The More Things Change...

If you've read even a few posts on my blog over the past year, then you know that I have been through my share of changes, the biggest of which is obviously my ulcerative colitis diagnosis. Beyond dealing with that diagnosis, the only other change that occupies much of my thoughts is my weight (I know, you're all shocked). But truly, my weight has gone up and down in truly astounding fashion. I decided to check my blog and see what I weighed around this time last year, and fortunately I found that I had actually recorded my weight for this exact date. On August 12, 2012, I weighed 178.6. Do you know what I weighed this morning? 179.6. That's one pound higher than this day last year, and a whopping TWELVE pounds higher than my weight at the beginning of this year. I managed to get down to 170.8 in the beginning of October 2012, and not long after that I got sick. I actually didn't lose a whole lot of weight when I first got sick, but when I got home from the hospital, the weight came off at an alarming rate (about 10 pounds in two days, then 5 or so more after that). At one point, the scale was down to 150. I knew that wouldn't stay, and I didn't expect it to, so when I managed to stay between 155 and 158 for about a month, I was happy. I hoped that even though I lost all of that weight because my body was sick, I could maintain the loss. I even wrote about how losing weight wouldn't be one of my goals for the new year for the first time in ages. I was filled with excitement and optimism! 

Taken in November on my first Sunday back to church. 150 pounds

Silly, silly me.

By the middle of January, five years into my weight loss journey, I was back up to 167.6. To be fair, I was on a TON of medication (including prednisone), and I do think that it wreaked havoc with my body in lots of not-so-great ways, but I can't blame it all on the medicine. If it were solely the medicine causing the problem, when I went off the prednisone in March all of my weight gain should have stopped. But it didn't, and now I find myself at a weight that makes me anything but comfortable, a weight that is almost exactly what it was at this time last year. If nothing else is consistent, at least I am consistent about gaining weight, right?

"But Erin," you say, "You had goals, you had a reward system! What happened?" In a nutshell, fatigue happened. Depression happened. Laziness happened. Honestly, this has been a HARD nine months, and the struggles manifested themselves in my eating habits. Even now, when at times I feel like I can't eat ANYTHING, I still overeat. I still eat junk. All of that eating combined with virtually no exercise due to severe fatigue is a recipe for failure.

So I find myself coming back to the brink of 180 pounds all over again, and I want it to be the last time, but part of me feels helpless. I don't know if making a plan will help. I've made plans, lots of them, and in the end they meant nothing.

The truth is, I don't need another plan. I need freedom from this bondage.

"It is for freedom that Christ has set you free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery." ~Galatians 5:1

On the Mend

Well, hello there.

I'll be honest: I hadn't planned on coming back to this blog. Sometime after my last post I decided I was weary of blogging and thought I would stop blogging and just focus on enjoying life and getting better, without having to worry about what my next post would be about. The time away has been good. I haven't thought much about the blog (and I am sure you haven't either), but I have started to miss it. I have started to think about posts in my head, have started planning what I might say. So I'm coming back, somewhat tentatively. And of course this isn't the first time I've stepped away only to return later, so I'm sure no one is surprised by any of this.

The good news (and I mean really fantastic, wonderful, awesome news) is that I am finally starting to feel better! I went to see a GI at Vanderbilt back in June (after waiting 2 months for the appointment), and while there I got some dietary recommendations and some treatment recommendations. I have been limiting my dairy intake and also limiting my fiber intake, and while both have required some pretty significant mental and logistical adjustments, the changes seem to be helping. I have not completely eliminated all dairy, but I am not having it with every meal like I used to, nor am I even having dairy every day. I REALLY miss ice cream, but if my body can heal better without ice cream, then so be it. The doctor also recommended that I get another colonoscopy (so we could have a better idea of the current state of my colon) and then make some medication changes. It took several weeks to actually get the colonoscopy scheduled, so it was July 18 before that happened. All the trips I had to take to the bathroom on the day that I had to do the prep had me flashing back to late October/early November when I was at my sickest. It made me realize how far I really have come since then, and I am SO thankful.

After the colonoscopy, my doctor said that my colon looks a lot better than it did previously. Whereas before he would have categorized my disease as moderate-to-severe, now it is only mild. And THEN, when I got the results of the biopsies that he took, I found out that the biopsies showed no evidence of active disease! Remission, here I come! Because of the progress I have made, for now I am sticking with the Humira (and those dreaded weekly shots) and adding in one other medication, Imuran.

The one nagging problem I have is fatigue. I am tired all.the.time. I can sleep for eight hours and yet feel like I could take a nap at any given time (and on the weekends I almost always do). Some days I feel as though it is a monumental chore just to drag my body through the day. I am very deficient in iron, vitamin D, and B-12, so I think all of that plays into the fatigue issue, and I hope that the supplementation I am doing will help.

All in all, my health is definitely improving, and I am beyond grateful. I wouldn't trade the experience I've had because of how much the Lord has taught me in the process, but I am also very excited to be feeling closer to normal (as normal as I can be, haha).

Recent family pic. Of course Char isn't looking at the camera.

If anyone is still reading this pitiful blog, catch me up on your life! How are you?