Boo Boo Buddy

The verdict is in...torn crucial ligament. It's not life threatening (yet!) but there is a good chance the other leg will soon follow and then we're in trouble. The suggested surgery will require two days and nights in hospital, place a metal plate with eight (8) screws inside the knee, rehabilitation, and follow up care. Ka-ching! Ka-ching! We're looking at $3,800. Unfortunately that is not a possibility in our lives at the moment. I'm keeping fingers crossed that Dad hits it big with Lotto and that the other leg doesn't give out. Otherwise it's a matter of waiting for me to refinance to come up with this cash. My little fur-boy is only 7 years old and I can only think of getting him better. So keep the positive thoughts headed our way. And let's all remember - I'm a lucky girl. Things will work out. They always do.

Lap Band Talk Forum

I wanted to share with the interested parties a very informative link - Lap Band Talk Forum. This blog is still new to me and the idea of chat rooms is still very foreign to me. Being one of only two people that I know who had the lap band (Hi Mo!) I have limited opportunities to commiserate or identify what I am experiencing. This website gives me these opportunities. More and more often I find myself going to this link and posting a search word. From this simple inquiry I get loads of input from actual people who are going through or have gone through what I am. My most recent search was for plateaus. I am shocked that I am not losing weight the way I expected to. After all in the past I could lose 30 lbs. in a matter of six weeks. It's now past nine weeks since this journey began which includes the two months since surgery and I am just at that point now.

I may have mentioned earlier about having never plateaued before. The truth is that I never recognized that I was plateauing. I always thought that I had just lost some weight and fell off the wagon. Nope. Not true. It was those times that I had plateaued but didn't recognize it. So now I realize that even if I'm not having the weight fall off me I've changed enough about me that this will -- correction -- this is working just in a way it never did before. And that is what makes me know this time I will do it!

If you're curious about lap bands, take a look at this site by clicking the link at the very bottom of the blog.

"Cruisin'...on a Tuesday afternoon..."

Logan's on his way. Cruising down the Hudson (other direction than photo shows) on the Carnival "Victory" with his dad for a four day trip to Canada. Look closely at the photo and you will see my office building. On his last cruise Roland and I waited nearly 2 1/2 hours for the cruise ship to pass us. Just when we were about to give up we saw the bow of the ship to our right. Since it was nearly 100 degrees out we passed on this viewing. Right about now Logan is having dessert somewhere on the ship. His little body can handle the food...he's full of calorie-burning energy.

Me on the other hand not so. All is well and I'm actually starting to feel the "fill" more than I did a week ago. In fact I ate something too fast and it got caught outside the pouch. Quite an icky scary feeling. Kind of feels like you have a french fry stuck in the esophagus. That's pretty much what it is - food stuck in esophagus. Ugh! Chew! Chew! Chew!

It's actually too hot to keep writing. We've had a horrible heat wave that really has taken its toll on the tri-state area. Lots of brown outs and black outs. We've been the luckier ones with that situation. Not so for poor Gisele and Phil. They were without electricity all last night until early morning. Ugh!

Keep Cool!

Sex & The City - Who wants to be Miranda?

I had the opportunity to enjoy a movie of a much loved HBO TV series that ended a couple of years ago - "Sex & The City." Together with 10 other lady colleagues, I went to the theater in the city across from our office building. We began with appetizers at Chevy's, a sip of a Cosmopolitan (Carrie Bradshaw's signature drink), and enjoyed a 2 1/2 hour movie.

It was interesting to see (spoiler alert) how the lives of our heroines improved and digressed. Some people love it while others not so. Me - I think it was very real on many different levels. Having lived my colorful life as a single woman and as a former wife - I liked it.

What I found most interesting is that when we went around the table before the movie asking who do you think you are out of the four characters, nobody wanted to be Miranda.

Why would they? Carrie is fashionable, clever, and has a great job as a writer. Charlotte is the romantic one with a flair for being a proper lady. Samantha is the mature vixen who is strong, confident, and loves herself. And then there is Miranda - a cynical independent lawyer who is not the sexiest nor the most elegant nor the most fashionable. But I realized something. She is me.

After seeing this movie a second time with Tina, I realized that so many of her finer points are overlooked. She is independent and can rely on herself. She was a single mom with a little boy. She commutes to her job. She's witty and can tell great jokes about her own humorous life. She's a good friend who sometimes screws up. She sometimes feels alone in the world. Again she is me. And that's not a bad thing to be!

Update of Karen's World:

Good News! Kitchen cabinets came in hooray.
Bad News! They were too small. They hung 30" down from the ceiling and made me feel like I come from the land of Lilliput.

Good News! I have a new cube at work which has a chair for a guest and great counter space. It's very isolated.
Bad News! It's very isolated. It's like purgatory. Can't complain but can't jump in to song & dance as we sometimes did in my other corner.

Good News! Summer is here. It's in the 90s.
Bad News! It's in the 90s.

Good News! I had my fill and did not have a bad reaction.
Bad News! I had my fill and had a minimum good reaction. So I will schedule my 2nd fill for 6/27 instead of 7/11.

Good News! I walked 5 out of 7 days 30 minutes a day.
Bad News! It's not enough...I start kickboxing on Wednesday.

And so there ends today's blog.

~Karen

Step Two

One day later and the scale has dropped 2 lbs. OMG! Could that 30-minute walk yesterday really have worked? It's obviously motivated me to do it again. That's right - I took a 31-minute walk today. I'm giving myself a pat on the back as it was cool, damp, and possibly going to rain and I still did it. Hooray for me!

This one's for you...

7:46 pm EST

West on Pi...
...South on Ba...
...West on Ha...
...North on Ce...
...East on Be...
...South on Ba...
...East on Pi.

8:16pm EST

Today's first step is dedicated to Haboo!

"Fill her up!" ... and it's not $4.00 a gallon that I'm talking about!

Not quite as painful as filling up my gas tank...but still a pinch. That's right - today was my first "fill" also known as "an adjustment." I met with the P.A. who sat with me and two other women for an Adjustment Class. It was here that we learned that this is going to be much harder than we had thought or hoped. It will take 2-3 fills before we have the Goldilocks syndrome under control. "This one's too empty, this one's too full, but this one's juuuuuust right!"

I think the cartoon above is a great visual to help understand the adjustment process.

My port is not under my bra line as I had thought. That's where the lap band is located. Yes, I too was surprised to realize your stomach begins so high in the body. Much higher than I thought. My port is located right above my belly button. This helps me to understand how the internal fat pad works together with the band.

The band goes around the stomach and the fat pad pushes against the stomach. As I lose weight, the pad thins out & stops putting any pressure on the actual band. That is why they have to periodically adjust the band and pump more saline into it. Eventually the band will work alone with my stomach. That is when I no longer have to go for fills. I'll have a perfect fit around my stomach pouch.

For today and tomorrow I'm back on liquids followed by two days of mushy foods. This is the procedure for eating after each fill.

So I'm sure you're wondering where I am wait-wise (no pun intended!) I was wondering too. Especially because after five weeks -- three pre and two post weeks -- I was down a whooping 35 lbs. It felt great! I got myself below the 300 mark. Kia! Well, that didn't last too long. I almost instantly or more like within two more weeks gained back 10 lbs. I was shocked. How could that be considering that I need 2,000 calories to maintain my weight?!? I was eating only about 600 calories a day. So I thought well it's probably some water coming back or I was getting my period or ... that's all I had.

According to their scale I lost 25 lbs total. Being a bit concerned I discussed this with the P.A. to see what he thought. He didn't think it was fat that I was gaining. Neither did I. He didn't think it was all water either. He hit me with this zinger...

"...the initial calorie per day reduction no longer continues to be effective for losing further weight as the body no longer recognizes that there is a calorie deficit. There will always be an adaption to match any lower calorie intake simply because the body needs to conserve energy for survival!"

Okay - he explained it to me simply as "you may have needed 2,000 to maintain the weight but now your body is satisfied with 800-1,000 calories to maintain the weight." [The quote from above is from a handout that he gave me.] Even simpler, again from the handout

"The body gradually adapts to match the new energy intake."

So what is the solution? You got it - EXERCISE!

P.A. Gabe [I may be talking a lot about him so let me give you his name] almost promised me a 2 lb. weight loss per week with adding 30 minutes of walking a day. Anything on top of that would be great but this minimum output of energy will psych out my body.

I'm in! And even more motivation was given to me by my extremely health/exercise conscious step dad. He suggested that I embrace this walk as a chance to appreciate my ability to walk. Giving the example of the person in a wheel chair who would give anything to be able to do this everyday-taken-for-granted exercise. Thanks Haboo!

My spirits are renewed and I am adjusting to the idea that 1-2 lbs. a week really is a good thing. That is really a hard concept for somebody like me to grasp. So it is exactly like Sensei Kadir said "A journey of a thousand miles (150 lbs.)begins with a single step (or pound)." Okay, okay - he didn't coin that phrase but he sure is a hell of a lot nicer to look at than Chinese philospher Lao-tzu.

Oh, did I forget to mention that I went straight from the doctor to a food presentation at Logan's school. The 5th graders had a grade-wide presentation called the State Fair. It was awesome! Logan did his presentation on Texas. I'll include photos soon. His special food was red and green jalapenos plus jalapenos salsa and tortilla chips. It was a hit! I knew that 10-year-old boys would love to challeng their friends to eat it. They did. It was all gone. It could have been worms and probably would have been as successful. Proving once again...boys really are gross!

All else in Karen-World is doing great.

My cabinets come in next week & the counter within the following week. So hopefully I will have a completed kitchen in time for Logan's return from his cruise. Oh yeah Lucky Logan & his dad are doing a four-dayer to Canada soon.

At work I'm getting a new office. Okay - not an office but a cube with 3 1/2 walls over my current 3 walls cube. It's away from my partners in crime [Shout out to Lindsey & Sonja!] but back near my original partner Irene-y and new silent-partner Joe.

I was surprised with a gift of a beautiful flatscreen TV from a loved one. Pretty nice considering Logan & I were starting to think that wavy lines in & out of the tube were normal. I can see how the 60's were good times for all! Good times!

And lastly...Dad's almost down to allergy shots bi-weekly. I'll let you know when that is official.

This was a big post but I am a big girl so NAH!

See ya on the losing side!

~~Karen~~

PS - Ugh...caterpillars all over the place. I have to remind myself even ugly, furry creatures have beauty within. But not all over my car! Double-ugh!