My journey into healthiness has been a long one. I started feeling completely miserable shortly after I had my fourth child. Looking back now, my body was starting to give me these same signals after my third, but I didn't listen then. I just settled thinking I was tired from having 3 children so fast. I had tried between each child to lose weight, successfully getting down to around the same number each time, only loosing 5 or 10 pounds each time and then getting stuck. I'd get frustrated, start to not care and then it was time to get pregnant again...the circle always turning. After my fourth was born, I was exhausted, I was completely sick of feeling awful. There were days I wouldn't even want to get off the couch to help my children. Everything was exhausting, every day a struggle. I ended up having surgery on my foot 6 months after having my 4th child as well. I think that completely put me over the top of feeling crappy.
After I felt like I had had enough and after a good crying session with my husband, we started to work out together. He did it to help me try to stay motivated, plus he likes to be fit too and it is hard to take the time unless you have a reason. He helped me put together a weight lifting routine and I would do cardiovascular stuff too. Well, around that same time I had an IUD placed thinking it would be an amazing thing for my body because I wanted to wait awhile to have more children, if ever, so why not? Well, that DID not go well for me. I bleed, I cried, I had it removed and then I had the most painful pain in my abdomen after lifting one day. I thought I had just pulled a muscle so I laid low for awhile. It didn't go away, so I headed to my doctor. I had an ovarian cyst, a big one. They said to just watch it and see if I could tolerate the pain and it should shrink and go away. Well, after one week I was in a ton more pain so they decided to remove it via surgery. Another surgery, another loss of blood, another set back in my goals of becoming fit.
After that surgery, I seriously hit my lowest point. I had a crazy huge massive headache every day. I got dizzy when I stood up. I couldn't think straight. My brain was always foggy. I was grouchy with myself and with almost everyone around me, including my children. I went to the doctor and they wanted to put me on anti-depressants. I knew I wasn't depressed, or maybe I was? No, that answer didn't work for me. I went to a different doctor...I forced him to check my blood levels for SO many things. They thought I might have MS, so we did a CT scan. Nothing turned up. I was deemed normal. HA! This is not a normal way to feel. I went back to an internal medicine doctor thinking maybe I had diabetes. Nope. So, I finally asked them to check my ferriten levels (iron) and I was so extremely low that they almost admitted me to the hospital. Wow, really? I'm not just normal? So, iron infusions came, double dose, twice a month. Rechecked my ferritin, still not normal. Another month of twice a month double dose, back to a closer range of normal. I feel great after I get the infusions for about a week and then I start to feel crappy again. I went through this for about 6 months and then when my levels wouldn't stay normalized I needed something more.
At this point I was exhausted. I was tired of being told I was normal. I was tired of feeling like crap and thinking this was going to be my normal. I was tired of being grumpy all the time. I was JUST TIRED! Then, an answer to a prayer...
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