3-31-2015 The Little Things

It is a popular saying to not sweat the small stuff. This is then often followed up by the assertion that it is all small stuff. I can see where this phrase and this way of thinking is coming from. Most of the time, the things that we worry about is fairly small on the average. Even when it is a big thing, we shouldn't worry about it because often times we are doing all we can and we just have to let life play out. We'll get through the hard times, brush ourselves off and continue.

Logic is easy when talking existentially. When I am talking about these vague ideas and concepts, or when advice is being offered to others, it is so clear and easy to see and act upon. Yet it is in the execution of the advice where issues tend to arise.

That is how it has been for me today. I don't know what happened, but I feel like I've gotten entirely off the rails today. It's not even over the big things. It's all the little stuff that has been bothering me and getting to me today.

I guess that is the first thing to discuss. "It's all small stuff" is a platitude which when adopted blindly for everything can in fact discount some very serious things. I am a big gentleman. While I've been lucky to have the worst heart thing I have be some well controlled hypertension, my weight is still a big big issue. There is no guarantee that things won't suddenly cascade on me very soon and go wrong and I could die. It could be tomorrow, it could be next week. It could be any time. People who weigh less than me have died of heart attacks younger than me.

No matter which way you cut it, I wake up every day and go to bed every night with that same thought in the back of my head. I could die at any time if I am not careful. I don't try and obsess over it, lord knows I try and forget about it sometimes, because it falls into that category of I am doing everything that I can. Yet it is something that is -huge- and every time I have a small failure, I feel like I am just signing my own death warrant.

Nurses, doctors and everyone else are constantly reminding me about that fact. it's part of what is driving me so hard to do this. I remember the fear that I had when I had my TIA (transient ischemic attack. also known as a mini stroke) and I couldn't talk for a day. That was when everything became so real to me. But even then it took me so long to do this.

Today I met with the physical therapist. Everything was going fine, I was having a normal day, no worries, feeling good with my exercises. We began to go over the exercises I was doing and I think that this is where things started to go down for me. I felt like every third exercise I did it was 'alright, that's great, but lets do this'. Most of it was really great advice, really all of it was. It was a lot of small changes all at once which is a bit tiring, but nothing bad.

The real thing that got to me was when we were working on my ankle and toe lifts while sitting up along with my knee lifts. These two exercises I have been doing, but struggling with doing how she wants me to do them. When I lift my knees, the weight of my lymph-edema in my right abdomen causes my right leg to lift awkwardly and turn. It should be going straight up and down. I kept not being able to do it properly until I had this very awkward stance where I was holding my lymph-edema lobe up while doing the exercise.

Then, immediately after, when we did my ankle and toe lifts, some of my long standing issues came to the fore front. My feet always tend to roll outwards, it is what makes finding shoes for me such a difficulty. If my foot rolls out and I've got a thick sole in my shoe and I trip, I could snap my ankle. When doing my toe lifts, my feet kept wanting to lift the inner part, but I was really struggling with the outer parts of my feet. We had to work and work until I felt like I was contorting my feet inward, almost painfully, just to get them to lift evenly.

The reasons for why we were working on this is all sound. It's so I can do these exercises properly and to do them safely. That is what I want to work with them on. But I felt like such a failure there, that I couldn't even do these most simple things, that my body was fighting me so much and I had to fight it so much. I had become used to my exercises and being able to do them pretty well. My body stumps me so often, but most of it I've been able to overcome. This was much more difficult, for such a small thing and I kept on messing it up even after knowing what I have to do. That is really what started me feeling off balance today.

To be honest, I didn't really notice it then. I just went along, we did everything and I went about my day. I did my laps then and then i encountered what was for me an embarrassing moment. For those who don't want too much information, don't like bodily functions, skip to the next paragraph. ... Still with me? Okay. One of the big issues that I've had is that when I work out and walk, I tend to have to go to the bathroom, a lot. I read an interesting article that discussed that when fat is broken down and we burn calories, most of it is expelled in our breath. But some of that break down goes into expelling liquid waste either in urine or in feces. For me, I tend to get diarrhea. Usually I take care of these things when it's just a caregiver around (because I need aid due to flexibility issues). Today I had it happen while walking with the physical therapist there. I had to run to the bathroom so I wouldn't mess myself and then the physical therapist had to set up the next two appointments with me through the doorway while I was doing this. Then I had to get my caregiver to help me clean myself with them there. I know they understand the need, they have others who have the same issues. yet it is very embarrassing for me to have it happen there in the moment and feel so exposed and feel like I'm putting them off with how disgusting it was. It made the situation very awkward and I think after that point is when I got very quiet for the day.

From there things were just normal, as I said, until my mother got home, rushing about. She had a sandwich wrap for me for my dinner (this was at 4, dinner is at 6). In all that was going on  today I completely forgot she was going out to dinner with a friend (who happens to be my usual caregiver, but not the one I had today). Because I had forgotten I hadn't asked the caregiver to set me up to be good for the rest of the day. Thus I ended up needing extra help from my mother so that I was good for while they were away.

This ended up delaying them so I started to feel really guilty. I didn't want to delay them and I felt bad for it. But she had set my dinner down on my legs so I could have access to it later and I told her I needed it elsewhere, I still had to walk (my usual spaces for holding it were occupied with extra water bottles). She ended up not wanting me to walk alone, because of the fall risks, even though I have done it before. She ended up waiting an extra 40 minutes to go to dinner, so that I could do my walk. The entire time I was feeling just so guilty, because last Friday they had tried to go do this dinner, but kept being delayed because of my sister and had to cancel because they ran out of time. Now here I was delaying them further. My therapists and doctors had been telling me that when it comes to my health and exercise, I need to be selfish and put doing my exercises above everything else, but i still felt like shit for delaying them and tried to make them go and I would do it on my own, but they refused. They wanted to be here while I walked.

This is really when things began to come to come to a head for me. I was feeling guilty and frustrated from earlier. Unknown to me I was also bleeding and injured on my leg, but due to the lymph-edema in my leg and the numbness that comes with it, I hadn't noticed it. It just wasn't very good. but then I noticed that my exercise tracker was all messed up and miss recorded, so I had to start redoing it. When I tried to re-do it, I kept on messing it up again and again until I just gave up in frustration. I scribbled angrily over my mistakes and in the process broke the pen and just threw it all down.

That is when I realized just how shaken I was today and how off balance. It feels even now just so silly, I was getting upset over these little things, I was letting them bother me so much. But I do think there is a reason for that.   It doesn't make me feel any better, I am still mortified at having had such a bad day and reacting so to such little things, but I do think there is an explanation for it.

As I said earlier, I live with that constant big worry in my head all the time. I worry about dying. I know that I could die anytime. That isn't an exaggeration or or hyperbole. That is just a fact. We are doing everything right currently. We are doing everything that we can, but I still could die anytime. Because I cannot address that issue anymore than I am, I feel like everything else, I need to try and be perfect or have control over it. Or I feel guilty because I feel like a burden on people. These things become amplified through that lens of my core problem.

I really shouldn't be sweating the small stuff, but sometimes, when you have so much else going on, you have only the small stuff that you can address. But no matter how hard you try, stuff will go wrong some days. Most days I'm not like this. I can't really tell myself, but my nurses have said I seem in better spirits most of the time, more positive, but at times like this it really doesn't feel that way.

I can logically analyze all of the things that have happened and look at it and find the reasons and rationalize it, but making that step from the logical understanding to feeling okay with it and not letting it bother me is just something that I haven't been able to master yet. I envy those who can do so, who can bounce back so readily. I hope to be one of them. Someday.

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3-28-2015 Motivational Music 2

First a quick update. I have been working very hard lately and been throwing myself into exercises. We were considering putting me into a facility to really help crunch down the weight, but turns out finding a facility that can accommodate someone in my situation is difficult. So we are going to be trying to replicate that sort of intense experience at home with extra physical therapy and nutritionist visits. Plus, new personal best, 21 laps around my front room in one setting!

However, I did promise I would finish my analysis of my music and why it is so inspirational to me and that is what I am going to do here. So without further ado, the rest of my songs for our enjoyment!

Levels - Avicci

This song has an interesting reason for being on this list. It started with me simply looking at lists of good exercise music. It was one that was recommended, so I took a listen and realized that it was a song that a youtuber I watch regularly liked to sing badly with different lyrics. I to this day can't listen to the lyrics here without hearing Ooooooh sometimes, I got to go pee pee. yeaaaah. So for me it's just funny and entertaining and it makes me happy. Which when exercising, something that makes you happy is always a good thing.

Another One Bites The Dust - Queen

I am a big fan of queen, hence why there are a number of Queen songs on the list. This one has just a great beat that really syncs well with the pace of my exercises. Beyond that, the song to me, when it says another one bites the dust, I think of it like another pound is biting the dust. It's going away, the fat is just getting off of me because it can't beat me.

Shot To The Heart - Bon Jovi

This song came onto my list after my sister recommended it to me. The reason being is that we were both watching lots of How I Met Your Mother and this was on Barney's get pumped mix. So I thought I would add it to my list to help me get pumped. However, beyond that it has come to represent my unhealthy relationship with food in the past. My addiction to food gave it a bad name, as it were.

Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger - Daft Punk

Daft punk again makes the list. I haven't always listened to them, but I am coming into it more lately. They have just a very nice beat and this song's title really just says it all. I want to work harder, feel better, be faster and stronger. the repetition of these words over and over throughout the song become a mantra that I repeat under my breath with every exercise, every movement.

We Will Rock You - Queen

This is just another one of those classic songs that you find on so many work out mixes. It is a song about triumphing over adversity. It gets your blood pumping and it evokes in me that take no prisoners attitude I need with my weight loss. I will rock my body, I will win this fight.

Gonna Fly Now - Bill Conti

Okay, maybe this whole section is a little bit standard for most work out mixes, but there is a reason for it. As I said in my last blog, Gonna Fly Now is the song that starts off every work out of mine. Not from this list, but because it is my alarm that reminds me to exercise. It's a Pavlovian response now. I am so used to associating this song with exercise that when it comes on I start moving. I think many people do this, but I put myself into Rocky's shoes and I imagine myself being him, running and taking those steps. Someday I will do it myself, I will go running up steps and that imagery drives me onward.

Montage - Team America

Sometimes I like songs for silly reasons and sometimes I just like silly songs. This song falls into that later category. Even though it is silly, I find it incredibly motivational. Montages work for a reason and this song covers that generic idea of montage's so well that when this song plays, I am in my own montage. I have found myself imagining the process of my exercise and work out. Imagining how I will be in three months, five months, a year from now. I see a new better me and I think that I am just at the early stages of my own life montage and I will get there.

We're Not Gonna Take It - Twisted Sister

This song has a unique place in my heart, because it has helped me chart my mental health in some ways. When I was really depressed and in the early days of my exercise, I was habitually and accidentally saying We're Not Gonna Make It whenever I sang along while working out. It was just so ingrained, that negativity in my head. Stead work, however, has helped me get it right, we're not gonna take it. I'm not going to take this life anymore. I'm not going to deal with this anymore. I am going to get better and improve myself. And that is how it motivates me.

Under Pressure - Queen

Really, I just love this song. It's one of my favorite songs, has a great beat to it. I mean it's so good that even Vanilla Ice tried to rip that beat off. But it also sort of represents how my life has been in the past. It is a reminder of how I have felt when under so much pressure, feeling at the end of my rope. I don't want to get back there, I don't want to be like that, so this song helps me keep looking forward, to the future.

photo credit: Prelude via photopin (license)

3-24-2015 Motivational Music 1

Finding that motivation to help you through the struggles of exercising for those who have lived a sedentary life can be difficult. If you have lived a life carrying an extra person or two on your hips and stomach, you know how difficult it can be to even do the most basic of things, let alone trying to actually work out. Even the simplest of tasks that people might take for granted becomes in and of its self a work out.

My doctors have constantly told me that every little bit of movement helps, so much so that even while I am doing my leg exercises I will just pump my arms or even flail them just to move a bit more and burn more calories. That motivation and that staying focused was always a hard time for me. My brain never wants to turn off, it has been that way for so long, I can't help it. I do my best, but it is always difficult.

It can also be difficult to find the motivation to put yourself through what is going to be a painful, difficult and uncomfortable experience at first. I know it is cliche to say it, but I have found it to be true that after a while of exercising you do come out the other side feeling more invigorated than before. But until then you have to find that motivation to help keep you through the rough parts. For me, it has been music.

When I am ready to work out I set up my music and I turn off my computer monitor so that I am not distracted by anything else. My phone goes off to the side, I am focused on my work out. I was told once, that it is important to be like a pit bull with a bone with your exercise time, you don't let it go for anything else and my music helps remind me of that in an almost Pavlovian way. My alarm for my exercising starts off with Ready to Fly Now, the Theme from Rocky and that just sets me into exercise mode. That's when I pop on my playlist.

Beyond the simple beats of the songs which help me to keep up a pace and energize me, each song has elements of it that seem to speak to certain goals and feelings that I have and really helps me to motivate myself to push harder each and every time. I'm moving with more energy and while I am so tired after my work outs, I'm feeling better for them and eager for the next one.

My playlist is in no particular order, it's just as I added music and I always play it on random so it is a different inspiration each time. I should perhaps go through and actually carefully craft my music for a rise and fall with my exercises, however, I haven't done that now. So I'll just be looking at the songs in the order that they are on the list. We'll start with the first nine of the list today and I'll cover the rest another time.

Eye of the Tiger - Survivor

This is just such a great, classic work out song. It's about keeping the eye on the prize for me. I work out with my goal weight and my weight loss record on the wall to one side. When I have this song come onto my list my face just gets tight and i'm in game mode, I'm ready to do this. I am constantly checking my record reminding myself that I am going to do this, I am hungry... well not be hungry any more.

Satisfaction - The Rolling Stones

This song has a great beat and just makes me want to bob my head to the music. However, the message of the song for me is that I shouldn't get complacent, I shouldn't ever be satisfied with how I am. It is that complacency, that elf congratulation of good work that has led to me gaining weight in the past. I'll get to 750 pounds and then I'll say I've done a good job, lets celebrate and then I'll undo the good work. Cheat days are for the cheating and shouldn't do it outside of it. I shouldn't ever be satisfied with what I've done until I've made it to where I want to be.

Stayin' Alive - Bee Gees

Okay, this one is a bit corny and I don't usually listen to this song, but it, like some of the other songs on my list are there for the motivation. And really this song is rather on the nose in that front. I am literally doing this to stay alive. If I let this continue, my health will deteriorate and I will die. Plus the joy of their singing the happiness that they express in the song is just there to help brighten my day.

One More Time - Daft Punk

This song really motivates me to keep on going with what I am doing. Sometimes when we focus -too- much on the tasks that we have to accomplish on our path, we end up getting bogged down with worry and fear and that can lead to a relapse for a food addict. This song really helps me live in the moment of my exercises. When it comes on and I'm lagging from being tired, it pushes me to do just one more rep, and then another and another. Just one more time, because sometimes we do have to live in the moment.

Go Your Own Way - Fleetwood Mac

One of the ultimate break up songs, for me, the song captures my relationship with food so well. I love it too much, I'm addicted to it. But food is supposed to be fuel. So this song represents my struggle with that addiction and my attempts to conquer it.

I Got You (I Feel Good) - James Brown

Another straight forward song on my list. The high energy helps me get moving quickly and it reminds me that I do feel good and I'm feeling better and better the more weight I lose. I'm able to move better, my pain is easing up. It's hard work, but it's worth it so that I can feel good. The song makes me shimmy even when I am doing my work outs, almost as if I was dancing, making my exercises all the more fun.

Ain't No Mountain High Enough - Marvin Gaye

One of the quintessential work out songs, I remember this song being a part of Sweatin' To the Oldies with good old Richard Simmons. Its message of overcoming any obstacle to get to the one you love can also be applied to reaching the self that you want to be. There is nothing that will stop me from getting to where I want to go, to finding the me that I want to be. This songs more sedate pace makes it very good for stretches or cool down periods, but no matter when it comes on in my work out, I get motivated.

Push It To The Limit - Paul Engemann version

I am starting to feel like my songs are just really straight forward. Push it to the limit, that's what I want to do with my exercising. I want to push myself every day to do as much as I can. I try very hard not to bind myself to a specific time/number of laps. I just want to keep pushing my limit every time and every day and do what feels right.

Time of Our Lives - Paul van Dyk

This song really speaks to me in terms of there being times for everything. One thing that I really struggle with is that by devoting so much time to my work out and exercising, I'm not really spending time with my friends anymore, not as much as I used to. I am focused in and only have narrow windows for relaxing. This reminds me that there is a time for everything. Now is the time for me to get my health in control. Soon I will have time again to go out and do more. And because I am doing this, I will have more time in the future.


This is just the start, but really if I did everything for this today, we would be here forever. Again, next post will be more music and reasons why it is motivational for me. What is your motivational music? What gets you up there and moving?





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3-21-15 Everything Clicking

This new schedule is still tough and I think that it is going to require some careful work, especially in the evening, but I think that overall things are really starting to click into place for me with this plan.

The exercises is really one of the big linchpins of my weight loss program. It starts with ankle pumps, I do twenty five of them, very simply to get the blood flowing. I then move into these leg pumps where I pump both my legs out and into a stretch and hold it for five seconds before repeating. I do this twenty five times as well with both legs. From there I move into sweeping my legs to the side and back to the middle. I do twenty five of these with each leg. Then I do heel presses with my knees bent. This presses my heels into the bed and tenses up my thighs where I have some bad lymph-edema. I do this twenty five times and then I move into muscle contractions of my butt and my abs. This may not  seem like a lot, but doing these twenty five times each and holding for five seconds with all of these exercises really adds up and I can feel the burn in my muscles from it. I finish it all off with twenty leg lifts with each leg, holding it for twenty seconds each time.

That is what I used to do, but since then I've added several more exercises that I do while sitting up on the side of the bed or in my chair. I start with just kicking out my feet fifteen times, then I do ten knee lifts and then twenty ankle pumps again while sitting. It's worked out well and I am starting to get more comfortable with these exercises and doing them a bit faster, resting less between each of these. I repeat these first a half an hour after I wake up and then I do them again in the hour before my dinner.

I think take a chair out into the front room two times a day to do my walks. Because of my size I can't walk for a long time without a break. I measured out my walking distance in my living room and it's sixteen feet across. So a lap for me is walking that across and back again for a 32 foot lap. You may think this is nothing, but next time you want to go for a walk, try slapping on an extra five hundred pounds and see how far you can walk before you need to stop for a breather. That's what I'm doing.

What I walk varies from day to day. I am trying my best to put forward an idea of doing as many laps as I can and then calling it. I don't want to push too hard and risk a fall or not being able to pick them up later. Yesterday I managed 11 laps in my first bout of walking and 15 in the second. Today it was 7 and 10. This mornings was more because of bodily needs rather than not being able to do more and the schedule was tight for reasons I will get into in a moment.

The big obstacle that I am seeing in my schedule and with the walking is the evening walk which occurs after dinner. Right now I am exercising before dinner, then I am sitting up and having dinner out with my family which is always strenuous on my legs and back because I need to constantly adjust myself. But then I need to move into my laps for my walking. To do the laps we need to pull the commode from my room because it is at this perfect height that allows me to stand without straining, making it ideal for the way I do my laps. We don't have anything else that would fit.

My commode we keep super clean so there is no worries about germs, it's just a bit big. With my knee and back issues and general instability, I can't reliably move it on my own. My mother is recovering from neck surgery so she can't really either, my sister has a bad back from her work and we don't have a caregiver in the evenings. Right now we are having to group up and manhandle it out there and then back in when we are done. We can't leave it out there because 1 no privacy when I need it for other purposes and 2, we put it in front of the door and can't leave it there.

This leaves me with two factors which are making this section of my day difficult. The first is the just big stretch of using up a lot of energy right there. I need to exercises and burn off calories, no doubting that, but if I am too exhausted, I can't get as much out of the walk as I would like. The second real big factor is the problem of moving the commode or finding some other seat. We've discussed trying to find wood or something to raise the chair I have out there. If it was a couple of inches higher, as long as it were stable, I wouldn't have these same issues and that could prove to be the solution.

Despite this, my exercises are really clicking for me. The only thing that is really not clicking for me right now is my home care situation. The agency we use, Synergy, they decided to randomly change my schedule today and not tell me. I expect someone to be here at my house at 10 am to give me my morning shake. Around 10:25 I called them and asked where the caregiver for the day was. Turns out they scheduled him for 11:30.  This ended up throwing off my whole morning routine, though we did our best to keep to it.

It just highlights the need for a new home care worker, hence the interviews we have been doing. I must confess, I've been spoiled for choice with this. We've got a couple of really good candidates, three that I am trying to decide between right now. I've got one more home care worker to interview tomorrow, but that is it. I've taken down the advertisement for now. Even if this last person doesn't end up working out, I still have three people I really like to decide from and I don't want to tell any of them no.

Each has their pros and cons. One is really well experienced and is on the ball with so many of the things that I need. He's a bit more quiet and reserved it seemed to me, but that could have been nerves. My sister and Patti both met him at a training session by sheer chance and Patti reported very favorably as to his confidence.

Another is very vibrant and energetic. She's not had as much experience, but what experience she has is with twenty four hour care so it's really intense work. She's very friendly and seems very caring and I think would bring a very good energy to my life and really help keep me motivated with what I am doing.

The third is very well organized. He's again less experienced, but he has that twenty four hour care experience that makes it a bit more intense. He's also helped someone with weight issues and is still helping them. His organization and that specific appearance will do a lot to help keep things on track. The main problem is that he's also very busy with a lot going on in his life and he's already got some days set out in the near future where he needs stretches off and I don't begrudge him that. But given how busy he is, I worry how that will work with the home care situation with me.

All three are nerdy, geeky, gamery in their own ways to greater or lesser extents, which is something that I was wanting and looking for in a home care worker. It's a stark contrast to my situation at Synergy where things are generally rough with some few bright spots. Here I have three people I all think would work and I don't like having to tell any of them no.

I am considering speaking with them and seeing if two might like to split the hours and do 42 hours in a month each and ask the third, whichever it ends up being, if they would like to remain on call if there is an emergency or a vacancy in the future. I have four days that need filled, including the weekends. If they are fine with splitting those shifts and one taking half and the other taking half, we may be able to afford people whole weekends, give them more time to take another client as well on the side which is quite common.

This isn't an easy decision, but at the same time, I'm glad that this isn't an easy decision, because it means there are a lot of good candidates here and there are a lot of possibilities. Once we get this situation settled, however it plays out, I think I will be in a very good place going forward.

Even the evening meal situation is getting better. As I said last time, we got a lean cuisine selection that I should like. Today I had the breakfast sandwich variety. Since they are half the calories of the other meals I ended up eating two and then having some carrots as well to help bulk it up. It felt like a bit of a light meal overall, the meals we usually have are more, even when we have been trying to watch the calories. But this is much more tightly controlled and I actually really liked the breakfast sandwich from lean cuisine. This bodes well because I will adjust to the smaller sizes and this will do a lot to help me achieve my goal.

April 2nd I will be weighed in. I am shooting for 756.6. This is a very attainable goal, 1.18 pounds a day of weight loss. I can do this.

July 4th is the goal, 650 pounds. 781.3 and counting.

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3-19-2015 Working With the Professionals

This has been a hectic day for me. It started off on the wrong foot and it is only as I write this that I feel like the day has come onto any sort of order.

It all started with the physical therapist calling me at 8:30 in the morning, saying they would be here between 9:45 and 10:00. For my day usually starts at 10:00 am. Late for most people, but given my schedule it is what works for me. And my days are pretty regimented due to my diet program and exercise program. Even though it was only 15 minutes early my entire internal clock got off track and I was waking up every 15 minutes from there on out because I just had my schedule off.

As a result when 9:30 came around and I gave up on sleep I was shaking and disoriented. Due to my disabilities, I have to make use of a urinal and my hand was shaking so much I spilled everything everywhere and it was a mess. Thankfully my homecare worker got there and Patti, she is a dream, she swooped in like a guardian angel to help me get cleaned up in time for the physical therapist who showed up at 10:15.

The physical therapist did her treatment for my tennis elbow and began working with me on some new exercises to add to what I am already doing. Which is great, I was looking for more to add, we've been adding more. just the other day i decided to add a second round of exercises in the evening. The Physical therapist ended up wanting me to add another round of walking again ont op of what I had already added.

As I said before, my schedule is pretty regimented and it can be hard to squeeze in too many things and she was wanting me to do the walking when no homecare workers are around to help me move my chair out to where I do my walking (so I have somewhere to rest between laps) and no one there to spot for me. Let me tell you, being 781 pounds and being mobile is hard enough without doing it without the safety net of a homecare worker or someone to help me with things. Moving a seat out there to walk (it has to go in front of the door so it can't just be left there) I tried to explain the difficulties of doing this to the Physical Therapist, but she didn't really want to hear it. Then she was saying she wanted to show up at 9:30 two days a week and before i could say anything she said that if she can do it, I can do it.

A big part of the reason my time getting up later is the way it is is so that it coincides with my schedule of protein shakes and because I have such an incredibly hard time getting to sleep at night, I need that 10 am time in order to get some of the sleep I need. If my sleep is off I have less energy and less ability to do the exercises I need to do. We worked this schedule out to accommodate these facts to try and give me the best chance of success possible. I began to get really frustrated, because the physical therapist seemed to want to change my schedule rapidly and massively to suit what she thought my needs should be without addressing the realities of my life that I have to deal with and what has been worked out carefully with my other doctors.

When she left my mother and homecare worker were both upset at what they had heard and I was beginning to just panic about how I am supposed to accommodate everything. My mother ended up calling the nurses to try and get them to not come before 12:30 (to give time for my bath, my first round of exercising and my first two shakes of the day). Patti again came to safe the day and after my bath when I went out to do my walk she got a piece of paper and while I walked and rested between laps we charted out my schedule.

It's gone through four revisions so far today, but we think we've found something that will work. The real key is hoping that my mother or my sister (one of whom is recovering from spinal surgery so really hoping my sister or my neighbor maybe) can help move the seat out to walk after dinner. My schedule has gotten so tight that Patti made me schedule a period for relaxation and having fun.

I love to play roleplaying games like muds and video games. I am going to have to cut back from what I used to do. I am on a break from them because of the interviews that I am doing, trying to find a homecare worker for when Patti isn't working. It's sort of sad, realizing I won't be able to come back in the same capacity that I used to do. I know it is sort of temporary. Once I reach my goal weight and have surgery, the urgency of the situation will not be quite so pronounced. I'll be in recovery, I'll have a bit more time for some of these things. But for now I have to focus on my health.

And on health, my toes have decided to explode with infections again. Okay, maybe not quite literally, but it is pretty bad. I have some ingrown toenails that the podiatrist didn't want to take care of when I called the first time. Or rather the nurse for the podiatrist didn't wish to at the time, because the infection was getting mostly better the first time. This was a few weeks ago. It's flared right back up again and I called back again and found out the podiatrist is on vacation until monday.

Because of my diabetes, things like this are a serious issue. I've had people telling me all the time, any issues in your toes or feet, it could lead to you losing your toes and feet. I called my primary care doctor's office about it, to see about antibiotics or things like that. I also called home health, because they had said repeatedly if I get an infection, call them up because it is important that they send someone out to check it, because of my diabetes. I did that and the nurse was very intense about how they couldn't do anything for me, that it wasn't an emergency issue. They really did a lot to make me feel like I had wasted their time. And the funny thing is, they said as they left, I just like helping people. I didn't really feel helped, but more like I was bothering them.

I think the unifying thing between this nurse and the physical therapist earlier is that they are so quick to put me into a box. I have to fit into their perfect categories of this or that. That and the biggest thing I have found with my weight loss journey is that you need a community of support to help you through it. And with these meetings today, I haven't felt like I've been getting that there. The other doctors and nurses I've worked with have been great. Patti has been wonderful through all of this.

It's a sad thing that all of the negatives can seem to weigh much more heavily than the positives. It's one of those things that I've had a lot of trouble dealing with. It's something that I think a lot of people deal with. I just keep trying to use that self talk to try and keep my mind on the positives. My family and Patti are good about helping encourage that too. We've also begun to put up signs and keep track of things to help with the positivity. I have a sign up charting my weight loss since October with my goal weight and goal date below it. We have also set up a weekly calender to keep track of my time exercising in the morning, laps in the morning, time exercising in the evening and laps in the evening. And the laps and time exercising are two separate events. I don't double count the laps as time exercising. These things I think will help me chart a positive path forward.

Part of that will need a good homecare worker. I am searching for a new homecare worker as I said earlier, but the person who was supposed to interview today didn't show up. This is the second person who hasn't shown up this week. Thankfully we have some good prospects who have shown up and two more interviews this week. I am hoping that by monday I can sit down with Patti and my mother and really discuss the candidates and come to a conclusion.

Tomorrow we start this new and hopefully improved schedule. It's my cheat day so I get some special foods. But on saturday I am going to try a lean cuisine dinner for my meal, we found some at the store and that is an option for the diet. We think doing those will help us better control the diet then what we have been doing. I go in to be weighed on April 2nd. I am 781.3 pounds right now. My goal is that by then I will be 756.6. If I am I will be on track for reaching my goal by July 4th.






photo credit: after the heat via photopin (license)