Wednesday, April 30, 2008

I have managed to keep up with my email lately. I bought an iPhone. It's the best phone ever. It does everything I need except acting as a portable modem, but I can live without that because my iPhone does everything that I would want to do on my computer. Yay. And I finally have my desktop set up with wireless internet access. I no longer have any excuses to not update my blog. There you go. Lets see if I can do it.

A position finally came open at Baylor Dallas, and I interviewed yesterday evening for that ER tech position. They said that the HR lady that I have been conversing with a lot lately, Lisa, will be getting in touch with my by the end of the week. Hopefully it will be a good offer. No one at Careflite, except Marty and Molly, know that I interviewed yesterday, so as not to jinx myself. I might be working nights, and I think that would be cool. I have a blackout shade for my bedroom window that I bought from IKEA, so I can sleep during the day. And I would go to the gym in the morning after getting off work. Of course, it would mess up my ability to hang out with Rachael and Joey, especially now that summer is coming up. Well, I think either way I will be happy. I liked working nights before when I was at Medstar. It had it's advantages.

I had a doctors appointment yesterday. I have been seeing Dr Stevens' nurse practitioner, Mindy for the last couple of appointments. I like her a lot. She explains things better and discusses things more with me. We decided to check all of my labs that have been abnormal in the past, to see if any of them have corrected. We discussed what meds I might have to stop or start again, depending on the test results. Then I mentioned that mostly I was concerned with my potential for weight loss. Dr Stevens had told me that once my thyroid hormone was corrected, I would just start losing weight, but all that has happened is a weight gain of 20 lbs since they started treating me. Mindy told me about this diet that has been studied and evaluated by multiple doctors, that they (Fibro and Fatigue of Dallas) have been not only placing patients on but have been using amongst themselves. It is called the hCG diet. HCG is the hormone that women's uteruses release during pregnancy; the hormone that pregnancy tests detect. She told me to go home and research it, and I talked to one of their nurses who used the diet. In this diet, you take hCG either orally, or through a cream that you rub on your wrists, and you follow an ultra low calorie diet (ULCD), approximately 500 calories/day. The hCG activates your body to use fat stores for energy, and the ULCD prevents the fat cells from immediately filling back up. But the hCG also prevents hunger and cravings, and improves mood and stress from not eating anything. You can only be on the diet for 45 days at a time, then must be off of it for at least 45 days. The nurse I talked to said that she lost 34 lbs in 45 days. The average weight loss is 1-2 lbs per day. From what I have read about the diet, no side effects have been found. They want to put me on this diet as soon as my thyroid hormone is at the level it needs to be. How about them cookies?