Losing a part of me

Category: Wife

  • Day 1004

    You know you spend a lot of time traveling when the officer at US Customs and Border Protection’s secondary screening office greets you by name… before he is handed your passport. Because I am in the middle of the Green Card application process, every time I cross into the United States I am scrutinized to make sure I am not planning on staying. This trip was no different, and the nice officer put me at the front of the line and had me out of there in minutes. I was able to relax at the Admiral’s Club Lounge and enjoyed a reasonably (not entirely) healthy breakfast. The days of my worrying that I must have forgotten something are long behind me, and in a few minutes I will head down to the terminal to board my flight.

    By the way… I did forget something. I meant to bring a few meal replacement shakes with me, and I forgot to pack them. I am not worried because I brought plenty of protein bars for Leslie, so I might eat a few of them.

    It is so exciting that we are lets than five hours we will be together again. I am so looking forward to seeing her, my stepson, and of course the gorgeous Duchess of Mischief! Of course, when I dropped her off at Susan’s apartment last night it seemed that Princess Sophie knew that I was leaving again… I had forgotten to bring her bowl so I ran home to grab it, and when I returned she refused to come to me and looked at me with a glare that told me that she was not pleased with me. Sigh.

    The last couple of days have been unseasonably beautiful and warm in the Greater Toronto Area, and that is predicted to continue through Tuesday before the Canadian seasons return. That will have no affect on me until I return though, with the Texas autumn set to keep me warm during the days and cool but comfortable in the evenings.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 997

    I am still not sleeping nearly as well as I would like, but sometimes I wonder how accurate the scores on my fitness watch are. I trust it completely for my walking and heart rate, but whether my sleep score is correct? I’m not sure. Yes, I think I could have slept a little better last night, but a sleep score of 69? Hmph. I did have trouble falling asleep last night… I was in bed by 9:00pm, but could not fall asleep until I decided, at midnight, to get up and take a shower. I know I saw 12:30am on my clock, but I do not think I saw 1:00am. According to my fitness watch app: ‘You slept long enough, but not well enough to bring your stress levels down overnight. You might feel higher stress or fatigue today.’ I do not know that I feel stress or fatigue, but I will try to get a good night’s sleep tonight.

    After a disastrous week of gaining weight (about 8 lbs.) I am glad that my weight dropped significantly once again this morning. I am down over 5.5 lbs. in two days… after gaining nearly 7 lbs. in under a week. I should attribute the last two days of my weight dropping to Yom Kippur; let’s see how it looks tomorrow.

    Speaking of tomorrow, it is Canadian Thanksgiving weekend. To honour that, when I went shopping yesterday, I bought a smoked turkey leg. This is always a dangerous buy because of the extremely high sodium content in smoked turkey, but I decided to take the chance. Hopefully it will not hurt me too badly, and if it does then it will be from water retention and should be gone within a couple of days.

    No, I do not have any Thanksgiving plans this year. My friends who traditionally invite me every year decided to spend the weekend camping, and most of my other friends are either away, or else serving ham. I am neither upset nor lonely for this… growing up in my family, Thanksgiving was never a big deal for my family so while I am always happy to spend it with friends, tomorrow will really just be another day for me. I think back to where I was a year ago – Thanksgiving fell on October 9th, which means that it was just two days after the October 7 attacks in Israel. I put on the happy face to spend that Sunday with my godson and goddaughter (and their parents and grandparents), but there was nothing happy in my world. I was waiting in earnest for a call that would never come recalling me to active duty. It is had to believe it has been a year already, and what a horrible year it has been on so many fronts. My weight is 60 lbs. heavier than it was a year ago; the roller coaster of my personal relationships (owing chiefly to the massacre) felt like a free-fall abyss for much too long, and while I am relieved that they survived… the last year has been fraught with far too much pain. I have wept for every one of our hostages in Gaza as well as for those Israeli soldiers who have fallen in the war. I have spent the year in a red-hot rage over the worldwide hatred and vitriol spread against my people, proving once again that the only socially acceptable form of racism is against Jews. With every false accusation spread and every protester shouting for Israel to accept an unconditional cease fire (at best) to the death and destruction of our nation and all Jews (at worst) I want to scream and lash out… but I cannot because if I do the useful idiots (Hamas’ term, not mine) will accuse me of aggression and violence. How is it that people who have never set foot in my country can hate us so much? How is it that they do not understand that they would be welcomed in Israel, but they would be executed in the streets of Gaza just for being who they are… and yet they call us genocidal oppressors.

    The weather has turned. These last couple of days I have been wearing my jacket out, whether to take Her Floofness for her walks or to sit on the balcony with my cigar. Autumn has arrived in Canada and while Leslie is jealous, she is so from the heat of Texas; I know that Canadian autumn leads all too quickly to Canadian winters! With that said, I am flying down to see her a week from today, and I will spend two weeks in her warmth of her embrace, and in the warmth of the Texas October. If you cannot tell from the previous paragraph, I think I need Leslie’s warm embrace now more than ever. Going through this alone very often leads me to despair… and I cannot let it influence my eating this week.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 988

    Yesterday was one of those days.

    Wednesday afternoon my plan was to get some sleep and then wake up in time to connect to the Erev Rosh Hashana services that my synagogue broadcasts. A bunch of different things happened to keep me from my bed, and when I finally did lie down at 5:00pm, my phone rang… it was a Lodge brother in crisis, and I spent over an hour talking with him and helping him with his issue. I am glad I was able to be there for him, even at the cost of two hours of sleep. I then fell asleep for a couple of hours, but I did not mute my phone. When I get seven text messages in short succession it usually means that there is an urgent matter that needs to be dealt with. It turned out that it was just seven completely unrelated texts that came from different people, and it was a coincidence that they all came within a minute. The alert was enough to wake me up, and I could not get back to sleep. I decided that rather than lying there frustrated, I would get dressed, take Princess Sophie for a walk, and then I would call my wife so that we could light the candles and say our prayers before I joined the services online.

    Why did I go into all of that detail about Wednesday night? Essentially to say that I was so exhausted yesterday because between Wednesday at 12:15am when I woke up and Thursday evening at 5:30pm when I went to bed I got two hours of sleep. I got through my class just fine, but I am glad that in the afternoon I did not have a lot to do. I could not go to bed because my cleaning lady came… had I known what the previous two days would be like I would have canceled that in a heartbeat, but I was committed. I finally got to sleep at 5:30pm with the hopes that I would be able to sleep through until my alarm went off at 12:30am. In fact I did one better… I slept through the alarm and it was 1:05am by the time I got out of bed and got going. I am glad I did not sleep through my class!

    I am feeling much better today than I did yesterday. I was telling Leslie that with all of the difficulties in my life I am still a very blessed man, and I am grateful for so much. I am grateful this morning for having slept last night, and my class is going well. My weight, which has been up every day for nearly a week, finally dropped slightly this morning. Hopefully by the beginning of next week when I fly to Maine I will be down below 300 lbs. again. I will try!

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 972

    I was very down yesterday. I tried to nap unsuccessfully. I did not try to walk. I will try today. In the meantime, I also hope to get back on track with my weight loss, as I am up three pounds since the weekend. I have not moved my bowels in days and suspect a lot of the weight is backed up in there. My sleep score was a 75, and my body battery did briefly peak above 51 this morning… but that’s terrible. Hopefully I will get out for a walk today and will sleep better this evening.

    Speaking of this evening: Leslie’s son returns home to her tomorrow, so this evening will be our last cigar date for a while. At least I have that to look forward to.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 970

    I ate more than I should have yesterday, but again that was not unexpected. As is often the case, no single transgression is egregious, but combined they account for a very slight weight increase this morning. I made French toast for Leslie and myself for breakfast, and then on our way to the airport we stopped to pick up sandwiches from Subway. When I got home from dropping her off (usually the saddest part of our visits) I made chicken and salad for dinner… I simply ended up making more than I should have, and eating more than I should have eaten. Combine that with the fact that I am not moving my bowels regularly these last couple of weeks and yes… my weight was up a whopping (sic!) 0.2 lb. from yesterday morning.

    I was exhausted last night, so once Leslie had confirmed that she was home safe I planned to hop into bed to get a good night sleep. That was not to happen. Well, yes… was in bed by 10:15pm, that part worked. The sleep part? Not quite.

    The following might sound implausible to those of you who are not fur parents. Not that some nights Princess Sophie likes to sleep in my bed… that is not uncommon with pets. When Leslie is here though, we do not let her sleep with us. While the bed might be big enough, we both tend to move in our sleep to get comfortable, and it was decided long ago that we would not let her sleep with us. Well! Saturday evening, she (Sophie) decided that she wanted to sleep in the bed, and we were firm in our refusals. To get her to cooperate (reluctantly), I had to promise her that she would be allowed to sleep in the big bed two nights in a row if she agreed to sleep outside the room. I was surprised that when I was ready to go into the bedroom, she was comfortably laid out in her bed, so I did not disturb her. I got into bed and was slowly dozing off when I heard the pitter patter of little paws walking my way. Knowing I had promised her, I picked her up and brought her into the bed. She then spent the next hour licking my face. I do not know whether that was because she missed sleeping with me, or to thank me for keeping my promise, I do not know. I do know that I after my hour-long face-cleaning, I could not fall asleep until 2am. Sleep score: 69, and my Body Battery was only 47 when I got up. I will try to sleep well this evening so that tomorrow I’m in better condition. That is not to say that I will not try to go out for a walk, but it might be a shorter one. I have a bit of work to do today so it’s going to be later in the day – possibly even in the evening.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 969

    After what I ate yesterday, I was not expecting to see a drop on the bathroom scale this morning… certainly not a drop of 1.8 lbs., but then I do have to remember that Thursday evening I gorged on bread and cookies, and Friday evening ended with a slice of pie and a large scoop of ice cream… all after having had a shawarma wrap for lunch. I am glad that my weight is back down to 285… 2.6 lbs. heavier than my best weight of the month, but 7.8 lbs. lighter than my worst.

    I did not sleep well last night. I woke up around 1:30am to my dog barking at someone in the hall, which is a rare occurrence here. It left me with a headache that would plague me the rest of the night, and I mostly tossed and turned. The end result was a sleep score of 63. Boo. As expected, I did not come close to my steps goal… but I still exceeded 8,200. I’ll take it for an off day!

    Yesterday actually went pretty much as I had planned. We ate breakfast out, we had a small bite of leftover spanakopita for lunch, and for an early dinner we headed to the pub on the corner, where I ordered my usual fish and chips. The only aberration to my eating yesterday was that we got home from our evening plans and were a bit puckish, and so we finished off the rest of the pie. I had done the smart thing yesterday afternoon when I gave the rest of the ice cream away to a neighbour, otherwise we would have eaten that as well.

    I hate the fact that Leslie is leaving today. I made her a lovely French toast for breakfast, and we will likely do a late lunch… but all of that is hiding the fact that in the mid-afternoon I have to drive her to the airport. I love when we are together, and I hate when we have to part. Fortunately, I did do what I had said yesterday… I booked my next trip to see her in Dallas. We will be apart this time for 35 days, which is a long time… but at least it is a known quantity; when she left here in July, we did not have a date for our next meeting, and it ended up being two months. At least I have the countdown set this time.

    While she is leaving later today, it is still a lovely day in Burlington. As she packs and gets ready, I am going to go to the café to pick up our traditional lattés. It is, after all, Sunday morning… and a latte and cigar is the order of the day.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 968

    My sleep score was back in the low 90s from last night. I feel much better throughout the day when I get a good night sleep… but that is not surprising or frankly very insightful. My body battery was an incredible 98 this morning as well.

    My weight was up again – Leslie made a delicious lamb for dinner, and we decided to splurge and pick up pie and ice cream for dessert. I do not mind that I am gaining a few pounds for her last few days here – we are enjoying our way too limited time together, and if that involves splurging then so be it.

    We bought a challah for Shabbat yesterday and I was going to make French toast for breakfast, but when I realized I was missing a couple of key ingredients, we opted instead to eat breakfast out. I will make the French toast tomorrow.

    While I did not exercise yesterday, between walking Princess Sophie and the many errands we ran, I still recorded 11,700 steps. I am happy with that. Because of the amount of exercising I have done of late, I still did not hit my goal according to Garmin… my fitness tracker wanted me to hit 13,950… and so be it.

    We have some errands to run today as well, but nothing on the scale that we needed to do yesterday. We have to go to Walmart and Shoppers Drug Mart, but that’s it. In the evening we will be connecting with some of my lodge brothers for cigars, which is the only social activity that we had planned for the week. We still do not plan to be out too late – I hope that we can be home by 10:00pm.

    Tomorrow is a sad day… I will have to drive my wife to the airport, and we will say goodbye for another month or so. I plan to buy a ticket to go see her next month… I might even do that right now.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 965

    We remember.

    I went out for a good walk yesterday after lunch. I wanted to jog the first kilometre, but I was having trouble, so I jogged the first half, then the first and last quarter of the second kilometre. In other words, I still jogged a kilometre, just not in a row. I did keep up a tremendous pace for the entire nine kilometres I was out, with only one kilometre coming in over 9m40s. I was quite pleased with the effort!

    Last night did not go anywhere near according to plan. Leslie had a call at 7:00pm, after which we were going to sit on the balcony with an exceptionally fine cigar and a couple of glasses of Cuban rum. When she came out to tell me she needed to see a doctor, I sprang into action. Before any of you ask, 1) No, I will not go into any further detail; and 2) She is fine. After being told to F&ck off by my usual walk-in clinic (very angry with them), we headed to the ER at the hospital in Hamilton. We were out by 10:45, got her meds (thank you to Lisa at Shoppers Drug Mart!) and headed home. While we did sit on the balcony to enjoy a biscuit as we calmed down, the cigars and rum were put away to be enjoyed this evening.

    My weight was down slightly this morning, for which I am thankful. Three cookies at 11:30pm could have made this morning much less pleasant. I will go for another walk today, and hopefully I will continue this downward trend. In the meantime, I am at my lowest weight since June 30, when I weighed in at .2 lb. lower than this morning. While I am not crossing numbers off on the fridge chart, I am making good progress… I am now 9.6 lbs. down since Saturday morning, and that is nothing to sneeze at!

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 963

    Leslie arrived last night! She got in late, but I did not mind waiting. I feel so much happier when she is here (or when I am there). We did not turn off the lights to sleep until after 1:00am, so I may not have slept as long as I would have liked… but I slept much sounder knowing she was next to me.

    Despite eating more than I would have liked to yesterday (I had three meals, plus a protein bar at 11:00pm because I was hungry), the bathroom scale was still kind to me this morning. I have now lost a little more than the four pounds that I gained Friday into Saturday morning. I am still nearly five pounds heavier than I was a week ago, but that will come off soon enough. I have to be patient and remember that this is a marathon and not a sprint.

    I am still feeling the effects of the preparation for my procedure, which is not good news for my bowels. We decided to have pizza for lunch. I am hoping that the carbs will do something to start binding me.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 962

    Leslie is coming today! Woohoo! She won’t be landing until late tonight, but at least I know that when I next get into bed, she will be next to me.

    The procedure went well yesterday, and when I got home, I was finally able to have my first solid meal since Thursday afternoon. It was a relief to say the least. I was energized, and I thought that when I came in from walking Princess Sophie, I might even walk to the supermarket to pick up some provisions. I was hungry an hour after eating, which I suppose is not much of a surprise… especially knowing that the preparations for the procedure involved laxatives and whatnot. Her Floofness and I went out for her usual walk… and it was not long into the walk that I realized that I would be satisfied with getting home; I would not be walking anywhere after that.

    The problem that I was still hungry was still there. I was not allowed to drive because of the anesthesia, and I did not really have any food in the house. In my weakened state (both body and mind) I ordered Chinese food. It was not as good as it should have been for how much of a cheat meal that it was, but it was still tasty. Because of it, knowing how much sugar and MSG there must have been in it, I did not expect to lose weight this morning. It was a pleasant surprise to see that I dropped over 1.5 lbs. from yesterday. Phew! I am still over 290 lbs., but hopefully over the next couple of days I will be able to drop below that mark… again.

    It is a beautiful but cool day in Burlington. I am going to go out to the supermarket quickly, and then I plan to relax on the balcony with a cigar until it is time to prepare a late lunch. I had invited Eduardo over for a cigar, but he told me this morning that he has a family obligation, so he had to decline. It will not bother me one bit to sit alone with my thoughts… and possibly a book, a cigar, and a cup of coffee.

    Leslie’s flight is not landing until 11:00pm, so I will have a quiet day to myself. I might go for a walk, depending on how I feel. Either way, either after my walk or around 8:30pm I will shave and shower, and then get ready to head out to the airport. It will be so good to see her again… it has been way too long!

    Have a great day folks!