I’ve been threatening to do it for year.

And now is the time.

Today is my 5th day completely soda/carbonation free. It’s actually day 8 in the process, but I caved to a can of Diet Mtn Dew when I had a headache on day 2.

There are a lot of reasons why I needed to give it up. First, it was an addiction, pure and simple. I couldn’t get through the day without a McDiet #PDR, or a “Route 44 Coke Zero with vanilla” at Sonic. I would wake up thinking of how bad I wanted a Coke to get me going in the morning. I wanted a drink to get me through the lull of the afternoon. I wanted a drink to help me focus at work. It was overwhelming.

Second, it was expensive. Many days I drank well over 100oz, much to the chagrin of my wallet. My husband called my daily need for soda my “pack a day” habit. Even trying to get the cheapest refills, it was easily costing me over $100 per month. I can think of a lot of things I’d rather spend $100 on a month.

Third, it was not good for my health. I’ve been taking mega-doses of Vitamin D and Calcium to make up for the mineral deficiencies that diet soda causes. Plus, it was stretching out my stomach. I can down a 32oz drink in no time, which made it that much easier to overeat. Although I got to the point that I would choose a soda over a decadent dessert…it still was a little messed up to be thinking that way. After watching this video, I knew I needed to do it:

I’m getting ready for a big change in my life that I’ve been preparing to undertake for over a year. If all goes as planned, it will happen sometime in February. It will change my life and my health for the better. I’m even working on a separate blog to document the process, which I will announce shortly. I’m even going to VIDEO BLOG on it, which I haven’t every ventured into before. I’m scared and excited at the same time.

So raise your glass (of water) and congratulate me on 5 days “sober” from soda. I’ll need support on this one. Just the sound of carbonation is a temptation.

Hey readers…are you still coming to my sadly neglected blog?

It’s summer, and I’ve had a lot of things going on that has pushed my blogging efforts out of my daily/weekly routine. I haven’t posted anything in the month of July, so I thought I’d put in a quick catch-up post for those who care to know how I’ve spent my time.

• •Working as an SEO specialist at SEO.com by day, and desperately trying to get back up to speed on my medical coding practicum. When I was hired 7 months ago, I threw myself into my new job and left a year of full-time study at 95% completion. I’m ready to get it done and official. I’m ready to earn some letters after my name. So forgive me as I’m busy switching between HTML and ICD-9/CPT/HCPCS and trying to speak English the rest of the time.
• •Visited my long-time bloggy friend April Durham on a weekend whim roadtrip. Rosie and I hopped in the car within 30 minutes of concocting the idea, and drove north for a weekend of giggles, good food, and blog design. She gave my site an awesome blog makeover. If you haven’t seen the new look of cuteculturechick.com, hop out of your RSS feed and take a looksie.
• •Attended Type A Parent Conference in Asheville, NC. I decided to go to a conference I hadn’t been to before, and decided on #TypeAcon when I found out so many of my friends were speaking. I got some great blogging and social media tips, met Greg “The Frozen Food Master,” chatted with some great brands, partied and dined.I enjoyed the beautiful and eclectic city of Asheville in the Blue Ridge Mountains, and knocked North Carolina off of my list of states to visit to see all 50. Oh, and I drank as much Cheerwine as I could get my hands on.
• •Acted as an ambassador for Visit Salt Lake‘s SLC Summer Crew
• •Summertime tends to be difficult emotionally for me, and thankfully this year it hasn’t been quite as depressive as the past few years. I’ve been trying to living a more healthy lifestyle…trying to be more active, eat better, and lose weight (as always). I might not look a lot different, but my hair is getting pretty long
  
• Next week I head to southern California to see family and attend BlogHer ’11. Later in the month I’ll be going on a white water rafting trip hosted by my company. Rosie’s going to be starting 5th grade (!!!) I hope to be ready to take the final exam and national certification exam for my medical coding.
• How have you been spending your summer?

Maybe this time, I’ll get the answer I need to help my sleep improve…

What do you do when you’re too sick to be in public for very long, the gym is a cesspool of sweaty germs, it’s too cold to be outside, and your doctor tells you to exercise anyway?

Engage in retail therapy!

My pulmonologist recommended that I get 30 minutes of exercise a day, in 5 minute intervals. This order coincided with the deposit of a nice fat federal tax refund. There was a list of things I have been waiting to purchase for my home, and I decided that shopping would be the best way to get my exercise. I would drive there, walk around for 5 minutes and get what I need, check out and go home.

A coworker called me out on my Foursquare checkins, since the notifications pop up on his phone. He didn’t see how I could possibly be as sick as I claimed to be on Twitter. Well, this is why – I was getting my doctor-prescribed exercise in a useful and fun way. I usually went straight home, laid on my bed, and had a nebulizer treatment to recover. I won’t always be limited to short spurts of exercise, nor will I have the money for the purchases of the last week…but the week of lung hell that I just endured….retail therapy was just what the doctor ordered.

In the past month, I’ve filled over 20 prescriptions. In addition to playing “profession patient”, I’ve become the Foursquare mayor of several different pharmacies and medical clinics. I feel like my local Walgreens is the pharmacy equivalent of Cheers – “where everybody knows your name” (In fact, thinking about it makes me want to drown my sorrows in a Flaming Moe).

It started with seeing the hormone doctor. He put me on progesterone, which was supposed to temper my mood swings, make me sleep through the night and help me lose weight. The hormone pills didn’t help… Despite having the obvious signs of progesterone deficiency, the lab results showed that my normal hormones with vitamin/mineral deficiencies. My Vitamin D was low enough that they gave me an osteoporosis-fighting prescription drug.

About a week later, I started retaining water like a bloated water balloon. My blood pressure reading was sky-high, despite no prior signs of hypertension. So I went to my primary care doctor who gave me Lasix, a diuretic to help my body drain off the water weight and lower my blood pressure. It literally gets you running to the restroom every 30 minutes. Lasix makes your body deficient in potassium, so I’m taking a potassium supplement too. I got some sexy compression stockings to help my circulation and force out excess fluid in my legs. And you know how I had to get my wedding ring cut off a few weeks ago? My replacement cubic zirconia ring, which is 2 sizes larger, is already too small because of the swelling in my hands.

Then the poor air quality caught up with me. I started coughing and wheezing when I was outside, or whenever I exerted myself for anything beyond climbing a flight of stairs. I was choking and coughing in my sleep, which is not a good sign with sleep apnea. I started having constant chest pain. When I presented for Ignite Salt Lake, I thought the tightness in my chest was from nerves…but it was pleurisy. I was in urgent care with an asthma attack 2 weeks ago, where they sent me home with steroids and a big box of nebulizer vials. Since then, I’ve been back to urgent care, spent a long day in the ER, and have seen my new pulmonologist. He’s treating my dyspnea and sleep apnea problems more aggressively, and he’s strongly suggesting surgery. After lab work, chest x-rays, pulmonary function tests, arterial blood gasses, and lots of waiting in freezing cold rooms in thin hospital gowns…I’m worn out. The meds have made me gain weight at a rate I can’t seem to control (although I know most is due to fluid retention rather than bad eating habits).

So what’s the perk with all these steroids and weight gain? My boobs. I wasn’t small to begin with, but I’ve gone up almost two full cup sizes so far in 2011. A new bra I purchased a month ago leaves me spilling out. My newest blouse needs to be safety-pinned between buttons. People are no longer making eye contact with me in public, but they’re definitely looking. I don’t know how much of this excess size will stick around when my body calms down, but it was perfect timing for filling out my Valentines Day linger aie. If you’re considering a breast augmentation, maybe you should try going on steroids first.

Happy TMI Friday everyone!

“I can’t die. It would ruin my image.”

“I do it as a therapy. I do it as something to keep me alive. We all need a little discipline. Exercise is my discipline. “

“How do you build up your bank account? By putting something in it everyday.Your health account is no different. What I do today, I am wearing tomorrow. If I put inferior foods in my body today, I’m going to be inferior tomorrow, it’s that simple.”

“Maybe you don’t believe in Jesus. But was Jesus a showman? Why did he go around making the blind see and the lame walk and those kinds of things? He did it to call attention to his philosophy.”

Jack LaLanne, the American fitness icon, passed away Sunday, January 23rd at age 96. He died of respiratory failure as a result of pneumonia complications. With so many years of health and vigor, some wondered if he would live forever. And as we see with Jack LaLanne’s passing, all good things must come to an end.

Francois Henri “Jack” LaLanne was born September 26, 1914 in San Franciscio. He was the son of French immigrants, and grew up addicted to sugar and junk food. He experienced bouts of rage, suicidal feelings, and at one time tried to burn his house down.  When he was 15, he heard health food pioneer Paul Bragg give a talk on health and nutrition. Inspired by Bragg’s teachings, Jack started focusing on his exercise and eating habits and studied human anatomy. He concentrated on bodybuilding and weightlifting.

Nicknamed the “Godfather of Fitness,” LaLanne was a bodybuilder, exercise and nutritional expert, TV personality, and even earned a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2002.  Quoting his obituary in the LA Times,

“Though LaLanne was for many years dismissed as merely a “muscle man” — a notion fueled to some extent by his amazing feats of strength — he was the spiritual father of the health movement that blossomed into a national craze of weight rooms, exercise classes and fancy sports clubs. LaLanne opened what is commonly believed to be the nation’s first health club, in Oakland in 1936. In the 1950s, he launched an early-morning televised exercise program keyed to housewives. He designed many now-familiar exercise machines, including leg extension machines and cable-pulley weights. And he proposed the then-radical idea that women, the elderly and even the disabled should work out to retain strength. Full of exuberance and good cheer, LaLanne saw himself as a combination cheerleader, rescuer and savior. And if his enthusiasm had a religious fervor to it, well, so be it.”

“Have you seen some of the crap they’re selling as exercise equipment now?” Jack wondered. “How about that Suzanne Somers? She should have been thrown in jail for selling the piece-of-crap Thigh Master. It just develops a little muscle on the inner thigh. What good is that? And have you seen Tony Little, the guy who screams on TV? He’s like an imbecile. He says you need this little thing to hold you while you do a sit-up. Why does the government let him get away with it?”

As a woman who has struggled with health and weight issues since my childhood years, Jack LaLanne has been somewhat of an idol to me. I have several of his books, and tried to adhere to his fitness and nutrition advice. I’ve consumed countless glasses of freshly juiced fruits and vegetables …. thanks to my persistence after watching his juicer machine infomercials. My father-in-law tries to be helpful by encouraging me to give Jack LaLanne’s advice a try…little does he know how much it’s been a part of my life already. He preached the gospel of eating right and being active…joking,

“It is a religion for me. It is a way of life. A religion is a way of life, isn’t it? Billy Graham was for the hereafter. I’m for the here and now.”

To the man of eternal health and vigor – Rest in Peace.

You know when you’ve been sick for so long, you’re obsessed with finding out why? One of my favorite things to do when I can’t sleep is research health topics. I’m an insomniac who researches sleep disorders in the wee hours of the morning so I can try to make some sense of why I’m extremely exhausted, yet can’t sleep. I read book after book about overcoming depression, and follow the suggestions and mental strategies…yet I still struggle with keeping a consistent, happy psyche. Over the last six months, I’ve been having unbelievable mood swings, going from elation to devastation in a single conversation. It’s been VERY hard to deal with.

So I started researching what could be causing my mood swings, insomnia, inability to lose weight, etc. And suddenly a light blinked on in my head – It’s my hormones! After discussing symptoms with my primary care doctor and OBGYN, I was frustrated when they told me to come back in 6 months if the symptoms persisted. “Hormone swings are cyclical…” yadda yadda yadda. I suffered for several months, fairly certain that it was a hormonal imbalance…but not really getting any help from my doctor.

I started talking to people here and there, trying to get a gauge for the possibility of someone at my age with hormone imbalances. I got a referral to a doctor who specializes in hormone and metabolic disorders, but had to wait over a month to be seen. Last week was when I was finally able to get in to see Dr. Lundell. He had me mark a list of  20 different health concerns (brittle nails, libido extremes, inability to regulate temperature, hair loss, hirsutism, insulin resistance), and after the third checkbox, he said “I already know the problem. You have a progesterone deficiency, specifically in the secretory/luteal phase.”

Low progesterone effects brain chemicals that leads to depression, lethargy, mood imbalances and irritability. Low progesterone impacts a calming chemical called GABA, and there’s a decrease in pain-reducing corticosteroid production. A drop in progesterone can also cause women to feel more pain. When progesterone levels decrease, adrenal glands should take over and produce it. Most common symptoms of progesterone deficiency: inability to lose weight, depression, headaches and PAIN. (Check, check, check, check!)

So he ordered a battery of lab tests, set me up on hormone replacement therapy, and said that within a month I should be able to sleep through the night, my metabolism will spike up, mood swings will diminish, I’ll be able to decrease my dose of antidepressant and other lovely things. I am feeling optimistic about my new course of treatment.

It’s reassuring to know that I’m not crazy, it’s just my hormones.

The last few months have really put me through the wringer, emotionally and physically. It has been incredibly difficult to go from an able-bodied, overzealous DO-er, to someone who has to accept help from others, and be satisfied with myself when I accomplish less than my usual best.

My mother has dealt with chronic pain for nearly 17 years, over half of my life. When she wasn’t able to do all that she needed to, I stepped in. I spent most of my teenage years being a nurturer, a teacher, a chauffeur, a cook, and serving my family whenever necessary. It was frustrating and overwhelming at times, but I was happy that I was able to serve. Although I never really understood my mother’s physical pain, I trusted that she was doing the best she could. I knew I had the ability to help…and I did. And still do.

Since I injured my back in December, my life has been like a parallel universe. I have little endurance and mobility. I am dependent on several medications to function AT ALL. I keep ice packs, heating pads, and “granny pillows” at hand. I go to physical therapy 3 times a week. The entire office staff at my doctor’s office know me by name. I’m on the phone sorting out bills with my insurance, hospitals, urgent care clinics, imaging centers, and medical supply companies nearly every day. I deal with symptoms that sometimes cripple my mobility, such as limb numbness from hip to toe, for hours at a time. I got my first bedsore this week. Sometimes I lose bladder/bowel function. Sometimes the cerebrospinal fluid pressure changes from the cysts in my back cause mindblowing headaches. Some days, I barely make it out of bed at all.

And this life does not suit me. At all.

I pray daily for the patience to endure my pain. I pray for the patience of my friends and family members, who are affected by my illnesses. I pray for the understanding of others, that although they may not know the particulars…they don’t judge me harshly for the things I’m not able to do. I pray that my husband doesn’t give up on me, and understands that I’m truly doing my best.

Did you hear that, world? I’M DOING MY BEST.

Please don’t give up on me. Please be patient with me. Please do not judge me for the things you don’t understand. And I’ll do the same for you.

Over the last few weeks, I have been catching up on my Google Reader. As I’ve skimmed and soaked in 1000+ blog posts over the last 3 months, I’ve found a common theme: depression. I read posts on Mormon Women Project, Blog Segullah, Mormon Mommy Blogs, FMH,  Melancholy Smile, and other sites I love. I felt like these authors were speaking my language. Depression is my disease.

According to the DSM-IV, the following symptoms may occur with depression:

• Depressed mood most of the day, nearly every day, as indicated by either subjective report (e.g., feels sad or empty) or observation made by others (e.g., appears tearful). (In children and adolescents, this may be characterized as an irritable mood.)
• Markedly diminished interest or pleasure in all, or almost all, activities most of the day, nearly every day
• Significant weight loss when not dieting or weight gain (e.g., a change of more than 5 of body weight in a month), or decrease or increase in appetite nearly every day.
• Insomnia or hypersomnia nearly every day
• Psychomotor agitation or retardation nearly every day
• Fatigue or loss of energy nearly every day
• Feelings of worthlessness or excessive or inappropriate guilt nearly every day
• Diminished ability to think or concentrate, or indecisiveness, nearly every day
• Recurrent thoughts of death (not just fear of dying), recurrent suicidal ideation without a specific plan, or a suicide attempt or a specific plan for committing suicide.

For as long as I can remember, I have struggled with feelings of worthlessness, sadness, inadequacy, and poor self image. I had an extremely hard time making friends as a child, preferring to spend time alone rather than try to fit in. In 1992, the song “Creep” by Radiohead was released. I felt the lyrics so passionately:

I want a perfect body
I want a perfect soul
I want you to notice
when I’m not around
You’re so very* special
I wish I was special
But I’m a creep
I’m a weirdo
What the hell am I doin’ here?
I don’t belong here

I have struggled with diagnosed clinical depression since I was 16.  I have always been an emotional and empathetic person. I am a moral perfectionist, always wanting to the right thing and to singlehandedly solve the world’s problems. I feel others’ pain and sadness. Even when my circumstances aren’t dire, I tend to feel so deeply of others’ struggles that I felt drained of my happiness. Sometimes my depressive episodes are are more cataclysmic than others, but usually I am able to function.

My first depressive episode spawned from qualifying for the state drama meet my sophomore year of HS, but having my drama teacher tell me that I couldn’t go. The principal wanted to limit attendees to one bus. It made me cry uncontrollably to the point I had to go home from school. And then I cried for the better part of a month, feeling so out of control. I met with my doctor, who said that my emotional state was more than an “episodic depression,” it was clinical depression.

Then throw in the times that I was depressed while pregnant, depressed post-partum, depressed when my ex-husband abused me for 4 years, depressed after my divorce, etc. Last summer the depression was so bad that I lost my job because I couldn’t function at work. I spent two months in bed, trying to overcome the dark void that I perceived my life to be. Then I got a new counselor, got on the right meds, made small attainable goals, and pulled myself out slowly. I still struggle everyday, but I’ve learned some wonderful coping mechanisms for getting by on a day-to-day basis.

Other than pills and counseling, my greatest relief comes from spending time with friends and loved ones. When I’m alone, I get down on myself. When I’m with others, I feel like I’ve got the whole world to give away to others. I treat myself to “happy-cations” where I plan out activities for myself where bad thoughts are not allowed. Whether it be time with a BFF,  snuggling up with a good book in a quiet house, or treating myself to a cupcake with a neighbor, my “happy-cations”  make such a big difference.

I’m grateful that others are willing to put out their depression struggles and stories in their blogs. It seems like blogging about depression is like a 12-step meeting…even through depression is not an addictive choice. Would anyone like to join my chapter of Depressed Bloggers Anonymous?

I grit my teeth and fake a smile
And no one knows it all the while

My life is spent in waiting rooms
And stressing over copays due
My back is screaming, feet are numb
But to share my pain makes me feel dumb

I pawn my treasures and count pennies
To pay doctors bills and pharmacies
My husband’s based in Tennessee
So rarely can he care for me

Spanish Fork life gives me few perks
When Salt Lake City has all the work
Full-time employment may be a dream
When my pain daily makes me scream

I’m truly blessed to be Rosie’s mom
But she has nightmares that I’m GONE

My neighbors want to help my life
With MLM schemes for a stay-at-home wife
Unless it’s free, I can’t drink superjuice
So I’ll cry in bed, reading blogs like Dooce

Now that I’ve moaned and cried a bit
I’ll wipe my eyes, and publish it