Catch Up

I've been meaning to blog for a while now, but today I found myself with a little time and nothing specific to do.

Chris has been back at work for two weeks now (I think) and seems to be doing really well! His first few days were hard, as he had to get used to all the walking around and such, but we make sure he takes his anti-dizziness meds with him so that he can take them if needed. He hasn't even had to be using his cane recently! We're so happy to be seeing these improvements! He goes back to our PCP in a few weeks, and then at the end of October he goes back to the ENT to have the fluid levels checked.

I don't know if I ever mentioned this, but as part of all his testing he got allergy testing done, which revealed some major allergies to dustmites and specific types of pollens and grasses and lots of other stuff. I've gotten to increase how often I mop our entire house to help take care of all the dust. It's quite the task, since there is no carpet in our house, just tile floor. I've also stepped up on some other cleaning, like the vents for our AC. They get really dusty, and I tend to ignore them. Not anymore. Overall our house is less cluttered and cleaner because I spend a good chunk of time each day cleaning it.

In the two weeks that he's been at work it seems like I've done a ton of stuff. I had to get all caught up on my visiting teaching, and then get visit taught, and then I hadn't seen my friends in like 2 months so I  got to get together with them for lunch one day. A friend had a baby recently, so I made sure to go over to her place so I could meet the baby and chat with her for a little while. I've been quickly catching up on my scripture study challenge for the year. I'll be able to finish the complete standard works by the end of the year, it will just be a little more each day than I had anticipated. The young women need to start preparing two songs to sing later this year-one for YW in Excellence, and another for some combined RS/YW activity that will happen in December. Then I know they'll be working on something for New Beginnings... seems like I spend a lot of time trying to figure out songs they could sing then actually learning them. I got to accompany our ward choir for a few practices while the regular pianist was out of town-that took me at least an hour a day for two weeks to be comfortable with some of those songs. Years ago it wouldn't have taken me as long; I definitely need to work on my piano skills.

I've spent an insane amount of time in the last two months flipping through cookbooks, calculating sodium contents, and reading labels to make sure that things don't have MSG in them. I have a whole new list of food additives that contain MSG as well, so now I have an even longer list to check for. Made life a lot more complicated too. We finally had found some good options and then I realized that dang it, Yeast Extract is in a lot of things and that is a food additive that contains MSG.

Both of our cars had to be taken in for the Texas Vehicle Inspection this month, so I got to go through the Inspection Station 3 times in two weeks! And in the middle of those two weeks my car got to go spend some time with our friend Mario who fixed the brake line and the muffler so that my car could actually pass the inspection. I went to the same little Inspection Station each time, and on my last trip for the month the lady who had inspected my cars each time told me that if I came back one more time this month we would be automatic BFFs. I was tempted to take the car through again, but didn't want to pay the $14.50 again. I do look forward to next year when the cars have to go again, and hope that Stacy is still at that inspection station.

I also went to the library the other day. I checked out 6 books. I've finished a few of them, just reading at night while Chris reads his tech news, and on Sunday. Oh I love books! Once I finish the rest of these books I think I'll have to ban myself from the library (with the exception of the day that my already reserved copy of Gretchen Rubin's new book, Happier at Home comes in) and start plowing through school again. I have to finish my class by February 14th, and I'm not even halfway done. It's going to take some serious self discipline to finish on time. Yikes!

I'm trying to get back into exercising as well... while Chris was on disability leave we lived a pretty sedentary lifestyle since he couldn't do a whole lot. I think I'm posting this so that I'll feel like I have to do it since I told someone about it. I haven't decided exactly what I want to do... in a month or so I'll probably start running again, but right now it's still just too hot even early in the morning, so I'll probably do a combo of Wii Fit and Just Dance for now so I can do that in my air conditioned house. We've been forced to think so much about our health, and every little bit helps.

more slightly scattered thoughts

I guess it's been two weeks since I posted last. Since my last post, we've seen improvement! We had our one month follow up appointment with the ENT, where we got good and bad news. The good news was that there is less fluid in the inner ears, although there still is a way to go. The bad news was that the low sodium diet which we had been told could just be a temporary thing gets to become our new lifestyle. For good. That's kind of hard. I'd been holding back a little, clinging to what our Primary Care doctor had said about it being temporary. I hadn't done enough homework or found enough recipes because I thought we could survive off the same 8 recipes or so for a few months.

We got to travel to my brothers wedding, which was fantastic! We didn't think we would be able to, but the ENT gave us the okay! It was fun to be with all of my siblings, even if it was for a short amount of time. Chris did really well while we were gone, able to cut back on some of his medications and still participate in everything we needed to do (except that we didn't stay up til 1:30 [or was it later?] with my siblings the night before the wedding).

Today we went to run a few errands, and for the first time since May... Chris drove! We went to HEB, Bed Bath and Beyond, Costco, and Sam's Club. It was 102 degrees outside, but he did a fantastic job the whole time. We're noticing that he doesn't rely on his cane quite as much!

We see our Primary Care Physician again on Friday where we anticipate getting the official letter  allowing Chris to go back to work next week. According to the ENT, he'll still be on some of the meds for another 10 months, but we don't go back to see them til the end of October.

After talking to some women in the ward I learned that there is a family who has dealt with Meniere's before, so I talked to the wife about diet restrictions. She told me about a bread that has no sodium, about a specific brand of lunch meats that has no nitrates/nitrates, no msg, and depending on how many slices you use, a low(er) amount of sodium.

I'm still working on finding more meals that we can eat without having to leave out too many ingredients or doing substitutions. We're getting better at this! I'm figuring out what I'll need to send with Chris when he goes back to work next week-gotta make sure he has all the food that he needs so that he doesn't end up having to go supplement it with things from their cafeteria. We've been eating a bunch of bananas and grapes lately, and those are both easy things to add to his lunch.

Something else that we're struggling with now is getting back into a more normal sleep schedule. We've  been letting Chris sleep as late as he needs without setting an alarm, and that then means going to bed later at night. That also means that I've been sleeping as late as I wanted to because I wasn't about to set an alarm to wake me up. We've got to kick that habit so that he'll be rested enough to go back to work and so that I'll be rested enough to lead a normal life.

I haven't really touched my schoolwork in the last few months, so once he gets back to work I've got to jump on that and get caught up. I also fell behind on my challenge to finish the complete Standard Works in 2012. I just didn't have the mental capacity to read all 7 pages a day that I needed to to stay caught up, so now I'm playing catch up.