again.

I was supposed to see my doctor on Wednesday, but that appointment was canceled. I'm SO GRATEFUL my roommate advised me to get my meds early. I've got a full month of shots and I don't have to worry about making another appointment to get more. 

More Snow on the Way

Either tomorrow or Tuesday or Wednesday or all three or something it's supposed to rain/snow/ice. Hopefully, it won't happen on any of these days. We have First of the Month stuff to do and other things we need to get handled. 

The pain isn't as intense today as it was yesterday but it's still with me. I got some excellent feedback on my latest story. Overall, it wasn't a bad weekend.

Pain

I have been in so much pain today. The lower half of my body is hurting. I'm guessing this is due to things shifting and changing around. I was also very tired.

I wrote for a while today and did some reading. Outside of driving my roommate to the store, I did nothing productive. Like I said though, lots of pain.

Warmer Thankfully

The meds can make me cold but even with that going on, it was still warmer today than it has been in a while. I still had to spend part of the day in my hoodie but had on fewer layers otherwise. 

I didn't eat much today and honestly didn't want to eat anything. I only ate because I knew I needed to and everything was rather healthy. I'm not resentful about it either. 

I've not even tried to write anything this week, but I'm not really feeling it. Perhaps I'll be more inspired this weekend.

White Tuesday

We got our errands finished just in time today. As we were driving home, the snow was starting to fall. Thankfully we made it to the house before things got too bad. Now, hopefully, we'll have enough melting happen to where it won't be dangerous to drive on Friday.

Millie was upset about something last night. We have no idea what. It's possible she's looking for Tink and can't find her. Hopefully not. I don't want her to be sad.

Snow Worries

We're doing the driving part of our Wednesday routine tomorrow so we can make it before it starts to snow. I'm hoping it stays just warm and wet enough for the snow to not really stick much, but the weather rarely grants my wishes. So we'll see.

Hopefully it will be melted away by Friday. I really dislike this aspect of winter. 

Maybe I wouldn't if I were more mobile and used to it. I know the snow doesn't bother a lot of people, but the older I get, the worse it is for me.

Which is its own level of annoying.

Sunday Assessment

I still continue to keep the food journal.
I still continue to eat less than I was.
I still continue to feel good about this whole situation.

I've not eaten as much fiber as I should, but I'm working on that.
I'm getting enough protein. I'm sure of that.
I'm not moving as much as I should be, but the urge to do so is growing. With time, I believe that will return.

It's supposed to snow this week. I will not go out in the snow. I will not. I'm not putting myself through that. I am not putting my car through it. The last bout of snow was really rough on my car. I'm not risking damage. Things can be rearranged or put off. 

I may have to change my doctor's appointment, but I'm okay with that. I basically have what I needed from the meeting already. We can wait for the three-month appointment. That way we can do lab work again. 

Sleepy Saturday

I slept until about 11. This wasn't a solid sleep. I woke up a few times. Aside from that, however, it's been the best sleep I've had in a while. I was even rested enough to do some face exercises. 

We watched the first half of a movie that while made recently feels so 1970s. It's shot in the same kind of dark way that things were shot at that time and the flow of the plotline reminds me of some of the denser SciFi/horrors at the time. 

My nerves were pretty frayed today. I think I need to focus less on the outside world for a while. There is literally nothing I can do about it. 

The Thing They Don't Understand

I want to talk about hunger.

Whenever the healthy people talk about those of us who are overweight, they act like the way for us to lose weight is simple. Eat less. Move more. It's easy and we're all just...well, name your label....for why we're not thin like them.

What they don't understand is the hunger.

I still get hungry. I think I get Normal Person hungry now. It's faint and reasonable. It's a rational thing that happens sometimes. My body has a need and I should take care of that.

Before the medication, I was hungry all the time. All the time, even after I'd just eaten. My mind would suggest things that would make what I just ate even better. My mind would think about the next meal. I would get excited about it. Happy. I would start making plans for that to happen.

That insistent aspect of my mental self is quiet now. I plan meals, yes. I get excited about the prospect of a good meal. But it's a quiet thing compared to what it was before. It isn't consuming my thoughts. Pardon the pun.

Imagine that you're cold. Completely cold. Like you're constantly in weather lower than your core temperature cold. Now imagine that three times a day, someone hands you a blanket for a while. During that time, you're warmer. Never completely warm, but warmer. 

Sometimes you beg for blankets and sometimes you grab a blanket when no one is looking. But people notice. They don't understand why you're cold because they're perfectly warm. They think you're weak for insisting on being cold. 

Then one day, you take a shot and you're not cold anymore. 

You're aware that the weather does get colder sometimes and during that time you put a blanket on you, but when you warm up, your body tells you that you're warm enough and you honestly don't need the blanket.  You can put it aside without this panic at the idea of the returning cold....because you know you're warm enough and you'll be fine.

That's my life now. And it's glorious.

Second Week Out

I have finished my second week on the meds. This week was considerably more difficult than the last one. My stomach caused me more issues, sometimes to the point of really making me feel bad for hours. My emotional state was shaky. I was often rather cold.

Despite all of that, it was still a good week. I still ate less food than I normally do. I still continued to keep my food journal. I even added a new section to catalog my emotional and physical state for the day.

Given all of that, I'm ending the week on what I see as a positive note.

Rough Day

 My stomach was a mess today. At first nothing would move, then everything did. It left me weak and pretty dizzy. I ended up napping for a while and doing my best to just maintain.

Tomorrow is my third shot. I don't think I faired as well this week as I did the first week. I certainly didn't accomplish as much. It wasn't BADbad, but it wasn't great. 

Hopefully next week will be better.

Blame

We've been watching The Split. It's a BBC show about divorce lawyers who I think are going to get divorced. And probably do it poorly. Something happened in one of the episodes that just really annoyed me.

As a culture, we really really REALLY need to get over this thing where one person cheats and the non-cheating partner is somehow blamed for it. What is up with that? Why would we do that? If one person cheats, that is a THEM thing. It really should not reflect on the other party. They're going through enough as it is.

I mean, we have special names for men when they're cheated on. When women are cheated on, people laugh at them and ridicule them. People blamed H. Clinton for things her husband did. Why? She did not do them. Why blame her?

It's so strange to me that in this moment when we should show someone sympathy because they've been betrayed and had their lives uprooted we, instead, choose to treat them like crap. That's really messed up.

Joy

Seriously, just a joyful day. TWO of my favorite fic writers commented on my work. TWO! AHH, I feel so validated. 

Outside of that, it was a pretty decent day. My body responded pretty well to things. I felt like myself, which is always a bonus. 

The most important thing though is that I wrote and published something. It had been since the first of the month since my last publication. I feel so much better now. 

Journaling about the other Journal

For the first time in my life, I am, voluntarily, keeping a food journal. I figured this was a good idea for my own records and something for my medical provider to see if she wants to.

It's an evolving process. 

At first, I just kept track of my intake, but since constipation is such an issue on this medication, I'm keeping track of my, er, outtake as well. Last night I decided it would be a good idea to jot down something about my mental and physical health as well. This might prove useful in weeks to come when I'm having trouble with various things to see if that was happening at other points. 

Whenever I make my records, I always have an intrusive thought to lie about it, to make things seem less or better or healthier than they truly were. 

This is just dumb, even for an intrusive thought. I would only be lying to myself, after all. Irrational. 

Anyway, it's been good practice for me. I hope it continues.

Rough Day

Today was legit hard. 

I was really exhausted. My stomach wouldn't move anything but kept insisting it should. My mood was abysmal. I was cold. I was just in general very uncomfortable. All day.

I hope tomorrow is better.

Disinterest

It's so weird to find myself disinterested in food.  I ate my little meals today and enjoyed them, but not really the concept or idea of them. It just holds no appeal to me now. And that is strange. 

I hope this doesn't carry over to other aspects of my life.

It may though. Am I prepared to accept that as a side effect? I suppose I am, or I will be, for the duration of however long this takes. 

I really need to dig my way out of this.

One Week

So tonight will be my second shot. I'm not as nervous as I was last time, but, as I said to my roommate earlier today, I'm a bit spooked by this whole process because it seems to be working. 

The back half of the living room now has its bookshelf situation handled. We have a lot of organizing to do on the office end of it, but as far as the books are concerned, we're good. 

We also got some art in today and while the art situation in the living room will be experimented with until settled, but we're getting closer. 

I will say this. I do not think we would be here if I wasn't losing weight. I wouldn't have any of the energy I have right now. So, you know, if nothing else comes of  this, I had a week with enough energy to move around some books and make my life more organized. 

Productive but Tiring

I made some headway on the bookshelf situation. One shelf is completely full of books (and art pads). That is complete and it was very annoying because every cookbook has to be a different size and a weird shape from all the other cookbooks.

Later I pulled books off of the two shelves to be moved. I have books on one shelf still because I ran out of room in my containers. They can just be set to the side though, given that they're not going to be leaving their general location, just their shelf. 

That's really the annoying thing about this move. It's in the middle of a major traffic zone of the house so I had to move the books farther away than I wanted to because I needed to make sure no one would run into them. Tomorrow they will be transported back to the same location, just on a different shelf. 

This is a good move though. It's practical. The taller shelf was about half books/half misc house stuff. Now all the house stuff will be on the smaller shelf and look purposeful next to the other utility shelf. The taller shelf will just be all books.

There needs to be a lot of dusting and I've probably destroyed all the good I did by vacuuming, but at least things are happening. It's so nice to have a little more energy so I can actually do this. 

Quiet Sunday

Things were quiet and peaceful today. I'm thankful for that.

I wrote a little, but it was very little. I'm just not inspired right now. Perhaps in a day or two.

Meanwhile, I hope this week is also quiet and peaceful because I need to get some things accomplished. 

Day Three on the Meds

I was sick to my stomach some today. It was pretty uncomfortable for a few hours. I hope that doesn't continue. The thing is, I can't even really say that's a side effect given that my stomach screws up pretty often as well.

I limited some stuff today but did get some extra protein because I felt like I needed it. Even with the extras, it was still far less than I usually eat.

I need to write,  but I'm just not feeling it at the moment. I have some ideas floating around in my head, but nothing that inspires me. Maybe when my body is more settled. 

First Bills of the Month Paid

All of my bills are paid for the month. I'm always happy when I get that accomplished. Today was good, really. The sun was shining and I read some really good fics.

I need to write. I've just not been in the mindset to do so. Perhaps tomorrow. 

Shot in the Dark

The shot was pretty easy to take. This is probably because it actually is easy and also because I'd watched How To videos like 100 times. I did my thigh because I'd heard that led to milder side effects. 

I had some trouble sleeping but I always kind of do.  I also experienced a headache, mild fever, and some backache issues, but that could be from various other things. It's hard to establish a baseline when I tend to do all of the symptoms anyway.

I certainly didn't eat as much as I normally do. At the same time, I don't feel deprived or hungry or resentful. 

I'm not going to update about this every day, but I will weekly at least.

Jan 4

 I start the Mounjaro tonight.

I'm scared out of my mind.

I'm scared of side effects. I'm scared of failing. I'm scared that I won't be able to handle it. I'm scared it won't make a difference. I'm scared it will kill me. I'm scared it will cause me deep discomfort. I'm scared I'll lose myself. I'm scared I'll fail.

I know I said the fail one twice but that's legit what scares me more.

I've been fat all my life. 

It's like I was handled this puzzle box and told to solve it and I can't solve it and everyone else has solved it and mine keeps getting worse and worse and worse. 

I've tried so many things, I've given up so many things, I've worked hard and failed and suffered and tried.

And none of it has ever been enough. None of it has ever been something that worked. None of it has ever led to weight lose I could maintain. 

I am buried in my weight problem. I hate it. It affects me every day in so many ways. I have to adjust for so many things because of it.

And yet.....

And yet food has been the one consistent thing I had that gave me pleasure and comfort. It was reliable. 

And now I'm basically going to give that up. And it could fail.

I hate this. 

Jan Third

Okay so...I THINK? the mailbox thing is settled? I talked to the Postmistress and she said I was cool for a year with my box being on the porch. So...we'll see?

Anyway, I want this to be over with. We'll see. We have other plans we need to set into motion so we can make our lives a little easier.

The BEST Day of the Year

Look I'm not saying the year goes downhill from here (although sometimes it does), but New Year's Day is the best day of the year.  

This is because it's the day all the crafters reveal their year-long projects. Their blankets, their temperature blankets, their christening gowns, their quilts. All of it is glorious and beautiful and I spend the day just marveling at other people's work.

So look. If you create something and you want to share it online, don't feel like people are going to think you're vain or bragging. Sure, there are always some sour assholes who will feel that way, but for most of us, we find joy in the beauty you've created. Please, please show the pics.