11 years on

Every time the 2nd of November rolls around I have very mixed feelings.  On the one hand, I am unbelievably thankful that I am alive, but on the other I remember every little detail not just of the day 11 years ago, but the months, nay years, of struggle beforehand and the long recovery afterwards.


So, what happened I hear you ask?


In about 2002, I began to get very short of breath, initially during any exercise.  I duly took myself off to the Doctors and was diagnosed as having exercise induced asthma and prescribed inhalers.  Over time, the breathlessness became more and more severe until I couldn't hold a conversation without gasping for breath.  I basically lived at the Doctor' surgery and was put on increasing strength inhalers and also had several courses of steroids.  All to no avail.

Things came to a head on October 20th 2005 when I became so desperate for breath that Adam called the out of hours service who sent an ambulance.  When they arrived, they diagnosed an asthma attack but because I still couldn't breathe they took me to hospital.  In A & E, I was sent for a chest xray and had bloods taken and was on the verge of being discharged when I mentioned that I wouldn't be able to climb the stairs to bed as I was still too breathless. I was kept in.

Now I was in the 'system' I was assigned a respiratory consultant and was spasmodically sent for tests that showed I didn't have asthma but what I did have, they had no idea!  A CT scan of my lungs was ordered along with an echocardiogram of my heart.  The echo happened to be the first one I was sent for.  I will never forget the moment the scanner was placed on my chest and the sonographer paused before saying to her colleague on the other side of the curtain 'who's on call today?'  They'd found something at last!!! But they weren't allowed to tell me without a consultant.

The following morning, the 2nd November 2005, I was called out my shower by a consultant I'd not seen before.  He told me that I had a tumour INSIDE my heart and I needed surgery to remove it.  I had been in Walsall Manor Hospital for 13 days at this point.

I was transferred by ambulance to New Cross Hospital in Wolverhampton that afternoon.  I remember asking the ambulance staff questions about the surgery, including how the surgeon would get through my breastbone and being told it would be with an angle grinder!

The care at New Cross was incredible, my lovely surgeon, Mr Morgan, explained everything and as I was interested, offered me a DVD of the operation, I jumped at the chance and the disc is one of my prized possessions.  I had to sign a consent form which under 'reason for procedure' states 'To prevent sudden death'

My surgery lasted four hours and I was then put in intensive care.  Once I was awake, I was amazed at what intensive care actually means:  a nurse literally sits at the bottom of your bed and monitors you.  They constantly check the readings from the multiple machines you're connected to and if the nurse needs to leave for any reason, they can't unless a replacement can take their place.  After a couple of days I was moved to slightly less intensive care and a couple of days after that into what is called step down where there's one nurse to about 4 beds.  I eventually got moved to a standard ward to continue my recovery.

Mr Morgan came to see me twice every day.  He told me my tumour (called a myxoma) had been taking up 90% of my left atrium and slipped through the valve into the left ventricle on each beat of my heart.  The tumour measured 5 x 7 cm and was thankfully benign.  During the operation, they connected me to an external pacemaker and every day Mr Morgan turned it down hoping my heart would take over but every day it refused!  I think my heart had worked so hard for so long that it needed a rest!  Finally, 12 days after the surgery, I began to feel decidedly odd and after connecting me to an ECG machine, it was found my heart had finally kicked in - yay!!!!

I was discharged the following day so all told I had spent 26 days in hospital.  I couldn't read for 6 weeks or my head hurt and it took me a good 6 months to feel me again.  I went back to work in January 2006 which looking back was too soon, but I was just desperate to be normal again.

Although the experience was difficult and certainly life changing,  I live to tell the tale, sport a beautiful 8 inch scar which I call my war wound, and have a DVD of my operation.  How many people can say that?!!

Fitbit, fitbod

It's been a while since I posted again, where does the time go?!  I'm still living the LCHF life and still loving it.  My latest HbA1c was even better than the last one at 33 and that was with half medication!  My diabetic nurse is amazed but very pleased 😀.  All in all I am now on a 3 month trial of no diabetic meds at all, so we'll see in October how my body has reacted.

As another update, I now weigh 11 st 10 so have lost 1st 2lbs.  My vital statistics are 42 bust, 38.5 waist and 38 hips which is a total loss of 9".

It was my birthday a couple of days ago and I got this little beauty from my family.

Fitbit Flex

Struggle

The last few weeks have been a bit of a struggle.  The rest of the family are still carb reliant so planning and cooking meals is very stressful.  I ran out of food that I could eat last week so went hungry 😢.  Hopefully I will have enough this week.  I have slipped a little on occasion, but never totally binged!  I've sampled a couple of the biscuits Bekah makes and had a polo or two from Lizzy.  As long as I can keep these episodes to the absolute minimum I will be happy; after all, I am surrounded by temptation lol.

As an update, as of this morning, I have now lost 12lbs and 7inches.  I have come to accept that for me it will be a slow road - slow and steady wins the race!  I need to keep in mind that the reason I started LCHF was to get my blood sugar under control which I have done, weight loss is just an added bonus!

Vindication!

Last Thursday, I had the results of my last HbA1c test and I am delighted to report that it has plummeted from 72 in January to 39 now.  My diabetic nurse is over the moon as of course am I.  My diabetic medication has been halved and I've also managed to get my statin changed for one with less side effects.  My blood pressure has also reduced and I've lost another 5lbs according to her scales.  She said that it is extremely rare that they reduce patients meds 😀.  I came out of the surgery almost dancing with joy!!  It's a vindication of the new way I'm eating, which of course I will have to stick to for the rest of my life if I want to keep my blood glucose levels low.  I'd begun to get quite grumpy and resentful when others were eating things I can't eat around me, but these results help both me and my family accept the way it has to be.

That was a quick month!

Well, Kezia's 20th birthday has been and gone, as has Sian and Atul's wedding and tomorrow is my wonderful husband Adam's 50th birthday.  I still haven't reached the magic 12 stone, but have lost a little more weight, making 9lbs so far and I've lost 5.5" from my vital statistics. I'm still enjoying the food I'm eating - it's amazing to think I've not eaten bread, pasta, rice or potatoes this year and I've only eaten one single crisp (and that was because my blood sugar was really low!)

I thought I'd post some pictures of the wedding, so here goes

Phew!

I am pleased to say I have lost the weight I gained last week plus an extra .25lb. If I was doing this with a slimming club, I'd now have my half stone award 😁.  That means if I want to be down to 12St by Sian's wedding (and I do!) I need to lose 4.5lb in 3 weeks.  Should be possible, but we have two meals out next week, one on our daughter Kezia's 20th birthday, and one because we are meeting up with my beloved brother, Kevin. I am going to have to be super strict for the rest of the week to try and limit the damage!

As an aside, I tested my fasting blood sugar this morning and I was down to 4.5, which is the lowest it's been since I started testing.  Super excited!  I can't overstate how wonderful it feels to be finally taking control of my health.  Thanks Diet Doctor and The real meal revolution

New hairdo

I have had my hair cut today for the first time in 2 years!  It was done by Kayla at the local college graduate academy and I absolutely love it!!!  It looks so much thicker and healthier, I almost cried when it was finished.  Having not only fine hair, but not a lot of it either, I really appreciate having someone cut it so well.  Must make sure I don't leave it so long next time!

Spoke too soon!

Managed to gain a lb this week 😢.  We did have a takeaway which, even when picking what seemed to fit the plan, still almost certainly had no-nos in.  I was a bit upset on weigh day, hence leaving it until today to post but am feeling positive again tonight.
I spent some time this afternoon reading some more about lchf and realized I'm probably eating too much protein.  I'm also going to give up sugar free squash and revert back to sparkling water.  I don't know why I began drinking squash again, I'd been happily drinking plain sparkling water for over a year but suddenly began flavouring it with squash! It's amazing how easily bad habits creep back!

Weigh day

Weigh day again today and I've lost 1.75 lbs this week making 6.75 in 4 weeks.  I don't think I've ever lost weight every week for a month before.  Even more exciting, I tested my fasting glucose level today and it was down to 4.7!! That's the lowest level I've ever recorded and is considered a normal reading.  I can't wait for the next HbA1c test to see the real impact of the changes I have made in my diet.  Ultimately, I want to be able to reduce the amount of medication I take, especially the muscle-pain inducing statin.

Something to look forward to

Last week's weight loss was only a lb which is better than nothing but I was a little disappointed.  Although losing 3 the week before probably inevitably meant I'd lose less the next week.

Anyway, we've been invited to a wedding at the beginning of March, which I'm really excited about!  I've known the bride literally all her life as her Mum was pregnant at the same time as me.  Sian has had it pretty tough so I couldn't be more pleased to see her happy.  Plus, more motivation to lose more weight so I don't look as awful in her photos as I did in Rebekah's!

An Addition

With all the excitement of good news from my diabetic nurse last week and then my granddaughter being ill over the weekend, I forgot to mention my weight loss for last week - 3lbs!! 3lbs eating the most tasty, satisfying food I've ever eaten! Amazing😀
Last night I cooked a cottage pie and instead of potato I made leek and cauliflower mash - oh wow! So much more tasty and lighter too, not claggy. I'll definitely be making that again.

Positive News

I had my diabetic check up with the nurse yesterday and was delighted to find my HbA1c has reduced two points to 72, I've lost a lb since she last weighed me, my cholesterol, after years of being on Simvastatin is 3.5 and my blood pressure, after being really high for the last couple of months is back down to 130/80.  I'm so pleased 😀 .  As an added bonus, when I mentioned my new way of eating, she was really positive, (I expected to be told off!)  So all in all I was a very happy bunny!!!!  I'm seeing her in two months and so I'm hoping my HbA1c will have dropped further by then as ultimately the nurse wants it to be 53.

One Week In

After 7 days of following the lchf diet I can say I still feel loads better than I did 😀. I've only lost a pound though which may be down to the amount of cheese I've consumed! Some days have been harder than others - trying to prepare a carb-less meal for me whilst feeding the rest of the family, one of whom is a vegetarian has posed it's problems.  Writing next week's meal plan meant scouring the internet for recipes as none of my old faithfuls were suitable or adaptable.  Made me realize just how carb heavy our diet had become.

I had my blood pressure done today and that has come down, though not as far as I want it to. I also had blood taken for an HbA1c test.  This will give me a baseline as the test shows an average of blood glucose over a period of three months.  It will be interesting to see how it changes as I go on.

Starting Point

Well, here I am at my starting point.  I'm hoping that my tummy will reduce with this new way of eating, I aim to take a photo once a month to track my progress.  My starting weight is 12St 12lb and my measurements are 44.5 bust, 42 waist and 41 hips.

New Year, New Start

2016 is the year I get my health under control.  For too long my body has ruled me, dictating everything I do - well no longer.  First thing to get sorted is my blood glucose levels.  Medication is not really working so a radical change of diet is the next step.  Low carb high fat (lchf) is what I am going to do which seems totally opposite to everything we've been taught for so many years.  I've been researching this way of eating for a while, both on the diabetes uk website and www.dietdoctor.com .  The testimonials as well as the sound scientific reports have convinced me that this is the way to go.  I've already seen the marked difference in blood glucose levels in a 'healthy' dinner of stir fried veggies and noodles which gave a 13.3 reading after two hours and a gliclixide tablet and my gut busting fried bacon, eggs and mushroom breakfast of this morning which gave a reading of 9.1 again after 2 hours plus my diabetic meds.

I'll post some starting pictures, weight and measurements tomorrow so I have a baseline to measure against.