Kittens, Vampires, and Diets...

Yeah, there's no real theme to this post.  I have a lot of updates so please excuse my random and schizophrenic post.  Here are the updates:

Kittens...
Kona is still sick.  We've now sunk just about 200 bucks on this little guy in a little over a week!  He's still sneezing up a storm (leaving our belongings looking like they've been rained upon).  This is after two different types of antibiotics, a treatment for the Cat Herp, and 3 trips to the vet.  He also still has worms slowly making their exodus from his little kitten booty.  In yet another unexpected development, the vet hospital that did his neutering made a little mistake, leaving his man business not fully tucked in.  There's a bit of tissue that's hanging out and has become infected.  It's easy to tell where Kona has been, just follow the stains he's left all over the place of puss and blood. 

In a sentence, Sudhir said "Are there lemon laws on kitties???"  I love the little furball but DAMN!  Another surgery to remove the tissue, possibly putting him in a kitty chamber to be nebulized if the antiobiotics don't work, it's all WAY more than we signed up for.  I'm seriously contemplating returning him to the Independence Animal Shelter because we can't keep dropping money on this kitten.  I didn't sign up for a "fixer upper".

In other cat news, Kona has been dubbed the Outbreak Monkey of Kittens because he has gotten Chai sick.  Chai is sneezing, coughing, lethargic, and has had a fever for quite some time.  I love Kona, but I love Chai more.  (I know it's not PC to love one child than another, but this is a little different.)  To make things worse, Chai ate a crapload of Kona's kitten food.  This caused a trip to the Cat E.R. when Chai threw up like 15 times in 30 minutes and began crying out in pain.  $761 dollars later, he had a cat IV, bloodwork, an X-ray, and an enema.  Fantastic. 

For those of you keeping track at home, that's almost a whopping $1,000.00 on feline hospital bills (in a flippin WEEK!)  It's all more than I can take.

Vampires...
Those of you who know me, know that I have an unhealthy obession with the Twilight book series.  I've probably ready them all like 5 times at this point.  When I finished the series the first time, I was totally sad and felt like there was a hole in my life.  I was pretty stoked when they said they were making the books into movies.  That was, until, I actually SAW the first movie.  I think I apologized around 25 times during the course of the movie for making Sudhir go watch it with me.  Still, despite the absolute horrendous filmmaking, acting, and screenplay, I enjoyed it because it let me relive the saga.  New Moon came out and I was slightly less appalled by the acting and definitely impressed with some of the special effects.  However, the screenplay was certainly still sub-par. 

Last night, I went and saw the midnight showing of Eclipse.  Mind you, I went in with the absolute lowest of expectations.  I had read some of the IMBD reviews and it had gotten 3.3 stars out of 10 (never a good sign!)  I was really pleasantly surprised by this third movie.  I didn't snicker once at the cheese factor or the horrible acting.  I think the crew took some acting lessons.  Kristen Stewart wasn't nearly as annoying, I didn't think Robert Pattinson sounded like he had a speech impediment and looked constipated, and Taylor Lautner was endearing.  The special effects were awesome, and the screenplay (while inaccurate to the book at times) wasn't half bad either.  It made me have a little hope that Breaking Dawn isn't going to suck so bad.  Overall, I give it a 7 out of 10.

Diet...
The running thing has definitely NOT countered the cheating thing.  I worked out every single day except three in the last two weeks and in those two weeks, I lost a combined total of 2.8lbs.  That's nothing to write home about, if you ask me.  I've vowed to try to be strict about it again.  I'm telling you though, it's super hard to be that nazi about it when you have guests over every single weekend.  No one wants to watch me eat string cheese and shakes for 4 days in a row, so we tend to go out to eat.  My total weight loss is at 31.5 lbs in 11 weeks.  It's not bad, but I was expecting a whole lot more.  I have my 3 month (PS, I can't even BELIEVE I've survived 3 months!!!) checkup with the doctor a week from today.  I'm planning on discussing what my actual goal is.  At this point, they still want me to lose another 45.5 lbs.  I think that's a bit excessive.  I didn't set out on this adventure to be a size 6.  I mostly wanted to get this insulin problem out of the way so I could break the vicious cycle of weight gain that was happening to me despite my best efforts to lose weight.  Once I get the insulin under control, I'll be like everyone else.  I can do Weight Watchers and actually make progress.  I'll obviously keep everyone posted.

Kona and Chai: Crime Fighting Duo....

This past weekend, Sudhir and I decided to add to our family.  The newest addition is an 8 week old brown tabby who we've decided to call Kona.  He's pretty much the cutest thing I've ever seen in real life.  For evidence, see below:

Unfortunately, the little guy has been pretty sick since we got him.  He sleeps nonstop (probably because it's tiring being so cute) and he's a marathon sneezer.  He sneezed so much and so hard the first night we got him, that our blanket was damp.  Yes, gross.  The other thing he does is shake his head wildly.  Unfortunately, this is a problem because he has a runny nose.  He was sitting on the coffee table and sneezed and then shook his head violently.  The coffee table looked like it had been rained on.  Also gross.

And the cherry on top, last night, Kona was sitting on my lap and then got up and started to walk away.  As this was happening,  I noticed a little white string coming out of his little booty.  Turns out the kitty has tapeworms too.  Awesome.

Despite all of his problems, I love him like a fat kid loves cake.  Sadly, the same cannot be said of Chai.  Chai was pretty pissed that there was this little furball stealing all his thunder.  He refused to be in the same room with him.  He hissed at him nonstop.  He went on a purring strike.  It was all very serious.  Fast forward a couple days and all of a sudden, Chai loves Kona.  I'm not sure if it's the fact that Kona's existence gives him access to Kitten Chow or what...but there's a whole lotta love.  For evidence, see below:

We're taking Kona to the vet today, so hopefully all these issues can be taken care of.  Stay tuned for more adventures of Kona and Chai....

Week 9 update:

So here we are, 9 weeks into eating an unthinkably low amount of calories and how's it going?  I'd say pretty good, for the most part.  So far, I've lost about 29 lbs in 9 weeks.  Not bad, considering I don't think I've ever lost that much on purpose.  I did once lose like 35 lbs because I was ravaged by jaundice in India, but I'll save that for another day.  Yes, it's hard at times, and I'm very proud of myself for having the will power to get through over 2 months of this nonsense. 

However, I'll be completely honest with you.  I actually have been cheating a lot more than I'm proud to admit.  Before you start judging me though, it's not like I'm diving head first into a cheesecake or anything.  I've been cheating by eating things like a palm full of roasted peanuts or almonds.  The other day, I probably ate more chicken breast than I should have.  Seeing as how my equivalent of a meal is 2 ounces of chicken breast, it's not hard to overindulge.  2 ounces of chicken breast is about 3 bites for someone with an incredibly small mouth.  So far, I think the worst thing I've done is buy a single chocolate truffle in the Detroit Airport last weekend.  The thing was probably the size of a grape and it took me a solid 3 minutes to finish it because I was savoring every last bit of it.

What has been the result of all this "cheating"?  Well, on Monday when I weighed in, I only lost .7 lbs.  You might be thinking to yourself: "Hey, that's still a loss!  At least you didn't gain any weight."  However, just keep in mind that I shell out about 200 dollars a week to go to this doctor.  That's almost 800 dollars a month.  So to me, .7lbs is kind of getting ripped off, ya know?  On the flip side, I can't seem to stop indulging in things like peanuts, almonds, and too much chicken breast...

So what's a girl to do???

Alright, so technically, I'm not supposed to "exert" myself too much when I'm only consuming about 700 calories a day. My body pretty much needs every single one of those calories to not die (or something to that effect.)  I've been doing my damndest to work out often as possible.  My new thing is trying to run/walk.  I'll walk for 10 minutes, and then I "run".  I put the word "run" in quotation marks because it's a glacial pace.  I run at like 4.2 mph which is essentially walking fast with a hop.  The first time, I could only stand doing it for 1 minute.  The second time, I made it to 2 minutes.  The third, 2.5 minutes.  Last night, I hit a whopping 4 minutes!  What's more interesting is that I felt pretty amazingly awesome afterwards.  I think I'm going to try to do this whole Couch to 5K thing.  SG has me pretty psyched about it.

Sudhir's cousin is visiting and so we're making more trips out to eat than usual.  That's why I'm kicking it into high gear with the working out.  I'll keep you posted as to how this all translates to the scale.  In the meantime, wish me luck!

Dear Delta Airlines, I hate you with the fire of 10,000 suns.

I don't travel as much as a lot of people I know who travel for work.  This said, I definitely travel more than most people I know who bankroll it themselves.  Over the years, I have amassed a rather large number of frequent flyer miles.  Since for some ungodly reason, airfares have been really out of control I chose to use some of them to travel home this weekend.  A flight from MCI to DTW typically costs under $200.  As of late, I'm lucky if I find anything under $350.  For me and the hubs to fly out there, that's $700!  Uh, this isn't exotic Cancun we're flying to, people...it's Detroit.  Yes, home of economic ruin and lots of murders.  Why on earth would anyone pay that much to go there?  Lame. 

My first attempt at buying our tickets for this weekend was a disaster.  I logged into Delta's website so I could buy my ticket using SkyMiles.  Then I went to buy the hub's ticket with my credit card.  I certainly filled out his information correctly.  However, when I got the receipt and itinerary emailed to me, I noticed that the passenger info on both tickets I bought was MY name.  Uh, I don't need two tickets for myself.  Is there no error checking mechanism on their website?  WTF??!  Anyway, I call them and they say it's a "bug" in their system.  If I'm logged in and I try to buy a ticket, it overrides the passenger info with my stored passenger info.  Great.  I ask if they can switch the name.  They tell me it's a non-transferrable ticket but they'll refund the ticket and I cacn go online, make sure i'm logged out, and buy it again.  Despite my slight irritation that I have to now go do this whole thing AGAIN, even though it's their stupid faulty website's fault, I was polite and said fine. I go online again to buy the ticket.  The fare had increased by $79 dollars for Sudhir to be on the same flight as me.  HUH?  It had been less than 10 minutes at this point?  I refused to pay over 4 hundo to go to the D, so I chose to put Sudhir on an earlier flight.  This was inconvenient, at best.  Now my dad would have to make 3 separate trips to the airport to drop us all off. 

Whatever. I dealt with it.  I'm relatively patient...sometimes.  The day we're scheduled to depart, I receive an email saying our flight info has changed.  We were originally to depart at 1:45pm on Thursday.  Our departure time had been moved to 2:45pm.  Okay, no biggie.  I can deal with the hour.  Then, no less than an hour later, I get another email saying that our flight had changed again.  This time, to 4:30pm.  Okay, fine.  Then yet ANOTHER email saying 5:30pm.  Okay, so now we're going from arriving in Detroit at 4:30pm to arriving at 9pm.  Gross.

Keep in mind that I spent $350 bucks + 35,000 frequent flyer miles to get on this damn flight.  Not only is it late, but they won't give us seats.  We didn't end up getting seats together so we had to switch.  I try to get on Sudhir's earlier flight so both my dad and Sudhir won't have to make two trips to the airport.  They said it would be a $150 dollar change fee to get on a flight that's only 3 hours before my booked flight.  Apparently they don't "DO" standby anymore.  Here's a hint, Delta.  I had 35 friggin THOUSAND miles that I traded in.  Clearly, I'm a decent customer.  Maybe you should try to have an ounce of compassion and make up for being totally incompetent in website development.  It's not MY problem you have a flippin BUG on your FLIPPIN WEBSITE.  Eff you.

So I get on my 12:05pm flight.  Again, they didn't give me a seat.  I finally get my seat and it turns out it's the aisle seat in the dead LAST row of the plane.  I think it should be against regulation to be that close to the restroom.  Not like it's bad enough to be in the last row...they had to add insult to injury by not even having a WINDOW in the flipping aisle we were in.

I may never fly delta again once I use the crappy 50 dollar vouchers they gave me for my troubles.  I would rather have layovers than deal with this nonsense.

OH...and don't even get me STARTED on the story about buying my friend Em a gift certificate to use on Delta.  It's a nightmare.  Let's just say that the representative on the phone said that Em had to go to an actual airport ticketing counter to use the gift card.  When on earth was the last time a person physically went to the airport with no purpose other than buying a ticket?  The 80's???!!!

I'm so peeved, I might actually write a letter and send it snail mail.  That's intense.

I'm a Medical Mystery.

I probably should have updated sooner that I do not have breast cancer.  I do not.  Yay me!  Turns out the mass is just a ridge of scar tissue that I never noticed before because there was a ton of fat it was hiding under.  With the weight loss (28 lbs in 8 weeks!) it became more noticable for me.  I left the mammogram and ultrasound festivities with a clean bill of health and still uncertain as to whether or not I'd have to have said mass removed.  As of now, I have an order to have a repeat ultrasound in 6 months.

In other medical news, I had an echocardiogram.  While I was there, the tech said that I seemed to have PVC (pre-ventricular-contraction) which is just a fancy shmancy way of saying an irregular heartbeat.  She said it was probably nothing.  My primary care physician called me to tell me that my echocardiogram was completely normal.  Thanks, that was helpful, lady.

In the meantime, I still feel like there's something wrong.  I don't know what it is, or why it hurts to sleep on my left side or lay on my back.  Not only that, but it's harder to breathe in general. 

With the whole starvation diet thing...I just hope the cure isn't worse than the disease.

Jesus Christ, I'm Danny DeVito.

Fair warning: this is a pity party and you're invited.  Please indulge me in a momentary lapse of "Why me??!!!" whiny-ness.

I hate to admit that I actually have seen the movie Twins enough to be able to relate to Danny DeVito's character...but alas, I have.  Okay, so I may not be an orphan, midget, bald, hairy or a genetic experiment like the character of Vincent...  BUT  ... I can most definitely relate to something he said to Arnold Schwartzneggar's character.

"I'm the leftover crap?  I'm genetic garbage??"

Those of you who know me are well aware of my penchant for being slightly dramatic...however, I gotta ask...why did I lose the genetic lottery?  My immediate family is the picture of health.  My brother is a vegetarian who dabbles in seafood and is in better shape now than he was in high school.  My mom kicked breast cancer's ass and is stronger than ever.  My dad, while he has some issues with cholesterol, has the heart of someone half his age. 

Here I am, at the age of 31 years old (God, that kills me to say...) and I'm currently starving myself to have a chance at having a kid because my ovaries are ravaged by PCOS.  As a result of said starvation, I started to feel like I had some weird feeling of pressure or tightness in my chest.  I was told that this is something that needs to be paid close attention to because of the strain on my heart from consuming only 700 calories.  I scheduled an appointment for an Echocardiogram (which I had this morning) and it turns out that my heartbeat is irregular.  I haven't gotten much more detail than that but I assume my primary care physician will analyze the results and tell me if I should be worried or not.  In the course of trying to explore whether applying pressure to different areas would relieve the discomfort, I found what I thought was a muscle knot on my left breast. 

After seeing my OB, it turns out it's not a muscle knot.  It's what we'd call an "Irregular mass".  Adding to the marathon of doctor appointments, I now have one tomorrow for  mammogram, ultrasound, and sonagram.  This thing is coming out and we'll determine from that point on if it's nothing or if it's something.  The doctor told me that it's 85% nothing, so that's good news.  I'm mostly pissed that I can't catch a break.  How many simultaneous health issues can a person deal with WHILE starving??? 

I'll tell you what:  A giant slice of cake never sounded so good.  What's keeping me motivated?  24.5 lbs down in 7 weeks.