Even More Rear End Problems

Eva (00:06):
You are listening to Less of You. I'm Eva.

Kami (00:09):
My name is Kami.

Eva (00:10):
Come with us as we confront our reasons for being obese while losing weight on semaglutide and roasting our past selves.

Eva (00:18):
Yeah. Here comes 2025.

Kami (00:20):
What the hell. I don't know what's happening.

Eva (00:24):
Yeah, I don't know. I was feeling really sad about my girls not being babies anymore.

Kami (00:31):
Yeah? Why you feel sad about that? They're doing so good. They are growing up.

Eva (00:40):
I know, but it's just the end of anything, I always feel a little sad about. I'm not going to get it back.

Kami (00:47):
No, you're not. Which is why I just was like every single phase she goes through, I'm going to enjoy it, whether it's shitty or not, because you're never going to get a do over.

Eva (01:01):
Nope.

Kami (01:02):
So how was your Thanksgiving?

Eva (01:04):
Those kids from the army were so sweet. I didn't realize that one of them, because my niece kept calling them by their last names, cuz how they all talked to each other. So I had no idea if they were dudes, girls. It ended up being a girl and a guy and they were just so charming.

Kami (01:26):
Oh, that's nice.

Eva (01:28):
And they played with the kids all day. And then at the end of the day, we went to this Christmas lighting thing that we always go to. They were all wearing elf hats, cuz they found my stash of elf hats in the cabinet. And so I have all these pictures of them all hanging around the Christmas light place with the hats on and just being all around like kids. They were all like little kids.

Kami (01:49):
Oh, that's awesome.

Eva (01:50):
It was great.

Kami (01:51):
Good.

Eva (01:52):
Trying to think. So food wise.

Kami (01:54):
Yeah. Tell me about the food.

Eva (01:55):
All my stuff was fine. I don't care one way or another anymore. We talked about it before. I wasn't obsessing about all the things I was going to cook and eat and my usual binge list that I used to make and none of that. But I was hyper aware of the ingredients of the things that, I hope my sister-in-law doesn't listen to this show. I don't know why she would, but in the summertime,

Kami (02:21):
I always hope that none of my family members listen. But I know that they do.

Eva (02:26):
Your family members can listen, but I don't think she'll ever listen to this. And I hope nobody ever, who knows her. She was talking about, I've been listening to all these different podcasts about ingredients because it's been in the news a lot, toxic ingredients, toxic food, the food supply, the stuff in our food.

Kami (02:50):
No, it's all going to kill us, yeah.

Eva (02:51):
More aware of it. So in the summer she makes this recipe called berry cups and they're great. They're just crushed graham crackers, whipped cream and berries. It's super light and it's yummy and it's red, white and blue. So in July it's great. So a week before Thanksgiving, my husband and his brother were having a conversation about what should they bring? And I said the question of berry cups came up and I said, the berries are bad. Do it, they're really out of season right now. And I thought that was the end of it. No.

Kami (03:24):
Oh, it wasn't? Huh.

Eva (03:25):
Next time I'm going to have to say no, do not.

Kami (03:28):
Were they not good?

Eva (03:29):
I have plenty of dessert. So she made them anyway. She bought when I saw all the ingredients, and so what happened was as soon as the actual Thanksgiving meal was over, I needed a moment. I didn't want to jump right into cleaning up. And she went in the kitchen and got out my huge mixing bowl and started making them. And it was great value whipped topping from Walmart, great value cherry pie filling and pre crumbled graham cracker crumbs, which according to everyone who ate the berry cups at the end of this, was unnecessarily salty. So the flavor was wrong.

Kami (04:11):
Oh, weird.

Eva (04:13):
So I couldn't even bring myself, I didn't even want the kids to eat these. Even now, I don't even want to look up, what are the ingredients of great value whipped shopping from Walmart? I don't want to know.

Kami (04:23):
Yeah. Better not better just to live in denial and doesn't matter. Ignorance is list. Yeah. Yep.

Eva (04:30):
In the meantime, I'm like looking for where are the soy free organic pasture raised, free range eggs.

Kami (04:38):
Where are they? We need to know.

Eva (04:39):
Supposedly these are the ones that are the best and they're like $12 a dozen.

Kami (04:44):
It's like 14 bucks for one fucking egg. It's fine though. We're paying it. It's fine.

Eva (04:49):
I don't eat that much. It doesn't matter.

Kami (04:55):
That's what's happening. I see this is the future. Yeah.

Eva (04:58):
I tell myself supply and demand. If I continue to demand better food, they're going to make it cheaper.

Kami (05:05):
I love your optimism. I don't know if that's how corporations work, but we can hope. Speaking of chickens, my mom, did I tell you that my mom wants to get chickens? I think we've talked about this at one point.

Eva (05:21):
No, I don't recall the Deborah.

Kami (05:24):
Yeah, she doesn't, I mean, her heart's in the right place as it always is. She thinks that she gets these chickens, she gets free eggs. But what I'm trying to tell her is, okay, you're going to do a lot of work and you have to cleaning up chicken shit is no fucking joke. You have to get in there and scrape it off. It's a lot of work. I just don't see her in a chicken coop on her hands and knees scraping chicken shit off the side of the fucking thing. She's not going to do that. And I really hope that she calls me when she listens to this because

Eva (06:04):
Passive aggressive much.

Kami (06:09):
This is my truth. Well, I did tell her no, she knows how I feel about it. I told her, I said, I mean, this is a cute idea. In the city limits, she can have up to four chickens. Just go to the store and buy the eggs. And if you really find someone else that has them that you can just buy from them because I can guarantee you they have more than they would ever need.

Eva (06:28):
That's the way.

Kami (06:29):
And then I'm like, what's going to happen when it's the middle of winter and you need to want to come out here for Christmas? What are you going to do? Then you got to pay someone to take care of the chickens. So you're not saving money. That's not how that's going to work. Now, if you are crazy animal lover and you don't really travel and you want to keep your chickens in your yard, more power to you or you're going to sell 'em to people at the farmer's market, that's not, she's just not going to do that. Anyways, that's my little spiel about chickens. My Thanksgiving was amazing. It was everything I thought it could be. I made enough food to feed probably 50 people and there was 12 people coming. So I overdid it as per usual. And I still was worried up until the day and cooking everything and putting it all out that I was still not going to have enough food. And my dad's looking at me, are you crazy? So I was like, dad, are you sure this is enough? And he's like, what? So my side dishes were all in nine by 13 pans, four of them, nobody even ate half of one. We didn't even, two pies, a Turkey, my husband did the Turkey, mashed potatoes, Waldorf salad. And then we had the appetizers, which was all fruits and veggies and meat and cheese and crackers. And then I did a baked bri, and then I did these really good Parmesan encrusted walnuts that I did in the oven. Oh my God, they'll knock your socks off. They're so good. And I ate probably a couple of bites of every single thing just because I wanted to try it. My green bean casserole thing was not great. That was the only one that was a flop. But everything else was amazing.

Eva (08:11):
All right.

Kami (08:14):
And I still lost a pound, so I figured, well, that's a first. That is a first. And I turned, well from my last call, it was my birthday, so I turned 45 and my body went to shit because let me tell you what's going on here. So I dunno if you can see this. I have this patch on my shoulder. It's an icy hot patch, because sleeping is dangerous when you're over 45.

Eva (08:42):
This is true.

Kami (08:43):
Just sleeping. Woke up and I thought everything's cool. And then I tried to move and my body was like, Ooh, yeah, we're not going to do that. We're not going to with the movement. And yeah, I'm just going to seize up on you. Okay, because why not? So I've been in excruciating pain for the last three days, and then I decided this is where it went wrong. I thought, you know what? I'm going to take a shower, maybe the hot water. I've got the massager shower head thing. I was like, I'll put that on, it's fine. And when I was in the shower, I was like, Kami, you should wash your hair because of all the places, this is the place that you should wash your hair in the shower. That was a thought that I had, and so I went with it. When I put my arms up to rinse the shampoo out, let me tell you, I felt like everything from my ear to my elbow froze solid.

Eva (09:43):
Oh.

Kami (09:44):
It was, everything seized. Kordelia, of course, she can't, when I'm in the shower, that's her time to talk to me.

Eva (09:53):
Right.

Kami (09:53):
It's the best time to have conversations with mom. And she's like, I said, okay. And so she comes in, she's like, whatcha doing? Having a parade, I'm in the shower. So I said, okay, you need to go get dad. And she's like, why are you okay? I'm like, I just need you to go get your daddy. Okay? So she goes and gets him, and I was like, my shoulder just seized. I have conditioner in my hair. I can't.

Eva (10:21):
What was wrong with your other arm?

Kami (10:23):
My left arm?

Eva (10:24):
Yeah.

Kami (10:26):
I'm very right-handed. I can't just couldn't help. I needed to help. So I said, you need to rinse the conditioner out of my hair. I scrubbed everything and got out, and this was last night. And so today I've been doing exercises and staying up on my ibuprofen and it's been, but at what point do I go to the doctor and say, can you help me?

Eva (10:52):
You don't. You can't. No. I've had for frozen shoulder twice. I've had it on first the right.

Kami (10:57):
Is that what you think it is?

Eva (10:58):
I don't know, but I'm just telling you they can't do anything because this, I know because

Kami (11:03):
For you, is it muscular or is it like your joints? It's muscular, right?

Eva (11:07):
No, it's the ligaments or muscles or some combination of both. And then,

Kami (11:11):
Okay. You could have even seen there was a bump right here at the top of my shoulder. It was that. It was a hard ball. It was awful.

Eva (11:19):
Wow. No, I am in the middle of frozen shoulder on the other side now.

Kami (11:26):
Oh, good. That's great.

Eva (11:27):
When I finally got someone who actually was telling me the truth, instead of trying to get me to come back for expensive recurring appointments, the orthopedic surgeon said, oh yeah, there's nothing they can do about that. You just have to wait. Oh, thanks.

Kami (11:43):
That's so good. Yeah, and I can tell that my glasses, my prescription needs to be redone because I can start to see that I can't.

Eva (11:53):
Oh, no.

Kami (11:55):
Read that well with my glass. I know, I feel sorry too.

Eva (11:59):
I need new glasses too, but it's falling off my face because my face is smaller.

Kami (12:08):
That's so good. Oh my God. What are your numbers, babe? I got on yesterday. Since you're losing so much weight and your glasses are too big for you now, what or where are we at?

Eva (12:18):
I've been eating a lot of cookies. So I was on the scale yesterday and it was 192 again, so I went back up. Oh, you're fine. From 189 to 192.

Kami (12:27):
That's not even that much though. I mean, that's not like you're always going to fluctuate. And I do that too, where it's like I'll get on and then three days later it'll be like four pounds down. You know what I mean? I wouldn't worry about that.

Eva (12:39):
The sugar is a big deal. If I'm eating sugar, nothing is happening. And then I start thinking, I'm spending $500 a month to eat sugar and not lose weight. So why doesn't the financial part motivate me at all to just not eat any sugar?

Kami (12:56):
That never worked for me either, quite frankly.

Eva (12:59):
No, it doesn't. It doesn't work.

Kami (13:01):
No, I'm still at 20 5. I dunno if that's what I was.

Eva (13:05):
Yeah,

Kami (13:06):
Last time we talked.

Eva (13:07):
Well, you're going to catch up to me really fast.

Kami (13:09):
Yeah.

Eva (13:14):
Did you see anyone at Thanksgiving that hadn't see you in a while?

Kami (13:14):
Yeah. A couple people, a family friend of ours, so her parents and my parents are very close friends, and so we were all close when we were real little, and then you go your separate ways. And that was before social media was invented, and nobody kept track of each other anyways, so yeah, she hadn't seen me in a couple of years, and so she was like, wow, you look great. I'm like, thanks. Of course she's like this big around and just gorgeous.

Eva (13:41):
I'm still, I'm very frustrated with myself for not being able to get to the gym or even walk around the block. I was going to do it this morning, and then I was like, I don't want to.

Kami (13:51):
That's been hard for me. I know that movement is better than not. So it's like even if I walk around my neighborhood a few times, it's better than not walking around my neighborhood. So it's on my list, but then it's like, oh God, I just don't like doing it when it's so cold outside and then I'm pissed and then I'm irritated.

Eva (14:11):
Well, yeah, the weather has been kind of crappy. It hasn't been nice walking weather at all.

Kami (14:16):
Well, yeah, but it's not so bad in Texas, though, right?

Eva (14:20):
I don't know that I've been, it's better today, but it's been like you know 40 and raining. It hasn't been nice. I had to go back to the GI, did I ever tell you about this, that I had no management of your digestive system is really important on this medication, and you can't really let it go. You really have to pay attention if things aren't moving through every single day. You put yourself at risk for really serious stuff, so you just have to pay attention. It was my only advice, but I had persisting issues from having kids. Like during summer, I think we had an episode called More Rear End Problems where we were discussing this, and so mine kind of went away, and then they kind of came back and they would just kind of come and go, and so you just sort of limp along, like I'm fine. But then all of a sudden I was not fine. And I was like, this is probably too much pain to be in on a daily basis. So it'd start, of course, in the morning when you go through your routine, and then I would turn into two to four hours of very, I would say on the pain scale that it was a seven.

Kami (15:37):
Oh damn.

Eva (15:38):
Interruptive, really disruptive to my life.

Kami (15:40):
Oh, that's not great.

Eva (15:41):
And then it wears off. I would take a bunch of Advil and then take a bunch of Tylenol and then go away. And my doctor wasn't really being helpful and I was getting frustrated with her, and I finally said, okay, this is really serious. We need to do something different. So she got me a more urgent referral after the first referral to the GI where they were like, you can come in January. I was like, yeah, no.

Kami (16:10):
Why do they even, I don't even understand this. I'm like, I have an urgent issue and you're telling me not to come in for two months. Is this?

Eva (16:20):
They were not sending the correct information through the system. So my doctor was just, I will say she was being kind of dense, I think. First of all, I discovered at the end of this that she'd been prescribing the wrong medicine the whole time. So for six months I've been using the wrong thing that would not heal it. So strike one. And then she thought that the correct next step was a colonoscopy. So that's what she was sending the referral for, and that's not what the issue was. So the GI people don't know that that's not what's going on. They just think it's the standard, non urgent thing.

Kami (16:57):
Yeah. And so they're like, yeah, you'll be fine. Come January. Oh my God.

Eva (17:01):
So I finally get the right referral and I get on the cancellation list and she calls the day before Thanksgiving, it says, can you come in tomorrow? Two days before, and she said, can you come in tomorrow? And I said, yes, yes I can.

Kami (17:15):
Nice.

Eva (17:15):
I don't care what I have to clear off my books. I'm going to go in and get this done. And you know that area of your body to be excited about that appointment, you got to be really in trouble.

Kami (17:26):
Like you're really hurting.

Eva (17:27):
Please help me. I was sitting on my old friend here at the donut. I just keep it right here by my desk.

Kami (17:38):
Nice.

Eva (17:39):
I was sitting on it every day again, and it is just like, this is not normal. This has to be fixed. So anyway, I go, this is not a plastic surgery office, you guys have to understand, I'm used to the nicest plastic surgery. Most beautiful, luxurious hotel looking medical practices, have been going to these places my whole career. When I have to go to a regular doctor's office, I'm like, oh, do I have to touch anything in here?

Kami (18:10):
Is it like the ghetto?

Eva (18:12):
Nothing matches.

Kami (18:16):
Oh, you poor thing.

Eva (18:18):
They have magazines.

Kami (18:19):
And they're like probably 10 years old. They've been sitting there so long.

Eva (18:25):
I'm not reading them.

Kami (18:27):
Don't touch them.

Eva (18:31):
So my pain level is motivating me. So I go, I'm filling out all the paperwork, get to the parts, where am I telling the truth today? I was like, the question about smoking, did you ever smoke? How long? And I told the truth, and then later I realized this was a huge mistake, not because I told the truth, but the MA calls me in and I hand off the paperwork. There was one really cool thing that happened right away, which was she said, let's get your weight. And I immediately, I was like, oh, I'm reacting the way I always did. No, I don't want to do that. I went right to the place where I didn't want to get on the scale thinking about I got to take off my sweatshirt, I got to take off my socks and my shoes so I don't weigh that extra pound.

(19:22):
And then I went, oh wait, I don't have to worry. And I just jumped right on it and I was like, ha, got you, scale.

Kami (19:34):
Oh, nice.

Eva (19:35):
So we go in and sit down. She's got another MA with her. I can't figure out who they are. They never said, I'm, this is my name and this is my job and I'm going to be, and then the other one never said and I'm training her because she's new. So I watched this woman who's obese, extremely obese, and likely in her seventies, take my paperwork and start entering it into the EMR. And it's not a nice office, so she's hunched over the screen. She can't see me sitting in the chair, cuz she's behind the computer screen, but she's typing like this. And then she picks up, this goes on for 20, 25 minutes.

Kami (20:19):
Oh God.

Eva (20:20):
The other MA's trying to help. And so as this progresses, I'm starting to plan my escape route. Because I'm thinking, there's no way up from here. This is going to keep getting worse. Someone's going to come in here and want to look at my butt and I'm going to freak out and I'm going to run away and I'm going to have to find a new doctor and start over. And so I realized the other MA is trying to be helpful and keep my train on the track. So she keeps looking at me with this very nice look like, she's like, it's going to be okay. At one point, the old lady, MA turns around and goes, how do you spell magnesium? And the gal goes, tells her, and then she says, are you sure there's not a Z in it? And so I was like, no, I got to go. I got to go. I'm just going to get up and say I'm not comfortable with this situation and I'm going to go back and talk to my doctor and start over. I'm sorry, I don't mean to. I'm planning the whole thing.

(21:24):
And the PA comes in and when I tell you, this is not the most beautiful woman I've ever seen: She was gorgeous. And I'm looking at her, what are you doing here?

Kami (21:38):
You're too pretty to work here.

Eva (21:40):
Why is this your job? She's so competent. She's such a good communicator. She's like a textbook, absolutely perfect PA. Any surgeon I know would be over the moon to have this girl working for them. She was a impeccable. So she helps me out. She tells me it's been the wrong medication. I'm going to get you fixed right up. It's not going to be, she's like, you're going to be really happy. And indeed, that's what happened. It was not even one day before I was like, this is working and this is getting better. I could tell right away that it's working.

Kami (22:21):
Oh, that's wonderful.

Eva (22:22):
But on the way out, I said to her, have you ever thought about working in plastic surgery? She goes, actually, yeah, I've applied for a couple of jobs. Do you know anyone? And I'm like.

Kami (22:35):
Oh my God.

Eva (22:35):
Yeah.

Kami (22:38):
I might know some people.

Eva (22:42):
She said, don't tell anyone here.

Kami (22:45):
Don't worry.

Eva (22:48):
So it had a happy ending and everything worked out fine. She said, you don't need to come back for a colonoscopy until this is better. It would literally kill you if we tried to do that right now. I was like, thank you. I love you.

Kami (23:03):
Oh my gosh.

Eva (23:04):
So yeah, there you go. More rear end problems part two, six months later.

Kami (23:09):
Yeah. Well, I'm glad you're on the right kind of medication for Christ's sake. What the heck?

Eva (23:14):
That weird part is, it's a compounded, so it's like their own recipe. It has nitroglycerin and lidocaine in it, and the nitroglycerin makes you feel high. So if you use too much, it takes a little while to come down. I was at church a couple days after this happened and I mentioned it to my friend Carly, who's an L and D nurse. So she's seen it all. She's delivered a gazillion babies and has her babies. She had the same problem, but hers was way worse.

Kami (23:48):
Oh no.

Eva (23:49):
But I was like, oh, now I know why people stick drugs in their butt. She was like, totally.

Kami (23:59):
That's so good. So good. Oh honey, I'm glad your butt hole's feeling better, babe. That's important.

Eva (24:07):
To all my friends from college who are listening to this tragedy. Please don't ever bring it up.

Kami (24:15):
Oh my God, that is so good. Oh, speaking of babies, my friend Trish that I told you might the pregnant girl, she had her baby.

Eva (24:24):
Oh, good.

Kami (24:25):
Thursday, I think.

Eva (24:26):
Yeah. A freshie.

Kami (24:29):
Yep, a freshie. He's so stinking cute. I'll text you his pictures so, so cute. His name's Devin. He was six pounds, 13 ounces. She had a natural childbirth. She did have the epidural because she wasn't progressing, but then she was able to get it done, which is more than I can say for myself. So that's good.

Eva (24:50):
Another fun thing I did for myself kind of as a Christmas present to myself was there was a stylist, I never do this, but there was, when you go to an event and they give you all the bag with all the cards of all the things, the people trying to promote their stuff, there was a wardrobe kickstart in there. And she'll come over to my house for four hours, help me clean out the closet, but also help me with the shopping plan.

Kami (25:16):
Oh, that's great.

Eva (25:17):
So I signed up for that.

Kami (25:18):
That is really cool. Well save all your stuff because everything you sent me in case anybody is in need to catch up, Eva sent me a box of clothes and it had to be a dozen pairs of jeans and six or eight tops or something like that. Everything fit great. I'm super, super excited. I was like, oh, I have clothes that actually fit me and are falling down as I walk. So that was awesome. Yep. There's a couple of pairs of jeans that are a little bit snug, that'll be a little bit more comfortable and probably about 10 pounds. But other than that, everything was perfect.

Eva (25:53):
That's great. I am so thrilled that you could actually wear them. I weren't helping anybody in a bin at my house.

Kami (26:01):
I know that's perfect.

Eva (26:02):
Yesterday I went shopping by myself for quite a long time and I tried on a lot of jeans. I've been really frustrated that even the stretchy ones, they'll fit when I get them. They'll fit for an hour and then they start falling down.

Kami (26:16):
Yeah, I hate that.

Eva (26:16):
And my butt's gone, so I don't have anything to hold them up. So I spent a lot of time trying on jeans yesterday, and I landed in Good American super high rise. They feel like pajamas. But it was like a four hour project. Was it? I was really over it when by the time I was done.

Kami (26:35):
I can imagine. You're like, oh, this is the worst.

Eva (26:38):
Yeah. I couldn't keep buying jeans online. I get tricked, I think by some of my Stitch Fix stuff. It'll fit when I try it on and then I'll be like, oh, the fits, I'll keep it. But if I was in the store wouldn't keep it, why am I keeping it

Kami (26:52):
Right.

Eva (26:53):
Yeah. And all of that, all of it's still going to come your way.

Kami (26:56):
So good. Yay.

Eva (26:57):
It makes me feel better about it. Yep. They convinced me to both tuck a shirt in, have not tucked in a shirt in decades.

Kami (27:08):
I haven't either. That's not really my style. But when you're doing fancy work with fancy people.

Eva (27:14):
And it looked good. And then I also, what else did they convince? I tried on a belt. I did not buy a belt. I left the belt there.

Kami (27:27):
Oh yeah. I've got a couple of jeans that I'll have to wear belt with. They're like boyfriend style, so it's supposed to be loosey goosey and if I don't wear a belt, they'll fall right down.

Eva (27:37):
The lady at Nordstrom told me the wide legs are on their way out, so

Kami (27:41):
Shut up. Really?

Eva (27:43):
I mean, I think what she was saying was the extreme ones

Kami (27:48):
Oh, yeah.

Eva (27:50):
Beacuse, people only a certain body type can wear it. It's just like.

Kami (27:55):
Yeah, I do have some wide leg jeans that I really love, but the other part for me, I'm like, I'm always worried that I'm going to trip over them, eat shit down the stairs or something. So the ones I have are more like a true straight leg and not the really wide ones, but.

Eva (28:16):
So I just dunno how practical it is for me to own a pair of $200 jeans if I can only wear them with boots and I live in hot weather. The practical me was like, no.

Kami (28:29):
Well can you roll 'em up and make 'em cropped? See, that's what I do with jeans.

Eva (28:33):
But now I know what size and what cut, so I just have to find some straight legs and swap 'em out.

Kami (28:38):
There you go.

Eva (28:39):
Yeah. Anything else on your mind?

Kami (28:42):
I don't think so.

Eva (28:43):
Okay. Well I'll see you on Friday.

Kami (28:46):
Alright, sounds good.

Eva (28:48):
Love. Love. Bye. Bye.

Kami (28:50):
Bye Bye.

Eva (28:53):
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 Shot 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.