Pivotal Moment

Not that long ago I asked my husband if he had ever thought about getting a tattoo. His reply was something along the lines of “I’ve never had anything that life altering that I wanted to memorialize it on my body”, which I agreed with at the time. I have no problems with tattoos and get the idea, but what had happened to me that I wanted something on my body to remind me of? Nothing.

I have lost a baby, but don’t want to look at my body (outside of my stretchmarks, thank you) and be reminded. I have been to hell and back (and back again ad infinitum) with my addiction, but again, not something I want to be reminded of.

Enter Diabetes.

Life. Altering.

I can no longer live my life the way I was. I can no longer make the choices I was making and have a healthy life. I mean, sure, I guess I can not exercise and continue to eat crap. And literally die. NO THANK YOU.

Line drawn. Before HERE. | After HERE.

I looked my endocrinologist in the eye and said “I WILL DO BETTER”. And I am. I have been and will continue to do so. I will exercise. I will make better choices for my what goes in my mouth. I will learn about what I can do to improve my health.

I CAN.

That is the tattoo I want to get. I am not defeated by this diagnosis. I am changed by it. I am motivated by it. I am driven by it. I CAN CHANGE.

I got a temporary tattoo off Etsy with the words. I’d like something floral/vine-y with it. I’m looking at “where does a tattoo hurt the least” diagrams of the body (and yet, still be hidden from my parents!). I’m not the kind of person that is going to put this on my wrist. It’s going to be for me only. Ok, Jim will see it too! But still, it’s for ME.

Have any of my Readers gotten one? Any tips or tricks or advice?

When It’s An Emergency

You have to put everything else on hold.

The last week plus has been HARD. HARD and WEIRD and I NEVER WANT TO DO THIS AGAIN etc etc etc. Trying to make a fairly long story shorter, my youngest started having weird pain in her abdomen. Bad enough that Wed Aug 31 we went to the ER. After testing and stuff they thought it might have been a ruptured ovarian cyst. She was sent home. We (including her on Advil and Tylenol) attended a wedding on Friday evening. She Uber’d home early. Jim and I came home, went to bed around 11 (with a lot of Melatonin in my system) and she woke me at 1:46am in VERY VERY BAD pain. Back to the ER.

Fast forward many hours and she’s on the operating table getting about 3 feet of her large intestine cut out of her body.

The last seven days have been spent literally all day (9am to 9pm) at the local hospital with her recovering from this. I have not worked, I have not worked out, (but I have gotten my annual mammogram), I have not done much of anything except be there for her. I have, however, made good choices with my food. Normally a hospital visit/stay is an excuse for me to “treat myself” with junk. I just couldn’t do it. I’ve chosen protein and lower/no carb options. I haven’t eaten junk. And it’s been really mostly ok. I got on the scale and saw a number I haven’t seen in a long time. Letting me know that the decisions I’ve been making in the past month have been good ones for me.

Lord willing, she’ll be coming home today. That will most likely be an adventure in an of itself. She’s fairly mobile, but we have to be careful about fiber in her diet–as in, she shouldn’t have it.

I’ll head back to work tomorrow and start back up at my training on Tues/Thurs/Sat, which I have really missed (although they’ve been so lovely to me–both the owner and my trainer have texted more than a few times just to see how things are going!) and start to try to do my normal life things. I have missed my life, although I was happy I could temporarily drop it and been 100% there for my child when they needed me.