I hope your appointments are well.

Ugh about the pain pump. That can be unpredictable - the placements of the pain meds delivery tube. I hope they can fix it.

I like the new weave. But the link are so small... your are talented.

Can Grim help you? You could do the set up - he can make the up and down the stairs trips.

Hugs I hope your knee gets better.

Good morning. I would love that dish. The reminds me, I need to make something like that. Keith is going to be making faces when he sees me eating things like that.

Last week I didn't get enough sleep and it caught with me on Friday. I was dizzy, fuzzy in the head, all over low functioning adult. I got ready for work, ...then decided I'm not fit to drive, so I stayed home. Finally got enough sleep yesterday. Today it's better.

Qotd: I have a few doctors appointments. One is epidural. That would be interesting. Specially since I also have a gastro doc appointment on the same day. Ugh. I hope I can drive shortly after my epidural. Some of them can cause weakness in the legs. But I only got that one time.

My scale is playing with me. I'm hovering around 160. 2lbs down, 2 lbs up. Ugh. But my body fat % is dropping. I know my body is shrinking, but not fast enough to my liking.

Because of my diet and how long I'm on it, my body pains became more manageable. I really like that. I was able to lower how much pain meds I need- want to take. That's great because for a while on some days I needed to take more than prescribed (I got some "saved" pain meds). I often need more meds when i travel. So I try to take less to save for that. They didn't want to increase the dose, so that's why I got steroids injections.

My doc was concerned with the amount of steroids he injected me with just this year, but he noticed I'm not gaining weight because of them. I have to remind him I have adrenal insufficiency, and the extra steroids give me energy and correct areas where inflammation isn't well controlled. I'm weird because more often than not, getting the injection gives me energy and curbs my appetite, not making me crave sweets- food. Sometimes I have 1-2 days I want to eat more, but get satisfied with more proteins and fats. How much more? I can easily eat 500-800 worth of calories from cheese. Adding an apple to the mix. One meal. I have to control how much cheese I eat. I discovered that cheese curbs my cravings for sweets when I'm stressed. Apparently the cheese protein, casein, can bind to opiates receptors and stimulate dopamine release. Sugar- carbs consumption stimulates dopamine release, and we get "addicted" to that. At least some of us. My Keith likes his sweets but he doesn't crave them, or eat them more than 1x a day. Me? When I eat sweets or simple carbs (bread) I want that all day, every day. Then I suffer the consequences (one of them is significant increase in body - joints pain).

Yesterday I got tempted and ate something I'm not supposed to. Not only I dumped on that, but got RH, and later severe muscles cramps. I had to drink double dose of electrolytes, and 2 oz of my Sole water. Plus take and extra muscle relaxant. The cat, Dewey was trying to help, laying on top of my twitching legs. He even started to lick my calves as they spasm - twitched.

Today's menu:

Liquids: Coffee, tea, water, electrolytes

Maybe some eggs

S: cheese, avocado, apple

D: Salad with proteins or some other proteins + veggies combo.

Lns: probably nothing... I ate my berries for this week...lol.

Good morning. I'm glad to see you start getting better. Meeting deadlines is great. Congratulations.

I also often don't go to the doctor, specially when I have a cold. Even when I had covid, I only had video conference. Last time I had a nasty cold, I only texted them to ask for albuterol inhaler for breathing.

Qotd: Amazon- I'm horrible. And I forget what I ordered....ugh.

I have a massage today at noon, soim going to work in the morning and after the massage. And i plan to work late. Long day again...

Yesterday I ate proper meals. Even a little better than expected. For dinner I ended eating Polish sausage with mustard. That really filled me up. But i went to bed late, so today I'm going to run on 5 hr sleep. I may get a nap during the massage.

Today menu:

Liquids

Late lunch : Salad with some proteins

S: cheese, bacon, apple

D: may get stick sausage with mustard. I forgot that I really like that combination

That's a nice jump. Congratulations. The inflation is really high and I know many people on SS really suffer financially.

"I marinated the chicken in dill pickle juice"

That's sounds great. Did dill pickle juice was with vinegar or "natural" dill pickle juice? (like from Bubbies brand pickles.)

I'm glad you are taking care of that.

We had a dead tree by the driveway. We were getting quotes to remove it. The storm came and the tree fell. On my car. On the hood of my car. ugh. It took 8 weeks to get the car fixed. I know... but - we did not have to worry about the tree anymore...lol.

By the end of the evening - Dewey was happy to see me. And later he slept with me most of the night... Emma - she is in her own world..

This morning - he promptly got on my lap as I was drinking my coffee... just because.. his favorite place to be as I'm waking up for the day. I need my morning hormones and my 2 large coffees to really wake up and function. (steroids and thyroids). I can try to make it 1 hr if I have to, but...I really need 2 hrs to be able to drive safely.

Good morning Mel and the crew

I'm still in Asheville NC. Staying in a dorm room is ..interesting. the conference is great, accommodations- ugh. I'm glad I brought a pillow with me. The mattress and the pillow are encased in some type of rubberized plastic material. I have acroom just for myself but it has a 2 rooms shared bathroom. Not too bad.

Qotd: travel by a private jet, stayed in good hotels, have a personal driver, shoppers, massage therapist...... life of luxury..

Today menu:

Liquids...

L: food is provided so I'll pick something.. or have dry sausage sticks and cheese..(got that from home).

S: cheese, dried sausage sticks...(they are room temperature stable).

D: I got home late so I hope I'll have salad with proteins.

I'm with you on That. " Flying autonomous."

Good morning..

This is my Work- Friday. Tomorrow starts Medicine from the Erath symposium and Ill be busy, specially Saturday and Sunday. Brain overload. Back at work on Monday.

Work is busy, I overstayed last night ay work. I was planning to wor****il 11 pm, and before I realize it was 1 and I got really tired suddenly. Light out-tired. I took some stuff trying to be awake enough to get home, and only my arm prevented my face to meet the keyboard. So I sent the text to Keith, and just crashed. Got up at 6:30. Got coffee, my hormones and... got another nap in my office recliner. Finally got awake at 9. When my body needs sleep - or a nap - it just do...Ignoring steroids, Synthroid, caffeine, energy pills.. I just "pass out". Hopefully I'm comfortable enough to not get keyboard imprints on my face. (it happened before). I think as I got older I have 2 phases " awake" -and "lights out". And I can have "lights out" just because of digestion, or due to food/carb coma. My body doesn't need a lot of carbs to get carb coma. And too any carbs =pain, and nausea followed by meds= meds coma.

BTW: being able to fall asleep almost anyway - anytime helped my doc to diagnose me with hormonal insufficiencies. Mentioning that I felt asleep in MRI machine gave her some insides that I needed detailed testing.

QOTD: Keith and cats (ashes or at least pictures if they are still alive). Beside that - i imagine getting to hell after death and having my tablet with all the books and audiobook I have with no ability to charge the devices. Real punishments. Heaven would be never running out of power to read or listen to books, With ability to connect to audible, my library and all the books in the world. With ability to read or listen to books written in their original languages and understanding them in that form. (P.S. - I was trying to read or listen to Witcher series. But I couldn't get into the story. I got those books in Polish - the original language they were written in and I could not put them down. )

Today it's going to be another long day.

eats:

liquids, then some more liquids

L: ugh.. do I need to eat? my gut is not happy. I ate too much cheese yesterday.

D: salad with some proteins.

Hi. I'm sorry about the knee. Been there... it takes time to heal that. Whatever it is you did to it.

Yeay on completing the to do list of the projects. I gave us a long time ago. I finish 2 - 3 only to get 5 more added. ugh

QOTD : never expected I would do what I m doing now. And being a manger was always on my list "do not event try, you won't like it". At least the last one is true, not disappointing. I had simple dreams when I was a child, but i was too smart in math and physics, science.. so I was push over to do "smart stuff". I was told I was too smart to be a math teacher... and instead went to engineering university. I don't think I would have enjoyed teaching group of students. I was great one-one-one.

My day was busy today. I'm still working and I plan to wor****il 9 or 10. Ugh. Lots of stuff to do.

Menu:

liquids

L: Lebanese type food: chicken, tabuli, salad

S: cheese...

D: chicken salad

LNS: ?? apple and cheese if I need it.

Last night I was ready to fall asleep and my body decided i was hungry ... so I got some cheese.. Too late for food.. I need to stop the midnight eating...

I hate you are dealing with all of that. Pain, specially chronic pain, unrelenting chronic pain is so tiring, physically and mentally. It wears you down very much.

Some opiates work on me, oral, but they just reduce the pain. I also do other things like, i.e. Lidocaine patches, herbal lotions and creams, acupuncture, etc. One thing by itself is not really good enough, but combination can reduce my pain from 8-9 to 2-3 level.

Lastly, and I already mentioned that to you before, finding and strictly following low inflammatory diet, significantly reduced my overall pain.

Hopefully with the new meds, you may get some pain relief. Best wishes.