For a year and a half now

WARNING: This is a pretty personal post.  Boys and anyone who just isn't interested in having too much information about me may want to skip this one.  See you next time.

It's hard for me to open up about stuff, especially stuff like this, especially in this public (ha ha) way, but I feel it is important.

When we got married, we, like many couples, did not want to have kids right away.  Zack is just now about to finish his undergrad, and I hadn't even begun nursing school yet, so I did what lots of people do, and I went on birth control.  I went on it a couple months before I got married to get my body into the groove of it all, and I had relatively few problems.  Sure, I had a ton of the expected side effects, but I thought that with a few months and some patience, they would wear off.  So we got married in early August and moved here just a couple weeks later.

After we moved here, it got really bad.  I had birth control side effects like crazy.  I packed on 20 pounds in seriously about 1 month.  I had to pee like every 6 seconds (I used more public bathrooms- yuck!- in those months than probably in my whole life before that), I was depressed and moody. I did not go see a doctor because I was having a hard time separating what side effects were due to the birth control and which were just me (and also because I was uninsured for most of the months until I started school).  I told myself a lot of the time that I had packed on the weight and I was so sad and moody because I had just left my whole life behind to move 2000 miles away from everyone and everything I knew.  I blamed myself, saying that if I just tried harder, I could be strong enough to handle this.  It wasn't true though. I had just made some big changes, but I was ready for them and happy about them.  It was very, very frustrating that I could not find a job when I first moved out here, but that alone shouldn't have thrown me into a crazy depressed state.  And my eating habits really hadn't changed that much with the move.  I fed myself an awful lot when I still lived at home with my parents, mostly because of the crazy schedule I kept.  I was going to the gym before I got married, and I had a gym membership and was going to the gym still when we moved here.  So none of that accounts for the weight gain- at least not 20 pounds in so short a time.  Basically,  I was just miserable.

When I was going to start school (and was insured again), I decided that I needed to do something about this or else I would not make it through school, so I went and saw the nurse practitioner.  I told her about some of my symptoms (leaving some out that I was still attributing to personal weakness) and expressed my exasperation.  I told her that I did not understand how these side effects could get so out of control.  When I had gone on the pill, I had talked to the PA at home about how the women in my family often have trouble with birth control and she purposely put me on a pill with a very low dose of hormones to minimize side effects.  How could a low dose pill be wreaking such havoc on me?  That's when it all became clear.  The NP informed me that the medication I had been taking since I moved was not the low dose.  Somehow, the pharmacy here in Philly had switched me to a high dose generic without informing me and so, 6 months and 20 pounds later, I was absolutely miserable.  And that is why the problems didn't spiral out of control until I moved.  She promptly wrote me a prescription for something low dose and I immediately went on that instead.

In the year since that happened, I have stayed on the low dose.  The expected side effects have never really gone away.  I go through cycles- for a while I will get headaches all the time, then I will be nauseous frequently, after that I will have to pee a lot, and so forth.  I am always moody. And the past year being what it was, I did not make the time to exercise to get my body back in shape.

I guess I am spilling all of this because I feel like sometimes people do not understand what is going on and it becomes an issue.  I am very very self-conscious about my weight.  I had never really struggled with it before.  I never was a twig or anything, but I was a nice weight for my height, and I was comfortable in my skin.  Now, I am stuck squeezing into the same clothes I was wearing 20 pounds ago because there is no way I can afford a whole new wardrobe.  So I bring it up a lot, sort of jokingly most of the time, to keep it from becoming a sore point.  Now that I am out of school, I am hitting the gym almost daily.  I am working hard.  I am trying to eat better.  But it is much harder to take weight off than to put it on.  Despite that I have been at this for a month, no results yet.  It is very frustrating to me.  So bear with me as I go through this.  

The second thing I want to spit out there is just that I have been sick a lot as I have been going through all this for the past year and a half.  Sometimes it's a bad headache.  Sometimes I am at home puking.  Sometimes I am just too moody and emotional to be able to handle anything.  I know that I have missed out on some good opportunities for fun, opportunities to help and support people, etc. because of this.  Please do not think that I am blind to that.  But if you ever get that call that I just can't make it because I am not feeling well, just know that it is not just a ploy to get out of something.  And if you see me 2 hours later and I look like I am fine and feeling better, maybe I am, but that doesn't mean I was feeling fine earlier.  I make jokes about it.  One month, I kept getting sick every single weekend for some reason (Saturdays and Sundays).  I missed church a few times in a row.  So I joked that I was allergic to Sundays.  But really, it sucked.  I wanted to be at church.  I did not want to be sick.

Anyway, I am not seeking sympathy or anything.  I just wanted to share a little bit about what's going on with anyone who reads this in an attempt to help you understand me and why I do what I do a little better.  I know that I have been self-centered a lot of the time while I have been struggling with this (and with school, of course).  Now that school is out and I have a life again, we are ready to explore other options in this department that will hopefully work out better for me.  Please be aware that this process is underway.  I am not blind to the fact that I am a person with choices, and I want to make the choices that allow me to the be the best person, friend, and family member I can be.

I do not mean to suggest that my life sucks or that I am so picked on or anything like that.  I am generally very happy and pleased with life right now.  I love my husband.  I think my family and friends are just awesome.  I am just going through a couple of small struggles, and want to help you all understand.

Thanks for reading... something more lighthearted to come next time.