Day One

My pics aren’t the best so don’t laugh! I was supposed to start the meal plan I purchased on Sunday…….. leave it to me to start all late and stuff BUT in my defense I didn’t go grocery shopping until today….. So for dinner we ate Tuesday’s meal, Wings with Apple Celery Slaw. It was surprisingly good. I was a little worried about the slaw, but it was pretty good too. My only complaint is my hands still smell like celery! LOL!!!! The girl loved the wings she told me “these are great mom! I can’t stop eating them.” The hubs seemed to enjoy them as well. The boy is in this picky eater stage so he ate a PB&J.

Tomorrow’s menu consists of porkchops topped with an apple and onion chutney served with basmati rice. I have the chops in the fridge in a brine and I need to go turn them over before I turn in for the night. Stay tuned…

He’s Only Human

Growing up I thought my dad was larger than life. He was my personal Super Man. Like most little girls I was a Daddy’s Girl…. I thought my daddy could do anything and if I’m honest there are still times I still feel this way. So when he called me Friday to tell me he’d gone to the doctor and they’d diagnosed him with Type II Diabetes I felt a little discombobulated. My rational side knows this is no biggie with a proper diet, exercise and possibly medication he’ll be just fine, but the little girl in me is uneasy.

I feel as if the roles have reversed now though…. instead of him worrying about me I will be worrying about him when I never did before. I guess I never realized there would be a day that I would have to be concerned about my dad….. Lucky for him though he has 2 daughters that are armed with public health degrees and we are going to be on his case!!!! I have already sent him information to read and information on changing his diet so he better watch out, because although I did not inherit his assertive nature I can be quite persistent when I put my mind to it. He’s going to be compliant or else!!!!

 

I’m going to try something new, even if it kills me…

Lately I’ve been thinking…….no I’m not about to bust out a rendition of the Stevie Wonder classic or the Jodeci remake for that matter… I need to be more serious about my health. The first thing I would like to do is to lose about 5-8 pounds …….10 if I get lucky. To some folks my goal is easy and they probably could do it with their eyes closed and one hand tied behind their back, but let’s be real we are talking about me. I have the attention span of a baby gnat so getting me to commit to some sort of diet/exercise plan will be the hardest thing I’ve probably ever done in my life. I usually start out with good intentions and I will exercise for about a day or two… and then something always comes up and I am back to square one. I think the biggest challenge for me is the changing the way I eat. I have been eating smaller portions, but my biggest beef, no pun intended, with dieting or changing my eating is that it seems so restrictive. I don’t want to cut out everything I love. If I can find ways to still enjoy my favorite foods (in moderation of course) then I am down for the cause. When I watch fanatics like Jillian and Jackie (who both scare  me by the way) and they are throwing away food or making people run up and down stairs with two cookies in hand to prove a point I get a little twitchy.

I recently purchased a few meal plans from my Soror Erika (aka the Weight Loss Guru and hater of all things bacon) and next week I’m going to try it her way. By week’s end I will either be singing her praises or cursing the ground she walks on for making me eat oatmeal and Greek yogurt….I am very funny about food textures so me and squishy do not get along. I haven’t eaten a banana in about 28 years so that should tell you my food aversions run DEEP! I didn’t realize how much so until a few minutes ago while in the grocery store trying to pick out a yogurt to try (I’ve never eaten any besides frozen) and I was talking to my friend and she was making suggestions that I was shooting down left and right because they contained fruit pieces/bits and I HATE fruit in my food…. I do not like fruit pies, cobblers, etc, but let me digress… before I take a trip to Crazy Town! This is is definitely going to be a struggle I am gonna have to pray for strength…. HELP!!!!!

 

Tangled in Red Tape

 

I was scheduled to have an outpatient procedure on Tuesday. Monday morning I received a phone call from my physician’s office and I was informed that I would not be able to have the surgery because my insurance would not approve the procedure because the hospital on post has first right of refusal and APPARENTLY they decided THEY could so I was basically S-O-L.  After finishing my conversation with the surgeon’s office I began calling around to find out what happened and why was I just finding out this information the day before my scheduled procedure.  According to the reps on post the claim they attempted to contact me 3 times in a 28 day period I don’t want to call anyone an outright liar, but I definitely do not recall receiving any phone calls. Maybe it is just me, but it seems like the logical thing to do would have been to contact me as well as the physician’s office to pass along this information.

After making SEVERAL phone calls ultimately I found out there was really no way around canceling the surgery.   I requested time off from work and made arrangements for my dad to come with me since the hubs is away training all for nothing! Now my options are to have my primary care doctor resubmit the referral and see what happens OR I can make an appointment for a consult on post and have the procedure performed there. The easiest thing to do would be to go ahead and let them do it BUT I will NOT! This is the second time this has happened to me with this hospital and I refuse to give them the satisfaction.

The day before I was scheduled for my 6 week check up (after the boy was born) my OB/GYN’s office called and told me that the hospital on post would not approve my doctor inserting my Mirena because they had the staff who could do it on post. Somehow they that was a good idea even though my care had been provided by another physician who I might add delivered my son AND would be giving me a pap smear the very next day. I spent half the day calling everyone I could think of trying to appeal to them and practically begging not to be subjected to TWO invasive vaginal exams to no avail. I thought that I was going to get the Mirena the very next day on post at the hospital; however when I arrived I was very rudely informed by the nurse practitioner that I would not be getting the birth control method my doctor and I had carefully decided upon a month prior to my son’s birth BUT watching a video about Mirena. She also very snidely asked if I knew that there was a chance of perforation of the uterus.  It is not often that I am so stunned that I am silent, but this was one of those times!  I am not sure what this woman saw when she looked at me, but obviously she did NOT see the 31 year old Master of Public Health candidate that I was!  Needless to say it was this encounter that made me decide that I would not receive my care on post so I submitted a request for a civilian primary care physician. I was granted permission to see an off post provider and I promptly made an appointment to see her and asked her to refer me to my OB/GYN which she did and 6 months later I FINALLY got my Mirena!

So if it takes another 6 months then I am willing to wait. I understand not everyone is like this woman and while they should not necessarily be punished for her behavior, the fact remains she is a hospital employee and therefore the face (representative) of the hospital. This one bad experience has colored my opinion of the staff and their ability to treat me as a person/patient deserving respect.

I Survived Yoga/Pilates!!!

  My coworker, B, graciously signed up to take yoga/pilates with me this month and today was our first day of class.  We were a few minutes late so of course the teacher invited us to take spots at the front of the room. Something in me said okay and I went to the front of the room and took the spot to her right with no hesitation. B decided to stay in the back of the room. She was worried that people would be looking at her.  Unfortunately, this proved to be a bad decision on her part because the lady in front of her got a little too relaxed and passed gas frequently.

Overall the class was not bad, but I know now more than ever I have a lot of work to do, and much of this work will need to be done on my own time. There is only so much I can expect to get from a forty-five minute class that only meets once a week.

Get It Together Grandma!

It seems as if every week the Employee Health Nurse is sending out emails about some class that is being offered during our lunch hour so I finally took the bait and signed up for the yoga/pilates class.  

I used to be flexible but errr uhhh… I don’t know I am going to be able to handle the warrior pose or not, but I can’t avoid not being active anymore!  My poor knees will probably protest in the beginning but hopefully they will adjust. We shall see! In the meantime I will hope for the best!

Who Stole My Motivation?

I need to lose around 6-8 pounds. It seems like a simple enough and it should be even easier to maintain, but I don’t know what the hell is wrong with me! I know this is going to sound like an excuse and I am well aware of what excuses are…but I digress… lately I have been experiencing a serious pain in my left leg. It varies from tingly to sharp from my hip to foot and my right knee feels as if it wants to pop at any minute if I bend it for any period of time… even driving for longer than an hour has become an issue. I am now patiently awaiting a referral from my primary care physician to see a specialist so I can figure out what the heck is going on and more importantly what can be done so I can at least attempt to be active.

Before I started having issues with my leg and knee I was aware of my sedentary lifestyle and as much as I felt that I should change it for some reason I just could not. After my son was born I started working out, but it only lasted a few days. Most recently the hubs and I started P90x and that lasted about a day for me…the hubs started working out in the morning before work so I no longer had a buddy. I’ve often heard that if you can do something for 2 weeks it will become a habit, but I have NO idea how to get myself to the 2 week mark! Shoot if I can make it 1 full week that would be an accomplishment for me.

Its a tough job….

From www.cdc.gov: “Of all racial and ethnic groups in the United States, HIV and AIDS have hit African Americans the hardest. The reasons are not directly related to race or ethnicity, but rather to some of the barriers faced by many African Americans. These barriers can include poverty (being poor), sexually transmitted diseases and stigma (negative attitudes, beliefs, and actions directed at people living with HIV/AIDS or directed at people who do things that might put them at risk for HIV).”

Part of my responsibilities as a Communicable Disease Specialist is breaking the news to newly infected patients of their HIV status… not the easiest thing in the world to do as you may realize. In training for this position our instructor told us to remember that we as the counselors are not infecting the patient when we give them the news; however at times it is hard not to feel like that is exactly what you are doing. Depending on the client and the type of lifestyle they lead they may not very well know who infected them because they’ve had more partners than they care to remember so forever more it may be your face they recall when they think of their condition. It is up to me to make a difficult situation as easy as possible though there have been times when I wished like hell I was anywhere, but here.

In the year and a half that I’ve been doing this EVERY single face that has sat in front of me for the results looks just like mine. African American men and women alike account for every HIV positive result that I have delivered. The CDC’s statistics show that even though African Americans account for 13% of the US population we also account for 49% of the people that get HIV and AIDS. Even in 2008 we are not being careful with all that we know about this disease… well excuse me with all that some of us know about this disease… because some of us are still in the dark ages and forwarding every crazy email that they get about HIV being in the body for years, etc… hell, some of us are forwarding that email about herpes being in hot wax!!!! Listen up people check your facts go to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s website and educate yourself, get tested every six months to a year, stop sitting back being afraid to do anything at all or listening to people who are just as clueless!!! Not knowing is not going to make you live longer nor is finding out you’re positive going to make you die faster. I’m not going to go so far as some people and say HIV is the new diabetes because it’s not, what it is though is a chronic condition that can be maintained with the proper diet, medication (if necessary) and exercise…you know pretty much all of the same things you do now to be healthy with a tad more diligence on your part.

I guess I am on my soapbox today because I recently had to deliver the news to a young man who seemed to be a nice young guy trying to do something with himself and his life and yet for some reason he had never taken a test before now. The entire situation made me sad and frustrated me at the same time that a young adult in this day and age is still not being tested on a regular basis.

I am saying all of this to say, Get tested… no matter your race/ethnicity just do it… stop being afraid or embracing this ignorance is bliss mentality… it’s not! This is your life we’re talking about!!!!