Fill 'er up

Omg, I finally got my fill today!  Holy cow, I was afraid I'd be back where I started if it didn't happen soon.

My fill doc was happy that I had "only" gained six pounds.  "Not so fast," I said.  I had been at a low of 215 during a time I hadn't been in the office.  That 215 came up as 232.4 in the office, so we're talking more like 17 pounds.  o_O

So... now begins the other downward spiral -- the spiral back to 215 and beyond.

14

Ah, a number.  Is that the size clothes I am now in?  The amount of weight I've lost?  The number of weight I must lose to get to a particular landmark?  The number of weeks I've been exercising?

No, that is the number of pounds I have GAINED since my emergency un-fill.  Color me unhappy.  :(

My fill is on Tuesday, and it can't come soon enough.  I'm so wide open I could swallow a Yugo whole.  o_O

I have to wait HOW LONG??

I called for my fill today and my doc isn't available until June 29th!!  OMFG, I will eat house and home by then!!  I know that after the backpacking excursion, my friend warned me that my body will go into a sort of shock mode and tell me I'm hungrier than I should be (and that may partly be it), but I'm having a hard time with feeling this hungry.  :(

I need a fill...

Ugh, after that emergency unfill, I've been able to eat burgers (bun and all) and all manner of things I shouldn't be able to.  Being self-pay, I HATE having to go back and forth on this.  However, I am also gaining a few pounds and feeling pretty upset and stressed about it.  I need to figure out when's the best time to do this and get back on the pony.

I went on my first backpacking trek!

My neighbor, Keith, invited me to go backpacking/camping with him.  His life partner doesn't like to go anywhere that doesn't have a spa and cabana boys, and my husband is out of it for days after just mowing our postage-stamp sized lawn, so he and I went together.  It's something that I've never done before, and it was a true challenge.

We left out on Thursday morning and got back this afternoon.  We hiked close to 8 miles, but it was very rocky terrain with a lot of up-and-down through some of the West Virginia-Virginia mountains (the ridge we were on was along a state line).  The first day we walked about four hours and started at about 1,500 feet above sea level and ended at about 3,000 feet -- and that was lugging a 35-pound backpack to boot!  Though these pics are a bit foggy looking, this is at a site called White Rocks Lookout, which is on the ridge of the Little Sluice Mountains and looks over the Little Schloss Mountains in the foreground and the Blue Ridge Mountains further east.  The green you see below are treetops waaaaay below us!

I did really well the first day, pretty damn good the second, and today was a bit hard as my feet were feeling a bit beaten up.  By the second day I had gotten a pretty good blister on my left big toe on the inside, created from rubbing on my second toe.  That got bandaged up this morning, but it was the impact pain on the bottoms of my feet that had me walking rather slowly.  Other than that, my body held out very well -- not even any back pain, which I really expected since I have a bad back.

I slept in a hammock-tent and drank real spring water. 

I built a fire and took an outdoor shower.  We got drenched the first day and nearly experienced severe weather the second night.  I came face-to-face with a couple beavers and a possum and saw more butterflies in one day than I've seen in 20 years.  We didn't see a soul for the entire three days, and the only manmade sound we heard was the occasional plane flying over.  Most of all, I DID IT!!  I only wish I had gotten pictures of me lugging all that stuff around!  :)

Thoroughly disgusted

Foodie friends.  'Memba them?  Well, we went away with them to Colonial Williamsburg for the long weekend -- actually rode our motorcycles out (my first long trip as we put on about 450 miles).  The husband is the one with diabetes who burned the bottoms of his feet when we went to Hawaii together back in October '08.  The month BEFORE my surgery.  He's STILL battling that stupid move.

Anyway, even though he's been monitoring his blood sugar and, recently, had to go on insulin, he's gained more weight.  And if you were around him, you'd see why.  My God, after this weekend I have officially nicknamed him:  HOOVER.  That man can suck down everything on his plate before you've taken three bites of your own.  Worse yet is his wife is teeny tiny -- 90 pounds soaking wet.  So in about five bites, she's usually done.  Which then means he also eats HER food.

I really enjoy them (most of the time -- he can be a pip to his wife, which gets old), but watching him eat just makes me sick now.  He eats with his mouth open, eats like you're going to steal it off his plate, food hanging in his beard... it's totally disgusting.  I guess the one GOOD thing to come of it is I lose my appetite.  I worry for his health more than he apparently does.  He eats crap, even though he's kinda "watching" what he eats -- probably goes a bit over his limit for starches and sugars but not totally blowing it.  However, if I had diabetes and nearly lost my foot, I think I'd be making some MAJOR modifications in my life.  At least I'd like to think I would.  o_O

Even though I overate, I'd hate to think I was ever as bad as he is.  Like one night we got an onion loaf appetizer (pretty much thin-sliced onions done like a bloomin' onion from Outback but done in a "loaf") and he literally ripped into it to the point where I just sat back in abject horror and disgust.  I just don't enjoy eating with them, which I guess is good, since the wife seems to think WE are THEIR foodie friends.  Ugh.

The good-bad news is this:  I can now eat bread.  However, I still find myself not finishing what I eat and getting full, which I never got before when I was more filled -- I never felt hunger OR fullness.  So... I don't know if that's good or bad.

Anyway, it was a great trip, except for the night we got trashed and foodie friend hubby puked all night.  Thursday I go camping with my gay neighbor-husband.  THAT should be a test of how fit I am!  o_O