Our New Car

Today we got a new car because our old one died. It was a head gasket problem and even a temporary fix our mechanic tried didn't work. It even broke down on the way to the car lot and got stranded at Walmart!

The new car is a Nissan Versa Note and I hate it. Not because it's a bad car, but because of what it represents. All our embryo adoption money gone. I doubt we will be able to afford to cycle next year because we had to buy a stupid car.

I mean it could have happened after a successful cycle when we wouldn't have been able to afford it at all, so I guess I'm glad it happened now. But I'm facing the real possibility of never being a parent and that sucks! I see other people get new cars and they are so excited, but I'm just sad. Had a big cry afterwards but now I'm crying again writing this.

It just sucks.

There is more to this, I know.

It's been a long time since I've blogged. I mean really blogged, not just posted about books. Six months actually. I thought it was time I updated everyone on how I'm doing health wise.

Firstly, I still haven't made it back to the rheumatologist for my follow up regarding the $500 worth of blood work I had done way back when. We just couldn't afford it, unfortunately. I finally got insurance at the beginning of the month so that is my priority once I heal from my surgery (I'll get to that in a bit). So I still don't have a diagnosis regarding my full body pain and other various symptoms. This is still affecting my quality of life greatly.

My psychologist took one of my symptoms, feeling like I walked through a spider's web or a hair is stuck on me when there's not, and decided I was having tactile hallucinations. She diagnosed me with major depression with psychotic features. That basically means you get sooo depressed your mind has a break from reality and you become delusional and/or hallucinate. Since this is also associated with fibro and various autoimmune diseases I'm not convinced that is actually happening to me. It hasn't gotten much better with treatment so far even though my depression has improved drastically.

The treatment they have me on now is Abilify which is also used for just depression so I do think it is helping me with that. They also have me in resilience training which has been so helpful! It's a program called E.P.I.C (early psychosis intervention and care) and I wish it was offered to people who were depressed or anxious without psychotic symptoms as well. They have taught me a lot and I'm able to deal with my depression and social anxiety a lot better now. In that way I am thankful for the diagnosis even if I'm not 100% sure it is correct. One thing I've done is create a playlist for bad days which includes songs telling me I can do this. The above lyrics are from one of my favorites, You're Not Alone by Saosin. You can find it on Spotify under the oh so creative name Songs for a Bad Day. I'll also take suggestions for songs to add.

Did I ever mention my knee problems on here? If not around Thanksgiving my knee gave out and made this sickening cracking sound. My mom actually thought I broke something it was so loud. Every since then it has hurt when I have it bent or put weight on it for too long. It has given out and made the cracking sound a few more times since then. I've tried a brace and some simple therapy I can do myself at the suggestion of a doctor at a free clinic I went to without much improvement. Seeing my normal doctor was the first thing I did when my insurance kicked in and she put me on celebrex for it. That doesn't seem to be helping much either so she is probably going to refer me to a specialist after I recover from my surgery. I did get an x-ray and that came back fine so nothing was broken even if it sounded like it.

Over the last few months my endometriosis has gotten progressively worse so that is what I'm having surgery for. I can't afford to go see the specialist I wanted to in Atlanta since my out-of-network deductible is $11,500 and out-of-pocket max is $23,000. That was really disappointing since when I signed up it only told me my in-network deductible ($0) and out-of-pocket max ($2,000) so I thought it was going to be $2000 plus traveling expenses. I don't have a quote on my specific surgery but I have heard it is $6-7,000 just for the doctor alone not counting the hospital and anesthesiologist etc. That could easily run over $23,000! So instead I am having it done with Dr. E again like I did in 2011 for the affordable price of $300. My surgery is scheduled for July 9th as that's the soonest they had available.

We are hoping I will get another two good years out of it like I did the first one. We are going to see about getting a loan to pursue embryo adoption in August. Either I will cycle next year or I won't and that will be the end of TTC for us. Then whenever my endo comes back they can take everything out at the same time. Dr. E has already told me a hysterectomy is the next step after this surgery, she doesn't want to do one now since she knows our plans regarding embryo adoption. Hopefully soon we will officially be TTC again and I can start blogging about that!

From Left to Write: The Mapmaker's Children by Sarah McCoy

I received this book the Saturday before Mother's Day, and expected to use it as an escape from such a painful weekend. These plans were short sided as the book deals with the two issues I wished to escape: infertility and miscarriage. Suffice to say I put the book down for a while and have only recently found it in myself to pick it back up.

Again I found myself questioning, "Am I a mother?" Society, even most friends and family, would probably say no. Yet I carried a child with half my DNA (albeit briefly). All children have at least one mother and father. Who else would be this child's mother if not me? I love Jesse with a mother's love. I grieve like only a mother could. But yet, I different.

I am not parenting like all the other mothers. I am not raising my child with all the joy and heartache that entails. Being the mother of an angel is hard. Being the mother of a living child is also hard, but in a completely different way. The two are beyond compare.

I have come to the conclusion that I am a mother. I became a mother as soon as my egg met my husband's sperm and nothing, nothing can take that from me. But I am not a parent. I stopped being a parent the moment I got the fateful call from my OB saying my numbers had fallen below 5. I believe when most people think of mothers they are actually thinking of female parents. A small distinction, but an important one to a non-parenting mother (through death, adoption, estrangement, etc). I hope one day to be a parent again to another child, one who gets to live. Then maybe Mother's Day will be cause for celebration.

This post was inspired by The Mapmaker’s Children by Sarah McCoy, a novel about two women are connected by an Underground Railroad doll. Join From Left to Write on May 19th as we discuss The Mapmaker’s Children. As a member, I received a copy of the book for review purposes.

From Left to Write: Spinster by Kate Bolick

My life has been very different from Kate's, seeing as I married my husband at the age of 21 and continue to have a happy marriage. Yet I didn't always think my life would turn out this way. I didn't date in high school and have never gone searching for love. It's quite a coincidence that I met my husband at all, and he had to work hard to convince me to date him!

I've written before (for another FL2W book) that I'm closer to being asexual than not. I have now heard a term I think suits me perfectly: demisexual. Basically it takes a deep emotional connection for me to feel attraction to someone. If you haven't read my previous post I would recommend it, as I don't want to spend too much time on that topic in this post.

Anyway I never knew being married would be in the cards for me, especially not so young. I've always seen myself as a future mother but not so much a wife. Funny how that worked out, isn't it? Married for 5 and a half years but still not parenting. I didn't feel the need for a man in my life and had a hard time picturing that for myself. I could have easily ended up an old cat lady librarian and thought there were worse fates.

Would I have been as happy? I don't know. Throughout the past few years I've relied heavily on my husband for emotional and financial support. There have been many times where my marriage felt like the only positive aspect of my life. Maybe without him I wouldn't even be here; my depression almost got the better of me even with his help. If in this hypothetical my health didn't deteriorate as it has I think I could have been happy living as a spinster. Maybe not as happy, but you can't miss what you've never known.

This post was inspired by Spinster by Kate Bolick, who explores singledom with famous women who fashioned life on their own terms. Join From Left to Writeon May 5th as we discuss Spinster. As a member, I received a copy of the book for review purposes.

AlterWorld by D. Rus

From Goodreads:

A new pandemic - the perma effect - has taken over Earth of the near future. Whenever you play your favorite online game, beware: your mind might merge with the virtual world and dump its comatose host. Woe be to those stuck forever in Tetris! And still they're the lucky ones compared to those burning alive eternally within the scorched hulls of tank simulators.
But some unfortunates - the handicapped and the terminally ill, shell-shocked army vets, wronged crime victims and other society misfits - choose to flee real life willingly, escaping to the limitless world of online sword and sorcery MMORPGs.

Once a seasoned gamer and now a terminal cancer patient, Max grasps at this final chance to preserve his life and identity. So he goes for it - goes for the promise of immortality shared with a few trusty friends and the woman he loves. Together they roam the roads of AlterWorld and sample its agony and ecstasy born of absolute freedom.

This book interested me from two different perspectives. On one hand I'm a gamer, on the other I'm chronically ill. I may not be dying from any of my illnesses, but my quality of life is quite low because of them. Would I choose to enter an MMO for all eternity if I could? Honestly I'm not sure. Maybe, but probably only if my husband came with me. Said husband is busy playing an MMO as I type but he says he isn't sure either. If I could go back in time and ask my December 2013 self (one of the lowest times of my life) I know she would have said yes in a heart beat.

I enjoyed the blend of game description and plot in this story. At parts it was like listening to a friend describe his latest D&D adventures. We have equipment stats and ability descriptions that might be hard to follow for non-gamers, but are quite familiar to those who have rolled a d20 once or twice. Yet the book is only half game, intertwined is Max's new life with other very real people and problems. As you get farther into the story the immersion gets deeper until the end when you realize for some it is no longer a game at all.

I quite enjoyed this book and immediately upon finishing went to download it's sequel: The Clan. There is a third, The Duty, already out with the forth, Inferno, releasing June 20th. According to Goodreads there is a fifth and sixth planned for the series. I would give AlterWorld 5 stars and (so far) The Clan the same. I would recommend it to other gamers and non-gamers should give it a shot too!

From Left to Write: If I Fall, If I Die by Michael Christie

“It's not a prison if you've built it yourself... It's a fortress.”

Sometimes I think I'm developing agoraphobic tendencies. I spend almost all of my time Inside already, which would drive some people stir-crazy but not me. I may step Outside the back door when I let the dogs out, but I'm just as likely to watch them from the doorway. When I do go Outside it is with someone else, like my mother or my husband, which makes me feel safer. There are times when I could go to the store by myself (as I am not on any meds that keep me from driving) but I choose not to. Part of me is scared to drive when I am out of practice. Part of me is scared to go Outside alone. There was a time or two over a year ago that I actually had a panic attack about doing just that. 

I have social anxiety, sometimes quite severely. If I am alone there is a higher chance I will have to talk to someone; if my husband is there he can do the talking for me. I have a terrible sense of direction so part of me is scared of getting lost. As I said above, driving when I haven't for so long is frightening. What happens if I have a flare and can't drive myself home? Do I have valid reasons or am I just making excuses?

This is not something I've ever talked about before. It's a normal part of my life now to go Outside with an escort and I don't think about it much. Maybe I should. I have a therapist and I haven't even mentioned it to her! For now I am fine with going Outside as long as someone is with me, but how easily that could change. I wonder if I will ever be that girl who walked around Midtown Manhattan by herself again.

This post was inspired by the novel If I Fall, If I Die by Michael Christie,about a boy who's never been outside, thanks to his mother's agoraphobia, but ventures outside in order to solve a mystery. Join From Left to Write on January 22nd as we discuss If I Fall, If I Die. As a member, I received a copy of the book for review purposes.

Come, The Dark by Rebecca Hamilton Release Announcement and Giveaway

Thanks for stopping by to view this quick announcement on Rebecca Hamilton's latest release, COME, THE DARK, book 2 in the Forever Girl series. Although this book is the second in the series, it is a complete standalone following a completely new set of characters. And you can grab your copy today for only $0.99! Still apprehensive about reading the second book in a series? Well, you can grab the prequel, HER SWEETEST DOWNFALL, off kindle--Always Free--and on January 9th, THE FOREVER GIRL will be free also, for the first time ever! Worried you might forget the date? Join the mailing list using the option on the Rafflecopter below and you'll receive a reminder on January 9th to download your free copy anytime between January 9th and 13th!

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COME, THE DARK

by USA Today Bestselling Author, Rebecca Hamilton

Rose desperately wants to escape the abuse of the father who impregnated her and the dark spirits that haunt her life. Being thrust from Georgia 1961 into the era of Salem’s infamous witch trials isn’t what she had in mind, and now her daughter is left hopelessly out of reach.

The only way to return to her daughter is by facing certain death to banish the dark spirits that plague Salem. If she doesn’t eliminate these dark spirits in time, they will destroy civilization and trap her in this strange new place, ages away from her daughter.

Even if she can complete the task in time to return home to save her daughter, there’s still one problem: she’s falling in love with a man who can’t return with her. Achieving her goals will force her to choose between the only man who has never betrayed her and a daughter she can’t quite remember but will never forget.

A heart-wrenching tale of a mother’s love for her daughter, this romantic paranormal fantasy underlines the depravity of both historical and modern society while capturing the essence of sacrifice and devotion.

TRIGGER WARNING: This book deals with the sensitive subject of sexual abuse.

Buy Now for $0.99

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THE FOREVER GIRL

by USA Today Bestselling Author, Rebecca Hamilton

NOW OPTIONED FOR FILM!

At twenty-two, practicing Wiccan Sophia Parsons is scratching out a living waiting tables in her Rocky Mountain hometown, a pariah after a string of unsolved murders with only one thing in common: her.

Sophia can imagine lots of ways to improve her life, but she'd settle for just getting rid of the buzzing noise in her head. When the spell she casts goes wrong, the static turns into voices. Her personal demons get company, and the newcomers are dangerous. One of them is a man named Charles, who Sophia falls for despite her better judgment. He has connections that might help her unveil the mystery surrounding her ancestor's hanging, but she gets more than she bargains for when she finally decides to trust him. The Forever Girl is a full-length Paranormal Fantasy novel that will appeal to lovers of paranormal romance, urban fantasy, witches, vampires, ghosts, paranormal mystery, and paranormal horror.

View Now on Amazon

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*** a Rafflecopter giveaway ***

About the Author

Rebecca Hamilton is a USA Today Bestselling Paranormal Fantasy author who also dabbles in Horror and Literary Fiction. She lives in Florida with her husband and four kids. She enjoys dancing with her kids to television show theme songs and would love the beach if it weren’t for the sand. Having a child diagnosed with autism has inspired her to illuminate the world through the eyes of characters who see things differently. She is represented by Rossano Trentin of TZLA and has been published internationally, in three languages. You can follow her on twitter @InkMuse

What is a Forever Girl?

Thanks for stopping by!

Review: City of Stairs by Robert Jackson Bennett

"Forgetting... is a beautiful thing. When you forget, you remake yourself... For a caterpillar to become a butterfly, it must forget it was a caterpillar at all. Then it will be as if the caterpillar never was & there was only ever a butterfly. "

For some reason I'm finding it hard to review this book. It was good, I enjoyed it a lot. Robert Jackson Bennett expertly weaved together fantasy and mystery while also being a master at world building. The characters where done well and Sigrud, Shara's secretary/henchman, was amazing. The plot was compelling and I would recommend it to other fantasy and mystery lovers. However I am finding it hard to put into words why I like it. Maybe it is my brain fog getting the best of me. After reading City of Stairs I would definitely read more from this author. 

I received this book from the Blogging for Books program in exchange for this review. It is available for sale in both paperback and kindle form at Amazon.

Life with Endo

A week ago one of my friends got pinned as a nurse (I hope that is the right terminology). Even though it was about two hours away, it was very important to me that we go and support her. This picture is the result of that trip. The right was taken before heading home and the left the next afternoon after I had started to recover.

Endo bloat or endo belly turns my invisible illness visible, only people who didn't know still wouldn't guess what my body is going through. It hurts to know that the only time I'll see myself with something akin to a baby bump is during a flare.

The keynote speaker at the ceremony was absolutely awful. He spoke of the healing powers of positive thinking. He also spoke of the healing powers of "looking your best" which to him means doing your hair, hails, and makeup, being thin, and possible getting some plastic surgery. Could positive thinking have prevented this? I think not. I did my hair and my nails and wore something nicer than what I normally wear but that didn't help either. In fact wearing dark wash jeans instead of my normal leggings made it worse since the waistband was not as accommodating.

All we did was drive two hours, then sit in a church for a while for the ceremony, then go to dinner and this was the result. I wish you could see how much pain I was in. We had to leave dinner early (before even ordering) because I was in so much pain despite my pain medication. It then took several days of near constant sleep for me to get back to my normal pain levels. Despite all of that I'm still glad we went.

New Paracord Bracelet Colors!

I don't think I ever posted about the new bracelet colors I got! When I started out making bracelets I only had colors that represented my own conditions but now I'm branching out. Top to bottom, left to right: green, teal, pink, purple, blue, black, zebra, yellow, brown camo, garnet & gold, and yellow. All the colors are available with an awareness ribbon of any of the other colors. 

Go Fund Me Update

 Thanks to your generosity I have raised enough money to get my almost $500 worth of blood work! It ended up being 8 vials, and I got pretty light headed but thankfully didn't pass out. As my mother says, phase 1 is now complete! 

Unfortunately unless I can raise the remaining $490 to go to my followup appointment the blood work will be for naught. It is only after we find out the results that I can hope to find treatment. You have all been so generous so far and I hate to ask for more, but maybe I could get a share on FB, twitter, or your own blog? I am still offering a paracord bracelet to anyone who donates $13 or more. If you cannot give that much but would still like a bracelet you can purchase one from my etsy shop for $7.60.

Thank you again everyone who has donated, shared, etc. my previous posts it really means the world to me!

Soylent: Weeks 3-6

It has now been 6 weeks since I started drinking Soylent, I think. Time is kinda fuzzy for me but I think I did the math right. Week three I lost a whole 0.1 pound, but that was the week after Halloween and I got three bags of candy. Week four is when I first started noticing changes. My eczema has improved, especially on my problem ankle. No matter what I do I can't get it to clear up permanently. I will start a new treatment and it will clear up some but in a few weeks it will be all scaly again. During week four it was similar to what it's like when I start a new treatment. I know from when we were TTC that DHA helps my eczema so I figured that's what was happening. I also noticed a few items of clothing fitting better. That week I lost another 1.2 pounds.

Around the end of week four I was starting to tire of the taste. My knee had also improved so I didn't need it as much; I was able to go back to my normal diet for the most part. Week five I actually gained weight but I'm not sure how much. I didn't write down my before weight as MFP always tells me "you've lost x amount since your last weight in!" I guess I figured it would do that for gains too, only without the exclamation mark maybe haha.

I decided at the beginning of week six to try and change things up a bit. I mixed in 1 tablespoon of creamy peanut butter in my 18 oz of soylent/ensure. This was apparently way too much! I had to keep diluting it with more soylent and ensure because all I could taste was PB and the texture was not appetizing. I do think I will try it again, but maybe start with 1 teaspoon instead. I also messed up my knee again trying to move the TV and plug in an HDMI cable when we don't have an HDMI slot. >.<

My clothes are still fitting better and my eczema is still improved. The weather has been changing over the last three weeks, and normally during this time I break out pretty terribly on my hands. I have special gloves to wear at night that I can't take off in my sleep to keep from scratching my skin off. Other than one teeny spot below my thumb and another at the base of my ring finger my hands are completely fine! I think my ankle is smoother than it has been in recent memory. It still looks bad, but I think it's just scarred and always will.

I think it has to be more than just DHA for this big of a change. There must be something else in Soylent I was deficient in that I'm now getting enough of, and it's kept my eczema at bay. I think if nothing else this would a reason to continue drinking it. I have recommend my little sister who has worse eczema than me try it for a few weeks and see if it helps her too. I don't know if she will though.

I lost another 3.6 pounds this week (week 6), bringing it up to a total of 8.4 pounds (which is 4% of my starting weight). So even with Thanksgiving I lost all I gained last week plus some. I didn't get this to lose weight but it's certainly nice. I have to think my metabolism is happy that I am eating (or drinking) food more often throughout the day rather than forgetting to eat for hours and hours. Plus the lower carb count certainly helps! I know this can't keep going forever though, especially since I can't exercise. I am already mentally preparing to plateau.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Being a Thursday, I've got to rep my endosisters by wearing my yellow birthday outfit complete with yellow jeans. Thursdays are awareness day where you wear yellow and use the hashtags #onthursdayswewearyellow and/or #otwwy. Usually I can't participate because I stay in my PJs and don't have any yellow ones! :D

This year I am thankful for my mom, little sister, and husband who remain as supportive and helpful as possible. I really couldn't do it without them.

I'm thankful for the support I've found in a spoonie facebook group as well as the spoonie and body positive communities on instagram. It's nice to have people who "get" you.

I'm thankful for those who participate in the Daily Deal thread on the Sims 3 forums. Because of their help I now own a much, much larger portion of the store that I would with my nonexistent budget. They have taught me the tricks for minimizing costs and maximizing sim points. They are also incredibly nice and supportive for an internet forum. It feels like they really care about each other. They will even gift people store content who are having a bad day, or it's your birthday, or just randomly. In fact yesterday I was gifted a $24 world!

But most of all, I am thankful for those who have donated to my gofundme campaign. I can't express how thankful I am. Because of these donations I now have enough to get my blood work done, which I plan to do next week. I posted before about how hopeless I felt but now I have a little hope. As you can see, I am now over halfway to my goal! I can do the blood work now and the rest (if we get it) will be so I can go to a followup appointment and find out the results of said blood work. I don't have the words to say how thankful I am.

Oh my god you guys!

After posting my rant the other day it seems two of you have donated $50 each! Thank you sooo much! I would thank you personally, but you were both anonymous so I can't. It really did help lift my spirits a bit knowing that a) anyone even reads this still and b) care enough that they would donate that much. I have a little bit of faith that maybe, just maybe, I'll at least be able to raise the $477 needed for my bloodwork if not anything else. I'll still have to cancel my December 1st follow up appointment but maybe I can hope for one after the new year. I have to believe it's possible because I don't know what I will do if I don't. =/

I've thought a lot about whether posting this was a good idea or not, as I don't want to seem ungrateful. I am grateful, really, but I'm also sad. I finally decided this is my blog it should be a safe place for me and I just wouldn't share it on FB, Twitter, IG, etc like I normally do. I don't think anyone who follows my blog has donated so there's probably a smaller chance of someone getting offended.

I posted before that my mother made me a gofundme 23 days ago. So far four people have donated a combined total of $250. Like I said, I am incredibly grateful for this especially the person who did so anonymously! Apart from my immediate family and not being homeless these four people are the only thing I have to be thankful about this Thanksgiving. So please, I beg you, don't think I'm not grateful. I also know I don't deserve nor am I entitled to anyone else's money. But...

Earlier today my mom was checking it and saw some other campaigns and it was really disheartening. There is a 12 year old dog who raised almost $2000 for a blood transfusion in two days. There is a couple who have raised $550 for their honeymoon in five days. Those are just a couple of the many examples. It makes me feel like I am less important and worth less than an elderly dog or a honeymoon. Like people care about me so little that they won't possibly help save my life, yet there are people who will do that for a dog. Like people care about me so little they won't help drastically improve my terrible quality of life that gets worse all the time, but there are people willing to pay for a honeymoon.

I'm already clinically depressed and this just hurts. I cried a lot, took a nap, and now I'm crying again. It feels like I'm not worth saving so why am I trying so hard?

Review: Doctor Who: Silhouette by Justin Richards

You may know I am a member of the From Left to Write book club and sometimes post not really review reviews based on books. Well I've now signed up for Blogging for Books and will occasionally be posting reviews for them too! These will be more traditional reviews than the FL2W ones.

"You have made us do terrible things."

"I have made you into a weapon, my dear. Weapons do terrible things. That is rather the point of them."

Silhouette takes place in Victorian London with my favorite people: the Paternoster Gang. Give these guys a spin-off and I will watch every episode! A power spike gets the Doctor's attention and they, along with Clara, try to discover who is behind that, as well as a string of murders. 

This is the first Doctor Who book I've read. I still haven't seen any of season 8 so I can't comment on how well they portray Twelve's character. It seems like it's done fairly well as I can picture Peter Capaldi in my head. I didn't like Clara very much in Season 7 and I think it may be because I didn't want her to be Eleven's new love interest. I liked her a lot better in the book so I hope I will in the new season too.

Strax was excellent. He had me cracking up in nearly every scene he was in! I even found myself reaching for a highlighter to highlight his quotes. In one he says, "I have a comrade who tells me that once one has eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must also be eliminated." In another he says he has dehydrated water in his field kit! Dehydrated water! He was perfect. Vastra and Jenny were well done too, but I think their characters are a bit flatter than Strax even in the show.

Overall it was an easy read. It wasn't serious literature by any means, but I didn't expect it to be. Some things were predictable but there were a few surprises. Silhouette would be a wonderful book for reading by the pool, on an airplane, etc. I read most of it while waiting on doctors and that worked out well. I'm happy I chose this book and would recommend it to other Doctor Who fans.

I received this book from the Blogging for Books program in exchange for this review. It is available for sale in both paperback and kindle form at Amazon.

Crash and Burn

For a while now Dobby (the poodle mix) has needed grooming. Not for aesthetic reasons, but practical ones. He keeps bringing in wildflower seeds all over his coat that I then have to clean off. Unfortunately we don't have the money to get either dog groomed at the moment. Even if getting them groomed wasn't going to keep us from getting groceries I'd feel pretty crappy about paying for it when we're asking people for money. So a couple of months ago I got a dog grooming kit from amazon that was highly rated but not super expensive so I could attempt to do it myself. I've done it twice previously with acceptable results.

I've been putting it off for about a week now because I just don't feel good. My knee still isn't better, I'm constantly exhausted, my endo started flaring, etc. Yesterday I came to the conclusion that I couldn't keep putting it off because things weren't going to get better. His hair would be so long he'd be blind and tripping over it before I felt up to it. So I decided to suck it up and do it.

The problem is, you can't just pull out the clippers and do as much as you can, stop, and do the rest later. In order to keep the clippers from getting dull (and then buying new ones) you have to give him a bath immediately before hand and dry him with a blow dryer. If he does anything that might get "foreign particles" (aka dirt) on his fur like going outside you have to start over.

So I used up quite a few spoons doing all that. He wasn't being cooperative when it came to his feet which sucks because that's where the majority of seeds stick too. I'm sure it didn't help that he could tell I was frustrated and tired and in pain. Eventually I just... crashed. I don't know how to word it other than that. I told my husband I blue screened. I got dizzy, light headed, nauseous, the works all of a sudden. I just barely managed to call Josh on speaker phone and say "help" before things started going black. Or actually gray, because things don't usually go black when I start to pass out. I know he came and helped me to the couch but I don't really remember it.


Approximately several minutes later I was able to sit up and take Lupin's advice, eating a fun size KitKat left over from Halloween on the end table. It did help. I don't think my blood sugar was low, but it's not outside the realm of possibilities. I was definitely in a spoon deficit the rest of the day. Poor Dobby looks all mangy from being half groomed but I'm not even going to try and fix it for a while. Now I'm back in bed for who even knows how long. Whenever I wash the dogs I wear my swim suit so I don't worry about getting my clothes wet, and I'm still in it now. Eventually maybe I'll put on pajamas instead...

Soylent: First Two Weeks

I mentioned Soylent briefly back in May or June after we ordered it, and it just got here a few weeks ago! Yes, they were back ordered a lot and still are. If you order now it's supposed to take 2-3 months to ship but re-orders are only supposed to take 1-2 weeks. I haven't tested that yet to see how accurate it is.

But anyway, I'm sure you're wondering what Soylent is and why I would want to drink people. From their website:

Soylent™ was developed from a need for a simpler food source. Creator Robert Rhinehart and team developed Soylent after recognizing the disproportionate amount of time and money they spent creating nutritionally complete meals.

Soylent is a food product (classified as a food, not a supplement, by the FDA) designed for use as a staple meal by all adults. Each serving of Soylent provides maximum nutrition with minimum effort.

The reason I am interested is because with my health it is hard to get the nutrition I need. Basically I eat like crap. Most days (almost all) I don't feel up to doing any actual cooking so stick to things that merely require heating, like canned soup or popcorn. On the occasional day I do feel up to cooking I can't use fresh ingredients instead being stuck with canned or frozen. If I were to go grocery shopping in order to get fresh things I would no longer have the spoons to cook! On good days I eat a lot of carbs and processed food, and bad days are even worse. I know when you eat better you feel better, but I'm stuck in a catch 22: I can't eat better in an attempt to feel better unless I already feel better. Plus I know a lot of my problems simply will not be solved by dietary choices anyway. In short this is much better nutritionally than I already eat and also less work, without being crazy expensive ($9-12 a day depending on type of order).

There are a lot of nutritional drinks out there, what makes this one better? Several months ago I started keeping around some store brand Ensure, and it's the nutritional drink I have the most experience with. Soylent has at least 100% DV of the micronutrients you need, with only a few going higher than that - the most 171%. If you were to drink 2000 calories of the store brand ensure, you would get a wide range of micronutrients from 64-480% DV! Soylent has a 50/30/20 carb/fat/protein ratio while the store brand ensure is more like 72/10/16 (I know that doesn't equal 100, I rounded down). Carbs are a problem for me with PCOS so if there is an easy way to eat less of them I'll take it. Soylent only has 6g of sugar per day with 27g fiber whereas ensure has 176g sugar and 0g fiber! Plus soylent is dairy free and the ensure is not. I haven't done all the math for other nutritional drinks but at a glance none of them have been as nutritionally complete as soylent. The only issue nutritionally is sodium as it doesn't have quite enough, but it's fixed by just adding some table salt when you mix it.

Okay now that the introduction (that I meant to post about separately months ago) is over let's talk about my experiences. After I got it I made the pitcher seen above out of one pouch and one oil blend as directed. If you eat nothing else this pitcher would be one day's worth of nutrition. My first impression was mixed. The taste was not bad at all but the grainy texture was quite problematic. I will warn you though I am quite a picky eater and have texture issues with other foods as well. I read online that if you let the powder blend "soak" overnight, add some salt, and don't add the oil blend until it's soaked the texture is better. There was nothing I could do about the oil blend at that point but I added the salt and didn't have any more until it had soaked.

The texture definitely improved the next day, but it was still off-putting enough that I couldn't see drinking quite a bit of it on a regular basis. I added some of the ensure I keep around to my cup of soylent and the texture improved tremendously. So I took out a blender bottle and added one carton (8oz) of ensure to 8oz of soylent and shook it up, which was definitely drinkable. For reference that is 494 calories. For that first pitcher I had one blender bottle a day for a few days, with some family and friends trying some as well. I ended up pouring out some of the pitcher as it says it's only supposed to sit for a few days and I wasn't sure I'd know if it started to go bad. From then on I only made half a pitcher at a time.

With the next (half) pitcher I upped it to 10oz soylent/8oz ensure, and either I could have done that the whole time or I had acclimated to the texture a bit as that was fine as well. For reference that is 555 calories. I had between 1-1 1/2 bottles a day for the rest of the week. It seems satiating enough and I didn't feel exceptionally hungry, but I don't get normal hunger cues anyway so YMMV. I didn't really notice any changes in, well, anything that week but I wasn't really drinking that much either. At the end of the week I weighed myself and lost 0.8 pounds, anything less than a pound I generally believe to be within the margin of error and not a real loss/gain unless it is sustained.

Around the end of the first week I injured my knee which I wrote about before. Unfortunately it still isn't better more than a week later. This was, however, a perfect test for soylent! Something like this is really needed when I'm even less mobile and have even fewer spoons than normal. I stayed at the 10/8oz ratio for a few days, then went up to 12/8oz (as much as my blender bottle will hold and 615 calories), then went back down to 10/8oz. The 12/8oz was perfectly drinkable and I didn't notice much difference so that's not why I went back down. Store brand ensure is actually cheaper than soylent at $8/day and with my recent healthcare costs that we can't afford I figured this was a good compromise between nutrition and cost. I was drinking about two bottles a day and thus getting about 2/3 of my calories from the blend, with one meal or a few snacks of solid food. I did notice a small digestive change but it's kinda TMI and not a big deal.

I weighed myself yesterday and lost another 2.7 pounds. That's not much, but with my PCOS, thyroid issues, lack of mobility, etc any loss is a big deal. It also means that my previous 0.8 pound loss probably wasn't a margin of error thing as I've actually lost 3.5 pounds in the last two weeks. I think there are a few things that could explain this:

1. It's just water weight/bloat. Maybe I'm ingesting less salt (even though I am adding the recommended amount to my soylent now), or ingesting less gluten as I know gluten can affect endo bloat. The mix I've been drinking is mostly gluten free with some cross contamination as far as I can tell. I don't feel like I have a gluten allergy/insensitivity but it could still affect weight.
2. I'm definitely eating less carbs, and it is well known carbs affect weight when you have PCOS. 
3. Because I've been stuck in bed/on the couch for a week I'm not snacking as much and thus not eating as many calories. 

Chances are it's a combination of all three. Let's give it a few more weeks before celebrating to see if it goes back up, as historically it almost always has. Plus I know it's bad but I'm going to get some half-price Halloween candy today. =P Other than the weight loss and the small digestive thing I haven't noticed any changes. I don't feel any better or worse that I can tell. My clothes don't seem to fit any different. I'm not sleeping better or worse. 

It definitely passed my test as a spoonie solution as long as you have something to cut it with. I feel like I could drink 2/3 soylent to 1/3 ensure now without any texture problems as long as I had some water to drink afterwards. I think eventually I could get so used to it I could drink it straight. It has been sooo incredibly convenient to have when stuck in bed. Unlike previous times I haven't sat here starving because I didn't have the spoons to make any food and no one else was around/awake to help me. So in that case it has met my expectations. I plan to keep some around and would recommend it to others with chronic health problems that keep them from eating the way they might like. 

I used to be an adventurer like you...

I didn't exactly take an arrow to the knee, but something happened. The other day I was sitting at the computer with one leg tucked under the other, when it happened as I was trying to straighten it back out. It hurt, a lot. Sometimes joints pop for one reason or another and it's no big deal, but this was not one of those times.

Since then I've been stuck in bed or on the couch with my foot up. I can't remember spending this much time in bed since the lupron wore off. Today it was starting to feel a bit better as long as I didn't move it or put any weight on it. It hurt for a little while after moving but for the most part I was fine as long as I stayed still.

I say was because it popped again as I sat down after going to the kitchen. I'm not sure it hurts as much as that first day, but definitely more than the last two days. It's so unbelievably frustrating! It's not like I'm terribly mobile to begin with. And what really sucks is knowing I can't even go to the doctor about it because we don't have the money. Every time I feel like I'm making headway emotionally, with my depression, something else happens. I don't even feel like it's one step forward two steps back anymore. I attempt to take a step forward and life cuts that foot off for being presumptuous. There are only so many feet you can lose before you can't even try anymore. I'm not an octopus.

Second Angelversary and Wave of Light

Today is Jesse's second Angelversary. For a while now I've been seeing pregnancy tests in my timehop since I took the pictures with my phone. Boy is that hard, but I don't have the strength to delete them. This morning I watched my niece for a few hours and she was pretty fussy. On one hand it was distracting but on the other it just hurt. Still I think this year has been easier than the last. My husband got me some root beer and Little Debbie brownies and that has definitely helped! After my mom took my niece I took a nap and just woke up a little while ago. I plan to take it easy the rest of the night and cuddle my puppies close. I may not have cried as much as last year, but grief is still exhausting.

The 15th of course was the Wave of Light. We went to the ceremony put on by the same group as last year, only this time it was in a church instead of a park. It was nice because we could sit down, which is helpful when you are so emotional.

 I got this shirt from I Am A Mother To An Angel, they have a website but I saw it advertised on their Facebook page. It's a little big because when I ordered it they didn't have women's sizes yet just men's/unisex. The words on the pink side of the heart are from a poem called This Hole by Lacey Harris-Willoby. I love it and I plan to wear it often even when it's not October anymore. You can still buy it but only for the next six days. I also had on my awareness ribbon paracord bracelet with colors for endo and PCOS.

I was glad this year we had a name for them to call out when it was our turn to light our candle. Last year it was just "Baby Lastname". I know it probably seems weird to name your baby over a year after they died but I'm happy we did. I just wish we had decided to do it sooner!

The image I posted on the 11th about the Wave of Light I also posted in a Sims 3 forum I frequent. (The picture was taken in the Sims 3 with my simself and simhusband if you couldn't tell.) I was a bit worried about bringing in such a heavy topic but everyone was really supportive! Other angelmoms spoke about their own losses, or the losses of friends and family. Most had never heard of the event but pledged to light their own candles. I am happy I could help raise awareness for something so important to me. I kept an eye on the instagram hashtag #waveoflight and there were so many more pictures this year than last. Almost 11,000 all together! I can't wait to see how many more there will be next year.

This is off-topic but I didn't want to make a separate post just for this. I found out the blood work my doctor ordered will be almost $500. That means with the injections and sleep study that visit will have cost us $1300, $1100 more than expected. This doesn't even include my follow up visit tentatively scheduled for the first of December or any subsequent tests and medications once he gets the results of these. We simply cannot afford it so at this time I won't be getting any blood work and will probably cancel my follow up appointment. I was hoping for answers and treatment but have resigned myself to constant pain and lack of sleep. My mother set up a gofundme campaign for me but so far it hasn't raised any money. I will post about it if a miracle happens and we somehow get the money.