First Week Drama

It's been a crazy week. So I guess I'll tell you about it! LOL

I finished BAC, started 6 Week Body Makeover, started with the college choir for the new semester, got a nasty cold, and started AAC. Hmm. Doesn't sound like much.

My cold is now in retreat, but for several days, it felt like the weight of a geiser getting set to go off inside my head. I'm so grateful we live in the age of cold medicine. We may not be able to "get rid" of a cold, but we can sure treat the symptoms!

Boring you with BAC isn't necessary because I already did that! Hehehe! Today, my cold finally allowed me to hear and concentrate well enough that I started on Advanced Acute Care reports. Just the instructions for unit A was an eye opener! So many details and instructions to remember and incorporate. I just hope that I can remember them all and do them right.

During the time that my cold was in high gear, I kept up with the forum and tried to maintain an upbeat and encouraging demeanor. I think I succeeded for the most part, even as I sneezed and coughed my way through the posts. Thank God my sense of humor remained intact!

Then, I added the forum for the 6 Week Body Makeover. That was an exercise in frustration to start with. They were having technical difficulties I didn't know about. After several days, I'm becoming familiar with it and getting to know the people there. I love wandering around the threads. I feel like an eavesdropper right now though because I'm not posting very often. I am getting to know everyone and where everything is.

I am learning a lot from the comments and advice given by others on the forum. That's what it's there for, and the encouragement I've received has already made me feel welcome. I'm learning about food and what portions and combinations make the best results when trying to lose.

Let's just say that eating 5 to 6 times a day is NOT easy. That breaks down to a small meal of, for me, carb and protein every 2-1/2 to 3 hours. Preparing meals in advance becomes pretty crucial in making sure that the 3 hour window isn't exceeded. I'm used to eating carbs. I mean bread, cereal, snack food. It's all carbs. Eating only a couple times a day is what I'm used to. This is a HUGE change for me.

I'm a lazy chef. Pull it from the cupboard, throw it in the microwave, and I'm a happy girl 1-1/2 minutes later. Not anymore! Without having pre-made meals ready, I figured out that I'm spending close to 3 hours just making all the meals I'm supposed to eat. No thanks! Cook it, freeze it, nuke it, eat it!

I also started swimming laps and toning exercises this week. Also not so much fun when your head wants to burst, but I did it. I only went to the pool once because I didn't want to get anyone there sick. It seems that 90% of the people that show up for "exercise" at the pool are of the blue-rinse brigade. I've got no problem mingling with geriatrics. I do have an issue with sending them to the hospital with pneumonia! Now wasn't that kind of me?

The recommended exercise for the program is walking with a target heart rate being maintained for 60 minutes. I'm nowhere near a point where my joints will tolerate the pounding this would entail. Nor do my lungs appreciate the extra effort. However, I am going to use the pool to swim laps. I had fun doing so and am ready to return with all engines burning! I've also picked up a couple of LOW impact aerobics DVDs to help me at home if I can't get to the pool. Walking will happen after I get some of this weight off. I do not plan on hurting myself. I'm a wimp and tend to just lie around the house moaning and complaining when injured. Nope, not happening!

Every weight loss plan out there pushes water. This one actually tells you why. It's not just that your muscles and cells are made up of water and function better when hydrated. Nope, that's not it. When you starve your cells of its nutrients they grab hold and RETAIN them for as long as they can. That's why people talk about water retention and weight gain. If you're NOT eating good food and drinking a lot of water then your cells become convinced they're in starvation mode and won't let go of them. When you feed them often and hydrate them well, the cells just sigh and think they've hit the jackpot!

Water also is how waste is eliminated. Duh! Right? Well, your kidneys function to remove the waste produced through metabolizing food. If your kidneys aren't flushing regularly then the liver has to take over the work, putting strain on both and setting yourself up for all sorts of unpleasant aches and illness and infections. I'm drinking over 100 ounces of water a day. Six 8 ounce glasses? Puhleeze! Needless to say, the bathroom and I are getting more acquainted, but they keep telling me this too will pass. Is that a pun?

Anyway, I'm already down 10 pounds and 10-1/2 inches. I have more energy and my left kidney no longer hurts. All this while dealing with a cold. I'm liking where this is headed!

To add a little icing to my cake, so to speak, I also started back with LCSC Concert Choir. It's a college-based choir where the community is welcome to come and rehearse and be part of everything. It's semester oriented so all breaks coincide with the school. I was part of it last semester and really enjoyed getting to know people while singing. The choir meets for 2 hours on Tuesday evenings. We met last Tuesday, were given 8 songs and told 4 of them were being performed THIS Monday. No, that's not a typo! Four songs in a week, with a performance. Outside performance no less. There were quite a few questions to the director, asking if he was serious, crazy, or just plain deluded. None the less, tomorrow we perform in front of people after practicing 4 songs a total of 2 hours.

Now I KNOW I'm an optimist! LOL

Frustrated and Starting AAC

I finished BAC yesterday. Thank goodness I did. That cold hit really hard. Concentrating today is so hard as to be almost impossible. Went to the store and bought out the cold medicine aisle. Hopefully, keeping the symptoms under control will allow me to at least work on reports through my cold.

I haven't started AAC (Advanced Acute Care). I thought that if I started it before I got the cold under control, I would make more of a hash of it than I normally do.

I think I got lazy through the course. Having the comparison available at the click of the "submit" button just made it too easy to not do the research necessary to go through the reports. I'm not sure if I'm learning or just repeating the comparison information and calling it good. It's very uncomfortable to me knowing that I have a lazy learning habit. How can I really learn if I can't hear the word though?

Okay, here's an example. Dr. Mushmouth dictates several medications. They're only slightly mangled. I can research and get Google to give me the med. Go to a drug site, look up the med, and voila! I've got a medication, how it's spelled, and correct dosage information. Repeat the process on each of the medications listed and I've got a coherent and correct list that I can proudly include in the report.

Then, Dr. MushmouthspeedtalkerESL moves in. Clarity stinks, there's no information in what he just dictated that I can work with. A list of normal, everyday medications turns into a list of flags with the occasionally correct dosage attached. I know I'm supposed to take the dosage and complaint or diagnosis and research what I think I hear. Then, cross reference that with the meds until I come up with the correct one. Trouble is, half the time the correct one turns out to be so far wrong that I want to hit something. The rest of the time the information that would help me research well is so well and truly mangled that the whole report is nothing but mishears, flags, and sentences that make absolutely no sense.

With reports like this, is it any wonder that I would rather hit the button and just move it along. Each file takes time to get through, each report has it's challenges. Do we really need so many of the mushmouth dictators with no information inside the file to actually research to a correct answer? I know these reports teach us something. I know that we have to learn that these dictations are out there. But how do you research for something that's just not there? 

I think these reports are the most frustrating and time-wasting exercises in futility. I think that if there was a more equal representation of these reports and reports that we need to just research for accuracy's sake, I would be through this course by now. Probably, through the course with a much higher level of confidence in my skills.

I trust the process. I know it works. There are too many people out there who've graduated, gotten good jobs, and still love the career to not believe that it will work for me as well. That doesn't mean I'm not entirely frustrated with my researching or lack thereof. I still can't hear too many things in these dictations to get a grasp on where to research for a correct answer.

I'm sure that in time, I will get a handle on researching the impossible. At that point, I'll feel like I've got the world in my hands! Until then... Just keep soldiering on!

Good News!

I found out yesterday afternoon that I will be reinstated on Social Security Disability! After months and months and months of waiting this is huge news! I was so scared for so long that we'd be trying to all live off my mom's Social Security. That's a joke for 1 person, but 4? Ridiculous!

I started swimming yesterday as well. We'll see how that goes. I wasn't expecting my neck to be an issue with this, but it seems that holding my head up for the breast stroke is a bad thing. Either that or I'm finally getting the headache people talk about from food withdrawal. Caffeine, sugar, and salt. All gone. I'd say that qualifies as being withdrawal worthy!

I am so close to finishing BAC I can taste it! 98% as of yesterday. Only a few more pages to go! This week is somewhat iffy as to what I can accomplish though. There's a lot of food prep that I had to do for my diet. I'm glad I did it, but need to figure out and stick to a routine. I've never been much of a routine kind of person, so that's kind of hard. This week is also iffy because I have to take mom to her appointment, then she's got another one out of town. It's going to be strange not having her here with me and I really don't know how I will react.

My goal though is to finish the last of these reports tonight and tomorrow.

I feel like if I could get my sleep under control I could set up some kind of workable schedule to get everything accomplished. This is very frustrating. The sleep medication makes me sleep too late the next day, but when I don't take it, I'm up all night. This is so not working!

Think, Think, Think! There's a way to make this work, there is. I've got to figure it out.

Kind of Off Topic - Do I really have a topic? Sometimes.



This is my when-I-was-working-and-not-sitting-all-day picture!



Being overweight for a lifetime trained me to be a lot camera shy. There aren't a lot of pictures I would even consider sharing.

Now, for the scary one.

Last night's photoshoot

This was taken just last night. No, I'm not "sticking out my gut." It really looks like that!

It's not as if I thought I was getting bigger. It's not like my eating changed. My clothes fit a little tighter. I didn't have much energy. I don't even weigh a "lot" more than I used to. But... the picture isn't lieing to me. I used to have a shape. Now I've got too much shape!

 I stopped moving.

 My stomach expanded like I'd put a couple watermelons in it. This is so depressing. But, it's also motivating.

It's time, and past time, to make a for real change. If this happened to me, I can just imagine what happens to many people who get involved in Medical Transcription training and Working from Home.  Please forgive me for the candid photos. They're very difficult for me to look at too.

I can clean up better, as evidenced by my profile photos. I can look nice in dressup-type clothes. I just thought that I wanted to be as honest and unartificial as possible for the pre-diet picture.

What I'm going to be adding to my posts are occasional statements of weight lost, inches lost, how I feel, whether I'm making progress or have gone backwards. For some this may hold lots of interest and for others no interest whatsoever. I just think that I need to hold myself accountable to my stated goal of being healthier, exercising, and losing this weight. I need to figure out how all this fits in with the Transcription lifestyle and the kinds of things that crop up as challenges that I never thought were going to be issues.

Start Date:  1-08-11

Weight: 220

Exercise: 15 minutes light execise band

Food: 5 meals a day. No dairy, fat, sugar, salt, red meat

Water: Lots

So far, I haven't been hungry. I'm eating every 2-3 hours. They're very small meals, but they seem to be keeping my cravings for sugar and salt at bay. I'm kind of surprised by that. I'm drinking nothing but water at the moment. Until the weight is gone, I really don't want to sabotage myself by enabling the screaming I will hear from my taste buds. So, I'm not even indulging in my caffeine habit. It's been a couple days and I don't miss it.

I'm supposed to get the Aquatic Center membership tomorrow/today. As soon as that happens I will be adding Water Aerobics and swimming laps to the exercise. The idea is to either get there very early in the morning, or get there mid-day and get my exercise in, then work on reports and keeping up with my friends online. I'm pretty sure this is going to be the really tough part for me. Getting out of bed and jumping to attention is not my idea of morning. However, I've got a goal! I'm going to do it anyway.

My goal? To be healthy and have a body I can be proud of.

Is it going to be hard? Absolutely



Hoping Next Week Can Start Bringing Better Balance

I haven't done much with my reports this past week. I think part of that is there have been so many things on my mind that are totally unrelated to the course. I think about the reports I need to be doing. For various reasons I just can't make myself stop thinking.

Today, I went to the memorial service for a very good friend of mine. She was one of those people that gathers everyone around her into "family." Not having her there anymore is going to be hard. Not just because she passed away too young and left a loving husband and 3 children behind, but also because she was so special. The church was crowded with friends and family. All with the same heartache squeezing in their chest like mine. That was one of the things that I've been thinking about.

Another thing that keeps beating on my brain like a hammer is my mother and her if/maybe/maybe not attitude about a surgery she really needs. I don't want to lose her.

I also had the evaluation from Social Security the other day. After taking an hour to ask me all sorts of questions that have been repeated over and over, I still have no idea how the evaluation went. Other than that it irritated me enormously. I was never asked about the things that were important to me. I was asked questions like "subtract 7 from 100 and keep going to 0" and "name 5 current events" and "name 5 celebrities." What the hell do those things have to do with depression? What do they have to do with why I have worked while on Disability? What does it say that I can't repeat several numbers in reverse order? What does it mean that I really don't care about any of those questions and never could do math of any kind in my head?

My kids are both sick and have been for several days. I'm very worried that they will pass these illnesses to me, or even worse, mom. I feel bad for them and want them to get better, but I feel guilty because I'm more concerned over passing it on to their grandmother. She gets sick and it could become something very serious very quickly.

There have been other things that have been concerning me. Things that I can't stop thinking about, but mostly everything just runs around and around in my head with no beginning, no middle, and no end. There are solutions to problems. I just can't see them. There are things that don't deserve the synapse firing energy. I just can't seem to make them have less weight and energy consumption.

There are a few things that I can see as positive this week though. I made a new Career Step friend. I enjoy her online company. We have a lot in common and there's potential there to have a great long-term friendship. I think making new friends is always worth it.

I also remembered that I had a weight control program that I hadn't used. I broke it open and started eating from the menu plan inside. Hopefully, this will help me with the issues of weight and energy that I have right now. It's the 6 Week Total Body Makeover. You know, the one where you blueprint your body type, figure out your goals, and then eat from specific menus for your body type. I bought it years ago, but didn't put it to real use. Between that and the swimming that I will start this next week, I think I can start getting this runaway weight gain to do a 180. I'll let you all know how it goes.

I should take some time this afternoon and work on reports. I'm just so tired and drained from the memorial service. I'll probably just take the afternoon and do some crocheting and tv watching and start over tomorrow. Just so tired.

What's Really Going to Happen If MTs Don't Exercise?

New Years Resolutions have been popping up all over the place. Some resolutioners already admitting to a backslide or two on those resolutions. I've always thought exercise should be topping my list of resolutions. Unfortunately, I really like to eat and don't have any active sports or hobbies that I pursue. Every time a new year shows up and I say to myself, "I'm going to start exercising and lose weight," I end up just picking up a potato chip and drinking from my pop. It's like the resolution part gets derailed before it's had time to settle in and become a goal.

The thing that drives me completely nuts about the whole exercising thing is that I honestly believe that healthy eating, exercise, and sports are GREAT things. No, not just good. I said GREAT! Healthy eating provides fuel, antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals. Exercise provides strong muscles and bones, energy, stamina, and a sense of well being. Sports, now that's just plain fun exercise, socializing, and an awesome tan. Of course, on a Jack and Jill type team, there's always the benefit of having some fast-moving eye candy to watch. Why do you think I really went to all my brother's baseball games during school? Sure, I cheered for him. He's my brother and I think he's awesome and fabulous and can do no wrong! How's that for loyalty? Hehe. I was also there to watch the boys.

But, watching sports and playing sports are just two totally different animals. It's like a leopard and a house cat. The only exercise in watching sports is the short walk from the car to the bleachers. Not a whole lot of benefit in it except to the person or team you're rooting for. Have you noticed I haven't mentioned watching televised sports? The only ones I watch are the Olympics and occasionally a gymnastics or ice skating event. I'm sure that would change if I had a man in my house who enjoyed watching sports on tv, but for just me? No thanks.

A little background in my own health adventures is probably called for here. I love food. Momma never had trouble getting little Renae to choke down the veggies, squash, ice cream, pizza, pasta, chocolate cake, strawberries, bananas, etc. There was that time I sat for four hours at the dinner table trying to eat a 3 inch piece of liver, but other than that and that escargot I was offered once, getting me to eat was never a problem. Healthy or not healthy didn't matter to me.

So, all this lovely food made for a mildly chubby little Renae. Momma, once again being the clever lady she was, insisted on summer swimming lessons and swimming pool passes, school sports, and boys and girls club activities. There was even a summer camp and several years at NYSP. That's National Youth Sports Program. Summer camp, NYSP, and swimming every day all day kept all that wonderful food from getting too friendly with my tummy and thighs. I was strong, solid, and could do anything.

I played every sport that came my way and pined for the sports that weren't available because of money or facilities. No, it didn't mean I was any good at them. Shoot, I was probably the least athletic kid in my school. Even one of my very good friends, who had the same wide width from shoulders to ankles could run faster than me. Never could do that. But, I loved the feeling of being involved, being on the move, the occasional sport where I could excel like swimming or volleyball. Dang, I had a beautiful swim stroke, I could float a ball just barely above the net and make it wobble at the opposing team like it couldn't make up it's mind who it wanted to humiliate. It just makes me smile to remember that.

A car accident when I was 16 injured my low back. We all pretty much ignored it for years. It came back to haunt me later.

I had a friend that lived at the bottom of a long, steep hill. Trust me, walking that hill several times a day in both directions definitely had a very beneficial effect on my food-loving anatomy. I've never been skinny. Just solid to solid and slightly chunky. Heck, I don't even have a slender to my history. Just solid. Do you know, I'd give my weight in gold to be solid now?

There's only one time as an adult that I've been a healthy, strong weight. I was 18 and worked at a bakery throwing 50 pounds of this and that and running for 8 to 14 hours a day. Trust me, you burn calories and build massive amounts of muscle doing that! It's my all-you-can-eat weight loss plan. I ate cake and cookies, bread, pie, donuts, glaze, icing. I could not get enough calories into me!

Well, then I had to go and get a sit-down job, two pregnancies, and another sit-down job, a couple of standing-but-in-one-place jobs, and a sit-down-drive-then-work-like-a-beast-for-15-minutes job. Whew! During all of this time, basically 22 years of employment history, not one sport, exercise program, healthy eating, or anything more energetic than the occasional weekend helping a friend move.

In that 22 years, why have I not done anything about the weight that has been steadily attaching itself to me? The honest answer? I'm LAZY! There. I said it. Dang, that hurt. No one wants to admit that the last 22 years have been a series of years and years of wasted opportunities to be healthy. It's not that I don't want to. But, I like watching tv, being on the computer, and sitting. Do you know why I enjoy those sedentary activities so much? Because moving HURTS! My back has 3 herniated discs from that car accident, my left side is a list of injuries that never quite go away.

What I need to decide is this. Is the fact that sitting at the computer all day every day is going to allow the weight that I have managed to fight for all those years to move in and get comfy? Or, am I going to make a real decision to get off my butt and get some kind of activity so that I can keep on fighting that weight like I've been doing for all these years? I know I'm not giving up food. Fahgettahboutit! I know I'm going to hurt. Those are givens and facts. I can't do a lot of things that I wouldn't have blinked twice about when I was younger. But, what can I do?

Swimming? Join a gym? Walk? At least not for a while. Volleyball? That's only during certain times of the year. Skating? If I fell, I wouldn't move for a month. Get some workout videos and just bounce around my tiny living room? Wait, knee, back, and ankle. No bouncing.

Do you see what I'm dealing with? I weigh more right this minute that I did at my heaviest 2nd pregnancy weight. I've got injuries that limit some common activities. I'm inherently lazy. And, I love food!

It's like this weirdly personal and personally universal problem that only the select few ever figure out. I would seriously doubt that as an MT or an MT in training that weight wouldn't be an issue. We've got so much time sitting and the presence or constant availability of food. If I'm having these issues now, what's going to happen in a year? Two years? Five? Ten? Twenty-Five? If something doesn't change very soon and I mean NOW, I can actually see myself being forklifted through the huge hole in my house they had to make when I finally pass away. Sooner than later, if I let it get that bad.

This is serious people! If you're not active, get active! If you're not at least thinking about this! Start! We've got one of the few professions where early obesity, muscle loss, osteoarthritis, osteoporosis, cardiac problems, circulatory issues, gastric issues and OMG! PALE SKIN! ACNE! are almost guaranteed. Unless you have some very generous genetic abnormalities, (Ummm...Gifts) that you have most selfishly not shared with the rest of us... You Mutant!... Then we are not in a position to ignore the health warnings of a sedentary life. Hell, you don't even have to walk from the parking lot to an office to get exercise! It's just down the hall from your very own personal fridge, bathroom, bed, television, etc. If you have really nice friends and family, you may never leave the house on your own two feet again! AAAAAHHHHH!

Have I scared you into thinking about diet and exercise yet? I think I scared myself!

Apparently, from the pictures, I've decided to look into swimming as a low-impact enjoyable activity. Not great for building muscle (which I really miss) but great cardiovascular exercise. Not to mention, I really am a great swimmer and miss it immensely. Now, it's just a matter of bundling up and getting to the pool.

The New Year

So sorry that I've been MIA. Life threw a few curve balls at me and I've been processing them.

I'm finishing up Basic Acute Care in school. It's amazing that I've been able to come so far with everything that keeps happening around me. (Not so much me, but the people I love.) Advanced Acute Care is scaring the tar out of me. There are so many people who have posted in the forum about how difficult it is and about how they feel so discouraged through this section of reports. All I can do is hope to maintain my equilibrium and not get discouraged by the red I truly expect to see in that module.

I've still got the Editing module to go through as well. So, I can't even say that I'm looking at the end of the tunnel! Ah well. Let me be Zen.

The first curve ball was the death of one of my friends. I hadn't seen her in a while and had minimal contact with her over the last several months. I only knew that she had been sick, had spent some time in the hospital and was out again and living life. Then, I was informed that she was VERY sick and it did not look good. She held on for several weeks before passing a few days before Christmas. Her husband has chosen to wait for the memorial until after all of the holidays because he didn't want to damage Christmas for their 3 kids. The oldest is only 14. My friend was the kind of person who would open her heart and home to anyone who needed help. If you needed a shoulder, she was there. God took her straight to heaven and gave her wings.

The next curve ball was a discussion with my mother about the results of her kidney ultrasound, heart ultrasound and EKG. All I can say is that the results weren't good and it's possible that she will choose not to have a surgery that could save her life. Her decision isn't final, but it's been very emotional for me. Her rationale is solid and I can't argue her rights. I just really don't have to like it!

Christmas day passed without any drama except the good kinds. Good food, happy family, rest and relaxation. All this made for a contented Momma Bear.

New Years' Eve was probably the most boring I have ever spent. I did nothing but watch television with Mom. You might think this would make me sad. It does. A bit. I am determined to spend as much time as possible with my mother before her heart takes her from me. If that means not making plans for holidays or even weekends, then so be it.

I look at my kids and pray that this year they will prove themselves to be the people I know them to be. I look at my mother and pray for her comfort and peace. I look at my friends and pray that their hearts will heal and they will be given strength throughout their journeys. And... I look at myself. I pray for strength, endurance, kindness, compassion, and love. For now, that's the best I'm able to do.