NARFE Convention

The convention is over. It was very interesting to see how the process of making changes to the rules and by-laws took place, as well as resolutions. The speakers and the entertainment were all excellent. Tuesday night was "Nevada Night" with a Mark Twain impersonator as the entertainment. Wednesday night we went to the National Car Museum and tonight was the banquet. Mark and I danced until our feet hurt. I figured this was a good thing because I've been eating way too much.

 As you know, the computer has been acting up like crazy. Mark spent a lot of time on this trip trying to diagnose and correct it. I'm currently online, so I figured I should do as much as I can before something else goes wrong! In general this road trip through Nevada has been a blast. I'm going to try to post a few pictures on this blog of a couple of our stops. I haven't uploaded all of the pictures yet, so I'll post a few each day that I can write a blog.

Tomorrow we are heading to Sacramento. We are going to check into the same Red Lion Motel near Sacramento that we used last year. Saturday will be another relaxing day poolside. Then Sunday and Monday will be a lot of fun in Old Sacramento for the Gold Rush Days. Laverne and Kelly are going to join us Sunday. Tuesday we arrive at Evey's place and will take her and Eric out to dinner to celebrate their first wedding anniversary. I can't wait. I have not seen them since last December.

The first picture is me with a statue of Helen Stewart, an original rancher in Las Vegas. 
The second one is Mark at the old Mormon Fort, right next to the site of Helen Stewart's ranch house. 
A view of the Hoover Dam from the new bridge is next.
The fourth picture is me pretending I'm climbing on boulders!  I actually had to have Mark help me up.

 The next set of pictures is from the road trip out of Las Vegas and into Ely.
The two pictures are of Mark and me hiking in the state park near Caliente.
Third is Mark outside an old hotel and saloon in Pioche.
The next three are in Ely at the railroad museum. 
The last two are the charcoal ovens outside of Ely.

Using Mark's iPad.

My laptop has not been able to connect to any hotel Internet systems. Mark worked about three hours one night trying all kinds of things to fix it, but nothing worked. Tonight we have checked into the Hotel Nugget in Sparks, Nevada. I thought I would try to write a blog on his iPad. At least the keyboard is bigger than on my Kindle. Our trip has been amazing so far. We went from Las Vegas to Caliente, Pioche (a town with more murders than Deadwood, Tombstone, and Dodge put together), Ely, Wells, Elko,and Winnemucca. Each town has had its charm and interesting points of interest related to the railroads and the wagon trains going to California. I've been making photo albums as I go, and I hope to upload them and email them out eventually. We are holding out hope that the computer will work at Evey's house. If not there, then surely when we get home on September 10. Meanwhile, tomorrow we are going to Virginia City for a train ride and then to the state capital of Carson City for more museums. Saturday should find us resting around the hotel pool before the NARFE Convention begins Sunday. I will probably not write another blog until we get to Sacramento on Labor Day Weekend for the Gold Rush Days. My girlfriend Laverne and hubby Kelly are going to come and hangout with us on that Sunday. As for food and weight? There's been some great food! I didn't pack my scale, so I have no idea about the weight. My best guess is that I'm gaining, but I'm having fun!

Good times snd frustrating times

We are having a wonderful time on our trip. Tonight we are in Ely Nevada.

My frustration is with the laptop. It won't connect to the Internet. This means no uploading of photos to share and limited blogging. I'm making this blog from my Kindle. I'm glad it can access the web, but typing on it isn't much better than the iphone. One fingered at best. SIGH.

So don't panic or worry if you don't see a blog or get the photo albums for awhile. If you are on FB, you can follow our adventures through our status updates.


As soon as my laptop works again, I will be sending out pictures and
stories like crazy! I still do small emails on the phone, too.

Viva Las Vegas!

Except for going to bed at 11 p.m. and getting up at 3 a.m. to hit the road by 4, yesterday was fantastic!

Our flights out of Orlando and Memphis were both flawless yesterday, on time, good weather, not bumpy.  We were very happy with Delta.  I snoozed solidly for the ninety minutes to Memphis, but that kept me going the rest of the day. I watched The Avengers on the video during the three and a half hours to Vegas.

It took us way too long to get the rental car.  We chose Fox Rental, which is in Florida and out west.  Using Orbitz, they beat everybody else's price.  I knew they were off property, so first we had to take the shuttle to the airport rental building and then another shuttle to their building.  That went smoothly, but it was about a 20 minute ride to their building.  The check in went well, but as always with car rentals, there is lots of requests from them to buy services and insurance you don't want.  We held tight, but they still got us by tacking on a previously undisclosed drop off charge of  $90. because we are leaving it in San Jose, CA and a $100 security deposit, which Mark is sure will never be refunded.  Our 25 day car rental went from $814 to 1017.  So be it.

Then it took an HOUR for them to produce a car.  I actually think the man who was supposed get it for us just forgot us.  I wanted a Ford Fusion because I'm vaguely interested in buying one in the future, so I thought it would be fun to try it out.  He said a silver had just been returned and he wold send it through the car wash and call us.  Then an hour later, I get his attention.  He seemed startled to see us, but presented us with a 2010 black Fusion. OK. I started to drive it away and noticed it had a warning light for low tire pressure showing. I turned around and spoke to him again.  He said no problem, take one of these two blue ones over here.  I did and it's fine, but if there was a black one and two blue ones on the lot, why did I have to wait an hour for a nonexistent silver one.

After that the hotel, lunch, museum, dinner and show were all great. I have to run now to go to the Hoover Dam. I'll tell you more later and hopefully get some pictures up also.

Weigh-in and Weigh anchor.

Let me start with the weight and get it out of the way.  256.5 is a drop of two pounds.  I'm not too impressed, but a drop is always better than a gain.  Today is the last day before we weigh anchor, so to speak, and head out west for a month. My goat was to weigh 245 today, so I failed to reach that goal by a whopping 11.5.  Sigh.  When I returned from our three week trip up north, I was 258 and I wrote about how I was going to drop 13 pounds in the month that I'd be home.  I definitely failed to do that.  I guess I will just have to be very, very careful on this month-long trip beginning tomorrow.

I packed my suitcases yesterday, which really took two days.  I was tearing my hair out over this packing because of all the types of clothes that needed to be packed and the limited suitcase space, but Mark gave me an excellent suggestion on Tuesday. He said to write each day down and plan what to wear, see where we could do laundry, see what can be worn several times.  It took me several hours on Tuesday to do that but it was a great idea.  I laid everything out on the spare room bed on Tuesday.  Then yesterday, I just gathered a few more items and put it all in the two suitcases, so now all that's left is to pop in the last minute toiletries tomorrow morning.  Tomorrow morning is going to come quick, too.  We plan to be out the door at 3:45 a.m. to catch our 6:30 a.m. flight.  Today I have a mani/pedi at 10 a.m. and a choir rehearsal at 7 p.m.  In between I will be puttering around the house trying to be sure everything is in order for the early exit tomorrow. 

So where are we going and what are we doing?  Here's a day by day list.
Thursday, 8/16 Fly to Las Vegas, visit a fort and a museum, go to the Rat Pack show at the Rio
Friday, 8/17  Drive to the Hoover Dam, then back to Vegas to visit another museum
Saturday, 8/18  Shabbat, play in the hotel pool, possibly visit Frank's niece and nephew
Sunday, 8/19  Start our tour of the railroad towns of Nevada by driving to Caliente, Pioche, and Eli, NV.
Monday, 8/20  Explore Eli and its museums and take an historic train ride
Tuesday, 8/21 Drive to Elko for some museum and then on to Winnemucca, NV
Wednesday, 8/22 Visit the historical museum in Winnemucca
Thursday, 8/23 Drive to Sparks, NV and check in to the convention hotel, visit sites in Reno
Friday, 8/24 Explore Virginia City, NV
Saturday, 8/25 Shabbat, hang out at the hotel pool
Sunday to Thursday, 8/26-30  NARFE Convention in Sparks, NV  Mark and I are our chapter's representatives to this national convention
Friday, 8/31 Drive to Sacramento, CA for the Gold Rush Days over Labor Day Weekend
Saturday, 9/1  Shabbat, relax and swim
Sunday and Monday, 9/2-3 Gold Rush Days in Sacramento
Tuesday, 9/4 Drive to Santa Clara, CA and take Evey and Eric out to dinner on their first wedding anniversary
Wednesday to Sunday, 9/5-9 Hanging out in Santa Clara with the kids with some side trips to SF
Monday, 9/10 Fly back home

AWESOME trip!  It's going to be fabulous. 

I am taking the laptop, mostly so that I can upload and caption the many pictures I plan to take.  I will try to write some blogs from the hotels and put a few pictures up on the blog, too.  A lot of that depends on how tired I am each night. LOL!

I am NOT packing the scale; there's just no room for it.  I will weigh myself as soon as we get home, and I can only hope that all the walking we will do as we tour around the various sites will help to keep my weight at least the same.  OK, got to go shower, dress, and get off to my mani/pedi!

I voted.

Yes, I voted today. That's what my sticker says!

Mark and I had several errands before we went to the polls (dentist, shoe store, post office, grocery store), but we finally made it to the Starlite Ballroom, our polling place, around 2:15 today.  There was absolutely no line, so it did not take us long to go in and vote.  It was a great feeling to vote today in our community.

I certainly hope the fact that there was no line does not mean that the people in Solivita don't care enough to come out to vote.  Maybe it just means they all got there earlier in the day.  People here are kind of early-birds, so we can hope that's what it was.  They certainly aren't waiting until they get off work!  At least not the majority of them.

Mark got no real satisfaction from the dentist visit.  She didn't see anything on the xray to indicate that he needs a root canal, but there was nothing to show why he's having pain either. It was just like his trip to the ER for his abdomen.  He got a deep cleaning on half of his mouth, so at least that was productive.  We were also able to make our next appointments in September.  Geez, it just seems like we go to the dentist way too often anymore.

When we were in the grocery store today, I noticed a whole line of products that had zero carbs and zero calories. These included tomato basil spaghetti sauce, alfredo sauce, marshmallow dip, caramel dip, three flavors of jelly, bacon ranch dressing (KOSHER!  Can you believe it?), and among the many more too numerous to name was my favorite, peanut spread. It looks just like peanut butter, so I bought it and was hoping it would be a fun snack to eat on a spoon instead of the 190 calories in real peanut butter.  YUCK!  I took a teaspoon and I thought it was nasty.  It was very salty and light, fluffy, mousse like texture.  It really didn't have any peanut butter taste to it at all.  I didn't even finish my teaspoon.  On the other hand, Mark thought it was great!  Now come ON!  Which of us needs to cut calories?  I might give it another chance.

Tomorrow night we are going to try the zero carbs, zero calories spaghetti sauce on our 40 calorie a plate shiritake noodles. There will be some calories added to the sauce from the veggie crumbles and parmesan cheese, but the dinner will be under 200 calories.  I'm not sure Mark can survive if he keeps eating this stuff.  Maybe it will be foul, like the peanut spread.  I'll let you know.

After my late lunch, I'm going to pack my suitcases!  The trip is just around the corner.

Happy at home, but boring blog entry.

Yesterday we had a lovely Disney day.  First, we went to the movie, "The Watch." It is a sci-fi comedy with Ben Stiller and was much better than we expected.  After that, we had a veggie chili lunch at Pollo Campero, one of our faves.  That was followed by an outdoor concert at Downtown Disney of the Neverland Pirates.  It's a group that plays for a Disney pre-school cartoon show called "Jake and the Neverland Pirates," loosely based on Peter Pan.  Very crowded with little kids!!  Then the big event: we renewed our annual Disney passes for the third year in a row.  Whoo!  Hoo!!  That was fun.

Today I spent all morning trying to figure out what to pack for our big trip out west.  I think I got it. I actually made a list of every day and what I could wear.  We have touring in hot Nevada, business casual in a freezing hotel plus a formal banquet, and then more touring and fun with Evey and Eric.  That's a lot of days and a wide variety of styles of clothing, so I got a great head start on that project.  Most of the clothes I need are now laying out on the spare room bed. I am hoping they all fit into my two suitcases, and I'll have to pay lots of luggage charges.

I played Mahj for only 90 minutes, but I won three games in that time.  Nice.  I cut the Mah Jongg time so that I could go with Mark to the doctor for a follow up to his ER visit.  The PA said all looked well and that he should be thankful.  She suggested it might have been a spasm of the colon and some Advil might do the trick if it happens again.  I hope it's something that simple. The doctor's visit was followed by a quick trip to the gym for our weight routines and then back home. Mark made a delicious meat chili tonight for dinner. Scrumptious!

Tomorrow he has a deep cleaning at the dentist for his gums and hopes to see a dentist about some pain in another tooth.  Teeth are really causing us both some concerns right now.  Other than the dentist and a few things to pick up at Publix, the rest of the day tomorrow will be mostly packing and getting things ready for the trip.  We fly out of Orlando at 6:30 a.m. Thursday, which means leaving the house by 4 a.m.!  Not much sleep Wednesday night.  I am taking my laptop and I WILL be setting it up on this trip. I have to keep uploading photos!

Never set up the laptop

I know I promised to take my laptop on the little two night overnight trip we took (and I did take it), but I never even took it out of the case.  Sorry about that.  I didn't take the camera either, so there are no pictures.

Our two day trip was relaxing.  It was a lovely Comfort Suites hotel in the Tampa area and we spent the day lazing by a pool and eating out. Ha ha ha ha !!  I know what you're thinking.  That's what we do when we're home, too, but hey!  It's a different pool and different restaurants.  Well, we had a nice time. 

Although we ate well, I didn't gain any more weight. That's not saying much because I left at 258 and returned the same, but I guess I swam enough to stay the same.  Each day I made sure to swim about 30-40 minutes, sometimes twice in  the day. 

We had dinner at home last night.  Today we went to shul and then just stayed indoors the rest of the day. I did a lot of reading while we were gone. I was determined to finish an Anne Perry Victorian mystery book that was 402 pages!  I finished it last night.  Excellent.  Today I'm trying to finish a nonfiction book about a husband and wife who spent several years circumnavigating the globe in a 42 foot ketch.  Fascinating. I'm a bit over half way.  I want to finish this one so I can start one of the three fantastic books that Lowell sent me for my birthday. I also want to read The Sound and The Fury for a book discussion here in Solivita that I think is in September.  Lots of reading to do!

Paying the Piper

Oh, yes, the piper always collects his due.  In this case, I'm talking about the payment that I have to make for all that fun I had this week.  The payment is in pounds, as in UP six and a half pounds in one week to 258.5 this morning.  Oh, yes, I paid the piper in pounds for the fun.  I now weigh more than I did when we came back from our Maryland trip in July. I didn't reach my goal of losing 10 pounds before the trip out west. In fact, I have now just gained one instead.  I have one more week before we leave.

Well, I have no one to blame but myself.  Let's review what I did this week:

Last Wednesday: I weighed in at down one pound to 252, pretty good.  I ate well that day, but I talked about the blister on my toe and needing new shoes again.

Thursday: I took Mark to the ER, but first we had a nice lunch out at Outback and then dinner at Ruby Tuesday. 

Friday: Oh, Friday!  All you can eat Pasta dinner at Lakeside was delicious, but I was up two and a half the next morning, a down payment to the piper.

Saturday: We exercised all day, walking and swimming, trying to help Mark get his blood sugar down. I ate all my meals at home, and that's the only day all week I can say that.  I didn't do too badly this day, but not one pound was returned from the piper.

Sunday:  We had hot dogs in the car driving to the ballgame. I had a giant soft pretzel at the stadium and a huge dinner at Sweet Tomatoes.  Lots of calories that day.

Monday:  This was my birthday with a huge breakfast buffet and a big dinner at Mama Melrose.  The piper is licking his lips thinking about all the payment he's collecting.

Tuesday:  Yesterday I ate lunch out, a veggie burger and fries.  Dinner was home, so that was a salad and a lo-cal TV dinner, but I had my birthday cupcake from the breakfast buffet, an ice cream sandwich, half a banana, a slab of watermelon, and a spoonful of peanut butter as TV snacks.

In every week there are 21 meals.  This past week I ate 9 of those meals in restaurants.  That's not as many as on a vacation when all 21 are eaten out, but I ate way too much at each of those and sometimes too many snacks at home at night.

So there you go Mr. Piper!  You got six and a half pounds in payment for all my fun this week.

Mark got his filling put back fairly easily yesterday, although it did take nearly three hours in total at the dentist. I got a cleaning, but today I have to go see the endodontist about the two teeth under the bridge.  It's just a consultation to see if there's any point in trying to save these teeth or if they just need to be pulled. I  also want to know if this can all wait until mid to late September since we leave next Thursday for Nevada.

I bought a new pair of New Balance sneakers yesterday at Sports Authority. I first went to a sport store here in Poinciana because I heard they sold New Balance.  They do, but they don't carry wide.  I tried Payless, same story.  What?  I'm the only wide footed woman in Poinciana? Ridiculous.

So we drove up to The Loop and went to Sports Authority.  Guess what?  They don't carry wide for women either.  I was stunned. I have bought sneakers before and there used to be wide.  Now they don't bother stocking it anymore.  Thanks a lot, all you sports stores, for assuming wide footed women don't want good walking shoes.

I bought a pair of regular width New Balance running shoes because they seemed to fit ok.  They are light weight and hold the orthotics.  I won't know if something is rubbing my toe until I walk a whole day in them.  At least that's how it worked with the Dr. Scholl's.  At least they were on sale for only $50, and I also bought some special (read "expensive:") socks for plantar fasciitis.  They have some padded support in them.  I will wear both today and see how it goes.  Sadly, this pair is made in Vietnam.  Mark had researched what sneakers are made in the USA and only New Balance makes that claim.  Unfortunately, not all pairs.  There was a pair made in the USA sitting out as the sample. It was the same color and style as the ones I bought but not my size.  What?  The same style and color but mine are made in Vietnam.  Go figure.

Then the real news is that we are going to the Tampa area late this afternoon for a two night stay in a Comfort Suites over there as we  go to a little resort.  We will be laying around a pool and eating.  Wait, that's what I do HERE!  Well, now we can pay extra money to eat all of our meals out, sleep in a hotel, and swim in a strange pool.  In their defense, they claim to have a nature trail, so I will walk that in my new New Balance shoes and see how it goes.  We are returning in time to have Shabbat dinner Friday night at home. 

I'm taking my laptop, so there will be blogs while we're gone.  I might even take my scale.

Great day yesterday. Ordinary day today.

My birthday was fantastic. I have to thank everyone who greeted me with phone calls, emails, text messages, nearly a 100 Facebook greetings, and actual face-to-face fun.  Everyone contributed to my great day.

We did exactly as planned, breakfast at the Yacht Club buffet, Mah Jongg with the neighbors where I won FOUR games (including a closed hand), and dinner at Mama Melrose in the Studios.  The only disappointment was the Mama Melrose dinner.  We thought it was not up to Disney standards.  Then I came home and opened cards and presents. 

All in all, a pretty wonderful day.

Now back to normal.  I have a "medium" cleaning at the dentist at 8 a.m., so I have to rush out.  Mark lost a filling at breakfast yesterday, so he's coming with me to sign in for an emergency visit. He's hoping it's an easy fix of putting in a new filling, but you just never know.  I also plan to go shopping for shoes, AGAIN, since the last pair rubbed that huge blister.  And we will head to Downtown Disney Guest Relations to renew our annual passes to WDW.  We surely don't want THAT to lapse!  We have our priorities.

If it doesn't rain, there could be some pool time later.  We'll see.

Here are some pictures from yesterday.

Sixty-Two!

I am now 62 years old.  I applied for my social security benefits, which will start in October, so I think that makes me officially OLD!  So far it feels pretty good.

When I was 33, my mother died.  She was only 58.  I had the thought that I only had 25 years of life left because I had the fear that I would also die at that age.  When I was 38, my father died. He was 62 and 9 months.  That became my next goal. I thought if I could live to 62 then I'd be doing pretty good.  I must admit that when I got the breast cancer diagnosis in 2010 I felt that perhaps I wasn't even going to make it to 62. Now I want that extra nine months.  I guess that makes my next goal May 2013.

Well, not really!!  I want MUCH more than nine months. I have a long list of things I want to do!!  Not the least of which is to live long enough to see some grandchildren!  (I hope my kids are reading this today!! LOL!!)


This is also a big anniversary!  Today it is exactly two years since we bought our house.  I will always remember buying this beautiful house in Poinciana on my sixtieth birthday.

Today, Mark is taking me out to breakfast at the Captain's Grille at the WDW Yacht Club Resort.  We really haven't been there before, so that's exciting.  Then we will come back home so I can play Mah Jongg, like every Monday afternoon, with my neighbors.  At 7:30 tonight we have a dinner reservation at Mama Melrose's restaurant in the Disney Hollywood Studios.  It used to be one of our favorite restaurants when the kids were little, but then the chef and menu changed.  We stopped going. On Mark's birthday I checked the restaurant's menu and decided it was all different. I decided then and there to have dinner there on my birthday.  Below are some pictures I took in March on Mark's birthday of Mama Melrose. I'll be taking more pictures today, so you will see them tomorrow!

And the Orioles won in the tenth inning yesterday, 1-0.  What a game!  I think that was an early birthday present for me.

I hope everyone has a spectacular day.  That's my birthday wish to all of you.  After all, it's your UNbirthday today, and you should celebrate!

O-R-I-O-L-E-S!!! Go Os!!

Guess where we're going today?

Yup! St. Petersburg to see the Tampa Bay Rays play the Orioles.  This is the last game of a three game series.  Tampa killed us on Friday, but we killed them last night.  This is the rubber match, and I hope they win.  We've gone to see them live twice already this season, in June in Florida and in July in Maryland.  They lost both of those games. Maybe today we will see a win!  If not, there's still one more chance.  The Rays play the Orioles at home for the last game of the regular season on October 3.  If we can get tickets at the box office today, we will be at that game, too.

Meanwhile, I will be wearing my brand new bright orange Markakis t-shirt that I bought when we went to Camden Yards on July 1 with Lowell, Emily, and her parents. When we moved down here, I only brought one Oriole shirt.  It is a gray one with a picture of Camden Yards on it.  Mark, on the other hand, has a bright orange shirt that was a freebie given at a game once.  After wearing the gray one last season and in June, I decided I wanted to be a more obvious Oriole supporter.  So now I will also be sporting bright orange.  Mark and I have matching Oriole hats that were give-a-ways at a previous game a few years ago in Baltimore. I have socks, too!!  Yes, I will be all-over-Oriole today!

Following up on yesterday's post on Mark, he walked in the morning, then swam and swam and swam and drank several bottles of water and ate only one little string cheese for breakfast.  By 2 p.m. he had gotten down to 145.  We were very happy! He had his usual lunch and dinner and took his Metformin.  Two hours after the pill he was 125, which is his normal two hours after dinner.  He even ate some popcorn later!

It just proves that these drugs work!  Back in February when he forgot his metoprolol for his heart, he could barely move.  When he was denied his Metformin, his blood sugar rose. His cholesterol is perfect thanks to simvastatin. YUP!  These drugs work and are giving him a longer, better life.  Modern pharmacology is awesome!

On the other hand, I walked and swam and drank water, too, but I also ate just enough to maintain.  I am still up the two and a half pounds that I reported yesterday.  Sigh.  

And this is the last day that I can say I am 61 years old.  Yes, the last day!  I'm going to make it a good one, and it would be nice if the Orioles could help with that.  Go Os!

Following up on Mark's progress

Yesterday Mark woke up with no pain at all, but then he started to feel some twinges as the day wore on, especially if he twisted in certain ways or took deep breaths.  During the day we both got haircuts and he picked up his new glasses.  He can finally SEE again!

Last night we both through all of our common sense right out the window and went to the All-You-Can-Eat Pasta dinner special at Lakeside.  Why?  Who knows!  Our senses had already flown out of the window.  We had bread, salad, and two and a half plates of pasta each.  The restaurant had four sauces (three of them vegetarian) and five pastas.  You could mix and match and eat all you want.  My first plate was cheese ravioli with vodka sauce while Mark had Linguine Alfredo.  Then I had penne pasta with spicy Thai peanut sauce while Mark had cheese tortellini with vodka sauce.  I ordered cheese tortellini Alfredo last and shared it with Mark.  We both agreed that the Alfredo sauce was our favorite.  Then I really did myself in with the warm blueberry cobbler and ice cream. 

Well, it should have been no surprise that we both are in trouble this morning.  Because of the dye used in the CT scans on Thursday, Mark was told to skip his Metformin for the diabetes for 48 hours, until Saturday night. With only his Glipizide, the pasta shot his blood sugar to 306 last night!  YIKES!!  In his whole life he only went over 300 one other time, decades ago, before he was on Metformin.  So last night he started drinking a lot of water and did some walking around, working it down from 270 to 240 by midnight when he went to bed.  At bedtime he took his Glipizide and was only 213 when he got up. He still didn't like that number, so he drank a glass of water and the two of us went out and took a 25 minute walk to try to burn off some more sugar.  It didn't budge.  He was 215 when he got back. He has decided to keep drinking lots of water, eat only one piece of string cheese for breakfast, and go to the pool to do 20-25 minutes of water aerobics. He's hoping to be around 170 or so before he eats any lunch.  At least tonight he can take the Metformin and get back on track.

Unfortunately, now that his stomach is full and taut from the cheese and 32 ounces of water, he can feel the pain again.  It's not intense like Thursday, but something is definitely going on.  He has a follow up appointment with our family doctor a week from Monday.  I'm sure she will want to order some more tests, but they will have to wait until we get back on September 11 from our western trip.

As for me, I'm up two and a half pounds today, but I'm not surprised after what I ate yesterday.  I am eating all three meals at home today, I already walked 25 minutes, and I'm about to go swimming. I bet I drop them by tomorrow morning!

Our only plan for today was to go to shul this morning and then watch a lot of TV all afternoon and evening.  Now we are skipping the shul in favor of extra exercise this morning.  I think that's the right thing to do.

Osceola ER

Today we took a tour of the Osceola Regional Medical Center ER, courtesy of Mark's abdominal pain.

He woke up this morning with some strong pain on the right side of his belly button.  We got ready to go to our NARFE meeting in Plant City anyway and left the house at 10:45.  At that time, he was still in pain, but he felt that it would go away.

During the luncheon meeting, he started to feel REALLY bad.  He looked bad to me, and I asked him twice if we needed to leave the meeting early and head to an ER.  He said no, but as soon as the meeting was over, around 2:15 or so, he said he was in extreme pain and ready to go to the ER.

We drove straight to the Osceola ER because that's our "neighborhood" hospital and where we knew our family doctor had privileges.  He tried to get an appointment at the doctor's office, but they didn't have anything left for the day. 

Well, we were pretty pleased with our treatment at the ER.  They had an efficient, electronic sign in system.  He scanned his driver's license, added a little bit of other information, and sat right down.  It was only about 5 minutes before he was called up and got his name bracelet.  About 10 minutes after that, he was in triage having his BP, temp, and history taken.  Then we sat about another 10 minutes before he was called back.  All in all not too bad, I thought.  Everyone we had encountered so far was very efficient and polite.

A paramedic took him back inside the ER and asked me to wait in the waiting room a little longer. He had blood drawn, a urine specimen taken, and an IV set.  Very soon he was back waiting with me for a bed to open up.  It didn't take long.  He was assigned to Hallway Bed 2!  I commented on that, and they said when they were crowded they had to use the hallway.  There were no chairs for anyone to sit by those beds, but he was fine sitting up and sharing the bed with me.

The doctor examined him and sent him for abdominal CT scans.  We were all concerned about the appendix or the gall bladder.  Surprisingly, the tests all came back negative and so did the blood work. His urine showed a small amount of blood in it, so the doctor thought maybe he had passed a very small kidney stone today.  Maybe...but we remain unconvinced.  Mark has gone through phases where he has had blood in the urine and no reason has ever been discovered. It has been awhile since it happened, so this wasn't too surprising for us.  He's also had pain in the abdomen in the past and many CT scans and Upper and Lower GI tests with drinking the contrast.  Nothing has ever shown up.  The reason today concerned him more was that always before these pains were on the left side and today's pains were more intense and on the right.

So, we were in the ER for a total of three hours, from 4-7 p.m. and we felt that the hospital and its staff did a good job.  No one wants to go to an ER, but I've had worse experiences in the Laurel hospital before. During those three hours, Mark started to feel better, but as soon as we started walking to the car, the pain increased.  We went to dinner at a Ruby Tuesday, and he also had pain after dinner walking back to the car. 

We shopped at Publix on the way home and got home at 10 p.m.  It's been a long day.  Currently, he is sitting comfortably in front of the TV, watching an original Star Trek episode.  He said he is in no pain right now.  We are hoping that he wakes up tomorrow with no symptoms.

Thanks to everyone who sent their love, prayers, well wishes, and support to us via text messages, Facebook, and emails.  It really kept us going during the long three hours in the hospital.  Social media, technology, smart phones, they all really do help in situations like this. 

BTW, It's National Ice Cream Sandwich day.  I'll be having mine shortly.

Down One

I maintained that one pound weight loss, so I'm pretty happy about that. My weight this morning is 252, down from 253.2 last week.

My goal was to be around 245 before August 16 when we take off for Las Vegas.  In order to do that, I'm going to need to step up the exercise. I've been hindered by this because of the lack of appropriate shoes and then the blister on my toe. The blister is healing up well, so I hope to go shoe shopping again soon, but I can't even find a time on the calendar.  I think we are overplanned right now.

I did get some time at the pool yesterday afternoon after my mammogram.  I had no problems having the mammos and ultrasounds.  To my surprise they did the ultra on both sides.  I don't mind, but I didn't know they wanted that.  Whatever.  It didn't hurt and it went smoothly and I got to go to the pool in the afternoon afterwards.  It was a perfect day at the pool.  I swam about 20 minutes, although not fast or hard, but I was moving continuously for 20 minutes. I figured that's something. 

I did overeat at Sweet Tomatoes last night. I won't even list all the things I ate, but at least it was all low fat and low cholesterol, but it was definitely NOT low calories!  LOL!!  Only a total of six people came from the synagogue for the fund-raiser, but we all sat together and talked. It was very pleasant!

And the Orioles beat the Yankees!  It was a good day.

I'm heading over to the pool pretty soon this morning.  Mark and I have decided to enjoy another lazy day at the pool, reading, swimming, having lunch at the pool bar.  We also have to go get his comic books and tonight is my SOJC choir rehearsal.  It's going to be a great day!

I hope everyone else has a great day, too.