Scared to share.....

Good morning!  Today's blog is something I would probably not really want to talk about, but I need to explain myself.

Back in December, I was going through a phase, or I thought it was a phase.  I had emotional outbursts that I could not explain, but I definitely knew that I was not acting like my normal self.  I went and posted a question about stress and depression; if there was a connection.  Well, I can say that there is, but my situation... it was not.  Yep, I am stressed about keeping myself and my family above water financially, and yes I am depressed that the economy has squashed us financially.  Illinois politics is awful and yet again, the residents of this glorious state have to flip the bill.  Higher taxes, high unemployment rate, and everything becoming more expensive.  People are losing their jobs, some are losing their businesses, some have been taking pay cuts in order to keep their job, some are losing their homes, and everyone is losing their financial freedom.  Illinois is not alone, but since I live here, I am experiencing it with everyone I know.  President Obama's plan for Universal healthcare jump started an explosion of health insurance rates and premiums to skyrocket with less coverage offered.  It costs more to be insured and you get less covered by insurance.  To them, it is all about their bottom line and what is considered a liability.  Nowadays, I dread even seeing the doctor because if it is more than an office visit, it is going to cost me BIG TIME.  Well, needless to say, I took a big girl pill, faced my fears and saw the doctor.  I knew that I was taking the chance of getting my ear bent about going by my husband, but I did it.  I had to know.

This is where I feel a little uncomfortable talking about this, so please bear with me.  My life is less than perfect,  I am not as young as I was, I am not as thin as I was, I don't feel as pretty as I was, but I had a few constants that I relied upon to say that everything is just fine.  One is something that women experience every month.  If you skipped out of sex ed class in school, here is what I am talking about in three words...  woman's menstrual cycle.

I was darn proud that I was regular.  I could set my calendar by it.  The last time I was 'late', I was pregnant with my daughter.  Somehow, in my 40's (I am not afraid to say how old I am...  I may not like talking about it, but I am honest about my age.  My weight is another story), my regularity became compromised.  I was late and I had no clue why.  I should have figured out that my emotional instability back in December was just PMS, but what I experienced was PMS times 4.  I went to the doctor and they did some blood work to see what could possibly be the reason I was late.  They came to the conclusion that I need to take this pill called Provera to force my body to have it's cycle.  I really had no clue why, but I took this medication.  Within a few days, my PMS X 4 lessened down to nil, my cycle came and all is well.  What a relief.  I still wondered why this happened to me and asked the doctor to explain it to me.  Well, I never thought of myself as a bag of fireworks for the 4th of July, but that was his analogy.  Sometimes, you have fireworks that work, and there are times you have a 'dud' in the mix.  Little did I know, I had a dud happening in me.  The medicine was like a fire to make that dud finally go off.

Double edged sword, that pill was.  Since this happened during the holidays, and did not take the measures to fix this until well after the new year, I gained some serious weight.  In the matter of about a month, I had gained roughly 16 pounds.  What a way to see yourself go zonkers when you make a commitment to lose weight.  Between my body acting like a dud and the number one side effect of this darn pill is weight gain, I was doomed from the start.  Interesting thing.  I made a commitment to lose weight sensibly and to not get bent whenever I step on the scale.  Setbacks will happen, I just have to keep trying.  After seeing the scale go up, I remained calm.  Today, I stepped on the scale and was relieved to see that blasted number go down.  DOWN 8 POUNDS...  Whoop whoop!  I know that I was not going to blog about my weight loss commitment and the journey it entails, but today is the first day that I can have a sigh of relief and maybe I can get out of these darn sweat pants ;)

My emotions are in check, my body is functioning again, and I am ready to really look forward to better health.  Watch out world, I'm back and I am not afraid to live!  Now, I just have to wait to see the doctor's bill come in the mail... sigh.  I sure hope it is covered.....