You Want Fries With That?

Kami (00:00):
Well, good morning, dear.

Eva (00:01):
Good morning.

Kami (00:03):
I'm in my daughter's bed. I fucked up my back. Apparently it's not a good idea to put your sewing machine on the floor and sew a quilt.

Eva (00:17):
Because I was the only surface large enough?

Kami (00:21):
Yes.

Eva (00:23):
And doesn't quilting require a pretty large table, like massive?

Kami (00:28):
Well, it depends on how big your quilt is and how you're attaching all of the pieces. So if you've got your quilt top and your batting and your back, so this quilt is probably like a throw blanket size, so not enormous. If you're doing a really good queen size or a king size quilt, you do that with a long arm machine, which is the big 14 foot machines that, anyways, so you have to send that off to a quilt shop for somebody to do it for you.

Eva (01:02):
Dude, I totally forgot to do this. Hang on.

Kami (01:05):
What? I feel official. That was really cute.

Eva (01:12):
I got it for something else, and it's a whiteboard, and Ellie wanted to do it for me, so.

Kami (01:20):
Oh, look at her. Oh, that's so cute.

Eva (01:23):
When you record live, which I have to do on Thursday, it helps you line up the tracks when you get home because they're all recorded on different machines and different SD cards. So I ordered a mini. I finally ordered a mini one. Sorry for the interruption.

Kami (01:38):
I love it. No, but anyways, but I wasn't determined to power through this quilt because it's for a former coworker who had a baby, and so I was making this for her new baby and whatever, and I was like, yeah, my back really hurts sitting on the floor, whatever. I was like, but I'm a fucking trooper. I'm going to get this quilt done. Watch me, and let me tell you, I am paying for it.

Eva (02:12):
Oh, I'm sorry.

Kami (02:14):
Yeah. But I've been taking this combination, so, oh, did I tell you I fucked up my other foot again? I'm like a hot fucking mess.

Eva (02:28):
No. I was about to tell you that, I mean, before you move on to the foot, my meds changed to a compound last in the last batch, which has been two months-ish to include glycine and b12, and they told me, you're probably going to feel a lot less muscle fatigue and just feel better in general. And I was like, yeah, yeah, whatever. You're just mixing that in there because you have to get around the FDA and the compounding pharmacy. Either way, I was doing all the business reasons, but you know what? It actually did work.

Kami (03:10):
Really.

Eva (03:10):
And so usually my tailbone hurts about 30% of the day, maybe more, and my back hurts all the time. Not so much that I need something for it, but it's just always there. And it hasn't hurt at all since I switched to this compound.

Kami (03:31):
Really. I'm about to run out of my current last vial, and so I'm going to talk to them about, because I haven't lost any. I've been steady at 200 for months.

Eva (03:47):
That's the other thing I have to tell you. I'm so glad you brought it up. So I had this tooth pulled, right?

Kami (03:55):
Yes.

Eva (03:56):
Remember we talked about that before? So I had numbered 19 pulled. It's the largest tooth in your mouth, bottom left side, second one in from the back. And the whole experience was amazing, and I can talk about that later, but they had me stop, they said 10 days before, and so I did that. I didn't notice that I was hungry. I didn't feel any different without it. So I had been worried about all of a sudden I'm going to be starving and I'm going to turn into, actually, I really sort of envisioned myself as a bit of a junkie who was going to immediately start ordering pizza and walking to the pantry and bingey behavior. That's what I thought was going to happen, but none of that happened. And then in my mind, I was going to take my shot the day after the tooth was gone. I was just going to get my baby back. My precious.

Kami (05:04):
My precious.

Eva (05:05):
And then I didn't have a tooth in my mouth, so I didn't feel like eating, it turns out. So I waited another, I talked to my provider, Ashley about when to start again, and I also talked to our friend Maureen, and she had already suggested to me that when you stall that actually taking a long break and then restarting will help.

Kami (05:29):
I was wondering about that.

Eva (05:31):
It totally worked.

Kami (05:34):
Really.

Eva (05:35):
I was off for almost four weeks. I came back at 110 milligrams, and I immediately dropped two pounds, which I had already gained back. So then I got back to where I was. So now I'm at 180, 186.

Kami (05:53):
I'm hovering right around 200, give or take two or three pounds depending on if I'm retaining water or dehydrated or whatever. But it's just been, I'm like, this is not what is happening. So yeah, I was thinking about doing that. So I got to call my provider and see what she recommends, but maybe I should just take a break.

Eva (06:19):
Yeah, I mean, I think the takeaway would be nothing's going to happen for quite a long time. If you take a break, it's going to be fine.

Kami (06:30):
Yeah. Well, and I've said this before, I take my ADHD medication is also an appetite suppressant. So even if I stop taking the semaglutide, I'll still have something to help curb my appetite and that kind of stuff, so I won't be totally flying free. I dunno. But

Eva (06:56):
I promised myself when school started, which it's been like a month or five weeks, that I would get the exercise back in my regular routine on the schedule, and it becomes just part of the, this is what I'm doing today.

Kami (07:09):
How is that going?

Eva (07:11):
I haven't done it.

Kami (07:15):
I wanted to start doing it. And then it's like I, there's just a whole lot of going on with my parents move and getting stuff done in their house and getting in a regular routine and dealing with having to sue my former brokerage. And it's just like, and, and, and, and.

Eva (07:42):
There's a lot.

Kami (07:43):
Yeah, I know.

(07:48):
Is that your cat?

Eva (07:49):
That's the cat.

Kami (07:52):
I was like, is there a baby crying? What?

Eva (07:58):
She's 17.

Kami (08:00):
Oh, she's very loud.

Eva (08:03):
She's definitely about to go over the bridge.

Kami (08:05):
Really? She's approaching the bridge.

Eva (08:08):
She won't eat dry food anymore. She's like,

Kami (08:10):
Does she still have her teeth?

Eva (08:12):
She does still have her teeth, but she's probably in kidney failure or diabetic. So right now we're in, as long as she's not in pain.

Kami (08:29):
Yeah.

Eva (08:31):
Yeah. I don't know what's going to happen though.

Kami (08:32):
Yeah,

Eva (08:32):
She'll probably live for five more years.

Kami (08:37):
And she'll cry every day. So speaking of pain, I fucked up my other, so I remember however many months ago when I broke my left foot, I broke on my toes.

Eva (08:49):
When you were on the scooter?

Kami (08:50):
No, I wasn't on the scooter. I just wore a boot.

Eva (08:53):
Oh, the boot.

Kami (08:53):
Yeah, I did the boot. So there's a dumbbell that we use to keep the office door open, and I just plowed my right foot right into that dumbbell. And let me tell you, my soul left my body.

Eva (09:14):
Oh. it's broken, like definitely broken.

Kami (09:19):
I thought for sure I went and got it. And it was not the radiologist I thought it was, and the PA that saw me, he thought it was too fractured at least. But when the radiologist looked at it, he is like, nah. And I'm like, okay, well, it fucking feels broken. But the PA told me, he's like, if you do this special combination of Tylenol and ibuprofen, it's like miracle pain medication. He is, and I was like, well, what do you mean? He's like, yeah, you take two extra drink Tylenol, which is 500 milligrams each, and then three ibuprofens, which are 200 each, and you take it together and that's going to have, and I was like, and let me tell you, it worked.

Eva (10:11):
That's what they gave me for my tooth. I got no pain meds.

Kami (10:15):
They just gave you the, yeah. So I was like,

Eva (10:17):
They made me ice my face for two straight days, 15 minutes on and 15 minutes off. I decided later, that must be a trick to get you to ice it enough, because that's really hard to do.

Kami (10:30):
Yeah, that would be rough. Yeah.

Eva (10:32):
It would be your full-time job for two days, just swapping ice packs. But it really did work, and I didn't really have any pain until 10 days after where the sutures and the swelling kind of converged, and so the swelling was pushing so hard on the sutures that it was really sore.

Kami (10:52):
Yeah, I can imagine.

Eva (10:52):
So at that point, I started kind of going in there and tugging on them to see if they were dissolved enough to come out. And I got them all out over about two or three days, but I was really impressed with them not giving me any pain meds. And they didn't even bring it up. They never said a word about it. They're just like, you're going to be fine. Just don't miss the ice. The ice is number one and most important. And I had worked with a breast surgeon a couple years ago, and that was his whole thing, even after breast surgery, he was putting his patients in ice vests. And I remember back then thinking, well, I probably asked him outright on that podcast, they really don't need any pain meds. And he was like, Nope, none. They don't need it. So I had that in the back of my mind. Well, if breast surgery patients don't need narcotics, then I certainly don't need them for this silly tooth.

Kami (11:48):
So I took my dose, I don't know, 30 minutes ago, 40 minutes ago maybe.

Eva (11:55):
Are you icing it too?

Kami (11:58):
My back? No.

Eva (11:59):
Oh, I wonder if that would help.

Kami (12:01):
I dunno. I did the heating pad and I have a TENS unit, which is the little electrical shock stuff, but it's significantly better today than it has been the last couple of days.

Eva (12:16):
So this has been going on for a while.

Kami (12:18):
Yeah. So this has been, let's see. Let's see. What's to do? Four days.

Eva (12:27):
Did you finish the quilt though?

Kami (12:28):
Oh, yeah. It's gorgeous. Perfect. I'll take some pictures.

Eva (12:30):
Beautiful.

Kami (12:31):
It's so cute. I was really proud of myself. I designed it myself, so it wasn't like I went off of somebody else's pattern, so I was like, I know what I'm doing. Watch me do this thing. Yes. So yeah, that's all I've been doing. I haven't been working. I've just been sewing quilt tops and putting quilts together. I took all the t-shirts that we wore when we took Kordelia to Disney for the first time,

Eva (13:01):
T-shirt quilt.

Kami (13:02):
And I made a top for that. I want to have that set off to a professional quilter, kind of an extra special one, but, but speaking of not working, I got a job.

Eva (13:16):
Oh, good.

Kami (13:17):
It's a company that installs, installation, installs, installation. That's not even a fucking thing. Oh, installs, insulation into new home construction, built new houses. So they work specifically with home.

Eva (13:36):
The Insulation subcontractor.

Kami (13:38):
Yeah. And they do commercials too. And they're been a family run business for 50 years. They have offices all over the country. They're expanding, they're growing. The position that I applied for was their office manager position for the indie office, but they ended up hiring somebody that had more industry experience for that. And I'm really not trying to toot my own horn or come across as really self-absorbed or narcissistic, but I get the feeling that they created a position for me,

Eva (14:19):
Really?

Kami (14:19):
Because they liked me so much.

Eva (14:22):
That's awesome.

Kami (14:24):
So basically what he said was, he's like, well, we hired this person. She had industry experience, whatever, but I got approval to hire a second person. And so I think they were like, Hey, we really want this girl. Let's figure out a way to hire her for something. That's the impression that I got, even though he didn't say those words, but you know how you get that feeling, right. So I'm going to be doing a lot of the same stuff that the office manager does, but I'll also be doing more general administration, executive assistant type of stuff for some of the other managers in the company. So I don't know when I'm going to start. I don't know exactly how much it's going to pay yet, but he said I should hear back from the HR person in the next couple of days to set everything up.

Eva (15:23):
Amazing.

Kami (15:24):
So the schedule is going to be so perfect. It's 7:00 AM to three, so I'll be able to be home for an hour or an hour and a half before Kordelia gets off the bus. Justin's going to have to get her on the bus in the morning, but it is what it is.

Eva (15:44):
So well done.

Kami (15:46):
Thank you. So I'm like, okay, well, at least I'll still be able to do some real estate things on the side. I've been helping out my dad and I have a buyer that I'm working with and possibly another person looking to rent a house. So anyways, yeah, I'm super excited. And then you and I will still be able to record in the afternoons if we want.

Eva (16:12):
Yeah. Well, we will.

Kami (16:15):
Yeah. So I was worried about that. I was like, God, if I get an eight to five, then I got to figure out when we're going to record. And I was concerned, but everything's kind of lining up, so I'm super excited about it.

Eva (16:32):
I probably told you about the addiction podcast that I started working on?

Kami (16:35):
Yeah.

Eva (16:37):
Okay. Sometimes a project comes my way. So there's several thoughts that I want to pass along about this. I am very regimented about the way that we build podcasts and put them out because the process has to work or nobody knows what they're doing, and everything falls down. That's pretty basic. You do a recording, goes through an assembly line, and everybody has their part, and it works beautifully. Well, this podcast, the host, his name's Matt, he basically has blown up the whole thing, but instead of me stressing out about it or trying to control it, for whatever reason, I just decided I'm going to see what happens. I'm not going to, and normally what I would do is almost project it on myself. Well, if the process doesn't go perfectly, he's going to think I'm a bad person, or he is going to think I'm bad at my job.

Kami (17:41):
Oh, right. Immediately blame yourself. Right?

Eva (17:43):
Of course. Right.

Kami (17:45):
Yep.

Eva (17:46):
But I didn't, and I couldn't tell you why I didn't. I think part of was that I drove down there and I met him in person, and I recognized immediately that there was something different going on here. And so where he was supposed to just do one recording a month, he was like, I'm going to do one or two a day. I went, what? You're going to what?

Kami (18:08):
A day?

Eva (18:08):
Yeah. And the stories, he also, he had a really clear point of view, and he has a very strong bias for action. So he just moves really fast. And if you don't go with him, it actually is counterproductive. So I just kind of went, I'm going to just go. We're going to go. We're going to go.

Kami (18:25):
Just get on board, get on the Matt train.

Eva (18:28):
He even asked me to be on, and so what's been happening, because we're talking all the time and we're hearing all these stories about people. The show is called My Last Relapse. It just came out. There's one episode out. I was just listening to it before we got on this morning again, the second time.

Kami (18:45):
I want to write that down so I can,

Eva (18:51):
It is, something special is happening with this show. So he puts people on to talk about their life after their last relapse and how it has changed since then. Because what's normally happening in this space of podcasting is people are just telling war stories and one-upping each other. It would be like if you and me just talked about what we ate, and then you told me what you ate, that was worse. And then I one upped you with what I ate, that was worse. And really this show is about us exercising our own feelings about how our lives are different since we stopped eating, which technically, if you want to get real, when was my last, this helped me stop eating. That was my last relapse was it all ended when this medication came along.

Kami (19:49):
Well, except for when Taco Bell brings back the seven layer burrito, because that,

Eva (19:52):
No, it's the Mexi Melt

Kami (19:55):
So good. Slayed me this week.

Eva (19:59):
So when food is your addiction, mine was after all the other things, I stopped being addicted to like cigarettes, and I was never really, I wouldn't say was, I was a heavy drinker, but it was just so I could smoke more cigarettes.

Kami (20:15):
Oh gosh. You're funny. Well, and the thing about food is that you really can't stop eating. You have to function. You have to take nutrients into your body. This is how our bodies function. So it's a really much more difficult addiction to manage, because it's not cigarettes where you can just stop smoking. You just stop drinking alcohol.

Eva (20:42):
Yeah. You can't just stop eating.

Kami (20:43):
Stop doing drugs. You just stop smoking weed. You still have to get up in the morning and have something to eat. So it's kind of like an ever present thing when you are really struggling with food addiction.

Eva (21:00):
And we celebrate everything in the world with food. We go out to eat. It's a special occasion.

Kami (21:07):
And it's also one of those things where you feel bad, you eat, you're celebrating, you eat.

Eva (21:15):
You feel good, you eat, you feel bad

Kami (21:17):
Yes, exactly.

Eva (21:18):
You're bored you eat?

Kami (21:21):
So I'll tell you guys, this week, I got a, I'm concerned about Kordelia's behavior message from her teacher. And lemme tell you, my daughter is going on eight. She'll be eight next month, less than a month. We have never received any kind of, I am concerned about her behavior message from any teacher, any daycare provider, anybody who's ever watched her ever. It really fucked me up emotionally and and I was like, I wasn't defensive with the teacher. I wasn't, but to myself, I was like, what the hell does she mean she's got a problem with my kid. This is all I'm thinking to myself. And I'm like, whoa, whoa. Pump the brakes. And I re read the message, and it was all about like, Hey, she's exhibiting some behavior that's totally out of character for her. I'm concerned. Let's talk about it. Right. It was all the perfect things that a teacher should be saying. She worded it beautifully. It was great. So I was like, all right, Kami, mama, just calm down. Right? Your kid's not like she's going to jail. She just has had a rough week. And part of it is the fact that she has homework now, and she's learning more complicated math, and she's the kind of kid that if she doesn't immediately grasp the concept the first time, she gets really frustrated with herself and doesn't want to try.

(23:13):
So my thought was, okay, if I have to talk to her about this and say, look, this is the concerns your teacher had, and let's talk it through. I was like, I should do it over some food that she really likes to eat. Because I was like, if she has to have bad feelings, at least she's eating something she really loves. That was where I went with it in my brain. And then I was like, okay, Kami, we're not doing that. But that was the first thought. The first thought was, oh, I'm going to take her to McDonald's, or I'm going to make her this noodles that she likes or whatever, and we're just going to sit down and eat and talk about it. So that, right? I was like, oh, no, we're not doing that. And my husband ended up talking to her and everything. I didn't even have to say anything about it. So he kind of just took the reins and handled it. But that was my plan until I snapped out of it. Part of me was shocked that I thought that. And the other part of me was like, well, that's your normal routine.

Eva (24:27):
Default state.

Kami (24:28):
Yeah. Isn't that crazy? Crazy. I was like, no, we're not. If we have to talk about something that's difficult, we're not going to do it over a bowl of ice cream or hot fudge sundae, or we're not doing that.

Eva (24:51):
So Kari's been doing a thing where last night it was chicken nuggets. And I made enough for both of them and a few extras, and I'm fine, you can eat all the protein you want, but what she does consistently is over serve herself the first time. So she'll put 12 chicken nuggets on her plate.

Kami (25:13):
Oh my God, I can't even eat that many.

(25:15):
I'll be like, Kari, just take five. Finish the five. There's more if you need more. But this pattern of giving herself too much from the very beginning is I've got to get it reversed.

Eva (25:31):
How old is she now? Remind me.

Kami (25:32):
Same as Kordelia. She just turned eight.

Eva (25:35):
Oh, okay. Yeah. So when you make it, you don't just give her the plate with the food on it, she gets it herself?

(25:42):
No, I do give her the plate most of the time I do. But what's funny about this is another side effect of the medication is that I just don't think about food, especially at night. And the kids need dinner.

Kami (25:56):
I know. Same here. I'm like, oh my God, wait a minute. I got, last night, I didn't even eat dinner. I just couldn't even, and then I was like, oh, wait, I got to feed my kid.

Eva (26:11):
Well, I'm off to Arizona tomorrow.

Kami (26:18):
Oh, okay.

Eva (26:21):
Working on

Kami (26:22):
Whatcha doing over there?

Eva (26:23):
Physical therapy podcast.

Kami (26:25):
Oh, nice.

Eva (26:26):
So we're recording live all day on Thursday. I met this team a couple of weeks ago, at least half of 'em, and it was wonderful. So we did their first recording here in Austin, and now we have four or five more on Thursday at a conference. And I actually am looking forward to getting out of town.

Kami (26:47):
Are you?

Eva (26:48):
Yeah. Yeah,

Kami (26:50):
Yeah. Oh, your hair looks good, by the way. I know you were off to get your hair colored and it's very blonde and fresh and beautiful.

Eva (26:58):
Yeah. I like this light.

Kami (26:59):
My hair is like a total fucking, sorry, I just totally derailed your conversation, but I put this toner on it and I don't like it. It's too beige. It needs to be brighter.

Eva (27:11):
I agree. It's a little dull.

Kami (27:13):
Yep.

Eva (27:14):
It's not quite sassy enough for you.

Kami (27:16):
Oh, no. So anyhow, so sorry. You're going to Arizona, Phoenix, or what?

Eva (27:24):
Phoenix. And then when I'm done, I'll go to my cousin's house and going to hang out with a friend from college. And then I'll see my mom's older sister, my Aunt Marsha, who we had do an entire podcast about her strange food and substance issues over the years. But every time I go over there, I think this is the last time. So that'll be Friday and they'll come home Friday night.

Kami (27:58):
Oh, okay. Well probably be nice to get away. Yeah. What are you going to eat while you're there?

Eva (28:06):
Well, I just texted my cousin last night before I went to bed. I was like, we got to find a great restaurant. But it's different. It's like you can just go enjoy the people and the place and not necessarily like,

Kami (28:20):
Well, you can still enjoy the food. I mean, you can still go and get something. You're just not, for me, it's like you can still go and enjoy whatever food it is that you want. I'm just not eating the entire plate plus a dessert. Plus the appetizers. Right. So,

Eva (28:43):
Well, what I'm looking forward to is wider than the food. It's the, it's the whole, it's actually seeing the people that I'm the most excited about.

Kami (28:53):
Yeah. That's why I like doing sushi, like smaller portions. And then I was like, oh, I can do one roll of sushi as opposed to two or maybe three.

Eva (29:02):
Oh, my husband and I used to go and we'd order five or six.

Kami (29:08):
Yeah. Yep. Definitely.

Eva (29:14):
Well, I'll see you next week.

Kami (29:17):
Okay. Well,

Eva (29:18):
I'll put the link to My Last Relapse in the show notes if anyone wants to listen. Yes. It's remarkable.

Kami (29:25):
I'm gonna listen to it.

Eva (29:26):
Nobody, there's no one I know who hasn't been touched by addiction in some way.

Kami (29:33):
Oh, completely.

Eva (29:35):
Hopefully we're helping people. And actually we put episode one out on Friday quietly with marketing, and we already have like 50 subscribers just over the weekend.

Kami (29:47):
Oh, nice.

Eva (29:47):
So something is happening with this show, so I'm excited to see where it goes.

Kami (29:51):
That's good. Yeah. I'm going to take a listen and shoot it out to all my social medias, even though I don't do a lot with social media, but I'll share it for sure.

Eva (30:02):
Okay.

Kami (30:02):
Okay.

Eva (30:03):
Love you.

Kami (30:04):
Love you.

Eva (30:07):
Follow us on Instagram @LessofYoupodcast. Are you confronting the same challenges and have a story to tell? I'd love to hear your story on our Skinny Shots Stories Podcast. Contact me for more details at skinnyshotstories.com. If you're a doctor and would like to learn more about sponsoring this or any of our cosmetic surgery and weight loss podcasts, go to lessofyou.com. Less of You is a production of The Axis, theaxis.io.