Category: health

Acceleration

Things at the hospital are starting to move faster and faster and we still really don’t know anything. It’s all somehow scary and sad at the same time. I don’t know what to do or feel or anything. I’m glad that I’m here though. Dad and Lisa and John will be here soon, but we still don’t have any actual facts.

This Week Has Sort of Sucked

Between me feeling sick for a few days and my mother going into the hospital with pneumonia and me dropping the ball on something at work for which I will never forgive myself and our new cat being very anti-social, it’s been a pretty crappy week. It’s only Thursday so you’d think there would be time to straighten everything out and salvage the week, but we’re going to a wake for a 20-something year old on Saturday and that is not exactly a day brightener, you know? We are picking up our new cat’s four month old kitten this weekend so hopefully that will lighten the mood a little. The cats were named Disco and Boogie but we are changing them to Robin (or Robin Sparkles) and Lily after two characters on How I Met Your Mother. Robin is mom and Lily is kitten, even though Robin and Lily were not related on the show. Give me a break, okay? It’s better than Disco and Boogie. I mean, I don’t want a kitten named for a synonym for snot.

I’m not sure what the issue was that made me feel sick. It was definitely stomach related, but it was different than the usual post-surgery stomach problems. I wonder if it just had to do with my eating schedule going down the crapper starting on Saturday and not clearing up until Wednesday. I had two stomach problems on Wednesday but they were the usual you-ate-too-fast-and-your-stomach-couldn’t-handle-it problems. Not a stomach ache that gets worse when you’re standing or laying down and gets better when you are sitting up straight. Yeah, I don’t get it. Hopefully that goes away and stays away.

My mother will be in the hospital into the weekend at least. They are giving her antibiotics for pneumonia and a UTI. On her second night they found that she was a little anemic but as of yesterday they haven’t figured out why yet. It’s all really scary and stressful, but we know she’s in good hands. We just need to put our faith in the hospital. I’m still worried though. My brother spent the day with her yesterday, and my sister will visit her today. I’ll be going back tomorrow. After that, I don’t know. There’s a chance she could be going back to the nursing home on Saturday. I don’t know how good of a chance, but there is a chance.

As for the cat, the two year old cat I mean, Robin Sparkles, she spent the first few days hiding, but she’s starting to do a little exploring now. She was very friendly to me for a while, but now she seems scared to death of me. I don’t know why, but I hope she gets over it. She’s more friendly to Jen, but still not too friendly. I want to give her a month or so to adjust before I pass judgement on her behavior. I’m curious to see how she behaves when the kitten gets here (on Sunday… or maybe Saturday if the stars align). When we first met them at the shelter, the kitten was the friendliest feline I’ve ever seen. Here’s hoping that hasn’t changed in the intervening week.

Okay, it’s 9:00am. Time to get to work. May your Thursday go better than my Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday have gone. Thumbs up, brothers and sisters.

Week 38 Weigh In

Well this one is going to be weird.

I’ve been sick for about three days. I haven’t been eating on a regular schedule, I haven’t been hitting all of my goals, I had two days without exercise, and I even missed my two doses of calcium yesterday. I woke up feeling okay this morning, which was a really nice change, and I expected to be down a little but I wasn’t hoping for much.

Way to read the room, Robert.

I was down A TON.

Last Wednesday’s weigh in was 235 pounds. Today was 227.8 pounds. A one week loss of 7.2 pounds. That is absurd. Utterly ridiculous. I expect to be up next week because 7.2 pounds is not normal or sustainable or good.

It is, from the tunnel vision point of view of weight loss, awesome though. Not because it’s a good thing, but because IT PUT ME OVER 200 POUNDS SINCE THE SURGERY! 203.6 pounds to be exact. YES YES YES YES YES!!!!!

Hitting 200 pounds since the first check in was amazing. Hitting 200 pounds since the surgery is so much better. I don’t know why that is, but it is. You’re just going to have to trust me on this one. TWO HUNDRED POUNDS SINCE SURGERY, BABIE!

So the 10’s column changed for my current weight, the hundreds column changed for loss since surgery, the 10’s column changed for total since first appointment, it’s now 224.2 pounds, and the BMI dropped almost a full point, from 28.6 to 27.7.

I mean… holy shit, boys and girls! Two hundred pounds in 38 weeks. I never even dreamed of this. Two hundred freakin’ pounds!

Back Under the Vanity

Well, the new cat is back under the vanity. Jen tried to coax her out of the bedroom and she got spooked by a noise from the dishwasher and back to the vanity she went. I am about to go and sit with her and try and get a response. I think we just need to be patient, that’s all. She’s a good kitty but she needs time to adjust. Poor little thing.

I took my father to see my mother today. It was rough. She was completely unresponsive. He held her hand for a while but she didn’t stir, not even a little. It’s heartbreaking and gut wrenching. I miss my mom.

I haven’t done any work today. I will, but I just can’t dredge up the motivation to get anything done. My stomach is bothering me. Sometimes when I feel this way having some food straightens me out for a while, but that doesn’t seem to be working right now. Crud. Also, it’s starting to snow.

Crud.

Sunday Morning

It’s 7:13am on a Sunday morning in January. What’s going on?

Tons. I’m going to have a busy day, I think.

My exercise is done for the day, as well as over 60% of my calorie goal. Nice. I am going to visit my father today and take him to visit my mother. I’m not going to have a ton of time to spend visiting though. I have to work today. I have a ton of paperwork to do that should have been done over the last week but got pushed aside due to some super hot customer issues. I’ll get as much of it done today as possible and get to the rest of it tomorrow. I’ll have it all done on time, but it’s going to make today suck a little.

What about the new cat? She started under the bed. We took one of the little covered cat bed/house things we got for Patches last year and put it into the bedroom. We also brought the cat tree we got for the cellar remodel and put that in the bedroom too. We sat in the room with her for a while but eventually just left her alone. Jen snuck back in to check on her and found her sitting in the cat bed/house. She called to me to come and see and when I called back the cat got spooked and ran into the bathroom and hid under the vanity. Sorry, kitty. She stayed there for hours, even when we left her alone again.

When we started getting ready for bed she was in the bed/house thing again. She stayed there the whole time. We thought that was an improvement. Around 2:30am Jen got up for something and managed to coax her out. She was purring like a porche and rubbing against our legs and just being super friendly. We got her to jump up onto the bed so we could pet the crap out of her. She seemed to love it. When we tried to lay down though she jumped off and tried to hide behind the cat tree. After a minute or so she ran out of the room and down the hall. I found her in the other bathroom crouching behind the door. When I moved the door a little she ran back to the bedroom and went back into the bed/house.

While she was walking around in the middle of the night, Jen was able to show her where the food and water and litter box are. We had all of it in the bedroom because we wanted them close so she could find them if she needed them. I am a little worried because I don’t see any signs that she’s eaten anything yet. We had dry food and lots of treats and we put them out for her, but I also went to a pet store to buy some toys (Patches didn’t really go for cat toys so we didn’t have any) and some wet food. I am going to put some of the wet food out this morning and see if she goes for it. We were told that she had surgery on Friday (she was spayed) so she might not have an appetite as she recovers. I just want to give her all the options we can though.

What else is going on? Music. Have I played the guitar at all this weekend? No, no I haven’t. Asshole. I am starting to think about recording ideas for RPM, even if I haven’t had a single musical thought. I am considering going with two amps at a time again. I have my Fender Deluxe Reverb here so that amp is going to be used like crazy. I might bring out my Fender Bassbreaker 18/30 and use it and the Deluxe Reverb together through the AB/Y splitter. It’s going to be pretty loud down here if I go this route, so I might try it to start with and then change my mind. The amps will be in a corner of the cellar that is as far away from the living room as I can get, and it’s reasonably far away from Jen’s office so hopefully it will be okay. If I bother her at all though, I’ll turn off the 18/30 and just go with the Deluxe. I have a speaker soak for the Deluxe so I can turn up the volume knob without getting obscenely loud. As for the guitar I want to use, it will be the Les Paul Standard again. I freakin’ adore that guitar. I will wait until either next weekend or the actual start of February before I put new strings on the guitar, but I really need to play at least a little bit every day to try and get my fingers into something that resembles playing shape.

Okay, I think that’s the gist of today. It’s time to start waking up for real and get something to eat. Happy Sunday, folks!

One Year (Sort Of) Weigh In

One year ago today I went to the weight loss clinic for the first time. I didn’t have a doctor’s appointment, I was just there to have some vitals taken. One of those vitals was my weight. That became my starting point for this whole crazy journey thing.

While that was one year ago today, I don’t really feel like it’s the appropriate date to use for the anniversary. I think the day I should really be using is May 4th, which is the day I actually went under the knife. I lost 20 pounds or so in the three plus months between that first check in and the surgery, and those 20 pounds are really important to me, but the point of all of this was the surgery and those three plus months and 20 pounds aren’t actually part of the surgery experience, you know what I mean? It’s all semantics, but little details like that are often important to my teeny tiny little brain.

So today is AN anniversary, but not really THE anniversary. It’s worthy of a bonus weigh in though. It also demonstrates why weighing in too often can lead to insanity. Yesterday was my regular weekly weigh in. I was down 2.4 pounds and that was lovely. I had a bad day food wise for the entire day so I didn’t eat much and I did stress a lot and I did manage to hit my exercise goals and all of that stuff. The result was that my weight is down 1.4 pounds since yesterday. 1.4 pounds in 24 hours. That’s ridiculous, right? I’ll probably have a perfectly normal day today and be up two pounds tomorrow. Fortunately I won’t be weighing in tomorrow.

BMI is down to 28.6 from yesterday’s 28.8. Total since surgery is now 196.4. I can practically taste 200. Given the date today, the important number for this post is the total weight loss over the last 365 days and it is a colossal 217 pounds on the nose. I know I’ve been the guy who actually lived through this first year of this… thing… but it is still almost impossible for me to wrap my brain around it. One year ago today I weighed 452 pounds and everything I did, every step, every breath, felt like it was going to be my last. Today I weigh 235 pounds and I literally feel alive again.

Who even am I?

Happy sort of Anniversary!

Week 37 Weigh In

Sorry this is a little late but the work day today has been insane. We’ve all been crazy busy. It’s almost 2:30 and I am just getting to break for lunch now. I woke up around 4:30am with stomach issues and they didn’t clear until after 8:00am. I was fine for a while, but they started coming back a little after noon. I am going to have myself a protein bar and see if that clears things up. Wish me luck.

As for the topic at hand, it is Wednesday and Wednesday is Weigh In Day. There was a wrinkle this week though and I almost skipped weighing in. Today is January 18, 2023. Tomorrow is the one year anniversary of my first weigh in at the weight loss clinic. I questioned whether I should weigh in today, tomorrow, or both. In the end I think I decided to do both. Why not, right? Tomorrow’s numbers won’t amount to much, but it will be fun to do anyway.

Today’s weigh in was pretty good. I am at 236.4 pounds. That is down 2.4 pounds from last week. If you recall, I was up 0.6 pounds last week, so today is down from the week before as well. It’s not a killer number, but it’s very good and I am quite pleased.

The total since the surgery on May 4th is creeping up closer to the magic number. I am at 195.0 pounds. That’s just a couple of good weeks away from historically amazing. The grand total since the first weigh in, one year ago tomorrow, sits at 215.6 pounds and I will never, ever stop being amazed by that. BMI moved the 10’s column again, dropping from 29.1 to 28.8. I think I am about 47 pounds away from dropping below 25, which will put me at a healthy BMI for the first time in my adult life. Maybe even the first time in my entire life. I am sort of feeling like reaching that goal is not going to happen now. Maybe I really am just big boned? Who knows.

Anyway, happy weigh in day. There will be another weigh in tomorrow… unless I’m up… then I might just pretend it didn’t happen. Ain’t I a stinker?

Back to Reality

Oh boy, is this a bummer.

It’s Monday. Vacation is over. It is time to get back to the week day routine. Crud.

I tried very hard to close all three of my activity rings over the course of the vacation. Unfortunately, on Thursday, our last park day, I hit a level of exhaustion that I don’t think I’ve ever hit before. I lost the ability to focus my eyes. It was scary. My stand and exercise rings were closed, but my activity (calorie) ring had quite a ways to go. It couldn’t be helped. I was thinking I was at the start of another migraine so I got into bed, buried my eyes under the pillow, and went to sleep with my third ring still open.

My success streak had come to an end, and over the next two days we were going to be in the car all day. I made the choice to just not worry about it until we got home. Then when we got home I was so out of sorts that I decided to take the weekend off too. Well, the weekend is over. It’s 6:48am and my exercise ring is closed. I jogged (pronounced “yog”, with a soft “J”) in place for 31.5 minutes which closed the exercise ring and 64% of the move ring. I plan to start lifting the hand weights a little again today too. I fell off that wagon months ago and it’s time to start that up again.

A couple of other points on this random Monday morning. Last night I watched the first episode of The Last of Us and HOLY CRAP was that good. So good. I am absolutely riveted. I never played the game so all I know of the story is from the trailer, but that was enough to know that the first half hour of the show was leading us directly to something gut wrenching and boy did it ever. I am so psyched for episode two next week. I am going to find every podcast covering the show that I can and queue them all up today. I am 100% on board with the hype.

I placed an order with the film lab I’ve been using, Old School Photo Lab in Dover, NH, on Saturday but I haven’t had a chance to drop the film in the mail yet. I was thinking of doing it this morning, but we got a little snow last night and I just don’t want to deal with it. Tomorrow will probably see me starting my work day super early, so maybe at lunch time tomorrow? Maybe at lunch today if the ice from last night melts a little. I haven’t checked the forecast yet. We’ll see. I have six rolls from Disney World and I want to see how they came out. I also have two rolls of black and white from around christmas that are going too. Once all of that is back I am going to slow down on the film for a while. I have a roll in progress in Dad’s camera that I would like to finish, and a roll in my camera that I haven’t taken the first shot with. That roll is going to sit there for a few months, I think. Once Dad’s roll is done I will take a couple of months off again.

Okay, it’s almost 7:00am. Time to go upstairs and start the day for real. My two week vacation is over. Pity me.