I know that there are many things that affect our attitudes, but one thing I’m really realizing lately is how much our physical well-being affects our mental well-being.  Obviously, there are other factors as well.  I’m not trying to diminish the importance of spiritual health – that’s the most important of all.  It always surprises me, though, how much our physical health affects our attitudes.  The side effects I’m experiencing on prednisone are making such a difference in how I feel every day.  Yesterday, I had a pretty physical day working on the “big” cleaning items in our home.  It felt good to get things done, but my legs (even my feet!) swelled up so much that by the end of the day I felt like I could hardly move and I was exhausted.  I was in my bed  with my Nook by 9:30pm!  I really needed to get my feet up and just rest. I pushed myself to the absolute limits of what I am capable of doing right now.   I got a good night’s sleep and I feel so much better today!  It gives me a mental boost to have accomplished so much housework yesterday and today I can enjoy my clean house and focus on some less labor intensive chores like laundry and bills!

I’m thinking today about those people who have health problems that they have to live with on an ongoing basis.  It must be so discouraging to feel bad day after day with no end in sight.  I never realized how difficult that must be.  I know that my situation is temporary.  Once I get off the drug, I will begin to feel like my old self again physically.  It helps me cope on the tough days, knowing that I just have to hang in there a little longer.  I have a new respect for those who know they won’t improve, but still maintain a positive attitude and still find ways to serve in spite of feeling poorly.  Wow!  What giants in the faith!   Makes my situation seem pretty insignificant.

We live in a society where over-extending ourselves is the norm.  Most of us are walking around sleep-deprived and tired much of the time!  I wonder how much that affects our attitudes as we go about our days.  I suspect quite a lot.  It makes me realize how important it is to make some time to take care of ourselves physically.  I’m not good at this – that’s obvious by the fact that I have a significant amount of extra weight I carry around on my body.  It always surprises me how much better I feel when I eat healthy foods, at least get a moderate amount of  activity in my day, and get enough rest.  Isn’t it easier to put off whatever we want to get done or skip our daily Bible time and prayer when we are tired?  Aren’t we more prone to being cranky and saying or doing things we might regret?  Aren’t we more likely to dwell on the wrong things and feel sorry for ourselves?  Aren’t we more likely to give in to temptations?  I think that simply getting enough rest on a regular basis could make a huge difference in these things.  Combine that with filling our minds with God’s Word and the attitudes He wants us to have…..now that’s a winning combo!!

I’m realizing that even though I often joke about how old I’m getting (I’ll be 50 on my next birthday) I’m really not that old in the big picture.  I can feel changes in my body, though, and I can see that if I don’t get to work at being as healthy as I possibly can be  it’s only going to get harder.  Because of my weight, I’m starting to have issues that are more typical for people who are older than me.  My husband and I have lots of plans (Lord willing) for after he retires and if I don’t work on the things that I can improve, I may not be physically capable of doing the things we want to accomplish.  There are always things that we cannot control, but I need to take care of the things that I can and be a better steward of the body I’ve been given.  I know that each person has different struggles and weaknesses, but I suspect that most of us could improve in taking care of our physical bodies. It makes a difference in ways we may not even think about!

I feel like yesterday morning I got on the emotional roller coaster and still haven’t been able to get off of the ride!  I’m fighting very hard to have enough self-control not to say the things that want to come out of my mouth!  So far, I have been successful and for that I’m thankful!  Sadly, that feels like a big accomplishment!  Now if I could just get a proper perspective on things again and adjust my attitude back to where it should be!  I know for a fact that I am over-reacting to minor issues, so there’s no doubt in my mind it’s either steroid-induced mood swings or hormone-induced mood swings, or a combination thereof!  You wouldn’t believe how minor the things are that are causing me such distress and bringing me near tears and making me so frustrated I feel like I can’t take it anymore!  Crazy!!!  Actually, if you are female you would understand, and especially if you are a female somewhere around the age of 50 or older!!  I’m thankful that my emotions haven’t been this extreme all along.  It’s actually been a great weekend – that’s part of why this is so frustrating!  I should be feeling great!  Oh well, I’m sure if I wait a few minutes, it will all seem completely different once again! lol

Saturday was our annual ladies’ day at church.  It’s an event we all look forward to all year long.  It’s so great for us to have the experience of working together for a common goal and to have the opportunity to hear speakers we don’t generally get to hear – that’s a treat!  It’s also so much fun to get to enjoy the company of other christian women in our area.  It was an awesome day!  Afterwards, I headed home and my sweet hubby told me he was taking me out to dinner!  Two days in a row is pretty major for us!  We were celebrating the fact that he found his hearing aids which have been missing for a year and a half!  Woohoo!  That IS worth celebrating!  He also knew how exhausted I felt this weekend, and wanted to treat me and save me from having to cook or clean up.  I guess the combo of steroids and how out of breath and tired they make me feel, plus still recovering from a cold, and having two exceptionally busy days in a row took their toll.  I have been so tired this weekend that I felt like I had reached the limit of what I was capable of more than once.  I went to bed at 10pm on Friday night (for those of you that know me, that is very early!  I’m usually one to go to sleep around midnight or 1am) and slept until I had to get up around 7am.  Then Saturday night, I slept for 7 hours, then napped Sunday afternoon for 2 hours, then still went to bed early and slept until I felt caught up this morning (around 6am – earlier than usual, but I guess I finally caught up!)  We tried another new restaurant.  It was one that I found when I was doing my research on restaurants in the twin city area a few years ago.  I read lots of great reviews about it and put it on my list of places I’d like to try sometime.  Chet’s mom also saw it on a tv program, and thought it sounded like someplace that we would love.  It’s an Italian place called Broder’s Pasta Bar.  Italy has a special place in our hearts – it’s where we first started dating and where we went for our 25th anniversary.  We arrived at 5pm on a Saturday and still had to wait an hour to be seated.  It was worth it, though!  The food was phenomenal!  We will definitely be going there again!!!  My favorite dish we tried had homemade fresh pasta with a cream sauce, a little bit of pancetta and truffle oil!  The truffle oil really took it over the top.  It was a fun evening!  Last night was also flock groups at church.  Even with my personal listening system, I  was only able to hear parts of it.  I think there is a visual aspect of following along for me, even with improved volume control that still is helpful.  I was seated in a way where I couldn’t see the speakers most of the time.  I’m pretty sure that made the difference.  I guess I’ll have to request trading places with someone next time if I find myself in that situation again.

I spent some time this morning back in God’s Word, trying to get my head back where it needs to be.  I spent some time in prayer – giving thanks and making requests and asking forgiveness for my shortcomings.  I’m so glad we have the Word to guide us, and God’s power behind us to help us when we fall short.  I love 2 Chronicles 16:9:  For the eyes of the Lord move to and fro throughout the earth that He may strongly support those whose heart is completely His…  I want to make sure that my heart is completely His, then it’s such a comfort and gives me much-needed strength to know how much He wants to be there for me!  Love this verse! Hope you all have a great Monday (or as my friend always says, hope you all MAKE a great Monday!).

Today was the day I had my follow-up appointment with Dr. Levine.  My hearing test showed that my hearing is the same (good news) but my word comprehension is down a little.  It’s not a huge change, but the doctor wasn’t happy about it.  He started our visit with the statement, “Well, you haven’t recovered any more and you’ve actually lost some word comprehension.”  I didn’t think it was even a goal to recover any more at this point.  He asked my how I’m tolerating the prednisone and asked about the side effects I’m having.  When I told him that it was basically like being 9 months pregnant all the time he said that biochemically speaking, what prednisone does to the body is very similar to what happens during pregnancy!  I thought that was interesting (seemed like he did, too).  I asked my questions about how my cold might impact my situation and he didn’t seem too concerned.  He said it will probably take a little longer to get over it, but didn’t seem to think it would likely make much difference with my hearing since I’m already on steroids. I go back for another follow-up in a month and he did say that if I’ve lost more word comprehension at that point (or hearing for that matter) that there is a chance he would go ahead and take me off the drugs.  I guess that would mean it’s not helping anymore.  Time will tell!

Chet was off work today and went with me.  He was kind of frustrated when we left.  It’s hard for him to see me not feeling well from the drugs and it’s also a grieving process for him, like it has been for me.  Watching his wife lose her hearing is a loss for him, too.  It frustrates him that there are no definitive answers to what’s happening.  Whenever I ask about results or possibilities it’s all in the realm of “there’s no way to know” or “this is so rare we’re trying experimental things so we don’t know the outcome.”  I think sometimes it’s harder for the loved ones to have to watch someone they love go through things and know there’s nothing they can do to “fix” it than it is for the person going through an issue.  He’s truly a wonderful support to me and I really didn’t even realize he was feeling this way until we talked about it some today.

We saw a show on the Food Network  a couple of months ago.  It was Adam from Man vs. Food doing a show where he was looking for the best sandwich in America!  He chose a finalist from each of 9 regions in the country, and the one that won from the midwest region was from a restaurant called Tilia’s in Minneapolis.  It was a fish taco torta (spanish word for sandwich) and we decided today was the day we were going to give it a try.  I have to say, it was a very unique and really delicious fish sandwich!  We loved it!  I feel like it lived up to its reputation.  They also had a fabulous burger.  We will definitely be going back sometime when we’re looking for something “different.”  It was a little spendy (note my  proper use of the word “spendy” – a local phrase from a girl who grew up in the South!) but fun for an occasional splurge.  We went to a Starbucks after lunch that had a clover machine (a different way of brewing a cup of coffee – not all SBs have them) and enjoyed some Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee which was also fun.  (We have wonderful memories of drinking Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee in Jamaica for our 10th anniversary trip many moons ago!) Ended up running a few errands after that and for a girl who’s been sick most of this week, it was fun but I was exhausted by the end of the day!   When we got home around 5pm we both put on pjs and vegged out for the rest of the evening!  We rarely get to spend the whole day together so it was very nice!

Tomorrow is our annual ladies’ day at our church, so it will be a full but very uplifting and fun day as well.  I think I’d better get some rest!  Good night all.  Thanks so much for keeping up with me here and for all of the kind words and prayers.  They (ie you!) are very much appreciated!

Last night was so much fun!  We started the next level of our sign language class.  There are 12 of us continuing on to  Level II  and I’m very excited about that.  We spent some time writing down lists of words that Debbie (our instructor) signed to us for some practice reading fingerspelling (which I need!).  I had to laugh because out of the 20 words she spelled, I missed 4 (hey – she was going fast!) and of course both times it was my turn to stand up before the class and “give the answer” it was for ones I missed!  Isn’t that the way things always seem to go?  🙂  Next, we were given a list of food words and separated into groups.  We were told to communicate the words on the list without any voice.  Most were words we hadn’t learned signs for yet and she told us to communicate them anyway we could.  That was good for some laughs!  My friend, Bruce, communicated “egg” in an interesting way (Basically flapping “chicken wing” arms and then something exiting from the other end!  My son, Cody, came up with the same illustration at home once, too!) Then our teacher went over the actual signs for those things – we had guessed some of them correctly!  Then we watched a video – part of a series about a family who is deaf.  This episode was about a trip to the grocery store and they used all of our new vocabulary.  Next we watched a video of a man doing a number story.  Several have asked what that is on my Facebook status, so I’m going to explain it here.  Each story uses the handshapes for the numbers 1-10.  In the example we saw, the storyteller said that “1” would represent the clerk in a store, “2” would be a bow tie (he held both hands in the “2” shape and held them up to his neck so they formed the shape of a tie), “3” would be the items being purchased being moved on the conveyor belt (he held his hand in the “3” shape and imitated moving things along), “4” would be adding the items up (imitated using an old-fashioned cash register with hand-held in the “4” shape), “5” would be the clerk’s hair (held both hands in “5” shape and made motions around head like a women’s flipped up long hair), etc.   After he told what each number represented in the story, then he performed the skit using the stated hand shapes/numbers.  That is a number story, at least as we know it at this time.  Our instructor said that it’s a favorite pastime of many deaf people to sit around telling these kinds of stories with numbers or letters of the alphabet and it can go on for hours!  We split into 2 groups to make one up in class (kind of hard when you’re not in that mindset yet).  Our homework for the week is to make one up of our own and have someone videotape us performing it.  Should be fun/interesting!!!!!!  I’m also very excited to have learned that my mom, sister-in-law, and niece in Oklahoma have started a beginning sign language class!  So cool!  I can’t wait until we see them and can sign with each other!

Physically, I’m feeling about the same regarding side effects.  I also have come down with a cold.  It’s pretty mild right now, but definitely the beginning of one.  I’m not worried, but I am wondering what this will be like.  I haven’t ever been sick while on an immune-suppressing drug.  I have a friend who has had a heart transplant and I’m sure his drugs are much stronger than mine and I know he’s been sick and I think it just takes longer to recover.  I’m not really sure.  Will it be worse than normal?  The same intensity just take longer to recover?  I guess I’ll find out.  The other thing on my mind is that the last time I was sick, it was a precursor to my most recent (severe) hearing loss episode.  Over the years I have been sick and not had any issues with my hearing, but there definitely have been times (maybe all – I wasn’t watching that for a pattern from the beginning) when my episodes followed an illness.  I guess that would make sense if this is actually an autoimmune disease since an illness would get your immune system going.  I guess it’s on my mind now because obviously my system is “flared up” these days and so to me it seems more likely that a problem could occur.  On the other hand, I’m already on steroids, so that might be enough to prevent any further loss.  I guess time will tell.  If I experience hearing loss while on steroids, I think that might be the point where the doctor says that there’s nothing more they can do.  I’m not sure if he would do the whole high dose plus injection thing again so soon.  Maybe.  I’m not sure if I would want to do all of that again if it only “might” borrow a “little” more time before my hearing is gone.  Obviously, long-term steroid use is hard on the body, and I have to also consider my overall health (and mental well-being!) Whatever happens,   I’m doing everything I can and as I’ve said before, the rest is out of my control.  God is in control and I trust Him.  I’m actually feeling encouraged that if this turns out to be the time I lose the rest of my hearing, I’m set up quite nicely (much better than before) to handle it.  I have my special alarm clock, smoke detector, phone ringer, doorbell and my captioning telephone.  I’ve learned enough sign language to at least get some basic things communicated and my family and friends are quite good at charades!!!! 🙂  I’m not expecting this to happen, but am trying to mentally prepare for the possibility.  I’m going to go now, and rest and drink lots of fluids! 🙂

Since my last post, the fluid in my knees seems to be slightly improved; however, there is now muscle soreness going up and down my leg from one of my knees.  A friend said that it probably means the knee-joint is moving around a bit and the muscles around it are trying to hold it together.  The weird part is that it is not the knee I injured recently that is hurting the most, it’s the other one!  Sometimes the soreness goes higher up my leg and sometimes it’s more localized near the knee.  Very weird.  I’ve also noticed that I’ve become more forgetful over the last few months.  I was thinking that I shouldn’t be that forgetful at age 49 – it kind of worried me.  I’ve started making a point of spending some time each day playing some timed word games to try to stimulate my brain a little.  When I was checking back over some of the possible side effects of long-term prednisone use, I saw that forgetfulness and sometimes having trouble finishing a thought are listed as side effects!  Wheww!  That was actually a relief!  I had forgotten (lol) that it could be related to the steroids! 🙂  I seem to be a little less short of breath than  I was at the worst, but still not back to normal.  I’m definitely feeling weaker as far as my muscles go.  I’m not sure if I’m actually doing less physically because I don’t feel as well and it’s all harder and that’s why or if that is also just par for the course. It doesn’t seem to me that I’m being significantly less active, but I’m not sure.  I’m definitely noticing that I’m having some ups and downs with the emotions, too.  That is also a side effect (in addition to the ups and downs most women have regularly anyway, and women around my age already have more of that so it’s kind of like a triple whammy!).  I weighed again the other day, expecting to be back up to my all time high since I was feeling so bloated, but actually I’m down 10 lbs from that, so that was good news!  Still 20 lbs over my “norm” but better than I was expecting.  Unfortunately, it’s time to swap out summer for winter clothes here in Minnesota and most of my long pants are not fitting me.  Guess I’ll have to get a couple of pairs of prednisone pants!  I have to keep reminding myself that there’s a good reason for all of this!  The doctor made a point of emphasizing to me that it’s important to commit to the whole 6 months of treatment in order to receive the benefit.  I’m guessing there are patients who get tired of all of the side effects and decide to quit taking the drug.  I certainly don’t want all of this to be for nothing.  Counting the time I was on higher doses trying to recover hearing, I’ve been on prednisone now for  over 4 months.  The official plan is for me to be on this dose through the end of January, then taper off.  Not sure how slow the taper will be, but I’m about half way now if we continue with this course of action.  I see the doctor again for a follow-up on Friday.

On a different note, I had a wonderful day yesterday!  Chet was off work from both jobs for the entire day on a Saturday!  That is rare!  One of our closes friends just had his 50th birthday, so we made it a date day with him and his wife and had a wonderful time together.  We went to the movies and I got to try out another  type of captioning system. There is a theater chain in our area that has just added a system by Sony for their theaters.  It was really cool.  There is a unit you wear around your neck and they program it for you to the theater where you are seeing your movie.  Then they give you a pair of glasses, and when you are in the theater, the captions appear in the glasses!  The picture was great, the captions meant I didn’t miss much of anything (except when I was letting everyone try them out so they could see what it was like!).  Overall, this was great.  Comparing it to the CaptiView I talked about in an earlier post, I’d say I might like the CaptiView a little better.  The Sony glasses did skip the captions several times.  Not for long, but there were short gaps from time to time.  The words move around anytime you move your head, so you have to be pretty still or get used to them moving.  I found a position where the words appeared to me above the picture and that seemed to be the most comfortable.  One thing that is really great about this is that it has opened up the movie options.  Before these theaters added the Sony glasses, the local theaters generally only had one or two movie choices that offered captioning and there are only some theaters that do that.  With this addition, the glasses can be used in most of their theaters, so it basically gave me the option to watch most any movie out, which was great.  I also saw some info on this system and it says you can use a neckloop with it, so I’ll bring mine along next time and try that out!  After the movie we went to a steakhouse that I’ve never been to and had a great meal, then headed over to our friend’s house and visited for a while, then watched another movie.  I had to laugh because usually movies at home are easy to caption, but this particular one was an older movie and it wasn’t an option.  I got a nice little nap in while they watched it! LOL  Fun day.  Thanks for humoring me today while I talk about this stuff!  I hope I don’t sound like I’m complaining.  I don’t mean it to be that.  I’m just recording what’s going on for me to have a record of and also for those who want to stay up on it.  Hope everyone had a great weekend!

I actually felt pretty well last week – having less fluid in my system made a big difference!  I don’t know exactly why, but yesterday I woke up feeling like a big balloon!  I am retaining fluid even worse than before!  My joints will move, but ache and feel like they are so full that they really don’t want to.  Very uncomfortable day yesterday and honestly hard to move around.  Today I think there is a slight improvement, but still not back to where I was and feel like I should be.  I guess there will always be ups and downs, right?  Keeps life interesting!  I’m drinking tea like crazy, trying to move around some (even though I feel like plopping down somewhere and not moving all day) and eating low carb.  That really helped me drop fluid last week.  I have to laugh – it really is like being 9 months pregnant some days!  The same friend that I shared the story about in my last post, told me yesterday that I hung up on her mid phone conversation!  I answered her call on one of our regular cordless phones (my CapTel is upstairs and I was downstairs at the time).  Sometimes I do okay on the regular phone and sometimes I don’t.  Turned out this was a time it was very difficult and I THOUGHT we were done! lol Oh well, luckily she understands and we had a good laugh!  I wish I’d done a better job of documenting all of the mishaps and misunderstandings that have occurred in the last 12 years due to hearing problems (for me and my hubby!).  There have been some really funny ones.  I’m sure there would be enough material for that book I’ve always wanted to write! 🙂

I wrote earlier about an incident on vacation where Chet and I decided that a good rule of thumb is “If someone does something or says something that isn’t what you would expect or seems “weird” to you, then you should check it out and see if there’s been a miscommunication.”  That happened last night.  Our church had a bonfire and evening of fellowship planned last night.  A family from our church who are good friends of ours live near us and I was going to be driving right by their house on my way.  I called and left a message on their phone to see if they were planning to go, and if not I wanted to offer to take some of the kids if they wanted to go.  I hadn’t heard back by the time I had to leave home, so I decided to try to call them one more time from my car as I was heading out.  Still no answer, so I just figured it wasn’t going to happen and continued on my way.  When I arrived at the house where we were having the bonfire, I saw that I had missed a call from my friend.  I called back and was expecting to hear something like “Thanks for the offer, but we decided to stay home.” or “Thanks for the offer, but we didn’t get the message until it was too late,” or something along those lines.  Instead, it was a “weird” call.  I said “Hey, I saw I just missed a call from you.”  “Yep…(silence).”  “Well, I called earlier and left a message offering to pick up the kids if they wanted to go to the bonfire.”  “Ok….(silence).”  “Did you get the message?”  “Yes, they got it…(long silence)”  “Ummm, I tried to call again on my way, but no one answered.”  “(silence)….sound of chewing…..”  “Are you there?”  “Yes….(silence).”  “Ok, well, I’m in the driveway, so I need to get going.”  “Ok.”  “Bye.” “”Bye.”  I really thought that was odd.  My girlfriend likes to talk as much as I do and something definitely seemed “off.”  I went to the party and didn’t think too much more about it last night until after I got home.  Then I started worrying…did she think I was chastising her for not going to a fellowship activity?  Did she expect me to stop by and think that I just didn’t show up?  What is going on?  Why was she being so “weird” on the phone?   I woke up early this morning still puzzled and wanting to make sure that there wasn’t some kind of problem between us. It actually never occurred to me that this could be related to my hearing.  I was just thinking it was some kind of misunderstanding between friends.  I called her this morning, and it turns out I never talked to her at all!  I was talking to her daughter the whole time!  Apparently she identified herself at the beginning of the call, but I didn’t hear that and thought I was talking to the mom the whole time!  That explained everything!  I wouldn’t expect a child to say the same things a mom would and I would have said things differently myself if I had known.  My hearing loss makes it difficult for me to distinguish voices a lot of the time, so I didn’t realize.  I’m so glad I didn’t just leave things the way they were…I wouldn’t have been aware that this type of problem could occur without any clue on my part and I would have always wondered why my friend was acting so strangely over something that I was trying to do that was nice. 🙂  I think there are some times that we should just let things go and not make issues out of every little thing that happens in life, but there are also times we need to sort out things while they are little and avoid having them turn into something bigger.  There wasn’t a problem at all, they just didn’t get the message until it was too late.

Sometimes I am starting to feel like my life if settling back down to the new “normal” and that I have things worked out as well as I’m going to with my hearing, but then things like this still happen pretty often and other things related to being hard of hearing .  I guess that IS my new normal.  I’ve been dealing with communication issues for many years now, but they are different and more frequent  with the current hearing levels I have.  I can talk on the phone and it goes well most of the time.  Sometimes I still have difficulties hearing, even on the captioning phone.  The captions definitely help, but sometimes they say “too quiet to hear” or “unclear” and I still don’t know what’s being said.  I sort of dread making business calls now because it can go either way.  This morning I  made a call to our insurance company to get a quote on car insurance for a car our son is considering buying.  Even with all of my controls on the CapTel phone turned up (it has a much louder volume than a normal phone and some other adjustments) I still really had a hard time understanding her.  The captions even said “too quiet to understand.”  It had to be something with the connection.  I was on another call right before that and I could hear fine.  I guess ultimately, I’ll take care of the business that I can, have someone else call and take care of the things I can’t, and life will go on as usual.  The new normal.  I guess I need to remind myself that a few short months ago I couldn’t use a phone at all, so this is actually a huge improvement and I should be grateful!  I am grateful.

I’ve decided to start on a low carb diet again.  I’ve debated for a while about whether I should do it or not.  I’m absolutely convinced low carb is best for me…the debate is not about what type of diet to try, but it has been about whether I should be dieting right now or not.  Mentally, it’s hard for me to work at a diet and do it “perfectly” and not see any weight loss.  I know that the prednisone will impact (possibly even prevent )losing weight.  In past years, I spoke with a doctor about this and she told me that the goal of dieting while on steroids for me would be to maintain my current weight….not to lose weight, but trying not to gain.  She told me it’s not realistic to expect to lose weight while taking steroids.  I always drop fluid when I’m eating low carb which would definitely be good now.  Another aspect of it is that mentally, I have to be in the right place to start something like that and I’ve had a lot to adjust to these past few months and just wasn’t mentally ready to start.  I definitely feel my best when I’m living a low carb lifestyle and although I don’t have diabetes, it runs in my family, and can be one of the side effects of long-term steroid use, so I figure it’s good for me to be eating low carb anyhow – certainly can’t hurt.  I am a person that needs a certain amount of protein to keep my blood sugar stable and can’t skip meals or I get really sick.  Low carb eating keeps my blood sugar very stable, decreases my appetite, and I feel my absolute best when I do it.  My hubby drops huge amounts of weight when he does this and I’m very happy for him.  It can be slightly discouraging, though, when I ask him how much weight he lost in a given week and his answer is 15 lbs and I’ve lost 1.5!  So, my goal here is not necessarily to lose weight (although that would be nice) but to start making the transition to a low carb lifestyle.  That doesn’t mean no deviations, but limited and planned deviations.  I weighed on Tuesday for the first time in several months.  I knew I’d put on weight – there is clearly an increase in my appetite along with the immense fluid retention.  Turns out I’ve gained 30 lbs since May – gulp.  This is exactly what the doctor told me to expect, so I’m not surprised, but need to/want to try to find ways to stop or at least slow this down.  I’m happy to report that since I started back on low carb foods on Tuesday, I’ve already dropped 7.4 lbs!  No doubt it’s all fluid, but that’s more than 7 lbs. of fluid that I’m not carrying today, and I feel better already!  I’m not adding exercise to the equation yet – I want to give myself a week or two to adjust to eating differently again, but then I will add more activity and I know that will also help.   For today, I’m happy to be feeling good and am also happy to be actively doing something that is making a difference!

I’m feeling much better after allowing myself some time to regroup over the weekend.  Physically, mentally, and emotionally I was pretty wiped out and some rest and relaxation was just what I needed.  Sometimes I forget that I’m still taking prednisone and have a moment when I wonder why I’m so out of breath or can’t get out of my chair the way I normally can, or whatever.  Then I remember and it makes me feel a little better.  I guess the fluid retention is always going on, but some days it’s  worse than others.  It reminds me of being 9 months pregnant – you feel heavy, tired, bloated, sweaty and not very bendable.  That’s pretty much how I feel some days…only no cute little baby at the end!  I guess in this case the “baby” is being able to hear for a while longer!  Worth it in both cases!  Now that I think about it, long-term steroid side effects have other similarities to pregnancy – increased appetite, mood swings….hmmmmmm….I seem to remember getting a lot a footrubs when I was pregnant…..maybe I should mention this to my hubby?!  lol    At least I am sleeping well at this point, unlike the beginning when I was on much higher doses, AND my hearing has been stable.  I’m very thankful for that!

Last night the topic at our flock group was anxiety (and using my awesome new Domino Pro I could hear most of the discussion!!!).  I find it interesting that anxiety was also the topic of our ladies’ life class earlier this month.  Apparently it’s a topic that’s on a lot of people’s minds and that many struggle with.  We were asked to share any scriptures that we use to help us deal with and have the right attitude about anxiety.  Some that were mentioned and the thoughts that went along with them were:

Matthew 11:28-30:  Come to Me all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.  Take My yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and humble at heart and you will find rest for your souls.  For My yoke is easy and my burden is light.

We talked about trusting God enough to give him the burdens and relying on Him and learning from Him.

Philippians 4:8-9:  Finally brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable,  whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.  The things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things and the God of peace will be with you.

We talked about dwelling on the right things…once you’ve spent the time you need to thinking about whatever is causing anxiety, evaluating what needs to be done, and then doing whatever you can in the situation, it’s time to trust God to take care of the things that are not in your control and that’s when we need to stop dwelling on the problem, and make our minds dwell on the things above.

Matthew 6:34:  For do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself.  Each day has enough trouble of its own.

We also talked about the concept that we don’t even know if we have tomorrow.  Our preacher said that in classes about counseling, they were told that 93%-95% of things people worry will happen never actually do!  That’s an amazing statistic!  How wise is the scripture above?  If we live our lives as if today could be our last day (and it could) how differently would we see things?  I think it would become quite obvious what really matters …our priorities would change, we’d make sure we were right with God and take care of any unresolved issues with others, make sure our household was in order, express our love and appreciation to others, teach the gospel to someone we’d been “meaning” to talk to sometime….

We also talked about Job and how he absolutely recognized God’s sovereignty and His right to give and take as He pleases without questioning from us…..

There is a proper kind of anxiety – we should feel it when we have not been doing what we should and it can prompt us take action.

A thought I had after our discussion was that staying busy and working hard also can help lessen anxiety…you have other things that your mind is focussed on and you usually sleep better when you’re tired from a hard day’s work!

There was more discussed, this is just a few of the highlights in a nutshell.  I thought it was worth taking a moment to share.

Most of you know that we live out in the country, so we really don’t have many visitors just drop by.  The occasional UPS delivery or the mailman might drop by, but most people check to see if we’re home before they come over.  I thought it might be a while before we got to use my new doorbell in a real life scenario.  Turns out that mom’s visit provided the first opportunity.  It was quite the event!  Chet left work early on Monday to go to the chiropractor.  His back was bothering him and after the adjustment, he took some Tylenol and Advil and came home to take a nap and recuperate a little.  About 45 minutes later, mom arrived and she rang the doorbell.  I was so excited!  The strobe lights flashed and the ringing sound was very loud so I had no problem hearing it! In the past, even before the latest hearing episode, I really couldn’t hear someone at the door.   The new doorbell continues to ring until you shut it off or it goes for a designated amount of time – I’m not sure exactly what that length of time is, but it’s pretty long…maybe a minute?  That’s a long time for a loud ringing to be happening!  Anyhow, I was excited that it worked so great, (and that mom was here!) and then when it kept going off I started realizing that poor Chet was trying to rest, so then I was trying to figure out how to shut it off (and also greet mom at the door)!  Then I realized that I was seeing the flashing lights and hearing the sound from the remote unit in the living room, but the main unit is in our bedroom, so the flashing strobe lights and ringing sound were probably also going off  where Chet was sleeping!  Yikes!  It wasn’t too long before he came out and that’s when I learned that the bed shaker also goes off for the doorbell, AND that it’s strong enough that he can feel it on his side of the bed!  LOL  What a crazy moment!!!!  One of the funny times in the middle of all of this stuff!!!    He didn’t get much rest, but he could also appreciate the humor in the situation and we had a good laugh over it!

Seems like the time just flew while mom was here.  She arrived on Monday in time for a family dinner – all but a couple of people could make it – and she got to meet Owen (her great-grandson) for the first time!  We had a great time together, then she got to go to ASL class with us and really enjoyed it.  I was glad she got to see first-hand what we are doing in there.  It’s becoming a pretty big part of my life right now and I’m glad she had the opportunity to see what we’re up to.  Over the last few days, she’s learned the alphabet and a very brief sentence or two, but I was  impressed at how quickly she learned that much!  I think she’s got “the bug” now and might try to find a class in her area.  Tuesday we had time to relax and catch up over our morning coffee, and then headed over to Cory & Nicole’s for more time with them and Owen.  Then we went to the Mall of America and spent a few hours there.  It was a fun day, and Kinsey and Jarryd also got to spend most of it with us.  Wednesday, Mom and I played Mexican Train Dominos and had more of a veg out day at home.  Mom is a game fanatic (cards and domino’s primarily) and I am, too, so we always play a LOT when we get together.  I have a hard time getting anyone around here to play them with me, so it’s always fun when mom (or my sister!) come and we can play all we want to!  Again, that evening, we had a family dinner for everyone who could make it and then went to church together.  Later, Chet joined us for a few games of Farkle and we had a blast.  Thursday, we spent the day chatting over coffee, playing games and then had dinner with Cody & Jessi over at Cory & Nicole’s and had so much fun visiting and (of course) playing with Owen!  We got to see him roll over from his back to his tummy for the first time!  It’s always amazing to me how enthralled a group of adults can be watching a little baby for long periods of time and love every second!  It reminded me of a time about 25 years ago when Chet and I sat with a cousin and his wife and watched their baby  try to roll over for 3 or 4 hours!  We were all so excited when Owen made it all the way over (after multiple attempts) that we all cheered and that scared him and made him cry! 😦      I don’t think it will keep him from trying again soon, though! We also got to take some pics of mom and Owen in their Harley attire and we took a 4 generation picture with Mom, Cory, Owen and I.  It was a fun time.

Today we had coffee together, then mom headed out and now I’m giving myself permission to relax and regroup a little for the rest of the day.  I’ll probably work on some laundry and a few household chores, but I’m going to try to rest up a little and recover from a very fun but  very busy week.  The rest of the weekend  will also be busy, so I’m taking advantage of the opportunity while I have it!