Losing a part of me

Category: Pain

  • Day 1276

    Yesterday was not a fun day. The day actually started quite normally as far as things go, but then it went bad. I started writing as I usually do at the usual time, but partway through the second paragraph of my article I realized that it would be an article much more appropriate to my professional blog rather than my weight loss blog, and before 1pm I had banged out 1800 words on certification exams that published on my blog as Not Passing and Failing.

    Following the publication of that article, I got up and made my second meal replacement of the day, and then sat down to write in this journal… which I try to do before I do much else, but that did not work out. I obviously had a lot to say because the entry is pretty long (over a thousand words, which is long for a weight loss journal entry), but at a certain point in the writing I realized i was quite uncomfortable, which I wrote about in the last paragraph. It was discomfort until it was pain. As I wrote yesterday, it felt like a solid piece of waste was stuck in my colon and pressing on (and blocking) my bladder, as well as pushing on nerves that affected my back and possibly even my kidney. I went outside to read in the ‘comfy chair’ but that was only good for maybe thirty minutes. I needed to do something and the urgency was growing. (Yes, I tried that, but the waste was far too solid to want to go anywhere, and every time I tried it just got a little worse.

    If I was right about the cause (and I really hoped that I was) then I could think of two things that might help, and the two could bee easily joined. The pharmacy is just over a 1km walk from here, and I hoped the walking might jostle something to move. Whether it did or did not, I would be able to ask the pharmacist about a topic on which I have heretofore remained ignorant: I asked the chap if there was a difference between a laxative (which I had already taken, but so far was not helping) and a stool softener (which I do not think I had ever taken). I explained my predicament, and he agreed that the symptoms I was describing might very well be caused by that. While we did go over the differences (in brief: laxatives affect how we digest, stool softeners should affect what we have already digested), when I told him that the laxative was left over from when I had my colonoscopy, he asked if it was the pill or the powder (both were necessary to prepare for it), and that thee powder would likely be much more effective than the simple pill. As those are kept behind the counter (despite not requiring a prescription) I asked him for a box of those. I then walked home.

    When I arrived home I prepared and ingested the concoction exactly as directed. Assuming that the results would not be immediate, I decided to do something I have never done before. In the middle of the afternoon I took a THC gummy from the jar my buddy gave me a few months ago. I then looked at my dear puppy and realized I might not be fit to take her out in the evening, so I texted my neighbour asking her to do so. With that taken care of, I got into bed at 4:45pm, still in discomfort… until the gummy did its thing. Possibly 20-30 minutes after I lay down I realized I was not in any discomfort. I could rest.

    I woke up at 8:15pm (I did not sleep through, but I did get some rest). I was lying there looking at my phone when I felt… something. It felt like something that had been stuck suddenly dislodged. I knew the THC had not yet worn off, but I suspected that if it had then I would suddenly not be in so much pain. This did not result in immediate results in the water closet, but I suspected it would be just a matter of time.

    I sat on the balcony relaxing with my third meal replacement of the day and just enjoying not being in severe discomfort. It was a relief to be able to sit in one position for more than a minute or two without needing to adjust. It was shortly after 10pm when the urge struck. Over the next few hours there were a number of trips back to the little boys’ room, and in those trips a lot more than one or two meals worth of waste was finally flushed from my colon. That, however, was not the only result. I mentioned in the second paragraph that thee blockage was also blocking my bladder? Between 10pm and when I finally went to sleep I peed 3-4 times which is not unusual… but the duration and strength of the flow was; the first voiding was solid and strong… and possibly as much as two minutes in duration. Wow.

    By the time I went to bed (much later than usual) I felt like I had dropped ten pounds… this morning I would find that it was just over 2.5 lbs. from the previous day, making my current weight loss 19.4 lbs. in nine days. Yes, I will gladly take that my dear reader!

    My sleep score last night was an abysmal 59, but that is because it only measured the second time I slept. I suspect that had it accounted for my first lay-down it would have been slightly better. I am not worried though… Today is my day of rest and while I might do some studying, I will mostly be reading my book on the balcony.

    I should mention that yesterday’s caloric intake was short; I only had three meal replacements which means that excepting the pinch of cheese and my coffee my actual intake was 675 calories which is not smart. Of course, severe and discomfort in the digestive tract will always put a damper on one’s appetite. Knowing that my issues are resolved (for now) I doubt I will have any issues with that today.

    Considering I felt like I was near death yesterday, today is looking and feeling much better. Of course, I did not feel anything yesterday until after 1:30pm, and it is currently just 11:05am. I am optimistic though that today will be a good day.

    I should mention that while i will increase my daily dosage of fibre, I am glad that the meds I bought yesterday came in a box of two packages, so if I do get blocked up again I know I have another one without having to trek to the pharmacy… although the steps likely did me some good.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 1274

    Last night was not a good night. I do not know what happened, but shortly after I got into bed I realized my back was uncomfortable… and then in pain. Between 11:30pm and 2:30am I got up several times to

    1. Take a couple of Aspirin
    2. Rub Votaren on my back
    3. Remake the bed ensuring the bottom sheet was taut (Princess Sophie did not appreciate being interrupted by this)
    4. (only ever a last resort) grab a THC gummy

    In the meantime I tossed and turned and just fought to get comfortable, which was just not happening. The discomfort was not at all pleasant, but nor was knowing that the morning was coming too soon and that I could not handle another lousy night sleep. It was only out of desperation that I took one of the gummies that a friend had given me. I was worried that I would have trouble getting going in the morning (every time I have taken one of these I have spent the night in extreme thirst and woken up dizzy and with a bit of a headache) but that beat waking up without having gone to sleep, so I went for it.

    (I did wake up at 6:15am and decided that I would pee quickly then get right back into bed because despite the light of day shining in through the window I was definitely still… intoxicated.)

    Despite all that, my fitness watch still gave me a sleep score of 72, which honestly makes very little sense to me considering how little sleep I got. It is possible that before I realized I was in pain I did get some sleep, so who knows?

    It happened too late to affect my morning weigh-in, but I was happy to have an amazing bowel movement this morning. It was not painless, but it was well worth the strain. I only wish that it happened first thing in the morning… before coffee and meal replacement, and of course before my weigh-in.

    Today marked the one week milestone of my renewed program. In that week, with my daily pinch of cheese and yesterday’s peanuts, I have dropped an astonishing sixteen pounds. While I certainly have a long way to go, and while 16lbs is only a drop in the bucket compared to what I want to lose, it is still a huge accomplishment for seven days. It is encouraging, and gives me the strength to keep carrying on… despite all of the obstacles that life continues to throw my way.

    I mentioned yesterday that I weighed myself a second time after my second sleep, and that based one whether or not this morning’s weigh-in was higher or lower than that I would decide whether or not to keep it. In fact my weight this morning was slightly higher than yesterday afternoon, but I am still not going to delete that measure from yesterday. Hopefully by tomorrow I will drop below that number again, but either way I am still quite pleased with my progress.

    So let’s see… yesterday I went shopping to pick up coffee, and I also picked up a little cheat of some peanuts. I know, I should not be cheating, especially so early in the program. If after all that happened the last few days the worst thing I did was eating a handful of peanuts then I am going to chalk that up as a big huge win.

    While I did some studying yesterday, I confess it was not a lot. As I wrote in my journal, I got a whole lot of sleep yesterday during the day, and after the stress and anxiety of the previous day I did not need to push myself. I also knew that the new novel in my favourite series was downloaded onto my Kobo and ready to be dived into. I spent quite a few hours reading. I plan to continue reading it until the end, at which point I will resume my deep-dive studying for the exam.

    Before I sit out on the balcony to read, I need to make a trip out to my (not-so-local) cigar shop. While I have as many as a hundred cigars in my humidor, most of them are high-end special, rather than every day cigars. I do not want to sit outside smoking a $100 cigar… especially when I have so few of those left. I will prepare my meal replacement to enjoy before I head out because I do not want to find myself hungry and tempted to cheat along the way. I need to stay on track and so I need to minimize my exposure to any temptations, which are everywhere despite my best attempts.

    I am hoping that my body does not repeat last night’s debacle so that I can get some good rest. I plan to proactively strip my bed and do laundry – a freshly made bed is usually my best chance for good sleep, or at least of the physical factors within my control.

    Have a great day folks.

  • Day 1268

    It was Sophie’s fault.

    Okay, that is both wrong and unfair. The explanation for it, unjustified though it may be, is that I was extremely hungry as I prepared to end my class yesterday, and my plan was to have a meal replacement shake before taking HRF Princess Sophie out for her walk. She was having none of that. She was ready to go out immediately and no amount of coaxing would change her mind. We went out for a long walk… she insisted on seeing the sights and greeting her friends and possibly sniffing every blade of grass in her park.

    When we got home I was even more ravenous, but knowing that I was on Day 1 of my program I could not go crazy. I did, however, decide to prepare those three eggs that I was going to give away or throw out. All in all I could have done much worse, but I still felt guilty about it.

    This morning there were no eggs in the house. After we got home from our morning walk Her Floofness wanted to go to see the neighbour, and knowing that Sue had told us that Charlie would be there today, I was more than happy to accommodate her. I came back home and put on the coffee before preparing my meal replacement shake.

    Four shakes per day for the foreseeable future. Not fun… but I have put on a disastrous amount of weight since my life fell apart, and it is time to get off that ride and to try to get control of my life back from my emotions. That starts by losing the weight… again.

    It pains me to know how heavy I am. I had done so well, and then my life fell apart… in fact, it happened twice over a 19-month period. Thanks, Lady. No, I will not go into detail. Yes, I am somewhat bitter. That doesn’t matter though… it is time to pick myself up off the floor and get back on track.

    I got an email yesterday that my new sports jacket and shirts are en route from Hong Kong and should arrive by the end of next week. I am excited to receive them; I am equally hopeful that within a few months they will no longer fit, and I will be back to wearing my original weight-loss wardrobe… hopefully by the beginning of September?

    I have been sleeping poorly the last week, in which my fitness watch registered a sleep score over 70 only once. Last night was the first night in over a week that it was slightly better… an 81. I hope to continue that trend.

    It is Friday, and thus my last day of class. I had some technical issues yesterday which means that I am going to have to rush through a little of the material today but I am still confident that I will be able to get through it all. This evening I will light the Sabbath candles as usual, but for the first time in a long time I will not be eating my ritual challah bread to say that blessing. Nor will I be saying kiddush on the wine… I am back on the program.

    Because I had eggs for both breakfast and dinner yesterday I might consider yesterday to have been a Day Half rather than a new Day One. Sabbath or not, today I am drinking my meal replacements, coffee, and a lot of water… and that is all that I will be ingesting. I hope that I can follow that discipline for a few months and not just a few days. I have fallen off the wagon too many times. I have to be strong this time.

    Have a great day folks.

  • Day 1083

    The cold front continues. The temperatures have been cold but bearable. The wind, on the other hand, has been quite unpleasant on the exposed parts of my body… which in this weather means only my face and ears. My hands get cold too, despite my gloves. Fortunately, I can stick them in my pocket and I’m fine. I wish I did not have to go out again today, but I do… first to a meeting, then to walk Her Floofness again. Sigh.

    I had trouble falling asleep last night, but at least my sleep score was 70 and not worse. Tonight will be better… I hope.

    My weight dropped again this morning, so over a two-day period it is down 4.6 lbs., which is tremendous… but it is also just regulating the ridiculous gains from the previous days. The holidays are over, and it is time to get back on track. I wish my knee were back in form so that I could actually exercise… but that will be in a day or two. I want to get my weight back below that terrible mark!

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 1082

    The good news is that my hip is getting better. PHEW! The downside is that my knee has started up again. Of course, I know what that is, and have already started taking the meds for it.

    My weight dropped this morning, and I am going to stay on track today.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 1081

    My sleep score last night was an 85, the second highest it has been since my hip started to cause me problems. I should mention that there was one night that I did not wear my fitness watch to bed, which is odd for me, but I just forgot to put it on after I got out of the shower. In any event, I feel well rested this morning. I also feel for the first time in a week that there is marked improvement to my hip; to be clear, the improvement has nothing to do with pain medicines (although they have helped keep me somewhat sane). No, I felt real improvement before I got out of bed, which means before I took my pill. I am relieved that it seems to be on the mend. I have been extremely unhappy these last few days, even snapping at people who did not deserve it. I will apologize to them both. Now let’s hope and pray than my hip and leg continue to improve!

    What has not been improving is my weight. I have gained a tremendous amount of weight this past week, partly due to stress-eating to try to relieve the pain. That never works of course, but gaining weight does. My weight this morning is a disgusting amount over the terrible mark. I need to get back on track. Hopefully the lessening of my pain will help with that. I need to get down to a reasonable weight, and that will need to start with depriving myself of certain things. Hopefully by mid-week I will be able to exercise again, but until that is the case I cannot touch another carbohydrate, starting now.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 1078

    It was a relief to see my weight drop a little this morning. Actually, it dropped quite a bit… but because of the terrible increases over the past week, it is still way over the terrible mark. Add to that my hip is still in agony, so there will not be any exercise today (or likely for the next few days).

    I am still unsure if we are going today or tomorrow, but it is likely that my buddy and I will be driving down to the USA tomorrow to pick up our packages. As long as I do not get tempted by junk food this should not be a problem. Additionally, this evening I have a meeting at the Lodge, but we are not serving dinner (that is next week) so I should be able to get through today without too much trouble.

    While my hip is still in agony, I finally got a good night sleep last night, with my fitness watch registering 7h59 minutes, and an excellent sleep score of 93. At long last I got some much-needed rest. Phew! Also, Chanukah is officially ending at sundown, but other than the Lodge dinner I did not overdo the holiday. I am just grateful that the holiday invites for Christmas and such are behind me. Now it is time to try to get back on track.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 1076

    New Years Eve. I am really looking forward to the holidays being behind us and my getting back onto a schedule…

    I did something to my hip (or upper leg) yesterday… or the previous evening. I did not realize yesterday how much pain I was in, but it is really hurting. Frankly, the most painful thing I had to do today was putting my right sock on. Ouch! I hope that a couple of days of rest is all I need. I suspect that I slept poorly the previous night – possibly owing to the inconvenient comforts of a little princess. I am thinking of soaking in the bathtub for an hour… something that I have not done in recent memory. If I was living in Los Angeles I would head to Koreatown to the spa… but I am not, and I do not know of any Korean (or Asian) spas anywhere near me… at least, not one that is not really an erotic massage parlour, which is certainly not what I am looking for!

    Have a great day folks… and Happy New Year!

  • Day 1061

    I was relieved to see my weight drop back to almost the same level it was before my cheat day Saturday. It is not quite back, but almost. This morning’s 2.2 lbs. drop was welcome indeed… especially knowing that tomorrow evening is my Lodge’s holiday party, and while I will not be over-indulging… I do hope to be able to at least eat something. With that said, I still do not know what is on the menu, and in case it is something that I cannot eat then I will at least have a protein bar stashed away in my car. Of course, I am hoping for turkey and gravy and cranberry sauce… but I will find out tomorrow!

    My sleep score was a 75 last night which is not bad. I am sure that had I gotten to bed an hour earlier then it would have been better. As it happens, when my eyes opened at 6:00am I did not want to go right back to sleep, knowing that my alarm was set for just ten minutes later. My body battery was a 72 this morning… also not bad, but I know that neither of these scores is great.

    There is something that the reader should know about me, which is that I do not remember pain. If something is hurting now then I know it, but if it was hurting an hour ago but is fine now then it is completely out of mind. That is why for the last few days as I wrote my journal entries, I have had trouble remembering why I did not jog my entire workout the previous day. I realized that as I was on the treadmill yesterday and made a note on my phone (for this morning) to remind me that my ankle has been tender. It is because of that I have been mostly walking on the treadmill, and not some sort of ‘out of shape, out of breath’ issue. As I wrote yesterday, “I would rather reach that goal at a slower pace than miss it at a faster one.”

    I did hit my steps-goal yesterday with a 5km workout on the treadmill, but only about half a kilometre was jogging and the rest was a brisk walk. With that I am happy to see this morning that my steps streak is sixteen days, tied for my longest streak which dates from April 10-25, 2023. It was just two days after that I got onto the plane to Dallas, and then to California with my wife for our religious wedding (we had already been married civilly for nearly a year by then). This time I have no travel that will impede it… although tomorrow will be a challenge because of the evening social obligations. I have a few ideas that I am thinking about trying and am not precluding the possibility of spending an hour on the treadmill during my class and watching the lecture instead of my regular TV. We will see… but for that to even be an issue I have to extend the streak today, which means that after class I will be going at it on the treadmill… and thanks to my lovely but occasionally obstinate dog who does not care for the wet weather, I will need to go longer this evening than I normally would.

    It is time for me to get signed into my class so I will end here. Have a great day folks!

  • Day 1026

    Remembrance Day is always one of those days that is a bit difficult for me. As I walked Her Floofness this morning, a woman with her young daughter engaged me in conversation. How’s the weather, cute pup, and so on. She then said to me ‘I see you are wearing a poppy too. Happy Remembrance Day!’ I said to her that no, it is not a happy day, but a solemn one. As she fumbled with a sincere apology I recovered quickly and told her that she had nothing to apologize for, and that our language does not have a phrase that we use to greet each other with on these solemn days. On any other day I might have just smiled and nodded, but I have trouble with that phrase… to a soldier it is like saying ‘Enjoy the funeral!’… it’s just wrong.

    My knee is still in agony, but I think it is getting a bit better… slowly. The anti-inflammatories that I am taking are helping and while I wish I could boost the dosage, I have to be careful to not do so. They can damage other parts of my body, and I do not want to do that. I have asked my pharmacy to send my doctor’s office a request to refill a prescription for the second gout medication that I sometimes take. I will follow up on that today.

    My weight was down this morning, and I am once again at the horrible mark… 300 lbs. even. I will try to eat properly again today so that in the next day or two I will once again drop under it. I slept well – my sleep score was a very respectable 85, which is better than most nights for me. I have also moved my bowels twice today – once earlier, and once just now as I paused to write this entry. How my body can go three days without is a mystery to me. I think I am going to make sure I take fibre every day for a while.

    The next twenty-four hours will be ‘one of those days.’ I am teaching a class for Germany again, which means I’ll be working from 1am-12pm. Fortunately it is only a one-day (night?) class, so while I will be a bit off, I should not experience the disorientation and jetlag I had last time. I need the work… I want the work! I will take it when I can get it

    Autumn is well and truly here. The leaves are on the ground, and I am wearing a sweater and my vest to take Her Floofness on her walks. While it was rainy yesterday, today is just damp but dry. Pretty soon the winter will be upon us, and I know our weather will get worse before it gets better. I will try to keep my attitude positive… some days it is harder than others.

    Have a great day folks!