I am a nutjob

My doctor, thank goodness, did not tell me that. She agreed that my side is a little swollen. She believes that the pain may be caused by some gall bladder issues that I have been experiencing. Luckily, I have a hepatobiliary scan tomorrow. Basically, they put some radioactive stuff in you through an IV and take images of your gall bladder and liver to see how it goes through them. Or something like that. It sounds a little uncomfortable - I have to lay still for quite a while. But hopefully I'll have some answers soon.

Anxiety

I've been feeling a lot of anxiety lately. Mostly because I have decided that there's no doubt I'm a hypochondriac. It's definitely not something I'm proud of. I've been typing in symptoms I've been experiencing into google. Definitely not something I'd recommend. Because each thing that comes up is worse than the last. And most of the results point to cancer. CANCER. Now I've convinced myself that I have it. Even if there is only one of my symptoms that match, I know I have it.

I'm headed to the doctor later because I've had this pain in my side for a while and now it seems to be swollen. Cancer? Ugh!

I wish I could afford a full body scan - just to put my mind at ease. I'm sure it's not something that my insurance would pay for, but I wish it would.

This is no way to live. I cannot keep thinking that I may be dying. Please... someone talk me down!!!

New Approach

I've decided to take a new approach with my journey. That approach is to concentrate on one good new habit at a time. My first good habit was to not bring soda into the house. If any of you have a horrible diet coke habit, as I do, you know how hard it is.

It's torture to walk past the display at the grocery store... the one that tells you that you can have three 12-packs of delicious diet coke for the bargain price of $10. But that's what I've done for the past 18 days. I've done this before with much success, but fell off the wagon this summer and started bringing soda back in the house. I decided that once we got back from vacation, I would end my soda addiction once again. So far, so good. I do allow myself soda when I am out. But seeing that we are trying not to spend money as much any more, we haven't been going out to eat quite as much as we have in the past. So my soda consumption is way down.

The next healthy habit that I am focusing on is water consumption. While not drinking soda, my water drinking has much improved. And that is what I'm trying to do now.

I have not been very good at exercising lately. My preschooler has finally started school again, so I will be doing something active during preschool today. I have not decided if I'm going to go to the gym or take a long walk outside. I'm leaning towards the outside walk - who knows how much more beautiful weather we will have.

Five Pounds

That's about how much I gained on vacation... five pounds. It's no wonder - I did not think twice before putting things in my mouth and had quite a bit of alcohol to drink. It was to be expected.

So, officially, I'm down 18 pounds from where I was about a year ago. which is 13 pounds up from my lowest in March. Not the best situation, but certainly not the worst.

We took lots of photos on our trip. I was in many of them. You know how you have a picture in your head of what you look like? Well, it turns out the picture I have in my head of what I think I look like and what I actually look like in pictures is not the same thing. 200 pounds is not little, no matter what I've been telling myself. I have a long way to go.