Is anybody out there??

Well…this is awkward. Remember that time I had a blog and wrote every day, and then still had a blog but never wrote anything?

…sorry, universe.

Not that I’m assuming anyone reads this thing, but if you did, I apologize for being MIA. SO MUCH has happened in the last 6 months, I don’t even know where to begin. But I need to get it all out there, because I’m still processing everything, and I’m hoping that writing it down will help.

It all started about June/July. I started gaining weight for no apparent reason. Nothing major, but sooner or later I was up 10 lbs from a couple of months before, and I couldn’t understand why. My eating habits didn’t change, my workouts were only getting better. And it wasn’t muscle, might I add…I was noticing fat deposits in strange places, and my clothes were no longer fitting.

There were other weird things too…I was tired, constantly. No matter how many hours of sleep I got, I would wake up feeling like I was hit by a truck. I was also moodier, almost depressed. I was getting dizzy spells every time I stood up. And the bloating…oh gosh the bloating. On more than one occasion I would cry to my husband that I was six months pregnant – my stomach was THAT distended. I was googling “Am I pregnant and don’t know it??,” that’s how bad it was. I was frustrated, discouraged, and fairly pissed off.

So…I went to the doctor.

I think another reason why I’m writing this is to encourage women to listen to their bodies, and if something doesn’t FEEL right, then DO something about it! I did something about it, and 6 months later I’m so thankful I did.

It took 6 months to figure out what my deal was. We started with thyroid, which seemed like a good place to start given my symptoms. Tests came back showing that I had a fairly good-looking thyroid, but my doctor had also done a blood panel which showed I was significantly low on B-12 and iron. HOORAY, easy fix! More B-12 meant more energy, which I desperately wanted. I took 4 shots in the butt of B-12, started popping iron pills, and got my blood work checked again 6 weeks later.

No change.

My body wasn’t absorbing any of the vitamins and nutrients. Wierd, right? My doc then went through a round of hormone/endocrine tests that showed I had high levels of cortisol in my system (probably due to some stress my body was under). At this point, I was pissed. I don’t stress easily, so why is my cortisol elevated? Why am I not absorbing anything? WHY DO I LOOK PREGNANT???

To be continued…