redwinelover's Journal, 16 January 2013

Did not work out yesterday, but there is still today! And Lord do I need to work out today. My husband suggested he pick up pizza yesterday on his way home. Well... figured I haven't had pizza in forever and just didn't feel like making dinner anyway, so I caved. Good Lord I was thirsty after all that pizza! I drank three 20oz bottles of water - all after about 7:30 last night. I'd forgotten how much sodium must be in those things. Anyway, surprisingly I don't feel huge today. (still won't weigh myself)

Been on a roller coaster emotionally. Today is a good one, though. I've been taking daily pictures of this little "test" area on my chest my doctor did trying to correct some hypopigmentation from my laser resurfacing done in July. Since the hypopigmentation can take 2 - 6 months to show up, all I can really do is hurry up and wait. I'm not good at that. Anyway, I took my daily picture of the area first thing in the morning yesterday, took a look and my spirits soared! I saw a white rectangular square! (we will attempt to even out skin tone by lightening all the surrounding areas of hypopigmentation) I took another and then looked and excitedly texted my doc with a picture and my hopes this treatment might actually work. He texted back - looks great, let's keep our fingers crossed. Somehow that knocked the wind out of my sails. I don't know - guess I expected more hooplah than that.

Later on, I was comparing pictures from then to those taken right after the latest procedure (test area) and realized... omg... what I thought was the white area is really the area just BELOW the treatment area! damn, damn, damn! So I went from really high, to a bit of being brought back to earth, to close to the depths of despair. Now I realize there are far, far worse things that can happen - it's not cancer, it's not family, it's not anything other than SKIN. But still - you do a procedure fully expecting to improve the appearance of a lifetime of too much sun and hard living... and end up resembling a healed burn victim, instead. For someone with as much vanity as I have (not proud of it - it just IS), this is a tough one. And to know I've done this to myself out of my own vanity. So anyway... that, coupled with all the other crap going on in our lives - well... let's just say my emotions have been ALL over the place. If I lived in the north pole or somewhere like that, it wouldn't be as devastating. But here in AZ? When 9 months out of the year it's generally tank top weather? Makes it hard to cover up.

So, enough about me and my petty crap. Today is a new day and I'm feeling much more positive. And I'm going to try using fresh ginger on my skin discoloration areas - found that Chinese remedy online yesterday. Some woman supposedly had hypopigmentation for 17 years, was told to try the ginger once or twice a day on the affected areas, and after six months the discoloration was almost gone. It looked as though her pigment had mostly returned to the areas. So what the hell, right? I'm gonna try it. It's FOOD. God made it. It can't hurt and there's a chance it could actually help. Six months is a long time, but I've been dealing with this for about four months now already anyway. So I'm choosing today to be positive. I will work out. Probably Jillian's butt and thigh one since those are the areas most in need of work! lol And I will make a super salad today - maybe twice! And I will remain positive. Stay well, my friends. :D