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Lung Abuse

I wanted to start watching the show Mad Men when it first came out. For whatever reason, scheduling conflict or whatever, we didn't. It recently popped up on our instant Netflix, so we decided to give it a try. I have to say I'm having issues with watching the show. Not because it's extraordinarily old fashioned and based on a late 50's world where guys rule and it's unheard of for a woman to be unmarried and have a career.
Nope. It makes me miss smoking really bad.
I know, it's completely gross and yucky and everything else.
I started thinking about the days before I was married and Mommy. When my husband and I were dating, going out to dinner every night, drinking and smoking with friends and not worrying about the long term effects of such actions. Once Matt and I were married, we tried to curb our habits of eating like crap and consuming alcohol more than once every week or so. The smoking stuck around, however.
We started talking about the possibility of children in the future. It didn't take long for me to conceive... a few months maybe. Unfortunately, it ended in miscarriage around week 5 or 6. I blamed it on the extra weight I had packed on during our first few years of marriage and hit the gym and put down the cigarettes.
Within 3 months, I conceived our son, JP.
A year after he was born and I was back to work, we bought our new house. We would get a sitter for our 18 month old son and take smoke breaks while painting. I picked the habit back up, but only at work and when my son was asleep on the nights that I was home with my husband.
Fast forward to February of 2010. I was still working split shift Customer Service at VSD, smoking on my breaks at work, and still carrying around an extra 50 pounds, 25 of them from my pregnancy with JP. My work wife, K, (a term coined since I saw her more than my own husband) voiced concern when I complained about pain in my calf. It felt like a muscle pull, but localized in the center of my right calf, and it kept getting worse. It got so bad that I was limping when I first stood up from my desk on breaks. K used to work in a dr's office and asked if it was my right leg, as it was noticeably swollen even through my jeans. I gritted my teeth and told her yes. She suggested that I go to the emergency room, cause if it was a deep vein thrombosis, the effects were life threatening. I brushed it off and made an appointment for the next morning with our family doc.
I ended up seeing a registered nurse, who flew out of the room to make an appointment in imaging for me after taking one look at my swollen leg. An ultrasound confirmed the worst case scenario, a DVT.
I got taken off hormonal birth control of any kind and put on blood thinners. Coumadin, which is essentially rat poison, was what I took daily for 6 months. Along with that I had to go into the doc's every week or so for a blood draw to make sure my blood was thin enough to dissolve the clot, but not so thin that I would internally hemorrhage.
Gross.
Along with this, I was off work for a month, confined to the couch with an almost 2 year old.
After I went back to work, I decided to take out all factors that contributed to this problem in the first place. I couldn't take birth control ever again, and honestly, didn't know if I wanted to even if a doc would write me a script. I needed to drop weight and get off my rear at work more often than every few hours.
And no more cigarettes. Ever. Again.
*edit*
In addition, my doc told me blood clots work on a 2 strike system: you get one, strike one, you're on coumadin for 6-9 months depending on how long it takes the clot to dissolve. You get a second one, strike 2, you're on blood thinners for the rest of your life. Since I also had to be put on migraine preventative drugs as well as coumadin, smoking just isn't worth it. Also, because of my blood clot history, I had to give myself lovanox shots for 6 weeks after having my daughter.
***
I started running. I used the website coolrunning.com, following the couch to 5k program. It starts non-runners slow, building up muscle and bone strength, and doesn't over exert, as you can take the steps as slow or quickly as you can.
The weight melted off. Within 6 months of starting the program, I went from a size 16 to a 10. I felt amazing and had less problems with my knees!
I wish I had kept up my routine through my pregnancy with Z. Then maybe I wouldn't have as much weight to lose now.
Come Monday, it's back on the treadmill. No more milkshakes... well, not as many.
After all, they are better than cigarettes.

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