Who’s the boss?

I live with two cats and a dog, so I like to think I am the boss. Think is the key word in that sentence.

Boo, my YorkiePoo and Butter, my tuxedo cat, had about a week of struggle after losing Buttons in daily life. The hierarchy had been messed with and boundaries needed to be reset. Butter would get in my lap and Boo would growl/bark and chase her out of it (and no, he was not trying to play). Boo would go to get a drink and Butter would hiss and the claws came out. Fur went flying ,although no blood was shed. Eventually, they came to an understanding and everybody could move around the house without (too much) fear. Delilah just camped out on the porch, taking it all in.

Yesterday, anticipating the use of a CPAP machine, I rearranged my bedroom so there would be a place to put the machine. There are new shelves in there, the bed is perpendicular to where it was, and a table was moved to the adjacent wall. While I was doing this, Butter sat in the doorway, watching. Boo was holed up in the living room. I finished, happy with the arrangement, and all hell broke loose. Boo went after Butter, she escaped into the garage suite where she likes to hang out. For the rest of the day, if Boo was in the living room and Butter stuck her head out, he’d go after her. Same thing this morning. I started thinking about moving one of the litter boxes into the garage suite. But things seem to have calmed down now, so we’ll see if Boo can get back to a truce and I can get back to pretending I’m the boss.

I mentioned when I started this blog that I was thinking about getting rid of my scale. Well, I did. I finally put it out to the curb, where somebody picked it up. I figure I go to a doctor’s office enough that they can keep tabs on my weight and I can have a “checkpoint” of sorts to see how it’s doing. With the scale out of my house, it’s much easier to concentrate on healthy habits rather than a number. I have enough numbers in my life between checking my blood sugar and figuring out carbs to be consumed and the units of insulin needed. As much as I like the idea of using my weight as a daily/weekly barometer for my behaviors, in reality it was too much on top of everything else. I want to feel like the boss of my numbers, and the scale was even more recalcitrant about it than the blood sugar numbers are.

Another thing I want to be the boss of? Flip turns in swimming. They fascinate and horrify me at the same time. I have yet to figure out how to do them. The problems? First, water up my nose. Yes, I know you’re supposed to blow out to keep it from coming in. I understand the science and theory behind it. But I can’t make it work. I always end up with water in my sinuses, and it hurts! I can’t even jump in a pool without holding my nose, let alone do a somersault in the water. I did order some nose clips, and they just came today. I’m going to try them out tomorrow – maybe they can help me be boss. I also came across a tip about humming while researching flip turns. I’m going to try that, too.

Second problem: my sense of proprioception sucks. As in, I get extremely disoriented doing a backbend. Those physical field tests for sobriety? I’d fail even if I hadn’t touched a drop of alcohol in a month. Tai chi has helped with this, but I still get turned around both in terms of direction and where my body is in space. (Yet, I can do weights while kneeling on a balance ball. Go figure.) I’ve attempted half somersaults in the water (mostly while holding my nose :-)) and I intellectually understand that I just want to flip so I’m looking at the sky, but … wow. I probably shouldn’t be doing it without a lifeguard present. I can’t even tell you what I’m doing. Let alone what I’m doing wrong.

But I’m persistent, so I’m going to keep at it until I feel like the boss.

Numbers and Self-Regulation

I am rethinking the whole not getting on a scale thing at home. I’m just not sure what’s right for me. On the other hand, getting on a scale hasn’t worked in the long run in the past. I’m in doctor’s offices enough that my weight is tracked. So I don’t know. I do know that I’m feeling discouraged and exhausted and my patience is in short supply. I’d say my stamina is gone, but I don’t think it had the energy to leave. I think it’s in a coma somewhere deep inside me. I don’t know what to do.

Well, that’s not true – I do. I need to get this lung thing figured out. But I’m not looking forward to a lung biopsy/VATS, which I’m pretty sure is what the lung specialist will want to schedule when I see her next week. I want to yell to the world JUST FIX IT!

I keep track of my blood sugar numbers, all day, every day (for the most part – I admit to needing a break every once in a while so I take my monitor out – but I always check when I wake up and before I go to bed at a minimum). I do get frustrated by the numbers, especially when I can’t figure out any rhyme or reason for them being high or low. But for the most part, I’m not emotionally invested in them – they’re just guidelines to tell me what to do with insulin and eating. (Or they should be – lately I’ve not been all that attentive to them.)

What I’m wondering is whether I can/should use the number on the scale in the same way. Or maybe go back to using something like MyFitnessPal or LoseIt on my phone to track calories in and out. Yes, I want to concentrate on healthy behaviors and not need to rely on “outside” information – trust your body and intuitive eating and all that . However, right now, healthy behaviors are leaving me feeling like crap. And my ability to self-regulate in terms of eating, hydration, sleep, and exercise needs help and attention. But even when I do pay attention, I’m not sure I know what my body’s signals are saying. I think that I am so disassociated from my body and its signals that the dissociation mirrors my pancreas and ability to regulate insulin: it’s damaged. So using a tracker to tell me how much more to eat in the day would be like using the glucose monitor to tell me what to do with my insulin pump. Hmmmm.

Positive things I’ve done for myself:

• I joined the Bath & Racquet Club
• I started swimming again
• I dry off from swimming by doing the Yang long form on the pool deck
• I did a fitness assessment with a trainer
• I got a workout routine from the trainer for the next month or two and plan on following it
• I’m contemplating working with a trainer once or twice a month

What I’ve let lapse:

• daily blogging
• eating Downton Abby-style
• paying attention to hunger, feelings, tiredness, dizziness … just about everything
• I’m back to gulping drinks down instead of sipping
• I’m back to swallowing big bites with little chewing instead of taking small bites and chewing them thoroughly

Ups and Downs

I have only been swimming (and drying off by doing the Yang 108 tai chi form on the pool deck) twice so far, but I’m already feeling the effects, both mentally and physically.

Mentally, I feel lighter. I feel calmer. I feel more even-keeled and centered. I find myself smiling and laughing more when I’m by myself. I able to stay in the moment longer with my animals – especially Buttons, who is in that twilight zone before the end of her life here.

Physically, it’s not so great. I love the feeling of using my muscles to propel myself through the water and the soreness the next day that means I’m working them. (Self-massage rocks when they feel like that!) But I don’t like how exhausted I am when I get home, how breathing seems harder, coughing is worse, and my blood sugar is all over the place.

For the breathing, I have a CT scan scheduled for next week before figuring out the next step. For the blood sugar, hopefully the levels will even out as I figure out what I need to do to anticipate them and as my body gets used to the new routine.

It seems so counter-intuitive to increase the basal rate of insulin before exercising, but I seem to remember having to do that before running. When I started running regularly, I would go for an hour run with a starting blood sugar of 95 and end up with a blood sugar over 250 at the end of the run (drinking only water) – and it would stay there unless I did something about it. 12 to 24 hours later, my blood sugar tended to drop to the 40-60 range if I forgot to anticipate it with less insulin/more carbs. (Talk about delayed reactions!)

I’m hooked enough on the mental benefits to tolerate the physical, for now. Time for some slow experimentation.