Making a promise..

I have now officially lost 40lbs!!! I don’t know why 40lbs seems like so much more than 35lbs, but it really feels like a big accomplishment now. There is something so Serious Business-like about forty pounds. Do you know how many sticks of butter that is?! 160!! I lost 160 sticks of butter from my body. That is both gross AND awesome.

At some point this last week, I began to finally feel and see the loss. Small changes, mind you, but definitely just more than my pants being looser. I am also experiencing the dreaded looseness of skin that I am petrified of having. I am trying to only lose 1 or 2 pounds a week in order to minimize that, but it keeps coming off in 4 or 5 pound increments no matter what I do. I suppose it will just do that for a while yet, since I still have so much to lose. Oh well. I will just have to take the sweet with the sour.

This milestone now puts me at approximately 1/3 of the way towards my goal.

I have decided that in 25 more pounds, I will post my “Before” photo along with an updated current photo. I actually already have the Before photo in a folder on my computer, appropriately named “Fat Erin”. It is heartbreaking to behold, and it will be a difficult moment when I do post it. But, I am hoping that when I compare the old with the new, it may ease my embarrassment somewhat.

I will also reveal my starting weight and current weight in that post. It is important for me to do this for so many reasons, but mostly because my self-loathing is a serious problem, and I want to do everything I can do to get out from underneath that. I think completely disclosing this stuff will be immensely therapeutic when the time comes. So, that is my promise to myself and to those that may be interested in seeing it happen.
25lbs from today. Hold me to it!

Milestone reached…

I am now officially less heavy than I have been in approximately 8 years. Not that you can tell by looking at me, or anything. But, I can see the slight differences in my body. I have lost a total of 35lbs so far.

I dipped just under a certain weight last weekend (yes, I’m too embarrassed to say exactly what my weight is just yet), having lost 5lbs that week, but I have been bobbing around it ever since, with not much gain or loss in the meantime. This weekend’s weigh-in was pretty lame since I wasn’t able to proceed with celebrating any kind of loss. I guess I’ll just keep being pleased with the previous week’s triumph, instead.

On a medical note, I have been without my Diabetes medications since Friday, due to my “doctor” being a total and complete moron. She set my Metformin Rx for No Refills, so that when I ran out, it required the pharmacy to fax her, so that she could sign-off on a refill. Unfortunately for me, she has been on vacation this entire past week (an actual vacation, not the mental kind she’s usually on), and she won’t be back in the office until this coming Wednesday. Which has left me in quite the angry lurch.

Why “No Refills”??? It’s not like it is a controlled substance, or something one can abuse. It’s Metformin. It helps the pancreas produce insulin. I doubt we’ll be hearing about Lindsay Lohan OD’ing on it anytime soon.

After visiting the pharmacy twice (it is a good 20 minute drive away), without anything to show for it, and attempting to call my clinic every single day for a week, with no one ever answering the phone, I attempted to contact a Patient Advocate.  It seemed to be quite ludicrous that a diabetes patient should be intentionally withheld much-needed medication.  However, they simply referred me back to the Health Department’s member services, which means if I ever do get seriously mistreated, I might be utterly screwed for assistance. Unless I hire a lawyer, of course.

I was instructed to go to my clinic and try to get the Physician’s Assistant to sign off on my Rx instead. So, now I get to go sit around for 4 hours for maybe someone’s signature, because I haven’t already invested ridiculous amounts of time and effort into getting a f*cking prescription refilled as it is. If this doesn’t work today, and there is no guarantee that it will, I hope I don’t end up getting escorted out by security. And I’m only half-kidding. :)

The silver lining of this situation is that my blood glucose has been normal all weekend, but that could mean very little in such a short amount of time. The effects of Metformin could still be active, for all I know.  I’d like to think that my lifestyle change has been such that I could actually do just fine without medication, but I realize that may be a tad optimistic.

It has actually been scary living without the “net” of medication, though. Scarier than I thought it would be. Mostly because I am petrified of feeling as awful as I felt before my diagnosis. So, hopefully, today I will resume my usual routine.

So, to sum up:

Doctor is still an inept douche.
Blood Glucose is okay sans medication.
Weighing less than I have in 8 years.
Might yell at people at my clinic today.