Feeling ok - just a bit fat

What a blah headline I have given this post. (OK, now added "just a little fat"). Don't feel blah, feel fine. Having got over the endometrial cancer scare (see previous posts) I am feeling fine, just trying to deal with the over-eating which started with the scare. Been a long time since I overate for emotional reasons.
Hoping things will calm down and have contacted the dietician although can hardly afford another appointment (R1000 for an hour.....will try for a 45 min one).
Have always had a weight problem but never been obese. Got everything sorted when I was diagnosed with a thyroid problem - more than 10 years ago - and although it was overactive (Graves' disease), I was told afterwards that I was one of 10% of people who gained weight. I remember one week I gained 4kg. It was one of the worst weeks of my life. So out of control. Went shopping that Saturday and was shaking a lot. From the thyroid making everything in my body work too fast. Bought about 4 -5 pants suits, mostly in fabrics with lycra and short jackets. I never wore them. I kept thinking I would lose the weight. I didn't. In fact, today am about 16-18kg heavier than when I got diagnosed with thyroid. But today am 2kg heavier than normal, and intend to lose 8kg. Which will make me 8kg heavier than when I got diagnosed which would be fine for me.
I am pretty obsessive about it. I weigh myself every day. Watch what I eat but, thanks to the tamoxifen, the minute I eat lots of protein, I gain.
Today's weight is 1kg more than when I was diagnosed with cancer almost 4 years ago - and the only reason I remember what I weighed is that The Tango Man, when I asked whether I would eat more or just get fatter from tamoxifen (the latter, he said),  yelled at me: "You weren't thin when you walked in here; you weighed X"!
Anyway...not the end of the world..... off to a party just now... it's not lunch but well, it's from 2pm so dunno what it will be. Not a cake fan - other than Christmas cake - so just have to make sure drink enough water today else will nibble things.
I am so grateful my D&C results were ok. Got myself into a real tizz re that.
PS: I know my picture is fuzzy. My hairdresser took it when I had my hair cut last week. Need The Yoga Man to take another but he is out at the moment. Have never put my face on this blog..... maybe I should.... 

tamoxifen, thyroid and weight

My weight has been creeping up badly since I started taking tamoxifen. This was to be expected. The Tango Man had told me I would gain 5% of my body weight which for me amounted to about 3-4kg. When I asked if I would eat more (cortisone does that, for eg, and you don't even realise it at first cos you just feel hungry and are responding to a need), or just gain weight, he replied: "Just gain weight". Ok, fine. So when I gained the first kilogram or maybe it was two, I wasted no time and went to see a dietician I was told had dealt with this kind of problem before.
I didn't like her but then that's no big deal. I have never met a dietician I did like although I did meet one whose diet worked - but she had a baby and stopped working. Anyway, what was a big deal was that this one didn't weigh me although I saw her a few times, and she also had the distinction of being the most expensive dietician I have ever been - think about R750 or so for an hour session. The medical aid covers about half but that's another story - for Friday's appointment at the gynae they are paying back R409.40 of the R1440 I paid. But generally they've been great.
Anyway,this dietician, let's call her The Anal Waif, told me to eat a plate of raw foods ie veggies and salad stuff, and she was not hassled about carbs such as carb vegetables like beetroot and butternut which I love, and I could eat fruit too, another natural carb which I love. But I had to eat minimal protein. So none of this large piece of fish stuff, with salad on the side. No, no. Rather a salad with a little piece of fish on the side.
Ok, fine. I kinda kept to it - well, I was aware of it even if it was not always possible to stick to it religiously - when the weight crept up.
I gained 4kg. That is, I went up 4kg from my pre-diagnosis weight. All fine. That was the prediction.
Then, very recently, I gained 2kg. I became uncomfortable and my clothes were getting tight. Tried to think back to what the dietician said. Tried to up my water intake. Then this weekend I lost just over a kg. Whew! Felt amazing.
But was concerned. Until this weekend's loss, my weight had been the same every day for week, done to the gram. That is very typical - well, for me - of a thyroid problem, the thyroid gland controlling one's metabolism. Plus my eyes started getting sore and I remember the thyroid doctor saying if my thyroid ever went out of kilter again, I would probably recognise it from my eyes - I had thyroid eye disease when I had an over-active thyroid (hyperthyroidism).
So I went in for a blood test on Monday. Won't go into detail of how the nurse struggled to take blood from me as my veins are so damaged from chemo and my left hand cannot be used because it is at risk of developing lymphedema. Got the results today. Negative. Thyroid is fine. Am using lots and lots and lots of Tears Natural so my eye - especially the slightly bulging left eye from the thyroid - so much happier there and maybe can be spared some money from going to the opthalmologist.
Oy vey. Written too much again.

seeing the thyroid doctor tomorrow

Cannot believe that I haven't written for about a week. But been super busy, going out a lot. In fact, it's after 10pm now on a Sunday night and still have to do the lymph massage, pack my clothes for tomorrow and have an early start with bio.
Stopped hassling about the 1cm difference in my arm. In fact, have been feeling ok.
But now getting a teeny bit anxious about tomorrow. Seeing the thyroid doctor at 1pm. About 10 years ago was very sick with an overactive thyroid, Graves Disease, which later changed to being underactive. I was extremely sick for five and a half months, which in many ways was worse than cancer in that I never, for one second, felt ok during that period. I was dizzy, felt shaky, hot, and my weight was totally out of control. In one of those weeks, I gained 4kg without eating more and suddenly all my clothes were too tight. Then I would eat salads and gain weight, eat a lot and lose weight and so on. Then I managed to see the doctor I am seeing tomorrow (not so easy as he no longer sees thryoid patients, in fact heard he is now not seeing any new patients as he is focusing on his diabetes research) and within a month was about 92% better. Then it took a couple more months before my thyroid was stable and I could go on diet and try to lose the weight.
I never went back to the weight I was before my thyroid went out of control.
Anyway, after a few years without needing any medication, my thyroid became underactive. Then my cholesterol went crazy and now that is why I am a little anxious about my appointment tomorrow. Am tired of having health hassles and want my cholesterol and thyroid to be ok. Pretty sure my thyroid is ok. Just hope my cholesterol is also ok. Am on two different kinds of medication for it but it took about a year for the correct dosage to be worked out. Eventually - last time I saw the doctor - he admitted that the cholesterol was probably caused by the thyroid (that is what it says on site after site on the internet).

relief!!!!

Now I know that an excessive use of exclamation marks is so not cool but hell, I deserve the three I have pasted after "relief" in the title here.
I feel relief!!! And another !!!
Have spent the last week hassled cos I was swollen in the area of my collarbone. Cancer there would be worse than the cancer I had. Doctor said she would monitor said. She did. And today sent me off for a scan. Said it was highly unlikely but could be cancer (The Tango Man had said the radiation might not work and then I would need surgery, or, she said, it could be a clot. Before I vomited all over her desk, I asked what a clot would mean and she said very matter-of-factly "anti-coagulating medication". She also said something about swelling there being unusual.
Oh well. Lying there on the bed in the darkened room (at Morningside Clinic) waiting for the doctor to come do the ultrasound scan was not my favourite time. Neither was last night when I tried to think about what it would mean to have cancer again and try as I might, could not picture myself going for chemo again. Needless to say, not my best night.
Well thank God and whoever else is out there looking out for me, I have neither a clot nor a tumour. He saw two lymph nodes but he said they are normal and that if I scanned him, he would have them. On the right side, which he was not asked to scan, he found one lymph node, also normal. On the left axillary, below my armpit where I had had two cancerous lymph nodes, there was nothing.
"Let's check your thyroid," he said inexplicably, and then said I had had an infection there in the past and it was not working properly. "Oh, I know," I said, unconcerned and with a big smile on my face, "I have had huge thryoid problems in the past". We briefly discussed my medication then he asked if I had had it irradiated. No, I replied, it destroyed itself.
Find it fascinating that he could see my thryoid was fakked. But that is nothing. The daily 0.5g of eltroxin I take daily sorts that out. For now so happy that I can continue on my path of getting better.

facebook and linkedin

Having fun connecting with old friends via facebook and linkedin. Tonight made soup my friend Avra from Israel gave me the recipe for - a combination of pumpkin (I used butternut), carrot and sweetpotato (I left out the onion as have a, hopefully dwindling, food intolerance towards it but sure one would have it even nicer) and then later chatted to my friend Alan whom I met at varsity - he was at the boys' res opposite mine. Now he lives in Amsterdam.
Mmmm... he said when he last connected with me 10 years ago I was having health problems. Ja, thyroid. Was very sick though. And that was five and a half months of constant illness. Now I often feel perfect, even if it does not last forever. Told him I now had cancer and am starting radiation on Monday.
Sjoe....