It's amazing what a good workout can do for my mood too! I was feeling pretty blah the whole day, now I feel much peppier and happier.
It's mostly renaissance, steampunk, that kind of stuff. No lady liberty nor uncle sam costumes there. I'm going to go walk the dog shortly - I want her to be really tired out for tonight. She freaks out badly when fireworks are going off, so my theory is, if she's really tired, maybe she'll care less or possibly even sleep through it all! Wishful thinking probably, but worth a try anyway.
Hopefully she'll stay asleep for awhile.
That's funny that you come to the US to shop - when hubby and I have extra fun money, we usually road trip down to Illinois and shop at Ikea & the Woodfield mall. I guess shopping is just more fun sometimes if you make it a road trip! I'll see how I feel tomorrow morning before making any crazy decisions about that though.
I'll be lucky if I can make it through doing laundry later.
My grandpa is really sick so he really does mean it now when he says he won't be around much longer (he has heart problems, diabetes, kidney failure, he's in a wheelchair, he's really falling apart). So I know there won't be many more family gatherings with my grandparents, I don't need to be reminded of it every single time though!
I told him a brief synopsis of my history with the probable IBD and all that. He said that if it's inflammatory arthritis, then, given my symptoms & history, the arthritis is "definitely" related/being caused by the IBD. He even said that since my IBD isn't fully diagnosed, it sounds to him like the arthritis is an important piece of the diagnostic puzzle to me, and he said he can certainly give me that puzzle piece. That was awesome that he said that! I hope it's true! I feel like I'm getting so close now. I probably won't get an official IBD diagnosis even if I definitely have inflammatory arthritis, but the evidence is really starting to pile up in IBD's favor.
Hit the gym tonight and did great, had to skip the abdominals machines again but did everything else (tried doing the plank position as I was stretching, to test my abdominal muscles, and my body gave me a clear "stop" signal, so things are still not quite right). So yeah, had a good workout and a good dinner and I feel pretty okay about things at the moment.
You don't really get that with other dog breeds. I don't think anyone has ever yelled, "Poodle!" or "Golden retriever!" But I hear "Corgi!!" regularly when I take my dog out for walks.
I woke up yesterday morning not feeling great, but as the day went on, I felt somewhat better. Didn't go kayaking, but around dinnertime I was feeling well enough to try hitting the gym. That went okay, except I had drank some orange juice a few hours prior, and even with a 300 mg Zantac and 10 Tums (the max daily dose) in my system, I still got some crazy heartburn. Drank a ton of water during my workout to try to alleviate it, and that did help somewhat. Felt better once my workout was over.
On a nice summer day, I like to go outside on my breaks and sit in the sunshine and read. It's so ridiculously warm and humid here lately though that going outside has become miserable. So I'm going to go hit the exercise bike in the basement gym on my lunch instead. The gym is the coolest area of the building, and even though I get warm when exercising, it'll still be far more pleasant than venturing outside. My guts like to cramp up on warm and humid days, so I figure this is just me being nice to my guts, right?
I woke up today with my left hip - AKA the "good" hip - in quite a bit of pain. I can walk okay without my cane but every so often it hits me with a sharp *** of pain. It feels like my hip just isn't fitting into the joint correctly today. I tried stretching it and moving it around but that didn't help at all. And now of course the right hip, the "bad" hip, is chiming in and acting up as well. *Sigh.* I was thinking of doing yoga tonight but I might make today a rest day instead.
The first song was Utada's "Take 5" and I just told myself, breathe, take 5 and breathe! (Yes Mark, it was a mix of K-pop and J-pop!) So all good stuff, and I feel okay.With what?? A sony walkman
They make you wear headphones so they can talk to you and give you instructions (hold your breath, etc) while you're in the MRI machine, and you can listen to music when they're not talking to you. You can bring a CD of your own or they usually have some CDs there that you can listen to. For my first MRI, I didn't think to bring a CD, so I listened to one of theirs (Alicia Keys) and then today I did bring one of my own to listen to (yay K- and J-pop). They don't let you bring anything with metal in it into the MRI so of course no walkman/discman. It's all a special non-metal (or non-magnetic metal anyway) internal audio system thingy.
Ha ha! I seriously don't get this flare. Everything about it is so very odd!
It's all about my health, I couldn't care less about texting or flirting or chatting (I barely say 2 words to my hubby when we're at the gym together and I leave my phone in my locker) or showing off or being seen. I'm there to fight for my health. I like that, I'm a lifer.
I'm going to take it slow, and may go for less weight than usual, but I have to give it a try.
That's great. My back didn't bother me either, it seems to be healing much faster than the shoulder is.
I know, I know...sometimes there are some great finds!
Not good at all. I also snacked on potato chips on Sunday. Bad, bad, bad.
I feel very rested, completely the opposite from what I felt like yesterday. I wish I could sleep like that every night! Ha ha. Snack was a can of sardines (healthy omega-3s) and a cup of miso soup (it's cold in my office, needed soup to warm up!). I also had 2 mugs of tea during the course of the morning. Lunch was a pasta salad (pasta, peeled cucumbers, hardboiled eggs, light viniagrette dressing - I didn't have anything else in the house that I could quickly throw in a pasta salad, but normally I'd add stuff like tofu and tomatoes and green peppers too - I can eat that stuff as long as the skin is removed). Dinner is cornish hens, which are currently cooking in the crock pot. I adore poultry in the crock pot, it's so easy and it comes out so nice and moist and juicy! And we always use the leftover juices to mix in with some instant mashed potatoes, yum yum. I know instant mash isn't the healthiest thing, but I wouldn't qualify it as junk food either. So yeah, the only really bad thing I've had today was the donut. I consider that a pretty successful day diet-wise.
I swear, the last time I did prep, the few times I ventured to the couch in between potty breaks, there were pretty much only food commercials on TV. It all looked amazing, it was like a special kind of torture! I remember thinking, even tortured prisoners get bread and water, and don't have to watch these commercials! I hope you can eat something really delicious when your scope is over.
My GI agreed with me that I need another colonoscopy soon, so he put in an order for one, and he also was on board with switching up my meds after the scope. Even if the scope shows nothing, he's okay with me trying either Apriso or Pentasa. I'm hoping the scope shows *something* - I am going to do a crazy ton of abdominal exercises before the prep, to get the bleeding going. If my GI can at least figure out the source of the bleeding, then I'll be happy. He seemed to feel some inflammation in the LRQ when he palpated my abdomen, and he said it's likely that I'm in a mild flare. So, colonoscopy soon (not sure when, the scheduling dept hasn't called me back yet). I'm almost looking forward to it - my last colonoscopy 3.5 years ago was squeaky clean, no inflammation, everything looked totally normal, and the dozen or so biopsies all came back normal too. This time around is different with the bleeding though, and the flare symptoms are all different, so this scope could be a game-changer. Trying not to get my hopes up too much though because I know that usually just leads to massive disappointment. But having those worries taken off my shoulders made me rather complacent last night, so I sat on the couch and watched TV and didn't even think about exercising. A little stress/worry in my life is kind of a good thing, as it pushes me to get off my butt and work it out. Regardless, I'm going to the gym tonight - I'll have to find something else to be stressed about. Oh, I know - I have to go visit my family this weekend - yep, that'll do it! Anytime I have to see my parents and brother all at once, that is definitely stressful. Usually my brother shows up high, then as he's coming down he gets very annoyed and picks fights with people (usually with my mom), then she turns it around and tries to guilt trip both me and my brother, I shut down and retreat inside my own head because I'm just not having any of it, and we all leave angry - then later my mom will call me and make lame excuses for my brother's behavior but not actually apologize for anything. Oh yeah, the thought of that dynamic is going to make me hit the weights hard tonight!
