Last day before vacation/cruise

Rudy slipped out to the airport at 4 a.m. this morning after his 9 night visit.  We said good-bye last night because neither of us wanted to get up to see him off at 4 a.m.

Yesterday he treated us to lunch out at the local Japanese restaurant, which was spectacular, but when I tried to estimate the calories, I am sure it came to around 1100 just for lunch.  I could have saved some by not eating all the rice, but I am still not good at that.  It was all delicious.  Mark and I only had time for a twenty minute walk, too.  Dinner was Sloppy Joes on challah, which was fabulous, but I ate too much challah.  What else is new!  Then,  I had 8 Mint Oreos watching TV at night after Rudy went to bed and while Mark was at the show.  Ridiculous, but once I'm overeating and feeling out-of-control, it's a vicious spiral.

Anyway, the bottom line is that my calories were nearly 3,000 yesterday.  And yet, I weigh the same this morning as yesterday morning, 277.7.  An interesting side note is that even though I weighed that yesterday morning, too, I actually dropped two pounds of fluid yesterday and ended up down two pounds.  So actually, I am up two, but it's the same two.  I am taking that as a good sign.

Today Mark and I are at home all day and so are all of my meals. We will also take a walk for about half an hour today.  I will eat appropriately and drink lots of water.  With any luck, those two pounds will drop back off today again.  We will also be busy packing for our vacation.  Our plan is to pack the suitcases and literally pack the car, too, so that we can be on the road to Miami at 6 a.m.  We have received several notices from Celebrity Cruises that there is some sort of celebration in the Miami port area which will involve extra traffic and some road closures.  It could take extra time to get there.  We want to leave plenty of time.  Normally, we would have gone down today and stayed over night in Miami, but Mark has his final performance of Arsenic and Old Lace tonight.

The show has been a huge hit, sold out houses and standing ovations every night!  Kudos to everyone involved in that.

I do not usually blog during a cruise because the internet is so expensive.  Since this cruise is 14 nights, the longest one we have had in several years, I might post one or two somewhere along the way if I find the internet is speedy enough.  The ship is a new one for us, the Celebrity Eclipse, one of the Solstice class ships, so we are pretty excited to check it out.

Here is our itinerary:
Sunday, March 20   Sail out of Miami at 4:30 p.m.
Monday, Mar. 21     Sea Day
Tuesday, Mar. 22     Sea Day
Wed.,      Mar. 23     St. Maarten
Thur.,      Mar. 24     St. Kitts
Fri.,         Mar. 25     Antigua
Sat.,        Mar. 26      St. Lucia
Sun.,       Mar. 27      Barbados, staying overnight
Mon.,     Mar. 28       Barbados, second day
Tues.,      Mar. 29      Sea Day
Wed.,      Mar. 30       Aruba
Thurs.,    Mar. 31       Curacao
Fri.,        April 1        Sea Day
Sat.,        April 2        Sea Day
Sun.,       April 3        Miami and disembarkation

When we arrive home on April 3, Dave and Evey Herschler will be waiting for us at home for a four night visit.  We have a 5:30 dinner reservation at The Port that night. The next day we will be at Animal Kingdom when it opens, head to the Epcot Flower and Garden Festival for browsing through lunch at food kiosks, have dinner at Chefs de France, and stay for the night time fireworks show before heading home very late.  Quite a way to finish a vacation!!

I will record my weight when I wake up tomorrow and write it down so that I can see what I weigh on the morning of April 4.  I am hoping to keep the weight gain to a minimum.  It's possible, but it's hard!  You'll find out in a few weeks how I did.

National Sloppy Joe Day

All my plans changed yesterday and all for the better.  My original plan of the Meet and Greet and dinner out with three had blossomed to dinner for 10.  Then the original two people, who were supposed to pick me up, got sick and cancelled.  The more I thought about it, the more I realized I didn't feel like going out that night with the others.  I thought I'd prefer to go with Mark to his endocrinology appointment, so I also cancelled on the dinner out.  Right after that, I got a phone call from my neighbor who said her husband wasn't going to the play after all, so did I want to go with her.  OF COURSE, I DID!  So after Mahj ( I won three games), I went shopping with Mark, then to the doctor's appointment, then a quick dinner at home, and then the play again.  The play was definitely even better on opening night than at the dress rehearsal.  They got a standing ovation!

Mark's appointment went well, and his fear of being put on insulin did not come true.  The doctor thought that his highs and lows were acceptable, something always worth working on to make better, but not bad enough to warrant a change in the meds at this point. He is going to keep tracking it and return in three months for his next check up.  That's as good as it gets for this.

I ate only 1200 calories yesterday, but I am up two pounds. I didn't get to exercise yesterday, but I don't blame that.  I think it was the sodium in the corned beef sandwich that we had for dinner in honor of St. Patrick's day.  With any luck, that water weight will drop today.  Unfortunately, I will be eating lunch out at a Japanese restaurant.  Rudy is treating us to lunch and has eaten there twice. It's one of his favorites now.  I've looked at their menu.  There are several options for me and Mark, but how much sodium is in the food is always just a guess.  Miso soup, veggie fried rice, grilled salmon, house salad....that's a lunch option.  Probably plenty of sodium in that lunch as well as calories.

Dinner tonight will be Sloppy Joes using the Manwich sauce with kosher ground beef.  Kosher meat always has hidden sodium in it because of the salting and draining process used to make it kosher.  I think it will also be a high sodium meal and extra calories because it's Shabbat, meaning challah and wine.

It would be nice to be down the two pounds tomorrow, but I"m not sure I can count on that.  Sigh.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

To celebrate the day I am wearing a green t-shirt and a shamrock necklace.  What are you doing?

I will be eating dinner out tonight at Lakeside at the Cove at a table for ten.  Mark is having his opening night, so I thought I should go out for fun.  I will also be doing a Meet and Greet first that includes drinks and appetizers.  I need to be CAREFUL.

Yesterday my dinner calories went down, so my total for yesterday was only 1201, a perfect diet day. I am only 275.5 this morning, so I'm thrilled.  That's just two pounds up from when I left for Hawaii in August and the lowest I have been since we came back from the October cruise.  Now if I can only keep going, keep in control in restaurants, and keep in control on the ship.  I feel in control right now and ready to do it.  Wish me luck.

I got some amazing news last night.  Evey and Eric bought a house in San Jose.  She sent me a link to the real estate page with no other comment. I looked at it and told her it was beautiful and asked if she would consider buying it.  She texted back that they had already bought it!  AAAAHHHH!  I screamed with delight and immediately called to talk to her for half an hour about it.  It's a gorgeous, 3BR, 2 bath, 2 car garage rancher in a great San Jose neighborhood, near good schools and a mall, and only 10 minutes from their current rental house.  It has a big fenced yard, so she plans to get a dog this summer, something she's been wanting for a very long time.  They settle on April 22 and will move out of their current place that last week of April.  By May 1 they will be in their new home, one she calls her forever home.  She never wants to move again unless they decide to move back to the East Coast.

When we come out to visit in August, we will be able to see their beautiful new place.  How exciting!

The dress rehearsal last night went very, very well.  Here are some pictures of the cast and a lot of Mark as Officer O'Hara.

Mark's first scene in Act Two.  He's not in Act One.

These two are brothers, but the one on the left thinks he's Teddy Roosevelt.

Act Two

The final scene in the show.

After the curtain call

Full cast shot after the show.

Little sad but not hopeless.

Even though I have been supporting Bernie Sanders for the Democratic nominee, I really didn't expect him to take Florida.  I thought it might be closer than it was, but Hillary Clinton won Florida over Sanders by about two to one.  Interestingly, our current Senator, Marco Rubio, who expected to win his home state, lost badly here and has dropped out of the race.  What really surprised me was that Bernie didn't take Ohio.  If he had, his chances would be better.  He has not dropped out, and pundits are saying it's not statistically impossible yet, but it's getting harder and harder for him to take that nomination.  We shall see how it turns out.  Of course, Trump is still moving right along on the top of the heap, supported by lots of crazy, stupid, angry people.

I had a great day food-wise yesterday.  I had 1430  calories and my reward....up a half pound.  Can't blame it on the sodium because that was under 3,000 mg, perfect.  I ran a ninety minute rehearsal on my feet the entire time and sweating like a pig because it was so hot.  And still up a half pound.  THIS is why you are not supposed to get on the scale every day.

I have already programmed in all my food for the day, so the calories will be great, 1375.  I do plan to take a walk sometime today for at least twenty minutes.  Maybe tomorrow I will be down a bit again.  I HOPE SO because I am eating dinner out tomorrow night and Friday night.  Then Sunday is the cruise.

Tonight is Mark's dress rehearsal for Arsenic and Old Lace.  I will be going.  That's going to be a lot of fun.

Cruise countdown...five days.  Yay!

Feel the Bern! It's time to go vote for Bernie Sanders!

This morning I weighed 276.7, and I'm quite pleased for several reasons.  First, it means the weight loss I expected to see yesterday just took one extra day to show up.  Second, it means I am two pounds lower than when we left for the February cruise and only three and a half pounds over last August in Hawaii.  Third, I went out to dinner at a restaurant and made appropriate choices.  That is so rare for me that I just had to mention it.

I had NO appetizer, NO alcohol, and NO dessert.  That's huge.  Also, this place does not put a bread basket on the table, which is helpful.  My main dish was blackened mahi mahi, broccoli, and a plain baked potato.  It's hard to guess those calories, but I did my best and programmed it all in.  My breakfast and lunch were perfect, and for a late night snack I had an eighth of the Key lime pie that Mark made for Pi day.  My total calories yesterday were only 1159.

This morning I will exercise my right to vote.  It's the Florida primary election day, and I am very excited to go vote for Bernie Sanders for the presidential race and Alan Grayson for our senator.  They are probably both long-shots, but I believe in them.

After that I am having a mani-pedi, a little down time at the Cove to eat a bag lunch, and the Cove Singers rehearsal from 3-4:30.  That will all be followed by a TV dinner and a lot of TV shows.  It will be a good day.

Rudy left early this morning to have breakfast out at Perkins and then head to the Tampa/Clearwater area.  In fact, he is staying overnight in Tarpon Springs.  He likes a lot of the bars and the open mike nights at some of them where he plays his harmonica.  He will be back tomorrow night late.

Pi Day....Mark is making Key Lime!

It's Weigh-in day.  I am happy and disappointed.  This is what happens when you weigh every day.  I'm happy because I'm down six and a half for the week.  On Monday I reported 285.5 and today I am 279 even.  That's GREAT.  I'm disappointed because yesterday was also 279.  In fact I weighed at bedtime, which is something I NEVER do, and I was 279, same as when I weighed yesterday morning.  I went to bed happy because a person always weighs more at night and down two or even three in the morning.  I expected 277 or 278 this morning.  So I'm disappointed because I did not drop anything over night, which is weird.

Let's concentrate on the positive.  279 is a six and a half pound loss for the week.  It's also ELEVEN since the Sunday before when I hit the worst number of all.  So it's all good.

I ordered a good breakfast at Perkin's yesterday morning.  I ordered the Fit Fare Blueberry Pancakes with bananas and scrambled egg whites.  I had them hold the meat and double the egg whites.  That came to about 450 calories total.  It's twice my usual breakfast calories, but then I ended up eating no lunch at all due to the craziness of the rest of the day.  For dinner Mark made a fabulous smoked salmon quesadilla with broccoli and salad.  I put a little too much cheese and Bacon Bits on the salad.  I had Arctic Zero for dessert later, but it was the kind with twice the usual calories.  Of course, that makes it the BEST tasting!  LOL!  Anyway, my total calories yesterday were 1488.  Very respectable.

Today we are eating dinner out at a local restaurant called The Port.  I am going to be very careful to keep the rest of the day's calories especially low.  Mark and I are also going out for a walk pretty soon around the Glendora pond.  This afternoon I will be playing Mah Jongg, too.  Lots of fun.

This is going to be such a busy week because Mark's final two rehearsals are today and tomorrow with his dress rehearsal Wednesday morning. I'll be attending the dress rehearsal.  His three shows are Thursday through Saturday and then at 6 a.m. we are heading to Miami to get on the cruise.  Crazy week.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MARK!

Today Mark is officially of Medicare age, 65.  We are now the same age again until August.  So cute.

For his birthday, he has decided to stay home and watch TV all day until about 6:30 when we will go to Denny's for dinner so that he can get his free birthday Grand Slam.  He has always loved Brinner!

This morning my weight was 279 even.  I ate 1310 calories, including a fabulous beef and biscuit dinner that Mark made.  Boy, was that a good one! Tonight at Denny's I'll be fine. I always order an appropriate meal there, which is why it's always a good choice for me.

On Sunday we are having breakfast out at either Perkin's or IHOP because Mark has another free breakfast coupon.  I will try to do ok.  We will have lunch and dinner at home. In between we are going to the Plant City Strawberry Festival.  I have to be VERY SURE not to buy any junk food to eat.

Monday night Rudy plans to take us out to dinner, and we chose The Port, a local steak
and seafood place in Haines City on Lake Hatchineha.  I went there once for lunch several years ago with my Monday Mahj group.  I remember having fried fish and onion rings, but I hope that I can make a better choice for dinner.  At least breakfast and lunch will be at home that day.  One week from tomorrow we get on the cruise, so I have one more week to lose a pound or two.  If I only stay the same, at least I'll be where I was when I left for the February cruise.

As for my visit at the medical oncologist, she said they could not find my original tumor.  I wanted to laugh out loud because I just thought it was crazy that it was sitting around somewhere.  She was disappointed because she said since the cancer was in my lymph nodes, it would have been good to have this extra test.  Well...no extra test.  Her decision then was to stay on the Arimidex another five years, until Valentine's Day of 2021.  There are no harsh side effects; I tolerate it well; it's cheap; so why not.  The only thing it could do is cause bone loss, but mostly that happens in the first few years. It did happen the first year.  I lost 10% of my bone mass, but my bones were so dense and so far above normal that the 10% loss just brought their density into the normal range.  The next test showed no further loss.  Still, I will have regular bone density tests over the next five years. I don't mind staying on it.  At least she said I don't have to go to the radiation oncologist anymore.  Yay!  That's huge because going to both of them meant driving up to the cancer center every three months...a serious drag.  Now I only need to go every six months for the blood work to look at the tumor markers and to have her check me out.  I was pretty happy when I came back.

Happy Birthday, Mark.  From a picture at Aulani on my 65th birthday last year.  Good times!

 

Already Friday

This week seemed to fly by!  Seems like it was just Monday and I was playing Mah Jongg, or Tuesday and I was getting my stitches out.  Now it's Friday.  Wow.

Rudy arrived yesterday.  Mark and I were both out when he arrived.  Mark was at a rehearsal and I was playing Mah Jongg at Barb's house.  Then we met up and ate our packed lunches at The Palms because it was National Packed Lunch Day!  Mark then shopped, but I fell asleep in the chair outside by the pool, in the shade, in the breeze.  The day was perfect yesterday.

This morning at 9 a.m. I am heading up to Oak Street and the Cancer Center.  I have an appointment with the medical oncologist, but it's not a regular appointment.  Today she is going to give me the results of my tumor test that she ordered last time I was there.  I have hit the five year mark on Arimidex, which was how long I was told to stay on it.  I hit that milestone this past Valentine's Day.  Now there is some research showing that there are some markers in the tumor that could indicate it's better to stay on it for life or just go off it after five years.  I don't care either way because I no longer have any bad side effects from it.  I'll let you know later what she says.

After the appointment, I plan to spend the rest of the day at the Cove.  I have quit working at the library and hope to play Mah Jongg there. Mark will keep working in the library between 1 and 4, so I can relax, swim, and play Mahj.  The weather is perfect today, so it will be delightful out there.

Stitches out today

Today's a big day because I am going to the surgeon's office to have the stitches removed from eyelids.  I am driving myself, which seems safe enough since I drove over and back to WDW yesterday for the movie.  If it hurts a little or my eyes blur after the removal, I'll just sit in the car and rest until it's safe for me to drive. I took a photo of my face this morning, and I'll take another one when I get home after the stitches are out.  I'll post them tomorrow, I hope.

Mark loved Zootopia, and I liked it.  I didn't love it more than Frozen, although it's currently doing as well or better than that blockbuster.  It's not a musical, and I LOVE a musical!

Rudy is arriving tomorrow and staying nine nights.  We are so busy most of that time, similar to his last visit, that we won't really be spending too much time entertaining him.  Fortunately, he's good at entertaining himself.

I had a good day yesterday as far as eating goes.  I ate 1375 calories.  Perfect.  If I can keep doing this until the cruise, I should start off this cruise a little lower than the last two.  Mark and I talked about how we can walk more and eat less on this upcoming cruise.  It's easy to say!  I just hope I can really do it.  LOL

Zootopia

This morning we are heading over to Disney Springs (formerly Downtown Disney) to see the new Disney Pixar film Zootopia.  It opened over the weekend as the highest grossing Disney film EVER on its opening weekend, beating out Frozen.  We have seen some previews, but it's pretty exciting to finally get there.  It really looks like a fun movie.

I played Mah Jongg yesterday at Maureen's house.  Last week I didn't win a single game, but yesterday I won three games.  I even got within three tiles on a closed hand once, so I had a good time.  After playing, Mark and I took a short walk around the area of our house.  At this weight, I can't walk long or far before my back is killing me.  Also I am still not supposed to raise my heart rate, so we walked really slowly. I also wore a hat and sunglasses, as I was told.

I ate well yesterday in that I planned what to eat and then only ate exactly that.  My total calories for Sunday were 1169 and yesterday 1630.  I would have been better off yesterday if I had not put a cup of Redi-Whip on my chocolate sundae at bedtime.  I used my Arctic Zero (148), my banana (105), sugar free chocolate syrup (26), and Redi-Whip (177).  If that had been sugar free whipped cream or Cool Whip, I would have been a little better off.  Even so, my allotted calories in Lose It! yesterday were  1634 because the last weight that I recorded was 286.

Even so, I dropped another three pounds, so this morning I was 282.5. I'm pretty sure that is all that's going to drop quickly.  If I seriously want another four pounds gone in two weeks, a very reasonable goal, then I will need to walk more and keep the calories around 1200-1400.  I am capable of doing this

NEW UPDATE:  Since I wrote the weight in the previous paragraph, I went to the bathroom, took a shower, and weighed myself again after the shower.  Shocker!  It said 279.9.  This is how crazy my body is.  I dropped 2.6 pounds in two hours by showering and going to the bathroom.  LOL!! So I put in the new weight and my daily calorie allotment dropped to 1592.  According to Lose It!, if I stick to the program and the goal of losing two pounds per week, I would reach my goal on July 26.  That's funny because first of all, I don't remember what goal I gave it, and second of all, the calories go down as you lose weight so eventually my allotment will be about 1100.  That's hard to stick to for the long term.   I know from years of experience of yo-yo dieting!

Iditarod time

The ceremonial start in Anchorage was Saturday, but we forgot!  We stayed home all day and tried to get caught up on lots of TV shows since we are still two weeks behind due to the February cruise and our company.  No matter how much we watch we always seem to be two weeks behind.  LOL!  Anyway we watched the actual start out of Willow yesterday evening.  This year there are 85 mushers, and it's so much fun to watch all those dogs.  Ever since our two trips to Alaska we have been following the Iditarod, even buying the live news feed online, which is how we watch it.

My eyes are improving.  The stitches are itching a lot, so I will be glad to get them pulled out on Wednesday afternoon. I'm still swollen, but it's improving day by day.

I spent Friday and Saturday eating WAY too much sodium, so I hit a whopping 290 yesterday morning.  That's really depressing because it means I really have undone all that work in 2009.  I spent yesterday eating appropriately and little sodium.  This morning I am 285.5, so the water retention is mostly gone.  It's sad that I gained seven pounds on the 10 day cruise in February, lost the seven pounds in about three days after returning, and then gained TEN pounds at home.  Now I'm trying to re-lose the seven from the cruise before we go on the next cruise.  We leave on Sunday, March 20, so I have two weeks to lose those seven pounds again.  That will be tough to do, but it is possible.  I will be eating one breakfast, one lunch, and two dinners out in restaurants between now and then, but most of the meals will all be at home.  There are no dinner parties to attend, so that's a good thing.

We had fun planning all of our shore excursions for the next cruise.  It's fourteen days and 9 of them are port days.  Only St. Martin is a repeat for us, so we are going to the beach.  The other ports are all new, so we carefully picked out a shore excursion for each day.  Three others will include some beach time, but mostly we chose bus tours that give some history and overview of the island.  Each of the 9 days in port will involve a three to six hour stretch on the island, but mostly we are back by lunch time or mid-afternoon.  Hopefully, that schedule won't make us too tired!  Our stamina is definitely less than it used to be.  Between all the extra weight I have put on and an odd weakness and pain in my left leg that started up suddenly Thursday morning, I cannot walk as easily as I could a few years ago.  Even Mark is complaining of a twinge in his left knee.  Eh....as they say, getting old isn't for wimps!

Two days post op

The surgery went as expected on Tuesday.  It was hard for them to get my IV started, six tries.  OUCH.  Then it seemed like I was longer in the recovery stage than just an hour.  My BP seemed high, 177/85, so they gave me some IV stuff to bring it down.  They had been taking my BP on my calf because the IV was in my elbow.  Later when they took the IV out, I asked them to take the BP on my arm. I got 124/67.  Yeah, that's more my usual.

I also felt a little more pain than I expected, so they gave me IV Tylenol and later an oral oxycodone pill.  WHAT A MISTAKE!  I will never take that again. I was queasy for the next TWELVE hours.  Surgery was at 8 a.m., but we didn't get home until 2:15.  I was holding a plastic bag in the car in case I threw up, but I never did.  By 11 p.m. I stopped feeling queasy.

I had my follow up appointment the next morning.  My friend Ed drove me so that Mark could go to rehearsal.  We got there early, and they saw me right away.  We literally left the office two minutes before my appointment was scheduled  LOL!  I got a clean bill of health. I'm healing as to be expected.  The eyes itch, so I keep putting the ointment in them.  They are swollen and slightly red and black and blue.  Icy washcloth compresses have been on and off for two days. I had to sleep sitting up in a chair for two nights, but tonight I can get in bed.

The sutures are stating to itch today, which is normal. I have Benadryl in case the itching gets too terrible.

I took some pictures on my phone, but I can't get them on to the computer to show here.  I took a few on my camera, so I uploaded those here.  They show the before and after effect.  In the long run, I think it will be great.  My eyes already look bigger than before. I can see some swelling on the sides, but I'm not looking through my eyelids anymore.  It's all good.

The morning of the surgery

At home after surgery

Two days post op