Mayday

Ah, my poor neglected blog.  I abuse you with whining.

The progress on the weight front is stalled.  I still check into Sparkpeople, but I have not logged my food intake since before we went to Vermont in April. My weight loss was up to ten pounds, but has settled back at seven pounds.  At least the loss I've made is holding steady.  If I keep grazing on snacks, it will not.  I exercise very little these days, I simply am in pain all the time.  Low level pain, but it saps my energy, and hence my motivation to move.  Immobility creates low mood and stiffness, so I know I need to get up and do something, anything.  I need to get out.  I need people, face to face.  It isn't happening.  

Why pain?  This seroma sitting on my new abdominal mesh pulls and pinches constantly.  Hanging down, it jounces when I do water aerobics, walk, or stand.  I can't even lie on my tummy or back.  Sex is a chore of finding least painful positions.  The size of a grapefruit, the seroma sits just under the skin.  The surgeon aspirates it a couple times a month, but it yields very little fluid.  The needle aspiration doesn't hurt, but it isn't pleasant and results in ugly bruising.  More surgery would only bring more risk and complications.  This alien bump is draining my joy for life, and my motivation to do even the most basic chores.  

Oh yes, and then there's perimenopause.  Which means I haven't stopped my periods, but I have begun some of the less fun stages.  Crap.

I'm afraid if I talk to a doctor about my mood and mood swings, I'd be given drugs.  I don't think this general malaise is strictly brain chemicals, I can pinpoint what I'd doing to create my own personal hell.  I don't want pills to dig me out of it.  I've had them, I hate them. Too easy to lean on them and not feel human.  How depressed is too depressed?  Some? Any?  None?  Can't I just feel sad and frustrated with my current situation?  Because this won't last, it can't last.  I know there is always a light at the end of any tunnel.  I just am seriously annoyed with the cobwebs and trudging toward my happy place.

Ah, progress.

So things are going along as they do in mid-winter. Meh.

Tooth is fine, healing over. I still have a divot, but otherwise the mouth is fine.

I have lost a solid and respectable 7 pounds. Sparkpeople is working well for me. I am cheating the weekends a bit, bad me! I also have a heart rate monitor now, and it does help on the gazelle. I haven't tried my new walking poles yet.

Had my annual checkup. Got scolded for not taking my Singulair for my asthma, so I set an alarm for every evening. I wanna be Sedated by the Ramones. Make sense to me. My blood pressure is okay, I am not diabetic. My cholesterol is high, 217, so I am on Vytorin for six months. The weight loss and increased activity (when I do it) should bring me back off of it. After all, the women in my family may have been diabetic, but they died of heart disease. Not my plan!

Vacation!

We have had a Worldmark Timeshare for some time, and added a Mexican resort too, which we can book over into RCI. Holy crap. We got a free RCI week, which will be used in Vermont, we are going to Hawaii soon (Worldmark points from over a year ago). I got cracking on the weeks I had banked over to RCI, and now we have Tobago in 2013. And I called the Villa Group, booked Cancun (use it or lose it) and found a way to use my owner week coupled with 2013's week to go high season (winter) to Loreto.

Damn. Didn't touch the Worldmark points, going to use them to book airfare.

An embarrassment of riches. But who the hell wants to sit at home?

Good news all over.

And I am not being facetious!

I had another follow up on the hernia surgery, it looks good. I am still bloated with fluid, but I can go back to the pool, I can work out gently, and I can use my gazelle.

I am in a cancer research project through Huntsman Institute, they got my genetic test approved. I am negative for the BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations, which means I am NOT at higher risk for breast and ovarian cancers. With all the cancer in the family, my risk is 20~30%, rather than the 10% for the general population. Much better than 50~80%, don't you think?

I have started using Sparkpeople.com to track my nutrition and fitness. A very good new tool in my toolkit. Like the book Younger Next Year, it is helping me plan for my improved health and wellness.

I got back on the Wii. I haven't used my balance board for so long the batteries were dead. A metaphor for life.

Oral surgery on Monday, it will go well, I insist! You hear me, universe?

And Hawaii for my birthday, huzzah.

In other news, the shoot out in Ogden happened just a block over, diagonally on the other side of the church. I was in the basement, watching TV, and didn't hear a thing.

December, thou art a cold bitch

Well, this has been quite the month. I was doing fairly well with the exercise and eating well, but then stuff happened, and fast. I broke my crown, the one which was supposed to have a new root canal, on Thanksgiving Day. The oral surgeon smoothed it off, and we made an appointment for January to extract the whole molar and put in an implant. Oh joy. The rest of it fell off the morning I was to go in for a cleaning; my regular dentist smoothed it down even more. Oh, and I've had three courses of antibiotics to get the gum to settle down. Blech.

I also had a new hernia off the old mesh, so had surgery for that. Not pleased at all, but at least he cut along the old scar. I was doing okay, ab surgery is painful to recover from, but I was recovering alright. The morning I had my first follow up appointment, I bent over to pet the cat and ZAP! Searing internal pain, nearly knocked me off my feet. I thought I was dying. I called Larry, he was able to come home to take me in to see the doc, I chose not to go to the ER because I didn't pass out and my blood pressure was running high, not low.

Turns out the mesh had "released" internally. The edges were stitched on tight, the surface is something like velcro which adheres to the internal flesh as it heals. The doc says this is not alarming. Not alarming to him, but more than a little alarming to me. Also immobilized me further, and slowed my progress.

For now, the staples are out, the scabs and steristrips have fallen off, although I still have red rectangles where they had stuck the stuff to make a sterile shield on my abdomen. My gut is lumpier, has hard spots, and did not drain like it did with the last surgery. I am quite bloated and every muscle in my belly pulls me forward, weakening my back even more. Five pounds of water weight, because I haven't had all that many holiday treats. Getting up and down is an exercise in caution, turning over in bed means shifting my lump of flesh or it pokes and stabs me.

Don't get fat and sloppy, see what happens?

Move it or lose it. I've been losing it for four weeks now.

Younger Next Year

Alrighty, climbing out of the deep pit of last year. I have one completed art project, I have been back to the gym, and I have researched volunteer opportunities and hiking trails and even art classes.

Part of this recovery is rooted in reading the book Younger Next Year (for women). The book is geared at aging folks, on how to improve the last third of life. It explains the need for exercise on a biological, cellular basis. I know, for years I heard I had to exercise, and I knew it was good for me and necessary. What I never had filled in was the why, the nuts and bolts. I am scared straight on this! The food part is easy, Stop Eating Crap. Okay. The next component is caring and being connected. I spend far too much time at home alone, my friends are all busy with their lives and their time off and my inclination to leave the house rarely line up. Have to work on that. I don't want to be frail and scared. I want to be happy and outrageous.

Birdie birdie

Sitting out back while the girl cats have a yard visit, I can hear the magpies and bluejays going at it. Loud screeching discussions over peanuts from the feeder two yards over, with plenty of avian swearing at the assorted cats and neighborhood dogs. No crows today, although sometimes they get in on the act. There is usually a pair of mourning does nearby, and their third wheel. I have to wonder, because when I walk to the bus stop, that dove is often hanging out with the magpies. One magpie most of the time. I know the doves pair bond, could this be a lonely single looking for love in all the wrong places?