Feeling like a human being again!

I no longer feel like I'm on house arrest. This week was the beginning of getting back into a routine. I got a little depressed last week when the doctor felt like my nerve pain might be permanent. I tried a new med and I think it's actually working. I don't feel so much pain as I do tingling and irritation. I'm no longer a druggie!

I started running(slow jogging) again. I'm sad because I was up to 5 miles and now I'm down to 1.5 miles. I have to get up to 8 in a month. I wanted to run the full 8 miles but I guess I can walk some of it if I have to. I'm trying to get into the routine of walking the dogs. I love my dogs but I hate walking them. They drive me insane when they know it's time for a walk. Then they go nuts when I try to put their leashes on. And now they know where every dog in our neighborhood lives and want to visit all of them...even the growling pitbulls. So I'm trying to walk them at least a mile a day and then running Scout a mile 3 times a week. It would be so much easier if they were good dogs and I could just bring them on my runs.

We had a brigade function to signify the half-way mark last week. Part of this was the Biggest Loser Contest....just within our brigade of course. I didn't sign up for the competition but I did take their health assessment. My weight was actually lower than I've seen it in a while since I lost so much muscle weight while I was sick. Blood pressure good. Resting heart rate good. Then we did the "how much fat are you carrying around" test. He did the measurement and it was a little higher than I expected but still within normal limits. He tells me that I'm still within the average. Then he asked me if I was happy with just being within the average or if maybe I thought I could lose some weight. "We" decided I could lose about 8 lbs which turned into 10 lbs this week...what can I say, I love my food! Hopefully once I get back into running I won't have to change too much. I might have to pick up some healthy snacks this week.

Well this led me to weighing Scout. Since we moved here I've had 3 vets tell me that she's overweight. I could tell she was overweight but it didn't seem too bad. I tried 2 kinds of diet foods, both of which she was allergic to. I knew I needed to exercise both of them more but let's face it...I'm a little lazy. I can't even use the excuse that I'm busy anymore. I'm just plain lazy. While I was looking for pictures to put in our Christmas card, I ran across pictures of Scout when we first got here and she was already a little overweight. Ok...my baby girl got fat! I weighed her on the scale...let's just say she's supposed to be 55 lbs. She was 75 lbs! I felt awful that I let her get so out of shape. I cut back her food months ago but that hasn't made a difference instead she eats grass, flowers, garbage, anything she can get into. So the plan is to walk them every day, run her 3 times a week and bring them on a hike at least once a month. Hopefully we'll both reach our goal.

I also got to go surfing last week. It was awesome! I was a little scared at first because it's been almost 2 months and the waves were bigger than I've ever surfed on. Still really really small but looked ginormous to me. Usually I can stay out for 1.5 hours before taking a break. I returned my board after 40 minutes. I was a little embarrassed. The rental guys was like "seriously? you didn't even have it out for an hour!" Hopefully I can build those muscles back up as well.

My next milestone...Shiggy should be home for R&R in just over a month. It that isn't motivation to get my butt in gear, I don't know what is. Now if I could just get my act together...

All better yet the pain lingers...

Well I'm done with the shingles. The active part at least. Unfortunately the pain has chosen to remain. It didn't seem so bad at first, just a little annoying. But then my first night without pain meds began and it was awful. I didn't ask my doctor for any meds yesterday because it didn't seem like they were working anyways. Boy was I wrong. They may not have alleviated the pain completely but apparently dulled the pain down to a tolerable point i.e. sleeping 2 hours at a time instead of 15 mins at a time. I felt like a druggie calling the doctor to try to refill my prescription only to be treated like a druggie by the receptionist who obviously did not believe I was in pain. It didn't matter, the doctor's not in today anyways.

We're giving a new drug a try but it'll be 2 weeks before I can tell if it's working or not. If not I get to go see a neurologist. Too soon to tell if this is temporary or will be permanent. The worse part is that Shiggy comes home for R&R soon and I have to decide if I can tolerate being off the meds for a month for the chance at getting pregnant or if we should just wait.

My running has come to a halt. I'm supposed to be doing an 8 mile run in February but since I can't even walk the dogs without pain, I'm not sure how the running is gonna go. I might try it out tonight and just try to work through it. There's also no point in me buying a surf board anymore. It's getting very depressing around here. My friend volunteered to throw me a birthday party but she was a little sad by my lack of enthusiasm. I don't mind getting older, but every birthday is becoming a reminder of each year we've been trying to conceive. If you don't include deployments it will be 2, if you include the deployments it's 3.5.

For now I'm just going to concentrate on studying for the boards and slowly getting the house together. I'm not as bad off as I make it seem. I'm just mentally and physically exhausted and ready for a change.