forgetting to remember

With LOG still in the hospital, it's been easy to forget about doing nice things for yourself.

On the way into the hospital the other evening, I twisted my ankle.

Because we've been in and out of the hospital, or at least that's what I'm blaming it in, I can't seem to shake the last of my cold.

And, oh yeah, in the last 48 hours, we've watched LOG go from doing really well but sleeping too much, to a move into the step-down unit complete with dopamine and blood transfusions to try to bring his blood pressure back up from dangerously low levels (around this time, we had the serious funeral discussions for the second time in a week) to sitting with him for 45 minutes while he smile, chatted, joked, harassed the nurses and complained about the lack of rugelach in the hospital.

It's a roller coaster people. I'm about ready to jump off but I keep hanging on, hanging on and waiting for the weekend when I might be able to snag a couple of extra hours of sleep. *fingers crossed*

biggest loser losers

I am so a fan of the biggest loser, really. I watch it all the time, I even like the little "mini loser" special editions that they have been doing over the past few months.

Yesterday, I read Erin's post about Suzy & Matt. Sincerely, I couldn't agree more with her. I too signed up for the mailing list and I too was disgusted by the "So, just goes to show...in coupledom, if you lose a lot of weight, you can gain a lot of love...." statement.

Imagine how disgusted I felt when I opened my email tonight and saw "Wow! Matt and Suzy Engaged on Today!" in the subject line of an email. Puleeze folks, give me strength!! There are few things that I hate more publicity stunt marriages. I guess marriage just means a little more to me than that. I'm sure that NBC will pay for a big ass wedding for them. I wonder if, a few years down the road, they'll pay for a divorce too.

third time's a charm

Well not exactly a "charm" per se but on the third try this morning, I found a pair of tights that would a) stay up and b) not allow my big toe to pop out.

I'm having a weird day. Not bad I suppose, busy, definitely, not entirely good either though. The tights thing was just the start...well, sort of not quite the start. The day started off with me hitting the snooze bar too many times and then I scrambled the rest of the morning. The tights thing was just the universe's little way of telling me that I should have worn slacks today.

Work's been insanely busy today and I shouldn't probably be taking a break but I needed one so I did. I brought my lunch today, all healthy and stuff. I even baked my multi-grain bread over the weekend so I had some of that for my sandwich. Of course, when I'd finished eating and went to throw my lunch sack into my bookbag, I accidentally picked up my unzipped bag by the bottom. Somehow, only about 1/2 of the contents spilled under my desk but still, that's 1/2 too many, yanno?

So we'll see how this week goes. I'm easing back into things slowly. Taking the eating one day at a time. I figure I'll work in the exercise back in slowly too. I still feel like I have a bit of the head cold so I'm still moving a little slower than normal. Slow but sure wins the race, right?

survived

I think that all of three of us feel like survivors right now. LOG seems to have gotten through this latest serious illness without any permanent damage and we both got through it, somehow.

Last week, the pair of us were really sick with the flu. This week, what with the all-nighter in the emerge we've been getting through in a zombie like fashion. We've worked when we can, slept whenever possible, spent a huge chunk of the small amount of time that we get at home, on the phone, giving folks updates. There is also the issue of food. Ah food, wouldn't life be easier if we didn't have to deal with that? We've basically survived on sandwiches and take out. It's not been good, at all. Yesterday afternoon, we both quit work at mid-day and went to the hospital. After we visited LOG, we took a run to Costco. It felt good to be stocking up on salad, veggies, healthy stuff for sandwiches, cereal, staples really. Stuff we'd let run down between us being sick and then not being home. Today, we're planning to spend some time at the hospital and then taking a run to Produce Town. We need a few more odds and ends of stuff we couldn't get yesterday.

I also hope to carve out a few hours of "me" time today. My legs and feet have been absolutely killing me over the past few days and I know that my shoes are worn out. Both my everyday work shoes and my black runners (that I wear constantly). There is a Payless almost right across the street from Produce Town so I plan to pop in there for a bit. I also plan to soak in the tub for an hour before we go anywhere. Right now, I'm just waiting for my hunny to wake up. He needs the sleep and I don't want to start filling the tub and wake him up.

I had to laugh a little yesterday. A lovely woman I work with asked me if I'd lost more weight (she knew about my efforts earlier in the year and noticed the results). I was honest with her, told her that we'd been eating crap and that I hadn't been on a scale in a while but was sure that it had gone the other way. She disagreed and said that it looked to her like I was down a little more but I'm sure I'm not. At this moment, I just cannot bring myself to find out for sure and step on the scale. Maybe on Monday but not today.

Now that LOG is mending, we can take some time and try to mend ourselves, rest up, recharge, eat good food, be nice to ourselves basically. Goodness knows we haven't done much of that this week.

optimistic

LOG's doing much better today.

I tell ya, he scared the crap out of us but he seems to be on the mend again. It's been quite the roller coaster.

Today, he's breathing on his own, he can talk a little bit. He's still very weak but the anti-biotics are really doing their thing and they hope to get him back on his regular meds tonight (his heart rate is a little wonky because he's been off his regular meds for a few days now).

So, it's good news. Hopefully he'll be home soon. We're so relieved and drained though. Several times over the past few days, I really figured that by today (Friday), we'd be in Toronto, having a funeral for him. Sometimes I think he's like a cat with 9 lives!

One sort of funny in a "holy shit this is a small town" kind of way... I discovered this afternoon that the man in the bed next to LOG is the father-in-law of a friend of mine. He fell the other night and broke his hip. He and Joe are roommates right now while he recovers from surgery. This really is a small town!

not good news

I haven't had a lot of time to be in front of the computer this week.

LOG is back in the hospital and this time, we're not sure that he's going to bounce back. He's had a cold for a couple of weeks now and at the beginning of this week, it developed into pneumonia. This isn't good. The oxygen levels in his blood are very very low. He's not really conscious but they are pumping him full of anti-biotics and keeping him on oxygen. He's not on a ventilator but he's really struggling. We're not sure how long he'll hang on like this. There is also a concern that if the anti-biotics do their thing and knock the pneumonia, that he'll have suffered some permanent brain damage because of the low oxygen.

Waiting and seeing is all we can do right now. I've been going into the office for a few hours here and there. It keeps my mind off of things for a little while any. Fortunately, the hospital is directly across the street from my office so that does make things easier.

When LOG first moved to town and got set up in his little apartment, I got him a plant. The plant lived in a really sunny spot and it thrived. It quickly out grew it's tiny pot and I had to repot it for him. When he moved into our house, the plant continued to do well and we kept it in his bedroom for him. Last summer, when LOG moved into the long-term care facility, the plant moved with him. It had a fabulous, sunny spot on his window sill. It was really huge and green and healthy looking.

A couple of weeks ago, I noticed that some of the leaves had started to turn yellow. On Monday, when we were there to visit him, I saw that someone had pruned the plant for LOG. They had really cut it back and it was down to one or two small vines. Last night as I lay in bed thinking about all kinds of things to do with this particular situation, I remembered the plant and how it seemed really connected to LOG. When he was healthy, the plant thrived. Now, that he's not doing so well, the plant isn't either. It's probably just a really strange coincidence but it's been on my mind a lot.

I'm not sure when I'll have a chance to post again but I really wanted to pop in and let you all know what was going on.

suddenly, seymour

do you ever, for no apparent reason, start singing songs from "Little Shop of Horrors" in your head? No? I didn't think so. As I opened this entry and started to type, I thought, "finally, friday." That soon switched to "suddenly, seymour." I'm a little over-tired I guess, I feel punchy and weird.

Honestly though, I felt better today than I had all week. I had to make several trips up and down multiple sets of stairs today and my back didn't scream at me too loud. I have to take them slowly and I do find that my back tires me out easily but at least I can get comfortable most of the time, when I'm seated at my desk.

My new job is going well. Slowly, very slowly, I'm able to get rid of more and more tasks from my old job and I'm starting to get a feel for how things work in the new one. It's a big adjustment though. It would have been easier to make the transition had I not had to keep all of these "old" tasks but, it's going as well as can be expected.

Because of the sickness and the back thing, I haven't done "intentional" exercise this week but my eating hasn't been horrible. I haven't tracked stuff on Fitday but I know that I'm doing okay. For breakfast and lunch, I eat pretty much the same thing each day, the variety comes with dinner and I know how much I can reasonably eat. Also, I've not done any after-dinner snacking, I'm still pretty much off the pop (I did have one diet coke this week - it was sort of flat and not very good) and I don't think I had any coffee this week (maybe one cup on Sunday morning but I'm not sure). I'm definitely drinking lots of water so all hope is not lost. This week was absolutely closer to "on plan" than last week was. Overall, I'm feeling good, glad to be mending, relieved that the sickness is almost gone, grateful for the weekend so I can rest... and I plan to do that a lot this weekend, hope you can too!

hopes

I had hopes of getting 100% back on plan this week. I had hopes of sticking to the promises I had made to myself earlier this year, to post every work day, to work out, to eat in a sensible, healthy way.

Sadly, on Sunday morning, I woke up sick. As a dog. I was off work both Monday and Tuesday and, in addition to being sick, my back was driving me crazy, part of the sickness I'm learning. Whatever the kickass bug is that everyone in our community has, got into our house and we both felt like hammered shit for a few days. Honestly, even today I'm not 100%. I have not exercised this week. Eating hasn't been a big problem because of the nausea. I've been eating when I'm hungry and stopping when I'm full. Fortunately, this is not causing me to overeat. I'm hoping that this continues once I'm fully recovered.

The only good thing that I can possibly thing to say about the whole illness thing is that I'm down a pound this week (of course, I kept weighing myself, sick stomach, sore back and all). That's the first movement I've seen on the scale in a few weeks so that's a total of 23 pounds since January 4. I'm pleased about that, really pleased. I intend to take it very easy this weekend, to rest up and recover. Hopefully, by Monday, I'll be back to normal, back on my plan.

5 minutes

I feel a little guilty, stealing five minutes like this, for non-work related activities but sometimes you just have to do it.

Right now I'm at work and I've been working full-stop all week. It's busy, the kind of busy that just whirls around you until your head spins.

To focus in a significant way on diet and exercise just doesn't seem possible but it's in the back of my mind always. I think this is a good thing.

This week though, my period arrived, about a week late, so it's kicking my butt. I've also eaten a bunch of those little chocolate easter eggs this week, not good. Hopefully, things with my new job will be settled shortly and I'll be able to stop doing my old job (I'm sort of half-juggling both jobs at the moment). When that happens I'll have more time for me, and more time for this journal.

In the meantime, I'm just doing the best I can do. If that means I maintain, I'll just have to settle for that, for now...but not for long.

Happy weekend kiddos!

present

Just in case you think I may have dropped off of the face of the earth, I haven't. I'm still here. I'm just really fucking busy.

It's kind of crazy actually. I've started my new job, am still doing my old job (a large chunk of it anyway) and I've had two 1/2 days of software training in the midst of it all. Needless to say, I'm having a hard time keeping my head above water so I haven't had much time to post.

Things are hit and miss right now. Exercise isn't consistent, eating is up and down. I'm not worrying too much about it, I can't. I hop on the scale every couple of days and it's not moving, up or down, so I'm just hanging in until work settles down. Home stuff has been busy too so it's a potentially lethal combo.

Anyway, I'm here right now, hopefully I'll be back to posting regularly soonish. Hope you're all doing well. I miss reading how you're all doing but hope to get caught up on my blog reading this weekend.