In Which I Benefit From Being Sick

I have not been a good girl with my diet. Jake's birthday party was this past week and I had some of my nursing friends over for a get together. We barbecued, I made mac and cheese and potato salad...there was cake, baked beans, chips, ice cream...yeah.

And remember, Alli does not like it when Beckie takes in too many fats.

This weekend, I discovered that Beckie does not like it when Beckie takes in too many fats.

I'm not going to details, but I will say that I spent most of my Saturday sick in the bathroom.

However, I was finally able to step away from the throne and curl up in my bed to ironically read up on the digestive system and attempt not to die. I was rudely woken up this morning when my husband came home from work (he works nights) and kicked me out of bed. So I stumble into the bathroom and step on the scale like I do every morning (I'm beginning to believe that it's a compulsion) and wait to see what it tells me.

172.8 pounds.

After binging on bbq food since thursday, I had gone back up to 176.2 yesterday morning. That means that I lost 3.5 pounds in one day, thanks to my irritable bowels.

Not exactly the way that I wanted to lose it, but hey, I'll take what I can get.

In Which I Have Flatulence

As a nursing student, I come across some really nasty stuff. Coffee ground emesis (that's indicative of an upper GI bleed, thank you), that unique smell of someone with C. Diff, gangrenous toes (vomit), diarrhea after someone drinks CT contrast (which I had to clean up after and almost died) and weeping wounds.

I try my hardest to not gag and embarrass the patient, though I always go back and laugh about it with my fellow nursing students. Sometimes I think humor is the only way to get through nursing school.

But I digress.

After a consultation with my physician, it was suggested to me that I try Alli to get those last "20 or so pounds off", to quote the MD. Since it's FDA approved and worked for my uncle, I figured I would try it, what with being on my whole "I'm going to lose the rest of this weight or die trying" kick.

So after I drop the kiddos off at school, I head to Hell-Mart, get myself the Alli starter kit, some Slim-Fast, a pedometer, a new scale and some Crest Whitening Strips, because if I'm gonna be skinny, I want to have a beautiful white smile as well, right?

I get home, shimmy off my clothes, step on the scale and...I've only gained one pound from the last time I weighed in, so I was 178.6 this morning.

Commence happy dance.

Feeling uplifted, I drink my Slim-Fast and eat half a banana, take my Calcium supplement and the Alli pill and head to the gym. Now, being a good girl and doing what my MD said, I set the timer on the treadmill for 60 minutes, figuring that I'll do the weights for the other 30. No biggie, right?

Wrong.

So I'm happily jogging along at a fine speed of 6 mph at a 2% incline, and all of a sudden, I feel my stomach lurch. You know the feeling, don't tell me you don't. And I've got 20 minutes left on my timer for the treadmill and I'm all like, I can do this, no problem.

Then they start coming. Farts, toots, foofies, flatulence, passing gas, whatever the hell you call them. First they're the little ones that you can pass off as a squeak of your chair if you're in class, or the sound of your shoe on the floor. Then the big guns started. It was reminiscent of my grandfather after a ham and bean dinner during the holidays.

Good news is, it stopped eventually and no one was harmed in the noxious fumes.

In Which I Begin to Sweat...A Lot

Recently I've had some problems with hormone levels. My estrogen levels are low, my testosterone levels are high, evidenced by the ridiculous amounts of sweat, the mysterious random patches of hair in places where hair does not belong on a woman, and (I'm really sorry to any of my family reading this) an extremely increased sex drive.

These three things prove one thing: I'm turning into a man.

I of course immediately contacted my physician and was seen by the extremely attractive doctor that I have had for the past seven years. He's seen me through pap smears, well checks, UTIs, two pregnancies and now this (I think he needs a raise).

He decided that rather than put me on hormones, he wanted to try a diuretic. Those of you not familiar, a diuretic gets rid of excess fluid in the body...which I don't have, but one of the side effects is a decrease in hair growth.

How does the excess water come out?

In urine...and lots and lots of sweat.

Took first pill today and I believe I've spent more time in the bathroom today than I have spent in the past four months that we've lived here. It's like every freaking two minutes I have to pee. It's almost as bad as when I was 15 1/2 months pregnant and larger than a house with a bladder the size of a pea.

Almost.