My Abbreviated PCOS Story (for #PCOS)

I find I'm asked this question a lot and maybe it's about time I write it all out.  I was born a skinny little kid without an ounce of baby fat (or so my mother says).  I lived this boney life eating whatever I wanted and caring little about the quantity.  Then at 12 I started middle school and puberty simultaneously.  Over night I sprouted C cups and self doubt.  

From this point on everything changed.  Anything I ate turned into excess weight added to my body.  Menstrual cycles were heinous  at best, plagued with anemia and lots of laundry.  My mood swings were off the chart.  I either loved everyone or hated everyone with a fiery passion and had to find a way to hide all the craziness from everyone who seemed to have a better control of their emotions.  

I lived this way till I reached age 25.  I got married that year to the best man of my life and started to get really comfortable.  I let diet and activity slide and next thing I knew I blossomed to a curvy woman of close to 300lbs, unpredictable moods, and dangerously close to the diabetic line.  I tried to talk to my doctors at kaiser pleading for answers and all they could tell me was that it was all just puberty.  After getting married I decided I had enough and dropped kaiser completely, replacing it with blue cross health insurance.  That is the first time I heard the abbreviation PCOS (polycystic ovary syndrom).  I won't spend too much time describing this but here's a link to various resources you could read.

After meeting with several specialists the decision was to change my diet, and add more activity to my life.  I've been following a basic low carb diet, eliminating all gluten (due to an allergy), and managed to lose the first 60lbs really fast.  Since 2010 I was pregnant twice both resulting in miscarriages.  During the last two years I've had three different surgeries and tons of frustration.  I started to slip on the lifestyle change and at 30 I started to battle depression again. 

So I'm now focusing on getting back on track.  I've surprisingly I fallen in love with running and have managed to log over 213 miles for this year.  I'm now flirting with the 200lb line and am working really hard to cross into the 100s.  I started a gym membership and a new medication to help my body process insulin.   I feel I'm determined now more than ever to make things right but it's still a struggle.

After PCOS

Before PCOS

Me Now

Efficiency Example #1

Tp: I got a notice and what information do you need?

Me: Well I need to know what your question is before I know what I will need.

Tp: Oh, ok, let me try to make this short... I got a notice and I’m pretty sure I know what the problem is but I just wanted to know what to do. The notice is for 2011 and it says that I and someone else claimed my son. We did a little bit of research and found out he claimed himself on his return. Well really his aunt, my husband’s sister, filled out the return for him doing this. See, he was estranged for a month or two to live with her but things didn’t work out and he had to move out. He had this girlfriend at the time and they started to date and I really didn’t like her but it was while he was in school and we paid for his school during that time. So what I really wanted to know was if my husband and I did our return right by claiming our son?

Me: So you wanted to know who should have claimed him on the return?

Tp: Huh?

Me: *slams head on desk*

That funk...

I finally made it to the weekend.  So far it's been really relaxing, but my mood has just been sour to say the least.  Back when I was 13 I was diagnosed with depression and put on various drugs like paxil or wellbutrin.  When I was 17 I flushed all the drugs down the toilet with my grandmother's encouragement and I've been pushing through the depression on my own.

The last few days have been tough.  No matter what I do I feel overwhelmed and want nothing but to stay home and away from people.  This morning I tried coaxing myself out of the house with sushi and it turned out to be alright, but I spent most of the time disconnected and lost in my thoughts.  We came home and played some video games but that didn't seem to distract me as much as I would like.  I went to the fitness room and did some treadmill and the bike but 8+ miles later I just feel the same but tired.

In my last attempt for the day I'm going over to a friend's house to eat chinese and do whatever.  I hope this passes quickly.  Ok, time to change out of my workout cloths.

Things that make you go owe...

In my weight loss journey I found out that I much prefer working out at home instead of signing up for classes.  It seemed that the classes always were scheduled while I was at work or never seemed to match up with my beginners skill level.  Thankfully my best friend Xbox, and his step brother kinect, provided me with a couple of options.  

For over a year I was using a game called active 2.  It had me jumping, running, squatting, lunging, basically anything you could think of all in quick succession.  I loved doing all the workouts, but hated the pain afterwards.  Thankfully after a couple of weeks I wasn't limping around like I had broken knee caps.  The bad part came when EA decided to deactivate the servers for the game.  You could still use it, but keeping track of your progress online was not an option.     

So last week I ventured back out to Gamestop and found something else on the shelves that would be essentially the same.  I was looking at various games that seemed to fit the same mold as active 2 and the lady who worked there told me about Zumba.  She said it was basically the same thing, but waaay more fun.  I tried it out the next morning and found myself getting a little frustrated because I didn't know the moves and because when I was doing them right the game said I wasn't.  For my second session today I decided I didn't give a rat about my performance, and that all I really needed to keep in mind was that I just needed to keep moving around.  

Now it's time to go eat some breakfast!

Fish, fish, and more fish.

About a month before I had the miscarriage Patrick decided it would be fun to have a fish tank. So we drove out to our local Pet Smart and got a 20 gallon tank and all the supplies. Seven months, two filters, and who know how many fish later we now have it all worked out. We decided we loved the durability of the Cory Catfish and the social Molly Fish.

The only thing we didn't think about was that the Mollys are live bearers and they spend the majority of their life pregnant. Barely two weeks after we got our black and white dalmatian pair the female gave birth and we found ourselves struggling and only rescuing about 4. We got another 10 gallon tank to house them but unfortunately they didn't live through the transfer.

Wednesday we stopped by Pet Smart to get two more female Mollys and they gave us 9 baby fry for free. So now we have 7 catfish and 16 mollys. Not sure what we're going to do when the baby fry get bigger but I guess we'll have to try finding them homes or selling them to the pet stores out here. So if you're interested let me know!

Back to Blogger

You complained and I heard so it's back to blogger for me.  However I'm not going to pull all my posts from the past.  This one is going to be everything from my 30s and on.  I'm still trying to decide if I want it to be private due to work.  If that happens I'll add all of you like I did before.

-Cheers,

Whinypants