Veritable Landfill

H'Meh.

(My temporarily partially-paralyzed face)

So between less-than-perfect BYU health insurance and my complete lack of insurance from Timm's previous job, I estimate it had been at least 6 years since I last saw a dentist. Maybe even as many as 8. I do not practice perfect dental hygiene, but I brush and floss. I didn't even think much about it until I lost a filling a few months ago, before our new health coverage took effect. I made sure to floss it religiously since it kind of hurt and there was a gaping hole for food to accumulate in, but it was still about 4 months before I saw the dentist. Naively, I thought this would be the only problem. Maybe because I hadn't sat in a dentist's chair for many years, but I assumed since I had no pain in my mouth and my teeth looked good and white that there were no problems. In fact, the thought of other dental woes didn't even cross my mind until the dentist came in and started piercing my gums with a very sharp instrument, muttering notes to his hygienist for practically every tooth. It sounded something like "Number 13, possible RC, number 14 likely RC & other alphabetical dental codes that I didn't understand and don't remember..." Suddenly I thought- He really has a lot to talk about. Really, every tooth? You can't just skip one? I don't really know what you're saying, but I think you might be a little overly critical. And no, that does not feel like a "little pressure." It feels like you are poking tender gum tissue with the very sharp instrument that you indeed, are poking me with. I saw it. It's very pointy.

They couldn't even clean my teeth. I had to have the entire appointment devoted to a consultation. My results were not good. Turns out 'RC' stands for 'Root Canal' which in hindsight, makes perfect sense.He showed me a lot of fancy high-tech pictures of my teeth and pointed out all the dark, black shaded areas that were decay. He pointed out the roots of my teeth and how those ominous darkly shaded parts were dangerously close to those roots. He spoke of various degrees of severity in decay, from 1-4, all of which I had several times over. He showed me a visible hole in one of my teeth, aside from the one that had lost a filling. He pointed out under the wire cemented to my teeth where the floss failed to reach. Finally he gave me a detailed treatment plan that spanned many pages, included many stages over a period of time, and involved way more money than I could ever hope to afford to my evidently grossly neglected dental care. I was on the verge of tears, and I think the shock of it was the only thing that kept those tears from spilling over.

I took my veritable landfill of a mouth and left feeling chastised, embarrassed, poor, and discouraged. Who has teeth like this? Meth heads, illegal immigrants, homeless people, and people living in abject poverty, that's who. (Or so I decided in my traumatized state. No offense to these societal subsets- it's just that I'm not one of them. Or am I? I suppose with my teeth already in the state they're in, I could finally take up meth and ignore at least one of those nasty side effects.)

I returned for a cleaning, then later a cavity fill times two, which led to a visit to the endodontist to preform 2 root canals. (The first of several, apparently.) That used the entirety of my annual allowance from my insurance, with $350 left over. We got my teeth their first credit card to cover the balance, and now I am supposed to get crowns for those two teeth which will cost me $1900. Which I am not doing. I know, it sounds crazy. It probably is crazy. But the manager at the dentist office said I could probably get by with only the 'core buildup', whatever that is, until next January when my insurance rolls over. Yeah, a year from now. The core buildup will only cost a few hundred dollars, on my teeth's fancy shmancy new credit card, of course. Then we can move on to the many more teeth that need attention, and hopefully arrest their deterioration and prevent root canals for the rest of the lot. 

In summary, after six entire visits, I will have 2 of my teeth mostly repaired. We have a long way to go.

A highlight however, was having 8 full hours of numbness for half of my face, stretching to include part of my eye. These pictures were taken a few hours in, when a bit of it had worn off. I gave Timm no small amount of pleasure as I talked, and best of all tried to smile or laugh. He would laugh almost to the point of tears every time, insisting that I take my hand away from my mouth in self-consciousness. A couple of times through the day I would proclaim, "Timm! I think it's wearing off!", then flash him that winning half-smile. He would patronizingly reply, "Almost..." before laughing again. It made him especially giddy if I would mumble, "I have a few disorders" out of the corner of my semi-functioning mouth.

Good times.

In other good news, I have now been avoiding chewing on the left side of my mouth for going on 5 months, and with any luck I will continue to do so for another year until I can afford the crowns! It is a skill I am proud to cultivate.

Crazy Person, literally.

What we have here is one of those good news/bad news situations.

The kind where it's hard to tell which is which.

First, some background.

Obviously I have been absent for a few months. Part of that was just busy with projects and some hypomania after Timm got his new job. That eventually slid into a muddied, deliberate avoidance of blogs in general. I told myself it wasn't because I was depressed, knowing that avoidance of any and all social contact is usually my number 1 sign of depression . I also wasn't emailing, or talking on the phone. I had gone from running 25 miles a week, to not having laced up my running shoes in over a month. Pretty much just going to church on Sundays, and maybe grocery shopping on Saturdays. 5-6 days a week were spent in my pajamas all day, sleeping as much as possible, and steadily putting on weight. (12 pounds since Thanksgiving to be specific.) The only time I put my foot out the door was the unavoidable trek to the bus stop each morning at 7:30. In all honesty, I wouldn't even have bothered to do that except that it's much easier to have Bella at school all day. (That and truancy laws.) Sometimes I didn't shower for that many days at a time either. Full disclosure.

After you've spent 6 days straight in your pajamas, haven't left the house, and worn a path into the carpet from bed to couch to fridge and back, it's hard to deny that you might, just maybe, be depressed. Especially when you're daily routine involves sleeping on the couch every morning after dropping your eldest off at the bus stop while your youngest patiently absorbs a lot of Netflix-streamed tv.

Unfortunately this scenario is nothing new to me. I have been dealing with major depression all of my adult life. It's really quite tiresome and boring. So armed with my fancy new health insurance, I decided to go see a psychiatrist for the first time in over 4 years to try and see if we could find a different treatment than the one I've been on for so long. I didn't feel very good about the appointment or her opinion, so I sought a second opinion and waited 3 months to see a different doctor, which I finally did this week. Which leads me to the good news/bad news portion of this post.

The good news is that I probably do not have Bipolar II Disorder, as I have long suspected that I did and researched. 

The bad news is that I do show symptoms of the following disorders:

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

Generalized Anxiety Disorder

Major Depressive Disorder 

and last but not least

Eating Disorder NOS ('Not Otherwise Specified')

You know, your typical OCD/ADHD/Anxiety-ridden massively depressed person with an eating disorder.

I got that diagnosis in Provo before moving here, but conveniently forgot about it until I had the pleasure of reading over my psychiatry records in detail. Hey, if anything can pull you out of a debilitating depression, it's reading over your medical assessments and lack of progress over several years from the perspective of a trained mental health practitioner.On a good note, she did indicate that I was very attractive. (That was of course one line mixed in paragraphs upon paragraphs about my obsessiveness over food, weight, body image, and self-worth.)

Right.

So for now not much has changed. This doctor agreed that I am probably nor Bipolar- II or otherwise. I see him again in a month and I sure hope we can make some changes so I feel alive again. Which is not to say that I am sad- those blessed individuals with no experience with depression probably don't understand that. Probably because of the antidepressants I've been on for years, I do not currently have a sad depression. It's the bored apathy that is wasting me. The inability to find any purpose in showering, dressing, or leaving the house. So in the meantime, I'll try to suck it up and make the tiny goals that brand-new mothers and invalids make each day- For tomorrow: shower, dress, and make the bed.

I also read a bit in my files about my Eating Disorder (NOS), which I'll explore in another post. In the meantime I'm planning on going to Weight Watchers tomorrow,  perpetuating my 'ED (NOS)'. I'm trying to remember the therapeutic benefits of writing, and will thusly torture anyone reading with an account of this roller coaster.

Good times!

How I Roll

These are the kind of clothes I wear lately. Not that it was a nice shirt to begin with, but now as you can clearly see, it's pretty much trash. Or it would be to most self-respecting people. I however, wear it very regularly.

There are a few reasons for this, primarily because I have no money to buy new clothes. Secondary to that, but only just barely, is the fact that I am not in a physical condition to buy new clothes. I still have about 50 pounds to lose and have been quite complacent about that for far too long. I have a closet full of clothes that don't fit, and even if I had the money to go shopping (which I don't), I wouldn't want or know how to comfortably dress this current body of mine. It's not that I'm unfamiliar with being overweight, but I am never comfortable with it. Especially when it involves confronting a three-way mirror in a public place that is not conducive to fits of despair and audible tears of grief and shame.

But I digress- back to having no money. (It's a common theme in my life.) Not only do we have no money, but we have too much debt. It's a revolving door we have been going through all of our marriage- Not making enough money to get by and then relying on credit cards (or student loans in those days) to cover the neccesities. Usually it is for some actual emergency such as car repairs which are nonnegotiable, or for some of the frivolities I have come to expect like food and shelter for my children. The thing is, this credit card debt is not helping matters. This has come as a shock to me, as I'm sure it will to many of you as well. I will repeat: Credit card debt is not your friend. It's a hard truth to swallow.

We only have one vehicle, and that vehicle already has 200,000 miles on it. Even though we regularly maintenance it and it is in good working condition, I'm sure you can see where I am going with this. With Tim working two jobs, I almost never have access to the car. He works nights and weekends. I have the car available to me only a couple of nights a week, and Sunday, which is irrellevant. We need to have a plan for another car, or the scenario which is more fitting for my life: When we are finally able to afford a second car, our first will finally die, leaving us with- one car, again. Either way, we need a plan. Not that we haven't formulated plans in the past, it's just those frivolous luxeries we continue to indulge in, that is, food and shelter. The thing is, we already have a pretty tight budget. Not a lot of wiggle room, not a lot of extras. (Hence the holey, embarrasing clothing.) But we are making some serious strides and sacrifices to pay off those credit cards by this time next year so that we are in a position to get a used car. I'm not sure if it is possible, especially since our tax return this year is less than half what it has been in the past. The lowest one we have ever received; it will definitely not have quite the impact on this debt that I envisioned.

What you should take from this, the point I am trying to make is: you might get crap for gifts this year.

If at all.

And I will look super trashy.

 So, you know- status quo.

A Letter

Dear Bob's Red Mill,

For the past 6 weeks my family has embarked upon the daunting and sometimes perilous journey of going Gluten-Free. My husband and possibly both of my children have Celiac disease. I am also a cook, and a baker. A pretty good one too. Especially the baking part. I was not raised or taught to use mixes in almost any scenario. We are from the make-it-from-scratch persuasion and this tradition has been passed down through several generations, as evidenced by my dog-eared and stained recipes from my grandmother. I'm sure you can imagine my dismay when faced with the task of continuing to bake good-for-you and more importantly good-tasting wheat-free cakes and cookies and the like for my family. Thus I have turned to mixes and relied heavily on them these past 6 weeks. As I learn to navigate the GF waters, buying specialty flours and ingredients to mix my own all-purpose flour, learning what ratio of xanthan gum to add to these flours and how to substitute these in my favorite recipes, mixes have become a crutch. A really good one to get us through these first few weeks. And for the most part, they have been surprisingly good. With 2 notable exceptions. Which brings me to my point:

First, it should be known- I am a bean lover. Across the board, I love beans. I even like lima beans! So it is not with an unfair bias against beans that I say to you, "Why in the name of all that is holy do you insist on making mixes, especially those meant for sweet treats like cake, with garbanzo bean flour?!?!? And fava beans?!" Now, I know you did not pioneer the use of these legume-derived flours, at least not to my knowledge. But when there are perfectly good, bland, and distinctly non-bean flours available, like rice, that you can easily slip in without notice, why would you rely on fava beans?! I made my favorite cookie recipe and they looked great. Held up wonderfully and could barely see a difference. Until I ate one and thought, "Hm. Beans." Have you ever had a bean cookie? No. And do you know why? Because they are disgusting. That is the reason you have not seen them featured behind the bakery glass or written up in Bon Appetit. People don't like beans in their cookies. Now, I used your all-purpose flour mix, so you could argue that maybe that particular flour would be best in a savory dish, in small quantities where it could go unnoticed. This is true. But then explain to me why you would create a chocolate cake mix, and then use the same garbanzo and fava beans flours?! It is specifically and obviously created to make a chocolate cake, and guess what? Not unlike the cookies, people don't like bean cake. And it's not subtle. I mixed it up, ignorantly, and it looked great. With anticipation, I licked the beater, as is a favorite pastime of mine. Immediately I shuddered and exclaimed "Beans!! Oh crap. Beans." And shuddered again.

Seriously, chocolate cake?

Garbanzo beans? 

They do not go together.

I implore you to use other milder flours such as rice, but until then I will be taking my business to Betty Crocker, who's mixes are decidedly unbeany. I can't believe that I have come to take a stance on mixes that is anything but opposition, but here we are.

At an impasse.

I finally mixed up my own blend, so I hope to leave your mixes on the shelf from now on. I will, however use your individual ingredients. One of which, by the way, is rice flour. 

Bothered by Beans,

Jessie

Santa's Sweatshop

It's getting worse-nearly untraversable.