updating

oh man, what's new? what isn't it more like it.

surgery-wise things are great. in about 8 months I've lost about 135 pounds. i also have zero fream of reference for what i look like. before when i'd see photos of myself i'd be SHOCKED at how big i was. and it would depress me immensely and i'd hide the photos. i'd always make sure to be inteh back or out of the photo when it was taken. better yet, i'd always offer to take it. anything not to have to see myself in photos. now, i see photos of me an di'm critical, but for some reason still can't really SEE how far i've come. i know that sounds weird, but i hear most people actually take at least a year for their heads to catch up with their bodies. take this past weekend. it was warm and i wanted to wear my lighter weight jacket. this is the jacket i got maybe in october. it's the smallest size that you can get at a big-girl store. i couldn't zip it when we bought it, bu that was ok. i grabbed it out of the closet and put it on and stopped. i had to have the wrong coat. i literally checked. the sleeves were too long anf it was WAAAAAAAAAAY too big for me. like the you-can't-wear-it-it's-too-big-and-you-look-ridiculous kind of big. how'd that happen? crazy.

so other than needing to buy clothes every three weeks, it's been interesting. i also quickly lose the window of opportunity for clothes. take two old navy skirts i bought. too big. wore them each once. way to go.

in other helath news, i am tired all the time again. this comes and goes. headached seem to be a little better the last couple of months. the big thing is the eye. i'm really concerned about my eye. i guess it started this summer. two times the vision in my right eye was partially onscured and completley gray. very scary. happened twice, but only for less thana minute each time. so althoug it alarmed me, it was quickly forgotten.

then i noticed over the last few months that my vision seems to be getting worse. i figure, no big deal. my face is a lot smaller, my glasses must not be fitting right. i just need new glasses. makes sense, right? so i am going to me an eye dr appt when the whole sunject of lasik comes up. how i really don't want to have glasses for the wedding. great idea, right? alex says he'll front the money and i can pay it with the freelance check i'm getting. so i do the research, find wehre i want to go, we make the appt and go. they say i'm a fine candidate, give us costs, he leaves to go to work and i stay to do allthe furth testing. that's when the problem is found. my eyes are fine, but my right eye vision deteriorated in less than 6 months from 20/20 to 20/200. they can't correct it to better than 20/100 and tell me i have to go see specialists to find out the problem. of course i'm pretty upset about this. and concerned. there's nothing wrong with my eye but i'm going blind? fabulous.

then the insurance battles start. the lasik guy referred me to a neuro-othamologist at UofM. great. only insuance tells me it's out of network. ok. that's fine. so tell me what NO are in network and i'llbe happy to use that one. oh you can't? i see.

soi hav eto backtrack through my pcp, who sends me to a regular neurologist first. who sends me for the mri. and finds a dr i can see. i need to go to detroit to see the only other one in the state. fine.

so alex and i are leaving that appt when my mom calls. grandpa had a stroke, get on a plane. eye is forgotten.

i leave, spend a week and a half with him as he's declining rapidly. it was painful and hard and awful and i never want ot go through that again. horrible. although i am SO greatful i got to spend that time with him, watching him die was horrible. it's my granpa. i loved him so much. (and today is his birthday.) we buried him on christmas eve morning. i am greatful that alex was there and jon. that meant a lot to me.

so then i come back to orders to get an mri. an mri that the neurologist didn't think i needed. well ok. so i go do that. and that was horrible. i had a really hard time with it and decided that if i need to get another one i will need to be sedated.

i take the films to the appt with the NO. they can't figure out what i s wrong either. after hours of testing. they tell me my mri looks fine, save for some congenital defects (??). they need to test my vitamin levels (could be as simple as that), if those are ok, then i need to get some firther tests done to determine if its' optical nerve or retinal problems, they can't tell.

that was a friday. that saturday i get my blood drawn. tuesday mornign i get a call from the hospital to schedule the tests. wow, ok that was fast. guess the bloodwork was ok. then comes the week and half long battle to get insurance approval for the tests. approval comes on a friday at 4:50 for terts scheduled for the following monday. my birthday no less.

so i go to the hospital, on my birthday, with alex for these next rounds of tests that were jsut horrific. electrodes, giant contacts, movie screen, crazy stuff. my eyes hurt so much after that and i wa so wiped that i ended up going to sleep by like 8pm. happy birthday to me.

on a daily basis my eye is blurry, and i need to sit really close ot my monitor to see. color is hard, press checks are a nightmare and i can no longer drive at night. i'm dizzy a lot too.

i have not gotten the results of these tests yet, i go back on the 28th to the NO. in the meantime they wanted me to start vitamin a injections. sounds simple enough, i get b12 every month as it is, right? only problem, no one will do it for me. my pcp has been very uncooperative and downright rude, which i just cna't figure out at all. so i wait.

i'm trying not to freak out, but the two options they have presented me with are not ones i like. not one bit. either it's a gentic disease or MS. apparently my mri showed evidence of MS. great. but my visions issues arne't consistent with it. they are, however, with the genetic disease. seems like i have lumbar punctures and genetic testing in my near future. fabulous.

so i'm really trying not to freak out, but i'd also really like to not go bllind, so i hope all of this will be taken care of soon.

in other news, i'm getting married in 7 months. SEVEN MONTHS!!! sheesh. seems so soon.

my mom is coming out this weekend to go dress shopping with me, should be fun. aaron is also coming out to hang with alex. seems like he might move here. and live with us. it will be strange. but it surprisingly doesn't bother me. too much. right now. we'll see how it goes, he's here until wednesday.

ok, well, i guess that's a decent update for now. oh. that and i filed for bankruptcy, to clear out all the crap from the ex. and inthe process i ended up with a new car, go figure.

ok really, time to work now.