The Saga Begins

This is not an easy blog for me to start, and I am hoping like too many other things in my life I don't give it up when it it gets to hard, or unsuccessful, or not fun any more. Because I am hoping this blog will be more than a place to rattle off my weekend plans and tell you how cute my daughter is. Mostly because I don't plan on doing either of those. Not that they won't be mentioned its just not what I am aiming for. I am hoping for this to be a new beginning. I am feeling the need to better my self, in many ways. But I really want to dedicate this blog to what I feel is currently effecting my life the most my health.

September of 2005 I lost my big sister Julie. She died while in labor with her first child she didn't know that she had severe gallstones and her gall bladder ruptured we lost her and her baby. My sister suffered from a life long battle with Hoshimoto's Disease. Which is an autoimmune disease in which the thyroid gland is attacked by a variety of cell- and antibody-mediated immune processes. Which is a fancy way of saying you feel like crap most of the time.

OK so why am I telling you this. I have struggled with my weight my entire life I remember growing up being quite tall and weighing more than most of my friends and I was always told "well your taller than they are" and I was just fine with that. Then one day I was talking with some friends in the 6th grade and one girls mentioned she had seen someone from our class the year before that had changed schools. Someone asks how she was doing and this 6th grade Mean Girl reply's "She's getting really FAT". Me trying to be the nice sweet girl said "Oh that's too bad".  I was then attacked with how dare I say anything and be so rude because -I- am so FAT. (Manipulative little bitch am I right?) I had no idea. I was always told I was beautiful by the people who loved me and the people who didn't love me well they were just mean. But this was my friend, so I thought. I didn't know that I wasn't skinny and beautiful.

Skip ahead to the worst 4 years of a persons life, High School. I got my first boyfriend who let me know if I would just loose some weight I would be really pretty. Not really knowing how to do that healthfully and being to embarrassed to ask for help I just decided to stop eating. I lost quite a bit of weight and developed hypoglycemia. I found the fact that I could go an entire school day, play rehearsal and part time job shift with out eating anything and be able to function with brain bleeding headaches strangely empowering. In a way I was proud of my self. Then he dumped me because he discovered he was gay. (I am pretty sure he wanted me to look like a boy)

Shall we jump a few more years to when I moved to Chicago. I was so proud of my self. I moved out of my parents house I had a steady acting job. I walked every where I went because I didn't have a car and the show I was in required me to dance for several hours 6 shows a week. I ate what ever I wanted when ever I wanted. The weight was falling off me and I wasn't even trying. Then I went to the DR. because my hypoglycemia seemed to be getting worse and I was having trouble swallowing. They did some Blood tests and told me I was fine.

I graduated to going on tour. I traveled in a tour vehicle and ate at restaurants. (big portion high calories) Although my weight didn't balloon out of control I did gain a few pounds. But that difficulty swallowing was getting worse. I went to the Dr and she had sonogram done of my Thyroid gland. She said it was enlarged but not bad enough to do anything about it.

Long story short: I got married to a wonderful man who loves me and tells me I am beautiful no matter what I look like and I had a beautiful baby. 

In 2011 I was so tired of being told that my blood test are normal and my fatigue, high blood pressure and weight gain was just a part of getting older. And by the way "NO- REALLY- I CAN'T SWALLOW!!!" Finally I saw an endocrinologist and told her my medical history. She was LIVID by the lack of care my former Dr's gave me. Gave my Thyroid gland another sonogram nearly 8 years later. Found that I had 5 calcified polyps the size of Mandarin oranges growing on my Thyroid gland that was not only making it difficult to swallow but was squeezing my wind pipe. I was was slowly choking to death. My only choice was to have my Thyroid removed completely.    

After my surgery it seemed like the beginning of the end. I felt like a vegetable. For months at a time I wondered if I was ever going to be able to get out of bed again. I had a panic attack in the middle of a grocery store because suddenly I had no idea where I was. A couple of times I would drive places and forget how to get home. Also my metabolism dropped to the floor. My medication started to regulate after a while. But one thing that I couldn't seem to do anything about was my fatigue and my weight gain. The Dr put me on an appetite suppressant that skyrocketed my blood pressure.

I would sleep all night and still want a nap all day long. According to my blood tests it wasn't my Thyroid levels. I was told "Exercise you'll get more energy" it did't work. I would wake up exercise and want to go back to sleep. So my Dr. suggested a sleep study.

 After what seemed to be the worst night sleep of my entire life the study concluded that I have Sleep Apnea. Evidently when my thyroid was removed it adjusted the positioning of my throat and when I go to sleep at night my tongue falls into my wind pipe and I stop breathing. Although it feels like I am sleeping all night long, I am continually waking up to catch my breath. I am currently functioning daily with (or non-functioning) with sleep deprivation. The most difficult thing for me is that Sleep Apnea increases weight gain, and weight gain increases Sleep Apnea.

So here I am. A thyroid disordered, high blood pressured, deeply depressed (yes diagnosed), Sleep Apnea'd obese 36 year old Wife and Mother. Who has decided something has to change.

Which is why we are here. I am calling this My Baby Steps life simply because I know there is no way I can do this all at once. I need to take this one step at a time. The idea of eating all the right things at the right time and knowing all the exercises to do how and when all at once is so overwhelming to me, that I am pretty sure I would give up pretty quickly. 

You may ask why I am doing this publicly? Because I don't think i can do this alone. I need support, encouragement and maybe even a little advice. When I fall down into a crying fit and tell everybody that its to hard and I can't do this anymore. I need someone to tell me that I can. When I have a bad day and bury my face in gallon of ice cream, some one needs to tell me I can pull it together and start again.   

So my goal is to blog once a week about the goal that I set the week before. Hopefully those goals will all add up to one healthy ME.