crunch

200 crunches - that's what my brother told me to do yesterday to work my 'core'. my brother is a personal trainer and recently he's started helping with exercising to prepare for my surgery. he calls me about every other day to make sure i'm working my core. he showed me a lot of ab exercises to do on those stability balls. i think that i might buy one. last week i went to his gym - bally's - to train, but sadly our workout was cut short by my fibroid pain. after a few exercises, i was doubled up on the floor with stabbing pains while my brother distracted me showing me all kinds of things that i can do with the ball. poor thing - he's never seen me like this but he was a good distraction.

i'm starting to feel the effects of the lupron now. i get hot flashes every now and then though not as bad as some women describe them, including my sister who has been on lupron before. usually, i just feel really warm and when i ask people around me how they're feeling, they're always feeling fine, even cool! i also get night sweats, though again, not as bad as some women get them when they're soaking their sheets with sweat every night. i usually wake up in the middle of the night feeling hot from head to toe and i have to take all of my bedsheets off of me. half an hour later, i get cold and crawl back under all of the covers. i've also slowed down. i've been doing a lot of research on the internet, reading message boards of women with fibroids. women consistently report that lupron makes them gain weight. i think that the lupron slows you down and therefore it's difficult to exercise as everything is an effort. i do a hip-hop dance class every week. this past week's class was so hard as it felt like my body was just not physically able to move as quickly as i needed to.

i included 2 more links to this blog from yahoo groups that i've joined recently. the first one is for a group for women who are trying to heal naturally from their fibroids. these women use all kinds of alternative, holistic strategies to shrink their fibroids and deal with the pain, bleeding and other symptoms. it's a very interesting site, though at sometimes quite sad because some women have been reporting their frustration with the holistic treatments they've tried for a long time while their fibroids have continued to grow. i'm hoping to get some ideas from the group about some holistic ways to counteract the side effects of the lupron. the 2nd link is for another group called 'uterinefibroids'. this group is for women who are at various stages of contemplation, treatment and surgery. it's a very large and active group.

i've decided that i'm going to stop eating meat - except for fish. but, this isn't going to start today. it's thanksgiving & nothing can keep me away from turkey today!