Ruth Update, September 12, 2007

Dear Friends, Relatives, and Prayer Partners,

My weight loss program was going okay until last week. I walked two miles, and did not enjoy it. I don't know if that had anything to do with what happened to me the next day or not, but it seemed to be related.

On Friday, after the no fun walk, my back started hurting, and it got worse through the day. I had walked that route before, so I don't think I over did it. I had been having pain in my upper arm off and on for some time, and I had an appointment with a physical therapist for it. I thought I could kill two birds with one stone when I went to see her. The backache felt like a "crick," a pain that might last for a while and then go away. As of Monday, it still had not gone away, and as of Tuesday, it was a bad as ever, and I had my PT appointment. When I demonstrated what made my upper arm hurt (the reason I actually had to see her), I think she knew what it was right away. It was my rotator cuff. You don't have to be a baseball pitcher to get that, I guess. And it seems the back pain, just below my shoulder blade on the same side, was related. She taped my shoulder and gave me some exercises to do. I went home and did some of the exercises -- nothing strenuous.

This morning I woke up and sneezed and thought I was going to die from the pain. My whole back on that side seemed to be on fire. Paul had to help me get dressed! I called the HMO. I wanted to see somebody who could give me drugs. I also called in to work to tell them I wouldn't be in.

I got to see the nurse practitioner who works with our family practice doc. Turns out she has some first-hand experience with rotator cuff problems. I guess I have Bursitis and Tendonitis (Impingement). All the pain is related. I got an x-ray, a shot of some powerful anti-inflammatory, some pills of another anti-inflammatory, and the muscle relaxant, which is just starting to kick in, so please forgive my typos.

I am feeling better. I just hope the relaxation of the muscles lasts long enough to get me to work tomorrow, and to New York on the weekend. Yes, we are finally giving Matt the trip to Broadway he has been wanting for so long. It seems that two of the original cast members of Rent are back in the show for a few weeks. It is a logistical nightmare to get Matt from Radford, get him home, and then get all of us to New York in time for the Saturday matinee. I have a motel reservation for us at a Super 8 in North Bergen, NJ, right by the Lincoln Tunnel. I hope this works out and I don't sleep through the whole thing.

Just in case you were wondering what I need prayer for at this late date!

Excuse me while I go take a nap.

Get your mammograms, do your self-exams.

Ruth

A bit of a setback

Okay, I last blogged on Tuesday. On Wednesday, I walked the 1.6 mile route. On Thursday, I walked the 2 mile route, much more slowly. I just could not get going, and was walking about 101 steps per minute. I just could not get up to 106. I came home feeling kind of stiff and tired and generally beat. I did, however, have some of the ice cream. It had a raspberry swirl and chocolate chunks. Good stuff! I hobbled along with Paul on his evening walk.

The next day, I got up and somehow made it to work, though a bit late. As the day wore on, my back felt worse and worse. I warned Paul that I was not going to be able to get dinner on. My only comfortable position is flat on my back with two pillows under my knees. Or, on my side, knees drawn up with a pillow between them. I am out of percocet, too. Dang. I have to depend on Motrin. Today is laundry day, and Paul and Timmy are off on a camp out with scouts. I had them take most of the dirty laundry downstairs before they left. Now it is up to me to get the clean stuff upstairs. Dang, again.

I didn't walk yesterday, and I doubt that I will today, either. If it ain't one darn thing, it's another!

Faster, farther, longer, higher, whatever

I have walked every day for the last week -- eight days in a row. I even walked on Sunday!

Yesterday, I walked the two-mile route for the first time, and today I timed myself. I walked two miles in 41:42, at a pace of 104-106 steps per minute. Yay, me! I have been fudging a bit on the snacks, but not too much. I figure two more days, and I will have earned another ice cream. Paul has some raspberry something in the freezer and he keeps eating it when I am around. I tell him I hate him, but, of course, I don't. I did tell him not to eat all of it before I have earned my next ice cream! I figure five days in a row earns a scoop of ice cream, but Monday of last week I had an ice cream sandwich, so that upped my days to ten. I think I go back to the oncologist to be weighed sometime next week.

Have you seen this blog: BECAUSE I SAID SO Dawn is being called the next Erma Bombeck. Some of her postings are quite hilarious. I recommend reading the blog from the beginning. She just started in June of this year, so it won't be too onerous. Those of us with children can really relate!

Ruth

Still truckin'!

I missed two days in a row due to a) Sunday is a day of rest, and b) I felt like crap. I have since done my 1.7 miles three days in a row, even yesterday, when I had started the day by coughing so hard that I lost my breakfast. All of it. I scared Janet and Carla, my co-workers, pretty thoroughly. I called the HMO pretty quick. I saw a nurse practitioner, and she confirmed that it was "just a virus." Yeah, right. She prescribed a decongestant to stop the drip that was causing the cough, and it worked! I managed to sleep the night through last night for the first time in days.

We also took Timmy to the big school he will be starting to attend on Tuesday. I am more concerned about him starting seventh grade than I was about Matt starting college. I have even rearranged my work schedule to be home when he gets home. It doesn't help that I can't find the local bus stop on the schedule they passed out. Now to get him to orientation tomorrow, and to get all the stuff on that massive supply list they give us.

Oh, I was weighed at the clinic. No difference from last week, but still six pounds down from the week before that.

My weekend

We did indeed go to BR Friday evening. I had a kid's scoop of Heath Bar Toffee crunch, which was pretty close to what I remember of butter brickle ice cream. It was good, and it was enough. Timmy heard discussion of BR, and he came along on the walk. He got a bigger scoop of a different ice cream. Paul got nothing at BR, but walked over to Safeway to buy milk.

On Saturday, I slept late, but did get my walk in around noon time. It was very hot, but I did the walk, stopping at the bank to cash in some dollar bills for dollar coins. I am starting a campaign to actually use dollar coins. I found out that the speed check lane at Shoppers Food Warehouse does take them. Little by little, the dollar coins will gain acceptance, but only if we use them! Go forth and use the coins! Save some for a collection, first, though! Or not. Whatever you want.

When I awoke on Saturday, my nose was stuffed up. This was not good news as I was scheduled to be the special music at the church where I work that day. I called the music director to warn her. We met before the service, and found I should do the piece, Fill My Cup, Lord, a half-step lower than we practiced, and to avoid the "big finish" I had planned. I managed to get it out, with lots of lubrication -- water, hot tea, coffee, pectin cough drops.

Sunday evening, we had a dinner group meeting at the home of a friend from the church where we worship. I brought the appetizer -- some carrots, cucumber spears, and small tomatoes from our garden, with homemade dip, some homemade pita pieces with purchased hummus. The rest of the meal was much above that: Rib eye roast, baked potatoes, asparagus and green beans with hollandaise sauce, spinach and strawberry salad, bread pudding with hard sauce for dessert. I had trouble getting out of my chair.

When we got home, I took some generic nighttime cold medicine. It was expired, and that, combined with the two glasses of wine I had for dinner, was not a good thing. I tossed and turned all night and felt really miserable by the time I got to work. I managed to put in my six hours, but came home and crashed. Not only did I not do my long walk, but I was tempted by an ice cream sandwich made with chocolate chip cookies. Mea culpa! I am going on my short walk with Paul right now. He is calling!

The "before" picture

I walked today, the same route I have been taking, so I get some ice cream tomorrow! Hmmm, maybe tonight on our evening walk. Hmmm. I didn't take the stopwatch this time, but it was about 35 minutes by my watch.

Anyway, I thought I would post a "before" picture. Just taken yesterday, the same time I took my curls picture. Note the vertical stripes. They don't help much.

Now that I have posted this, I have even more incentive to keep it up. Also, today I had another medical appointment, so I stepped on the handy scale. It showed six pounds less than last week's scale, in a different office. I will not claim all six of those pounds, as I was wearing lighter shoes today, but it is definitely the right direction!

Now, to go see if I can talk Paul into that walk to Baskin Robbins!

The latest round of musings

A piquant situation

What the heck is she showing us a bottle of vinegar for? My brothers visited over Christmas and bought us a lot of stuff for the kitchen. They are both very good cooks. One is a professional, in fact. One thing they bought was a bottle of white wine vinegar. I already had the balsamic, thank you very much, and several other kinds, but they got me this one.



Later, I noticed something strange. I took this picture in March.



See the brown stuff floating in the bottom of the bottle? I am thinking that is the "mother" of vinegar. I know you can use it to make new vinegar, if that is what it is, but I also know that I didn't want to mess with that process. We don't drink that much wine, and when we do, we drink it all, so we don't have any left over with which to make vinegar.


Anyway, the other day I thought I would strain it out and make salad dressing, and then pitch the lot. I found this:



I don't know what that white stuff on the top was, and I don't think I wanted to find out. I took another picture so you could see that the white and the brown stuff were actually semi-solid. I used Balsamic to make the dressing




Paul asked permission to throw the lot out. I concurred.

Is that indeed the mother of the vinegar? What is the white stuff? Have I committed some culinary sacrilege?


The latest in my hairy adventure


If you look in the sidebar, you will see a link to "How I Got Here, and some good things about chemotherapy. Well, here is another nice thing about chemo: Chemo curls! If things go as they did last time, I will have curly hair for about two years. It doesn't last, but I have fun with it while I can. It is just curly enough. I can comb a little gel through it, and just go! No dryer, no fuss. I finished chemo in October, and got my first haircut in June.

And here is what I looked like in February. This was taken before my Dad's funeral. The lady with her hand on my shoulder is my Aunt Bette, the family treasure. She is the last of her generation, the widow of my father's brother. All of my Dad's siblings are gone, and she is the last of the spouses left. Her husband died nearly forty years ago, but she has remained an important part of our family ever since. The other lady, sitting next to me, is Mildred. She was Dad's "girlfriend" (his word) for the last few years of his life. They lived in assisted living together, and she visited him after he moved to skilled care in the same facility. Bless her heart, she was older than he was by several years! She uses a walker, but gets around pretty well, and seems pretty sharp, too.

And furthermore . . .

My brother tells me that Jane and Michael Stern have a "Roadfood" article in the Sept. '07 issue of Gourmet that describes my hometown, Scottsbluff, Nebraska, as a "Mexican Food Destination." We have always enjoyed Mexican food, but never thought of Scottsbluff as a "destination" for it! We need to watch for the issue. Also, if you were listening to "The Splendid Table," on August 4th, you heard Jane and Michael go on and on about the cabbage burgers at the Gering Bakery in Nebraska. Gering is across the river from Scottsbluff, and is the seat of Scotts Bluff county. The Gering Bakery has a branch in Scottsbluff, called the Scottsbluff Bakery. ;-) If you want to listen to the piece go to: http://splendidtable.publicradio.org/whereweeat/stern_gering.shtml I love hearing about home in the national media for something besides sugar factory explosions and chemical spills!

In conclusion

Yes, I did walk on Thursday. I took the same route I have been taking, and didn't stop anywhere, and crossed in the middle of the block to avoid marking time at traffic lights. It took me 34:36 to cover what my husband now tells me is 1.7 miles. Just for fun, I timed my steps, my pace, if you will. Counting each time a foot hit the pavement, I was going about 100 steps per minute. For whatever that is worth.

Try not to be too impressed with the improvement in my time. The first time out it was raining. I had an umbrella, and a woman who lives in our neighborhood was walking home from her job at Safeway. I had to share the umbrella, of course, and she is a lot shorter than I am. I think I slowed down a bit.

Day three

My husband walked with me this evening. He is a former serious runner, and still runs some, so he has a pretty good idea of the distances involved. It seems the last two days were actually 1.7 miles, and today was 1.8 because we didn't want to walk the dark path in the woods. We did it in 41:12.

I am still trucking!

Okay, so my legs are mad at me. They don't hurt, exactly, but they are grumbling.

Day two!

I got a lot of encouragement, thank you! Today, I walked a little more than 1.6 miles in 39:34. I slipped into the bank and Safeway on the way. I stopped my stopwatch while I was in the buildings, but they are on opposite sides of the parking lot, so I did a bit of backtracking. Tomorrow, I will probably stop at the dry cleaners, so it will be a bit longer, again. Anyway, I have a start. Also, I am still walking with Paul in the evenings. That is about .6 miles, and we have been doing that for years. Obviously, not enough. I don't do that when the sidewalks are icy, or when it is raining hard. I need a treadmill.

My uncle said: "Get thee to yon weight-watchers meeting. I have lost 50 lbs since end of April." Good for you , Bill! Somebody else recommended WW, too. I think I will just try eating sensibly, and using portion control. I have been drinking skim milk for years, and haven't put butter on my toast on a regular basis for a long time, either. I try to limit my use of fats and oils in cooking, and when I do use oils, I choose the least saturated. I haven't cooked with shortening for a long time. I just need to take smaller portions and/or avoid seconds. Also, I need to avoid candy and other sweets. I do have a sweet tooth, so today, I bought some non-fat sugar-free hard candy. About six calories a piece. I will have them at work. You know, it is not easy to find candy that is both non-fat and sugar-free, especially chocolate. I did buy some dark chocolate that is about 50 calories per individually wrapped piece. I figure I can have one of those per day. I will try very hard to eat it sloooooooowly.

We don't own a bathroom scale, so I will be weighing myself at the doctor's office when I am there once a month. That should be about right. Also, I do plan to reward myself. After walking five days in a row (or ten days, whichever comes first), I will walk to Baskin Robbins and have a kiddy scoop of butter brickle ice cream. Does anybody remember butter brickle? I got a real yen for it the other day and went looking for it. I couldn't find any by that name, but BR has a couple that come close. Other than that, no ice cream. And we have a carton of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream in the freezer, too. Dang.

For those of you who have done it, how does WW work when the rest of the family doesn't need to be on a diet? They won't even let me buy low-fat ice cream!

Thank you for your support!

The starting line

Dear Friends, Relatives, and Prayer Partners,

Just a little note to tell you I have started to do something about my weight, as noted in my last update. Today, I walked 1.6 miles in 38:05. I will try to walk at least that distance every day, and post my progress on my blog. If you wish to check up on my progress, please go to the blog at http://ruthsmusings.blogspot.com/. I will not be sending you daily e-mails, so this is an opt-in activity. I can use all the cheerleaders I can get!

I will also tell you how much weight I have lost. I will not divulge the starting point!

Get your mammograms. Do your self-exams.

Ruth