Bucket List

Did you ever make a "bucket list"?

I don't think I have ever actually made a bucket list, but I have definitely dreamt of things I want to do in my life. Where I want to go. What I want to experience. Like many, I want to travel more. I feel fortunate that I have traveled as much as I have, but here I am about to turn 43 and I realize I haven't traveled to nearly as many places in the world as I had expected to by this time of my life. Some people spend their entire lives working hard, saving and planning their dream trips. They retire and finally they have the time to go on those fabulous trips, but they spent so long working hard and neglecting their health that all the sudden they have these huge obstacles like diabetes, or stroke or heart attack, broken hip, arthritis, chronic pain, or any number of comorbidities that interfere with traveling the world. As a medical professional I see it all the time. I have worked with the young and the old in hospitals, nursing homes and home health. Everyone has at least one dreamy bucket list vacation they want to take. But reality sinks in, and the obstacles get bigger and bigger. Over the years I have had many hopes, fears, dreams and wishes. They have changed and morphed as my life has not taken the direct path that I imagined it would when I was a young girl. So what now? How do you work and take care of your responsibilities, plan for the future and also check off those bucket list items before its too late? 

Things I want to do before I kick the bucket...

• Have a baby or adopt a child ... maybe
• Lots of hiking. I want to hike in as many National Parks as I can. I have this little passport book for the National Parks. I want to get a stamp for all the National Parks in the US in my little passport book!
• While we are checking out the National Parks, lets hit as many State parks as we can too! I would like to make it my goal to check into at least 90% of the State parks in Texas and as many State parks in every state that I visit from now on. 
• Build a tiny house (or container home or a small cabin) and/or a Schoolie with my husband. 
• Find and purchase that perfect piece of land, in the mountains or the desert. Maybe on the Pacific coast or along the banks of a river or stream. Build our dream house on a foundation and park our schoolie in the back, sit on the porch and enjoy the peace and quiet of our little piece of heaven. 
• Visit the Holy Land. I would truly like to visit the holy land and walk the same places that Jesus walked. 
• Travel to Australia and visit my friend G and maybe catch up with a few other old classmates who have somehow found their way to living in Australia. 
• If your going to go all the way to Australia, you may as well stop over in New Zealand, too. 
• Go on an African Safari. 
• Volunteer in a mission trip anywhere in the world where I am called to. 
• Ski down a black slope at least once without getting injured, so that I can officially say that I have mastered skiing.
• Go fly fishing in the mountains of Colorado, Wyoming and Montana where my parents took us when we were kids. 
• I want to own and run a little boutique shop somewhere in a little tourist town. Sell yarn or crafts and goods from local artists. Maybe a shop that sells sustainable soaps, essential oils, body care. I don't really care what I sell. I just want to have a little shop in a cute little town like Manatou Springs, or Terlingua, or Forks. Someplace off the beaten path, but a place that is so majestic and peaceful it attracts visitors from all over the world to relax and enjoy the beauty of that little treasure of a town. 
• Walk to the top of Pike's Peak
• Invest in real estate (gotta have something to support me in my old age)
• Float in the Dead Sea 
• I would love to spend a week in Tibet, meditating with the Tibetan Monks in the mountains. 
• I would love to ride a horse across Mongolia, just like The Horse Boy!
• Take photography classes, especially old fashioned black and white film photography. 
• I would like to take a graphic design class as well, so I can design my own labels, clothing, projects, designs to incorporate with my crochet and sewing. 
• Learn to weave, just like my mom. She has tried to get me interested in weaving since I was a child. I never had the patience or attention span for it. But now that I am older and I have become more interested in my crocheting and sewing, I have realized I am a textile artist. So I am ready now. 
• Travel the US in the Schoolie that my hubby and I hope to build someday. Hopefully that Schoolie will help us check off many of my bucket list items. 
• I want to visit every hot spring I can find in every state and every country I visit!
• Collect textiles like handwoven blankets or crocheted items from every country I visit.
• I would like to hunt for moose or caribou in Alaska
• Catch a king salmon while fly fishing
• Someday, WHEN I Win a huge lottery jackpot, so that I can build a low income senior apartment (with assisted living and skilled nursing as well), with low income college student housing that allows seniors and college students to be room mates. College students get a break on cost of living by committing to spend time with their senior room mates and volunteering with other activities in the community. Other features will be a comprehensive early childhood program in the community where children can attend preschool and seniors can volunteer in the classes. With an animal rescue group/shelter/adoption center that also allows seniors to help care for puppies and kittens and other animals needing a little TLC before being adopted. My guess, is this would require at least 10-50 acres of land, and around 15-25 million to make it happen. A large jackpot could make it happen!

That is all I can think of for now. Maybe I will add to this list as I dream a little more. 

I have never really done a blog. I have never even been able to keep a diary or journal. I don't know why. I am just not good or consistent with such things. But somehow now it seems that this may be the most important time in my life to try to be consistent at keeping a blog. So I am going to do it here. In public. Where the whole world can see. Maybe I will even get a follower, or two. Maybe that will help me be more accountable to myself and therefore more motivated to keep up with this. So let's begin...

Age: 41 years 11 months

Weight: 280# as of February 2018

Size 18-20 in pants and 2X tops

Mood: grumpy

Sleep: I feel like no matter how much I sleep its never enough. 

Motivation: very little

So not sure where to start, but I will give the shortest version I can on where the PCOS part comes together for me. I started my cycle at or around 11 years old. From the moment it started, I was never regular. I always suffered very heavy and painful cycles. Although, my mom suffered way worse, so in her eyes, my cycles looked normal to her. I was also always a little fluffy. Never the skinny fit girl. Never athletic. 

Fast forward many years more of the same. My weight in high school was around 160# when I had Mononucleosis and was terribly ill. I ended high school around 180# and fluctuated from 180 - 200# throughout college. During Graduate school I became very very ill almost from the start. I had migraines weekly, and lots of sinus infections (which was the norm for me growing up as well). I felt sick and dragging all the time. At one point we discovered the apartment I lived in had some significant mold issues, so I moved to a cleaner safer apartment. That was when I was so ill, no doctor could figure out what was wrong with me. 

So during college I became pregnant. No babies... Still, no doctors ever considered that my cycles, weight gain, and miscarriage could be related. 

Over the years I took birth control to regulate my periods, but they still were not normal. Some pills were better then others. But I still got pregnant while taking the pill. Looking back now, I can see that the reason I got pregnant was because the pills raised my progesterone so that I could ovulate. Unfortunately, it was not enough to keep me pregnant. 

So about 2 years ago I went to a new doctor since I was living in new city. He was the first person to ask me (without prompting) if I had ever been diagnosed with PCOS. He ordered blood work and an internal ultrasound on day 21 to see if I had any cysts on my ovaries. Well it took more then 6 months to get the results. This doctor never followed up with me. I finally walked into the office to track down my own results. They confirmed cysts on one ovary and evidence of burst cysts on the other. Awesome! Finally a diagnosis... or so I thought. The doctors notes still indicated he didn't think that I had PCOS. I walked out and never looked back. So here we are today. Last month I finally took a chance and went to a new doctor/nurse practitioner. She comes recommended by many who have PCOS. So I took a chance. OMG! I love her. She ran blood work and listened to my entire medical history and she confirmed that I do actually have PCOS! Thank you sweet baby Jesus! 

Verdict: PCOS, Hypothyroid (low T3), Significant Vitamin D deficiency and mild Vitamin B12 deficiency (I have MTFHR genetic mutation) and of course... I am obese. Big fat freaking surprise there!

So let me back up a tiny bit and give you a 10 year condensed update: I figured out through trial and error and some natural practitioners advice that I am/was/aways have been allergic to milk and eliminated 90% of milk from my diet 10 years ago and 100% 5 years ago. I also had a little birdy, aka mentor/friend telling me to go gluten free. I finally listened to her 10 years ago and was 90% gluten free 10 years ago. About 6 years ago went 100% gluten free. About 5 years ago earlier this month, I met my future husband. He had recently begun a gluten free diet as well and had huge benefits. We discussed and agreed that as soon as we moved in together (3 months later) we would live, eat and breathe a Paleo diet. We were very successful and worked well meal planning, packing lunches and sticking to 80/20 paleo diet. We have even completed a couple of Whole30 cycles in the last 5 years. None of these diet changes ever resulted in me loosing weight... I repeat. None of these diet changes resulted in loosing weight!

Back to 2018 and today. The plan. 

First my Nurse practitioner started me on some supplements and prescriptions:

Formin (aka Natrual Metformin) 2 pills with breakfast, 1 pill with dinner

2 Vitamin D supplements 4x per week

Vitamin B complex 2 pills Daily

Cytomel (aka Liothyronine) 1pill 2x per day for thyroid function

Progesterone (natrual RX) days 10-28 of cycle at night

Last week I went to the Functional Medicine/Nutritionist practitioner that my nurse practitioner referred me to see. Conveniently, they are in the same office. This nutritionist actually has an incredible understanding of PCOS and the body and how it functions! OMG! I love this lady! 

So adding to the above plan and long story short. Keto diet is recommended and the most ideal diet for almost all with PCOS to loose weight. Makes sense... probably the only time I have intentionally lost weight was when I did South Beach Diet phase 1 (which is basically Keto). But the rest of South Beach did not do anything for me. 

So here I am. Week one Keto. Its been an adventurous week. Not too difficult since the hubs and I already eat Paleo and we have absolutely no junk food in the house. We are only having to give up a few of our favorite foods like sweet potatoes, and white potatoes. We have a few favorite restaurants that have gluten free bread or dairy free gluten free deserts, so we indulge from time to time. So this week has been a learning experience. We have had some successes and some failures. I will sum it up with this: Keto when our allergic to diary is a little more difficult, but not impossible; protein smoothies and other keto smoothies are your friend and will definitely help with the sweets cravings; Fitness Pal app is worth the investment to pay for the full version so you can set your daily intake goals, track your food and it shows you graphs that help people like me visualize the successes and failures daily. 

This may be a little abrupt, but I am going to stop here for tonight and hopefully this weekend I will get back on with a little more details on how we started figuring out how to eat on Keto and I will be using this as a way to help me do some of my diet tracking. 

If you have read all the way to this point, I'm shocked and a little excited that my little journal has intrigued you this much. 

ta ta for now,

Cece