Week 6

We were off to a good start and just finished Week 5 strong!  Andrew had lost 38 lbs and I had lost 17.6 pounds.   I’m so close to reaching the 20 lbs mark that I can taste it!!!  I’m motivated to keep pushing forward so that I can reach that goal!

We started our program on a Wednesday, but our weigh-ins are not until the following Monday.  When Monday’s weigh-in happened, I was ecstatic that I reach my 20 lb goal and passed it!  I had lost 22lbs!  I was pumped!! I even made a Facebook post!

After that, my week went downhill.

On Sunday, I woke up with a sore throat but only in one spot, which I thought was odd.  I didn’t think too much about it and went about my day as usual.  Come Monday morning, after celebrating my weight loss, my throat was still sore.  I decided to take a look as best as I could and low and behold I saw that my left tonsil was completely infected.  It was gross.  (I’ll spare you those photos) I still felt ok but that didn’t last long.

For the first half of the week, I was relatively fine and I could still eat my food but was just feeling very drained come mid-morning.

Week 7

Come Wednesday morning, I noticed that my right tonsil is now infected.  I made an appointment with the doctor to make sure I didn’t have anything serious.  I figured I had tonsillitis which is normally caused by a virus and you just have to wait it out till it passes, but since I noticed my other tonsil infected, it never hurts to double check.

The doctor tested for everything and all test came back negative.  It’s a virus I had and I just had to let it go its course. 🙁

Come Thursday, eating is starting to get a little harder.  Swallowing food is irritating my throat but I manage.  I also start to notice that my mouth is getting sensitive.  I’m thinking that maybe I had one too many throat lozenges.  (I did go through a bag.)  So, I stop using the lozenges immediately.

Let’s jump to Saturday.  I can no longer eat anything.  My mouth is sore and I’m noticing sores all over the inside of my mouth! Scary!!  The good news was my tonsils were starting to clear up!  Yay! But that was now the least of my concerns. It was so hard to eat anything.  I was trying everything to soothe the pain.

By Sunday, I’m starting to feel better.  My energy level is coming back but I’m am still dealing with this annoying sore mouth/throat now.  I’m hungry and it’s getting depressing that I’ve been sick for 7 days already.  I’m ready for this to end.

Sunday evening, I took Zoe to youth group and on the way home I stopped by McDonald’s to get me a milkshake!  Yep, you read that right, a milkshake.  All weekend I just wanted some ice cream, something cold going down my throat!  So I did it and got myself a milkshake!  It was nice and cold going down my throat but I didn’t enjoy it as I thought I would.  It was actually to rich for me.  I didn’t even drink the whole thing.  When I got home, I just threw it away!

Now it’s Monday (day 8) and I’m still not better.  Though I am seeing signs that I’m getting a little better every day, I just want to be able to eat and swallow my food.  As I stated earlier, Monday’s are our weigh-in days.  Good news, I did lose some weight even though I had half a milkshake! I did reach the 25lb weight loss and I’m extremely happy.  I’m just not happy about the journey that I was on this week.

Andrew has been a rock during this time.  He’s cooked all the meals, done all the grocery shopping and has just let me rest so I could get better.  I’m hardly ever sick, so having to go through this for a whole week has been a little depressing.

Though I am getting a little better each day, when dinner time comes around, I still can’t eat and it gets a bit depressing.  Tuesday evening, Andrew did some research on what I needed to do to help the healing process move a little faster.  I was doing several things that were good, but I needed to change a few things right away.

One of the changes that I had to do was to go off plan for a few days until this all heals up!  I didn’t want to do this, but it was necessary to stop aggravating my mouth and throat by what I’m eating.  I’m pretty much on a liquid/soft food diet.  I’m also doing mouth rinses several times a day and doing whatever I need to do to get rid of this all.

One thing I keep reminding myself is that however bad I may feel, it’s not the end of the world.  I know others are going through stuff far worse than me.  I wanted to complain and cry and be all “woe is me,” but I have to keep my perspective clear. All I have to do is remember back to my daddy and his last few weeks here on this earth.  He had cancer in his esophagus and couldn’t eat at all.  We had to get him on a feeding tube and I never remember him complaining.

So even though it was frustrating watching everyone eat and enjoy their dinner while my mouth and throat were on fire after one bite, I know there is light at the end of this tunnel!

Here is our latest picture!  You can really see the difference with Andrew and that his shirt is too big.  My tie-dye shirt hides my weight loss, but I can let you know that this shirt is baggy on me as well.

Thanks for following our journey. Sharing our story to the world is not easy and posting our pictures is WAY out of our comfort zone.   We realize the struggle is real for many and we wanted to document what we are doing for two reasons.

One, to help hold us accountable!   We are at the beginning of our journey and we know that we have a long road ahead of us.

Two, we want to encourage others to help take their health back!  It’s never too late! The hardest part about starting this journey is just saying YES to a healthier YOU!!