Losing a part of me

Category: Pain

  • Day 76

    The pains in my foot are worse than they were, and I am worried that when I tell that to my doctor tomorrow, he is going to start considering alternatives… like arthritis. In truth, it could be that I have not been taking the medications as prescribed – I have been taking it once per day, rather than twice. I have vowed that starting yesterday, I am taking it twice. Hopefully that will fix me up.

    Speaking of tomorrow’s doctor visit: while I am certainly weighing less than I did when I was last there two weeks ago, I am not going to achieve my goal of being weighed comfortably on the primary scale. As long as I keep up the pace I am at (and do not have any more trips to Montreal where I take a giant step backwards in my progress) that will be on my next visit, two weeks from tomorrow. I know that these things will not happen overnight, and small incremental steps forward add up, which is why I have lost about forty pounds in the last month and a half. It may be hard to fathom why eating as well as I am right now, I am not losing weight faster… but it is not that hard to remember that eating the way I was eating before had me looking and feeling terrible. Yes, my foot is in pain, but it is an isolated pain. The rest of my body is feeling the relief of carrying 40lbs less than I was carrying just ten short weeks ago.

    Incidentally, I am now back at the weight I was at before I went to Montreal… so I have finally reclaimed that lost progress and can start heading into new territory. I hope that over the next couple of days my weight drops below that terrible milestone, and I can breathe a sigh of relief. Unless I really fall off the program, that will happen during Leslie’s visit. She loves being here to celebrate those milestones with me, and I love having her here for them!

    With all that said, I know I have to put my dreams of 5-10km walks on hold for at least a few days, if not longer. We will see what the doctor has to say about my foot tomorrow. I suspect he is going to ask why I did not get my bloodwork done, so that at least he can check my uric acid levels. I promise, I will do that in the next few weeks. I was just hoping to lose some of the weight before having it done. I do not even want to know what my levels were at when I weighed my heaviest.

    I am so looking forward to Leslie’s visit. She is coming in tomorrow evening, and it has been far too long since I have been able to hold her in my arms. We are now inside 48 hours, and the anticipation is maddening. I go to sleep one more time, and the next time I wake up will be the day that I pick her up from the airport! Granted, her flight comes in late at night, but that does not change the fact that it is tomorrow. I told my students last night that tomorrow’s class would be adjourning a little earlier than usual, which will suit many of them just fine, as the students who are paying attention and doing their labs have a lot of work left to do on the labs… and the students who are not will be glad that they can sign off earlier than normal.

    The cleaning lady is coming soon, and I will split my time between some work at the computer and sitting on the patio. It will not be a very busy day, but I do have things I have to get done. Before my class starts this evening.

    Have a great day!

  • Day 56

    I was very good on the diet yesterday, and yet the bathroom scale took back a full pound of weight loss. What I wouldn’t do for a solid floor on which I could reliably weigh myself? Of course, after a ten-pound drop in just over a week, I feel it’s a little like the Canada Revenue Agency. “Sorry, Mr. Garvis. We gave you a very generous tax refund last year… but it was too generous, and we are taking some of it back.” I know I am being silly, but it is frustrating when I cannot reliably track my progress day by day.

    My foot is not hurting as bad today as it was yesterday. Also, it is a relief to know that whatever damage I might have done to my knee over the winter, it is feeling better as well. It is possible that my knee will get better and worse with the weather, as I predicted a few weeks ago. I suppose only time will tell. I suspect that both knee and foot will be happier when I weigh less.

    The original forecast for today showed 10°c, but that seems to have been revised to a high of 6°c. I can live with that, especially since there is no wind to speak of. I will sit on the balcony this afternoon enjoying a cigar or two. I have a student who has asked me to be available for help throughout the day – I told him to reset his labs for this class, as something went wrong and if he does not fix it (possibly by starting from scratch) then the problems will compound throughout the class, and I do not want that to happen. If he does reach out to me, I might take a laptop onto the balcony to work with him. I do not know how warm it will be, especially if the stubborn beast does not want to turn the balcony heater on.

    I am seriously considering going to Montreal this weekend. I have a few things to take care of, and it should be a nice weekend for it. We’ll see.

    Have a great day!

  • Day 55

    A demonstration of willpower: Last week, I went to Costco. I picked up several items for myself, and knowing how much she loves them, I bought a bag of dried mangos for Leslie. That was Friday. Today is Tuesday, and I have still not opened the bag. Three months ago, the bag would not only be open, but it would also be nearly finished.

    I was able to get through Monday mostly according to plan. Breakfast shake, canned salmon on a salad for lunch, chicken and salad for dinner, and an evening meal replacement bar. I am trying to think if I had another shake in there somewhere, but I do not think so. It was, overall, a good diet day. Despite all this, the bathroom scale still registered my weight higher than the previous day.

    I am not going to get discouraged by the numbers on the scale – not when I am nearly eleven pounds down in the last ten days. Weight loss success must be judged based on trends, not individual registers on a chart. I will stay the course today, changing nothing from yesterday.

    My foot is still in pain, but it is a different pain. I am not sure if it is independent of the gout, or if it was never gout to begin with. I doubt that, as the colchicine really did make a difference. I will keep track of it now through my next doctor’s appointment and will make a point to discuss it with him.

    I have a few errands to run today, including a dental appointment to get a chipped filling fixed. He (the dentist) told me it shouldn’t be too long, which gives me hope that it will not be too painful either. I hope to have time for a cigar in the afternoon, but I am not sure. We’ll see how the day goes. While it is not as warm as it was yesterday, and it is supposed to snow throughout the day, it might still be an agreeable day for it. As I said… we’ll see.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 50

    I woke up this morning unsure of how I was feeling. As is customary, I sat on “the throne” for near on an hour, which is not unusual; it is where I check my email, Facebook, and I complete any games that I might play on my phone (I only really play two games – Words With Friends and Trivia Crack). I then brushed my teeth and stepped onto the scale. When I saw the number, I stepped off, zeroed the scale, and checked again. I am down significantly from yesterday morning’s weigh-in. I grinned with satisfaction as I began to go about my regular routine… which, for the first time, now includes taking a colchicine tablet.

    After taking the first double-dose yesterday afternoon, I felt no pain in my foot whatsoever. I knew this was likely my brain tricking me because of the excitement of the medicine. While colchicine is supposed to act pretty quickly, it would not be a matter of hours, rather a couple of days before the real relief came. After my walk with HRF Princess Sophie this morning, I can honestly say that there is still pain in my feet… but not nearly as much as there has been over the last few weeks. I imagine that by Sunday it will be gone, and I will be in much better spirits overall. I just hope that the pain that I have been feeling in my knees should disappear as quickly and conveniently.

    I have a few errands to run today, including picking up another batch of contraband meal replacements. After that, I have another dentist appointment, and then a haircut. I am teaching this evening but hope that between the haircut and class I will have time for a cigar on the balcony. Also, if all goes well, Leslie and I will finally be booking our vacation today.

    Have a great day everyone!

  • Explaining Today… or Yesterday.

    It was just past 1:00am when HRF Princess Sophie and I walked back into our apartment in Burlington. With gasoline at the highest price I have ever seen in any country ($1.849/litre as I was arriving home) I was not really thinking about that; I knew that we would be driving about 375km on Saturday, but I did not particularly care. We were going to celebrate my goddaughter’s birthday (a week late thanks to Covid), and the price of gas was not going to stop that. Thirteen hours ago, when things were completely unraveling and my rage was through the roof, I was not angry about the price of gasoline, nor about the war that is the cause of it. I was just having a terrible day. Everything was falling – out of my hands, out of my pockets, and when I put my prepared shake down as we got into the car, that fell too. Nothing was going right, and I could not keep a handle on my emotions. I started screaming and swearing and screaming and swearing some more.

    I Remembered that five years ago I spilled some of a shake in my car, and I paid the price for not cleaning it up right away. Until the day I sold the car, the stained leather was a daily reminder that I had not cleaned it up. I had nothing in the car to wipe up the mess. Despite the anger and rage that was coursing through my veins, I decided to leave Princess Sophie in the car for a few minutes, and I went up to the apartment to get a roll of paper towels. I came back down and cleaned as best I could. I think I did a pretty good job of it. It didn’t matter, my emotions were morphing from rage to distraught sadness.

    I called Leslie, but I knew that she was busy with her son and was not surprised that she did not answer the phone. I doubt it would have mattered. The message I left for her was that I was going to Wendy’s, I was ordering a hamburger and a large non-diet soda. I was not dieting today. I do not think there is anything she or anyone could have said to talk me down from that. I pulled into the drive-through lane and ordered the single hamburger with no cheese, French fries, and I decided to stick to the sugar-free soda. Even knowing that the soda would not be my worst transgression of the day, I still opted for the diet.

    As I pulled out of their parking lot I reached into the bag, only to discover they had given me a cheeseburger without any of the other toppings. I might not be respecting my diet today, but I am sticking to my religion. I turned around and went back.

    I do not think the brainless idiot at Wendy’s realizes his good fortune. To give him the benefit of the doubt, he might have a brain, and might have just been too stoned to understand what I was saying. I am not talking about the original mistake – mistakes will happen, and I get that. The three-minute conversation I had to endure with this 18-24 kid was maddening, and the fact that I did not rip his head off is a testament to my something. I am not sure how difficult it is to understand ‘I ordered a burger with no cheese but all the regular toppings, you gave me a burger with cheese and no other toppings. This entire three-minute conversation took place as he held the hamburger I had handed to him in his hand. It was only after that conversation, and after he went to clarify something with his manager, that he came back and tried to hand the burger back to me. ‘I’m not allowed to take this back.’ Then throw it out. I am not sure what I would have said had he told me that he could not even do that. The old me, in the already highly agitated state I was in, would have been a lot louder, less calm, and most likely insulting. A small miracle indeed… and seven minutes after this conversation started again, I drove away with the right sandwich.

    The fast food was not the only nor was it likely the worst cheat of the day. I will not enumerate what the others were, but I was bad. There were a lot of chips, there was spaghetti, there was birthday cake. Saturday was a complete and utter failure.

    I did not harm anyone. I did not even lash out at anyone. I am not sure how I managed it, but while I told a couple of people that I was having a crappy day, nobody suffered from it. Nobody, of course, but me. I am sure Leslie suffered as well – she is very empathetic, and when I am not doing well, she feels my pain.

    Speaking of pain, let’s add a bad left knee to the list. I have no idea how, but it feels like there is a bruise. I have no recollection of smashing it, but there it is. However painful the gout in my foot might be, today it was muted by my knee’s phantom injury. When I say the gout pain is muted, I should really refer to it as immensely overshadowed by a different pain. I am seeing my doctor on Wednesday and am definitely going to speak with him about the gout. I expect my knee will be fine by then. However, I have been complaining about the gout since Wednesday, and taking Naproxen and pain killers since then. While it might eventually clear it up, it is certainly taking its time. Time to bring in the big guns.

    I am going to sleep. Tomorrow (later today) better be a better day.

  • Day 44

    I am rather looking forward to seeing my doctor on Tuesday and asking him – at gunpoint if need be – to prescribe me Colchicine. In the meantime, I continue taking Naproxen, Aspirin, and Tylenol thrice daily. I have to wonder if over the years I have developed a resistance to Naproxen, having taken it for so many things. I know that my left foot is swollen terribly and is in a lot of pain, despite the anti-inflamatories and other pain relievers I am taking. I have (and am still refusing to use) the narcotic pain killers I have left over from my root canal last autumn. I do not think it will get quite so bad as to have me taking that. The good news is that when I am not moving, I am not in a lot of pain. In other words, unlike my knee (which was much more painful, but is no longer bothering me), it is not impeding my sleep.

    I have a couple of meetings today: one for a customer, and one with my American accountant to do my taxes. I put that meeting off a few weeks ago, not because I am afraid to speak with her, but rather because the appointment conflicted with a dentist appointment. When things fall out of your mouth, it is best to have them fixed at the dentist’s convenience… tax season or not.

    I have been working over the last few days (nearly a week by this point) on booking a trip to Cuba with Leslie, and a couple who are friends from California. I am hoping that today I will be able to get that done; I am looking forward to spending a few days on the beach, and if possible, a few days in Havana as well.

    I indulged yesterday. I do not care a whit about the second salad that I made myself after lunch because I was still hungry. Once that was done, I sat eating pumpkin seeds for a few minutes. I probably had 250 calories worth of them. Again, not the worst thing in the world… but I have to be able to rein myself in! Today will be better.

    The bathroom scale situation is frustrating. I have always been able to hold myself better accountable when I weigh myself and see that the weight is not coming off. I have always rejoiced in being able to track definite downward trends on a daily basis. Not being able to do that because of the inaccuracy of the scale is maddening. I know, I will go to the doctor’s office every two weeks and get weighed there… but being able to see daily progress has always been helpful. No, I am not going to move to an apartment with a more solid floor in the bathroom… but I might start exploring the floor in the bedroom to see if I can get a consistently accurate reading there.

    Tomorrow I am going to see my god kids, and I am looking forward to seeing them… but not to seeing the foods their mother will be putting out for me! Willpower is the word of the weekend!

  • Day 43

    The beginning of Week 7, and I am not sure that I am on the right track. I know, I should not be expecting the meteoric weight loss that I experienced when I did the program religiously, but I wonder if I have taken too many liberties with it. I will spend another week or so trying to follow my hybrid program fully, and if I do not resume my weight loss, then it is time to re-think things.

    Don’t get me wrong… I am still about 30 lbs down from where I started. However, as I have been doing the program without much direct supervision, I have to wonder if the slow (or sometimes stalled) weight loss progress is because I am trying to follow the program half-assed, or if it is just normal to not be seeing the weight completely melt away the way it does when I am on the full program.

    If my foot was terrible yesterday, it is better (but not healed) today. I am going to stick with the Naproxen and hope that the pain abates completely over the next couple of days. Either way, I am going to speak with my doctor next week (I am seeing him anyways) about getting a prescription for Colchicine, which unlike the Naproxen is specifically made for this. Of course, it also means that I am going to have to take it for the rest of my life, just like my father did.

    In addition to my thoughts, I think I have to start tracking everything that I eat. I do not want to get to the point where I am ingesting too many calories to lose weight, but do not realize it because I am not paying attention. I’ll use the MyFitnessPal app for that and see what it looks like at the end. I also need to be drinking more water… I am not going through nearly enough, and that is probably another reason for both the stagnating weight loss and the gout.

    The weather today is colder than the last couple of days. In fact, it is the only day on the 10-day forecast that the high temperature will not reach above the freezing point. Nonetheless, if the wind dies down, I will try to enjoy a cigar on the balcony in the afternoon. If not, I guess I am home bound. With HRF Princess Sophie to keep me company, there are worse fates

    My plans for the day: Stay the course. Salad for lunch, chicken for dinner. Meal replacement bars in the mid-afternoon and mid-evening. Drink a lot of water. Lose weight.

    Have a great day!

  • Day 42

    Whatever discomfort I felt in my foot yesterday was multiplied exponentially this morning. As I can think of no injury or event that might have caused this agony, I must assume it to be a flareup of gout. I have been having issues with gout in my right (and recently injured) foot of late, but this is the first time that the pain is so strong in the left foot. I will survive – it’s painful, but not the worst thing in the world. I’ll take Naproxen twice daily for the next few days and it will clear up.

    Yesterday was another ‘I ate too much’ day. I have to remember that eating too many meal replacements is not much better than eating too much anything else. At least I know that I am not going to the starches and carbs. Today will be a better day!

    My weight-loss advice post from Day 40 got a lot of traction. Until now, my best day on the blog had 42 hits, and it was not uncommon for there to be days with fewer than 5 hits. Yesterday, after I shared the article about unsolicited weight loss advice, those hits shot up… 116 hits yesterday, and 54 hits today (so far). This will be a blip and not a trend I am sure, unless my vitriol encouraged scores of new people to follow my otherwise pretty boring blog daily… and to tell their friends to do that same. Not a worry, I do not plan to try to monetize the blog; I use it to try to stay accountable for my actions and choices.

    I looked up the causes of gout, and came up with the following list, some of which I knew about, others I did not:

    The risk factors which cause excess uric acid include:

    • Excess consumption of meat and seafood
    • Obesity
    • Certain conditions like heart disease, kidney disease
    • Family history
    • Certain medications
    • Age – It usually affects between the ages of 30 and 50
    • Sex – Men are more likely to develop gout

    Let’s review: I am not excessively consuming anything these days, but I am obese. I have no heart or kidney issues (that I know of, although I will have a full physical from my doctor in a couple of months). I do have the family history (my father suffered from gout, and I think my grandfather as well). I am about to hit 50, although I remember gout flareups going back 25 years. I am not on any medications, but I am definitely a man.

    All in all, I have 4/7 of these risk factors. I’ll suck it up, and hopefully as I lose the weight, I will be able to shed one of them. No, I do not plan to cut meat out of my diet, but I will cut my intake of it going forward. Growing old sucks.**

    My game plan for today is to try to limit my intake. I had my breakfast shake, I will have my lunch (chicken and salad) and then my dinner (fish and salad), and then an evening meal replacement bar. If you are wondering why I have two meals planned, I was not paying attention and I defrosted both.

    Have a great day folks!

    **The last time I posted that something sucks, it was dieting. This resulted in the comments that led me to write my ‘screw you and your unsolicited advice’ post. Please do not tell me to not grow old, as the alternative is not a pleasant one.