This week mostly revolved around the pre-test diet I had to do before my three-hour glucose tolerance test. It's kind of a crazy diet! The instructions said to "eat normally" but the sample menu they gave is definitely not how I would define normal or even balanced. It was pretty heavy on the carbs, starches, and sugars. I know this is so they can test to see how my body is processing them, but it still felt odd to be told to "eat more carbs" before a diabetes screening test. Oh well. The diet had me eating three square meals a day AND a bed time snack. And the suggested bed time snack was actually bigger than the lunch. I also had to drink four cups of milk a day (one with each meal/snack). Yes, I know dairy intake is important during pregnancy, but I'm not a milk drinker and have always gotten my dairy in other forms. Nevertheless, I purchased a gallon of skim milk and managed to choke it down.
The hardest part about the diet was the schedule. I'm naturally a slow eater and have been doing the grazing thing that they recommend throughout this pregnancy in place of larger meals, which has worked well for me. With the diet, I pretty much had to eat at set times to ensure I fit it all in each day. Yesterday I had to take a train to/from work, so I actually had to leave my office before 3:30 to catch the train that would get me to my car by 5:30 so I could be home before 6:00 so I could fix and eat dinner AND my bed time snack before 8:00 when I was supposed to start fasting. Whew! I was literally shoveling the last of my dinner at 7:20 while Paul made my snack for me, and even then I was chugging the last glass of milk at 7:55. I was so full it was painful. But I ate every last thing I was supposed to, so it had better pay off!
Today was test day. My appointment began at 8:30 (the earliest they could take me) and aside from missing my morning cup of coffee I was feeling pretty good. They drew my blood right away and then had me drink "the stuff." Today's special was bright red and fruit punch-flavored. At first I thought I liked it better than the orange crush-flavored stuff from last time. But as I drank, it tasted more and more like overly-sweetened cough syrup. Gross. Once I was "on the clock" they let me go back and sit in the waiting room until it was time for my next blood draw. I had my laptop with me so I tried to do a little work to help pass the time. The first hour went by pretty quickly and although I started feeling jittery, it wasn't terrible. I had draw #2 and was back in the waiting room, about halfway to draw #3, before I started feeling sick. It came on pretty suddenly too (probably as my sugar levels were crashing) and I started getting all hot flashy and shaky. I said something to the girl at the front desk and they took me back to an empty exam room where I could lay down. I was able to walk myself over to the lab for draw #3, but went back to the room to lay down again for the last hour.
All of the draws were quick and relatively painless, but since IVF ruined my one good arm vein, they all had to come out of my hands. The lab tech felt really bad about that, but I was kind of like "Eh.... I've had worse." As soon as draw #4 was done I made sure I was clear to eat something before cramming the granola bar I'd stashed in my purse. By that point, I was no longer shaky or experiencing hot flashes, but I definitely felt weird. And I have continued to feel weird the rest of the day. My stomach is still not happy and I have this odd, fuzzy sort of headache that won't go away, even though I've eaten and am drinking water like it's going out of style. Needless to say, I'm glad I planned to mostly take the day off from work. I don't think going in for the afternoon would have been a good idea.
In other news, I also had an evaluation with a physical therapist today. I already see a chiropractor who deals with most of my usual aches and pains, but last weekend I started having really sudden, sharp pains in my left hip. They seemed to be coming from inside the actual socket part of the joint, and kind of radiating back towards my tail bone. It felt more like an injury of some sort - like something was pinched or pulled or torn. It hurt so bad on Monday that I was even limping a bit. My chiropractor tried a couple different adjustments but wasn't convinced they would help since it seemed like more of a muscle or ligament thing as opposed to bone. And she was right. Not only did the adjustments not help with the pains, but they actually got worse. So Wednesday I looked up PTs covered under our insurance network and made an appointment with one in the next town over from where we live.
Today's appointment was just an evaluation to see if PT will even help the symptoms I'm having. The PT I met with is pregnant too and due one week before me. In a way, that may be a good thing since she's more likely to know what I'm feeling and experiencing! She was very nice and examined me from various angles. She agreed that it doesn't seem to be a skeletal problem in that everything is aligned and balanced correctly. She massaged around some on my hip and had me move my leg different directions and tell her when it hurt. Her diagnosis: bursitis. Basically, the bursae inside my hip joint is inflamed and irritated, which is causing the pain. She said it could be pregnancy-related or not. But either way, the extra weight I'm carrying is not helping and it will likely continue to get worse as I gain more. So in the interest of preventing that from happening, she recommended treatments twice a week for four weeks. They were going to send off the request to my OB's office today to get an actual prescription for insurance purposes, so as soon as they receive that back they will schedule me for the visits.
On the one hand, it feels like all I've done this year so far is go from one practitioner's office to another. I've been poked, prodded, examined, tested, and prescribed more times than I can count. And the frequency is about to increase when I start seeing to the OB every two weeks. But on the other hand, I still have three months and several more pounds to go. So if this helps me get through the final trimester without additional pain, I'm willing to give it a shot!
Not much else to report this week. Work, in general, was less stressful than last week, which was good. I managed to stay on track better with my exercise goals for at least part of the week. The situation with my car continues to be a source of major stress and frustration, but we have a plan now for how to address that. I'll leave the details for another post. For now, I'm going to sit on my couch (in my sweatpants), order a pizza (no more silly pre-test diet!), and prepare to watch the Cardinals beat the Nationals in Game 5 of the NLDS (baseball is the ONLY sport I can tolerate on TV and I'm a lifelong Cardinals fan!). Let's go Cards!
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