November 17, 2009

Three months since I've blogged - holy cow!

Seasons are finally changing down here in Miami. We had one of the hottest Octobers on record. Almost every day was above 90. The cool off has started and it feels beautiful. Traffic is worse now that the snow birds are in town, but that also means my geriatric and low vision clinic has gotten busier!

Only 8 months until the end of residency. I definitely have a countdown going on my phone. Tired of not making much moolah. Still happy with my decision to do it, though. Technically a third of the way through, so my schedule changed yesterday. I now follow a retinal specialist on Mondays and Neuro-Ophthalmologist on Wednesdays. I no longer have a Monday that I start to dread as soon as Tuesday comes around. Certainly makes me a happy camper!

Brian's PhD proposal went splendidly last month. Everything was approved - full speed ahead! They seemed to be very impressed with him. Looks like he'll definitely be finished with that PhD in 4 years total! Way to go, honey!!!

Barley and Hops are loving life. Barley is having some knee issues and we've had to take her to the vet once a week for Adequan injections in hopes of avoiding surgery. She runs like mad on our slippery laminate floors and she gained close to 3 pounds after we got the puppy. We didn't realize it until it had happened. That's a ton of weight in a small dog! So now she's also on a reduced calorie diet in hopes of getting back to a regular weight. We're hoping these shots and weight loss succeed without surgery. We can't take her on walks anymore. That really bums us all out.

Gluten free eating is going... but not going super well. I find that I become increasingly more sensitive to gluten. Each little exposure or contamination seems to bother me longer and worse than the last. I now get bad asthma when I eat gluten. Brian explained it this way. The gluten causes me to have a leaky gut. What that means is that any toxin I eat can go straight to my blood stream through my intestines, getting anywhere in my body that it wants. I'm tired of spending my days horizontal on a couch feeling like crap. It's hard to be the annoying person at a restaurant, so we don't really go out to eat much. I even eat gluten free at Pei Wei, but the soy sauce in the air makes my stomach hurt. UGH - I feel like I can't win! Thank goodness for Whole Foods. Need to learn to be more of a gourmet chef so that I can actually enjoy eating again. Brian continues to be such a support. Except when he's drinking an orders the most delicious looking pizza I've ever seen.... I salivated so much I had to go to the other room for fear that I might actually eat a slice. Some of my residency friends have invited me to Thanksgiving. It's my first gluten free Thanksgiving (although there will be lots of gluten in the kitchen, just not in my food). I thank those friends in advance for putting up with my experimental cooking and strict rules about what utensils can be put where. I've met several other people with celiac / severe gluten intolerance the last few months. It's always nice to find someone to commiserate with and share ideas about G-free foods. What bums me out is that none of the ones I have met have as bad of a reaction as I do. They're able to "cheat"! So I've been pretty bummed out lately, to say the least. I'm tired of feeling tired and tired of being miserable. So I went out and bought myself some new clothes (with stretch in case of accidental glutenation), jewelery, make-up, and I'm finally wearing my hair down again. It feels good. (=

Tonight we're going to a Miami Heat game. We've got VIP tickets again. Park with the players and enter with the rich and famous. We're definitely looking forward to it!