Sleepyhead Shares a Secret by Maureen Reil BOOK REVIEW

Sleepyhead Shares a Secret by Maureen Reil
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I received this book through the Goodreads First-Reads program.

I sat down with it when I first received it and tried to read it, really I did. The main character is just so whinny. I ended up having to put it down. And of course there I let it sit for the longest time.

Last week I was looking through some books, and realized I had a couple of books from the First-Reads that I had not reviewed yet, so I sat down and tried to read the book again.

I confess, I only got about half way through before I threw the book across the room. Not only is the main character whinny, she talks about having Sleep Apnea (note to the author...it is spelled APNEA not APENOA) like it is some horrible dreaded thing that will ruin her life. I for one have sleep apnea, and I have never experienced anything like this character does, nor have I ever went through any treatments like she describes or tests. The more I read, the less I liked the book, and the harder it was to keep reading.

Even the blossoming friendship or whatever it will be between Sabrina and the Dr can not save this book.

Maybe if I came at the book with no knowledge of sleep apnea, maybe I could have read it, but then again i would hate knowing it was out there and people are thinking this of me.

It's well-written, the grammar and structure is great, but I can't do the story. sorry.

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Practical Belly Fat Cure - 4 Weeks To Lose Belly Fat & Get a Lean Tight Belly

Book Review If you are looking for another fad diet, a body wrap, or weird and strange exercise that will just wash the belly fat away while you sleep, then put this book back down and walk away. You won't find it here, what you will find in here is good, honest truth! Imagine that! Believe you me, as a mom of three, I know belly fat, and I know all about the gimmicks out there, so I on my guard when I picked up this book. This book is well written, not too overly educated, almost anyone can understand it, and it is written so that anyone can follow the instructions, understand why they are following them and change their life. I think that last part makes it so much different, she explains, why we need to do this, why just doing crunches don't work and what to do instead. Covering diet and lifestyle, it addresses the reasons and things that got us to this point in the first place, and the lack of motivation keeping us here, and how to change all that to move on to a new life. If you are serious about making a change in your life, then this is the book for you. Come join me in the revolution to lose the baby belly forever!

Which way is up?

For years now, I have been so in tune with my own body. I could tell you when I was starting to get sick, I could tell you what each and every little pain was and when I was going to get a headache. I knew it. I understood it, and I had to. Starting at age 21, I was diagnosed with PCOS (poly cystic ovarian syndrome) which is basically just a big pain in the butt, but it effects every woman who has it just a little bit differently so we had to learn, as women with it, to understand our bodies. To understand how the differences in hormone levels effected us each and how to make it all work better, or at least closer to normal.

2009 was a rough year, first emotionally because I lost my grandfather, and second physically because things started changing, and although it was acting different and causing me more problems, I could still explain them to you and tell you what was going on, why I was in pain and about how long it would last. I knew there was going to come a time that I would have to consider the hysterectomy, I had known that for a long time, probably since the first diagnose, and I was fine with that, I just expected it to be a simple fix. Take out the parts causing all the problems and I will be up and felling great in no time at all! Right?

WRONG!!!

Here it is a little over a year after the surgery, and I feel completely upside-down! I no longer understand my own body! I have no clue what it is doing! Everything I have known for so many years is gone and I am floundering in the same body but without the instructions!

Ever since the surgery I have been dealing with horrible headaches. I went back to the OB/GYN and she gave me estrogen, which is normal for most patients, and without thinking I acceped because I expected that, but then I had to remember that my body isn't normal, it has PCOS....which by the way, never goes away, yes I no longer have my ovaries, but everything else associated with PCOS still exists in my body, so they change the name to Androgen Deficiency or something else, but it all mean the same thing. So for me, the estrogen just made them worse, and so we added more estrogen and more thinking I was too low, which seemed only natural since my body has never had a normal level of any hormone, but it just made it worse and finally it came to a point that I lost it....I bottomed out!

I got so depressed from the headaches and the general not feeling right that I took to my bed for three days, and in that I forgot to take any medicine. At three days, I guess the estrogen was out of my system and I started feeling better. The lack of estrogen allowed my mind to clear enough for me to realize that something needed to change. I decided that I had to start taking charge again. I found a family doctor that I like and we are starting the process all over again from the beginning. We have discovered that the headaches are related to my blood pressure. I had preeclampsia with all three kids, so the effects of that are that I might start running high blood pressure now. Although my blood pressure still mainly stays in the normal range, when it does rise, I have headaches. So I am taking blood pressure medicine, although only a small dose, and I still have the k from the doctor to monitor it myself, to take an extra pill it it is high, to skip a pill if it is getting too low.

The problem for me is that this is a re-learning experience. I am having to re-learn my body, and it is not easy. I am still trying to figure out what high blood pressure feels like beside the headaches and what low blood pressure feels like so that I can get the medicine regulated. I have a home blood pressure cuff, and i take my blood pressure daily and multiple times a day, and slowly I am getting to understand it, and this is just the first step. There are still so many other issues to deal with, but taking one issue at a time, instead of dumping 50 medicines into my body for each issue at one time is much nicer.

The trouble is that I feel like I wasted a year...I should have been better prepared for this and I should have taken control sooner, but I didn't. I feel guilty about that, at the same time, I feel like everything is upside-down because I can't understand this new body yet, and it is not a pretty sight!

I must have a saint for a husband and cherubs for children, because how they have put up with all this, I have no idea! And it's not over yet!

Depression...

Almost a year after my hysterectomy and nothing has been the same. Probably the first big mistake I made was listening to the doctor when she said, let's wait six months after surgery to see what your body does. I should have insisted on have all my levels tested before surgery and then within a week or so after surgery testing them again and started on medicine. I didn't, and it's true, hindsight is twenty-twenty.

Now don't get me wrong, my life is defintely better off afterwards. I was in so much pain from the cysts in my ovaries and the fibroid in my uterus that I wasn't living. I was spending more time in bed in pain than doing anything else. I will still tell people, if it has been recommended to you, then go ahead, but to keep your ovaries if at all possible. For me it was not possible to keep my ovaries. The only problem is that almost no one that I talked to had lost their ovaries too. I had no idea what I was going to be in for. Maybe more research, maybe more talking, maybe just more fighting for it the way I felt was right.

I started getting depressed about six weeks post-surgery. It was about like post-partum depression, but I didn't have a nursing baby to help take the edge off the depression. It was just getting worse and worse to the point I had to call the doctors office, so a prescription for an antidepressant, but that didn't do it. I think I have the brand changed twice and the dosage changed more than I can think since then. Of course after six months out, the hormone replacement got added in, and that brought it's own set of problems with it.

I haven't been able to sleep since the surgery. Which I hear is normal, but of course no one wanted to do anything about it, oh let's get some hormones in you and it will get better, finally last month they gave me something to sleep that works as bout as well as jelly beans! So I was fed up and called the doctor's office first thing Monday morning, with the promise that the nurse would call me back that morning. Yeah right, finally Friday afternoon about an hour before the office closed someone called me back, but of course they didn't do anything.

After almost a year of not being able to sleep it has finally caught up with me, and the depression has deepened. When you aren't sleeping, it is very easy to fall deeper into the depression. So I was already depressed after the surgery and it wasn't being handled well, then top that with not being able to sleep, that wasn't being treated at all, and I am a mess. You want to talk about the hormones?

The migraines started about four weeks out from surgery, and they were terrible. I think I have been on three or four different migraine medicines, and no matter how many times I say, that the medicine was doing nothing for the migraines. I mean I can only take two pills in 24-hours and the migraines will come back in 6 to 8 hours some days. I keep trying to tell them that they aren't working, but no one wants to listen, which only makes the depression worse because I feel like I am not worth listening to, The hormones only help to create more of them.

I finally got on hormones, got on a patch. Of course that didn't do too well, still ave headaches, so they added a estrogen gel. As long as I was taking both of those on schedule and not skipping a patch change or the gel, I was getting fewer headaches. They added some progestrone, not sure why, but it has seemed to increased the headaches.

Now I still love my doctor. She delivered all three of my kids and she has been great. But when I first started seeing her, she was a new young doctor in an office of older doctors, then she moved out on her own into a small office, that soon grew and grew and now has three doctors and two midwives in the office. She is still a great doctor, but her office has grown too large. The office staff no longer seems to care. I can remember when I would call in and all I had to say was my name and all the staff knew my history and could help with anything. I mean, let's put it this way, my account number in her office is #38! I have no idea how many people they have in there now, but I know that I almost never talk to the same person, and I have caught a couple of nurses saying things to me that were out-and-out lies, and I am not going for that and had to call her on it, and of course she was upset, but yo know, once your office gets too large, it is out of your control.

I made the hard decision this week, in a few of my more lucid moments to research a new doctor. I had been needing to have a general doctor anyway, and that is what I looked for. A general practice doctor, but one that had underlying specialities in women's issues and HRT. So on Wednesday I called and they got me in the next week on Thursday. They were trying for Tuesday, but didn't have one early enough to make sure I would get home before the kids got off the bus. I was shocked. I am used to having to call four months in advance to get an appointment. I am looking forward to hearing another view on all this, and really hoping for some answers. Or at least if not an answer, someone to listen and be willing to work with me to find an answer, not just brush it off like it's no big deal.

I am sure I will be blogging about my thoughts from the appointment next week. Oh you poor people, you have to listen to me ramble! Oh well, you knew what you were getting into when you read the title of the blog and still kept reading!