Training

So I've have continued my Jiu Jitsu training and I'm approaching my Brown Belt test next month.

Part of the training for this test and the following period where I work on my black belt is to really get my stamina up once more. This past summer I admit I enjoyed the good life through food a bit too much and it was really starting to tell in my endurance. This didn't affect tennis as much as JJ since my reflexes have remained ok and I was alright for short bursts of running, but any long term stuff drained me quickly.

So the past weeks since the end of vacation I really put my foot down and worked on it. It seems to be working as I feel better and the jeans are not as uncomfortably tight as they were getting. Last JJ class was vigorous but I managed to stay on my feet, and last night at tennis I had a lot of problems but my body was not one of them and seemed ready to go on had I had more time.

Speaking of Tennis, my record against Andrew has not been stellar last couple of weeks. After a fairly equal June and July, my record against Andrew in August has been bad, losing 6-3, 6-4, 3-0, 6-3 before finally tying him 4-4 in the second set last night. Like I said, I don't feel slower but it seems to be a combination of Andrew really hitting the back of the court well with his strikes while I lost a bit of swing on my forehand the past month and ended up giving him a lot of bouncy crap up the middle that he just pastes. I tried working on that last night and the second set started to bear fruit before we called it due to time. The truth is I have to hit it low and hard to keep pace with him; he'll kill me if I let up to much.

Under The Weather

I wasn't feeling 100% this past weekend. Tired and bloated, I was worried I was coming down with something like a virus. It didn't help I stayed up to 11:30 playing Guitar Hero Friday night, nor that the boys were both up early Saturday morning to make us pay for our freewheeling ways.

Saturday I felt well enough to go to Greenbush and visit with the folks, view the progress on broken-nosed Sugar, and eat some good food. Sunday we stayed at home as Kim's mom and grandparents dropped in for a visit. Despite going to bed early Saturday night I still felt tired and cranky on Sunday, and we hit the sack around 9:30.

Today I felt much better. Rested, I got some serious exercise at Jiu Jitsu class and feel back to my old self for the most part. Good start to the week.

Recovering

The day after I got back from Vegas I had a nasty sore throat, I was lethargic, and even had an afternoon nap which is rare for me when I am healthy. I was definitely sick with some sort of cold virus and I blame it on that crappy Terminal 2 in Chicago's O'Hare airport.

Anyway, the sore throat slowly healed and the snuffles in the sinuses dispersed such that by the end of the week I was feeling well again. Unfortunately I think the cold got passed on to the boys and Lukas took to it particularly badly.

For three nights, Friday to Sunday, Lukas had trouble sleeping. We are 90% sure it was from the mucous clogging his nose making it hard for him to breath since he doesn't know how to hork and spit or blow his nose. And he had a fever and on Sunday was looking a little pale and tired himself. Sunday night was really bad and involved a few sleepless hours for Kim and I trying to help him out so he could breath.

Sean seemed to have a bit of the snuffles too but not as bad as poor Luke.

Well they seemed to brighten up on Monday and last night had a solid 7-8 hours of sleep (or at least Kim and I did) and hopefully the cold will finish the run of its course and the boy can both get back to be bouncing bundles of joy.

Breathing

We had a doctor's appointment at CHEO with a specialist to see about Lukas' wheezing. The diagnosis is Asthma, specifically "Happy Wheezer".

Needless to say we were not surprised based on our family history and Luke's symptoms. The doctor prescribed an inhaler to take twice a day, keep him away from pet dander, smoking, and wood stoves, and clean up our house more as dust and dust mites can be problematic as well.

There is a good chance he will grow out of it and it does not seem to be bothering him too much yet. Poor guy.

Pumpkin Season!

On Saturday Kim and I took the kids out car seat shopping since they are approaching 20 lbs which is the limit for the current infant carriers we have. We found a nice model with adjusting straps that we don't have to resize whenever they have thicker clothes.

Then it was off to the pumpkin patch where we searched for a pumpkin big enough to hollow out and sit the boys in for pictures. We succeeded and pictures should be forthcoming.

The weekend wasn't all fun and games though. Sean has been having trouble staying asleep last couple nights as we put him to bed and then waking up at 1am-2am in the morning crying. We think its teething pain but its hard to be sure since he can't talk or point to where it hurts. We're tempted to give him Childern's Tylenol at bed time (since he's mostly ok during the day) but we don't want to over-medicate the poor kid for our convenience.

Hopefully he'll pop a couple pearly whites soon like his brother and this current phase will pass into memory... until the next teeth get close to the surface. Sigh.

Going....Going....

The Weight Watchers Redux continues with me hitting the 220 lbs mark this week putting me down 8 lbs after six weeks. This is better than my goal of a pound a week so I'm pleased. With 15 weeks to go to Christmas and 12 more pounds to lose for my first goal, I'm in good shape.

Its amazing how much better I feel after just a few pounds lost. More energy, better breathing, better speed and reaction time in tennis and more stamina in both tennis and Jiu-Jitsu. In fact I credit the current weight loss with my stellar 7-6 victory in tennis over Andrew on Friday. ;)

Once I get to 208, after Christmas my second goal is to get to 188 before the new tennis season starts in the spring. Its ambitious for me but this time I intend to see it through.

Weight Loss Update

Well, I mentioned ten days ago how I was trying to lose weight again and I'm happy to report that progress has been made. The pound-a-week goal is being met and I'm down about 4-5 pounds since the start. Shirts and pants are noticeably looser, but there is still a long way to go.

My current strategy is using the Weight Watchers point system I learned from last time I lost weight but with the strategy of saving up all my extra weekly points for the weekend where I typically have the hardest time maintaining good eating habits. It seems to be working although some weekdays are tough going.

Last night an aunt of Kim's was by who had visited three weeks ago and she asked if I had lost weight in the interim. "Why yes, I have indeed." She says it was noticeable in the face which boggles my mind because I think my face looks as chubby as ever. Ah well.

Getting Serious About Weight Loss... Again

Well, its time to fess up: the summer plan to lose weight failed. In fact this entire year as been a failure in terms of getting my weight back under control.

The problem has not been lack of exercise with tennis and Jiu Jitsu two or three times a week. The issue is with my eating habits, I've just not been dedicated enough to eating properly 7 days a week. Too many snacks, too many unaccountable weekends, and in the end too much weight.

So the week before last as I realized I didn't fit into my suit jacket properly anymore at my grandfather's funeral and then sweating profusely and embarassingly at Andrew's wedding, the growing realization had come to a head: I either got serious about losing weight again or I faced another slow climb into the grossly obese and unhealthy zone.

The latter was not an option and my growing weight was already making tennis and Jiu Jitsu harder than it should be, so as I drove home from Toronto last week I made my decision.

The first few days of last week were the hardest. The cravings were fierce and frequent which only highlighted how much I spoiled myself with bad snacking habits for the past year. A couple nights I got home famished and raided the fridge for dill pickles (low calorie and filling snacks). I finally faced my demons and weighed myself for the first time since November on Tuesday night and I was relieved to see it was "only" 228 pounds. Then I made the resolution to lose at least a pound a week to Christmas which should put me back in the lower 200s.

Once I'm back in that area, then we'll see about finally busting the 200 lb mark and heading towards the lofty goal of 180 before next tennis season starts.

As of yesterday morning, the scale read 225. Of course, morning weights are always lower than evening weights so don't read too much into that. Next Monday's weight will be the real deal.

Say What?

While eating lunch I came across this headline on Canoe:

Canadian IDLE: Why our kids are flunkies
Is 6 hours of "screen time" too much? Hell yes! And that's not the worst of it.

Only 6 hours a week? I don't think that is excessive, I say to myself as I click the link for the full article.

TORONTO - Kids are putting in so much screen time - on computers, watching television and playing video games - that a report card on physical activity levels among children and youth is taking direct aim at the situation.

Active Healthy Kids Canada gave an overall grade of D in its annual report Tuesday, but in some subcategories, including physical activity and screen time, it awarded a flunking mark.

For screen time, the grade fell from D-minus last year to F this year. The report says the average child in the 10-to-16 age group typically spends six hours a day in front of some type of screen.

SCREEEEECH! That's me coming to a full and complete stop as I re-read that last sentence. Six hours A DAY ?!

Let's see, we have a child of about ten years of age on summer vacation. And we let them play some console game for an hour in the morning, a portable game like a Nintendo DS for an hour in the afternoon, and maybe a TV show after dinner before bed. Hell, make it a 120 minute movie and that's four hours. That would be my limit on "screen time" I think and even that is pushing it, perhaps only computer/console time once during the day instead of twice.

Still, in order to get up to six hours a day you pretty much have to let the kid do what they want and ignore them. What kind of parenting is that?

Sigh.

Sex Education Works

An article from the Seattle Times:

UW researchers say comprehensive sex ed cuts teen pregnancies

Oh really? And what about Abstinence Only education?

Students who receive comprehensive sex education are half as likely to become teen parents as those who get none or abstinence-only sex education, according to researchers at the University of Washington.

Well what do you know? But surely those those sex-educated kids are having more sex, right?

What's more, teens who had comprehensive education, which typically discusses condoms and birth-control methods as well as abstinence, were no more likely to engage in intercourse than peers who were taught just to say no to sex before marriage, researchers said.

Indeed.

Carole Miller, vice president of education for Planned Parenthood of Western Washington, argues that abstinence supporters are putting their cultural values above the health of young people.

Compared with other developed nations, Americans have higher rates of teen pregnancy, abortion rates and prevalence of sexually transmitted diseases. The evidence is compelling, Miller believes, that more and accurate information about sex for teens is the most effective approach.

Abstinence messages are "not working and we've got to stop it," Miller said. "There are kids getting hurt by this."

I've always said teenagers are crazy but I know most are not stupid. Telling them 'just say no' is not good enough; hormones, peer pressure, and not-fully-mature brains means many will choose to have sex despite the best intentions. Give them the information to protect themselves if they do make that choice, give them knowledge.

Hat Tip Pesky Apostrophe

Uh oh!

Last night was supposed to be a quiet night. Kim saw the doctor that morning and had a new prescription for codeine cough syrup and was napping when I got home, so I had a small dinner and balanced the bank books and was tidying up the kitchen before getting ready to do some serious relaxing.

Then my wife came downstairs just as I was finishing and complained in a hoarse whisper that her throat was closed up and her tongue was numb. Uh oh. That's doesn't sound good. We immediately left for the hospital since she's 31 weeks pregnant with twins and we were not going to take any chances whatsoever.

The triage nurse determined that she was getting enough oxygen into her blood stream (How I'm still not sure) and her throat was not swelling. The doctors took a look, a listen, a feel of her throat, and figured it was a case of mild dehydration brought on by the nasty sore throat she had. Prescription? Half a litre of saline solution via IV and a new humidifier from Shoppers Drug Mart along with Vick's Vapo-rub and some Otrivin.

After four hours at the hospital we pulled back into home at 11:00 pm and set Kim up in bed with the humidifier running. Her mother came up this morning to make sure she has no problems today and gets lots of fluids and some food into her. The babies are ok; they'll take what they have to from her reserves. But Kim needs some help getting over this virus.

For our supposedly quiet week, its been exhausting so far.

Ball of Gloom

My poor pregnant wife has had the misfortune of falling sick with what apparently seems to be a case of the flu the past few days.

The first indication of trouble was Friday night when she was feeling nauseous and had no appetite. On Saturday the nausea was on and off but she was determined to make her second baby shower at her mom's place and she did. But she was ill and tired and instead of staying over night like we planned we made a trip back home so Kim could have her own bed.

On Sunday the nausea had calmed down but it seems the virus moved up and made its home in her throat. Dry, scratchy, sore throat with a cough, headache, and still not much of an appetite. Concerned for the boys, we made a trip to the doctor's office this morning and got her poked and prodded. Stomach flu is the current diagnosis but he took a throat swab to test and make sure. We got a prescription cough syrup at the drug store and assurances that the boys are fine as long as Kim takes care of herself.

Needless to say, all this feeling under the weather has turned my joyous lovely wife into a ball of gloom. I hope she feels better tomorrow.

Recovery

I survived my surgery and I'm healing alright, but suffered from slight complications. Turns out I'm allergic to some part of the anesthesia they used which showed up as some swelling and a rash in the recovery room. They gave me a shot of Benadryll and it went away. Until the next day, Friday, when the rash reappeared with a vengeance and spread all over my body and my throat started to feel funny. I went to the CP hospital and spent the day there with some more Benadryll, epinephrine shot, and no food. They got it under control and I've been on Benadryll Nighttime for the rest of the weekend, finally off it today. That stuff sucks BTW: made my head feel like a lead balloon.

Anyways, today is recover from Benadryll day. Heck, I can't get out of my driveway so there is not much choice in the matter anyways. I hope to get some relatives to come clear out the driveway as my neighbour with the snowblower had the nerve to go somewhere for a couple days by the looks of it.

I Survived

My surgery went well for the most part. I was at the hospital for 7:15 am and scheduled to go under the knife at 9:15, second surgery of the day. Everthing was on time and I was in the OR before I knew it. They started hooking up the anesthesia and I was out so fast I never saw it coming.

In the OR recovery room I woke up and then was wheeled to the regular recovery room around quarter to ten. That's when the fun began.

A nurse looked at me and said "Your eyes are puffy!"

Sure enough, my eyes, nose, and bottom lip, and saliva glands under my tounge were all puffy, my sinuses were clogged, and a developed a rash on my belly. The doctor's were concerned calling it angioedema which sounds scary. Fortunately, my throat was unaffected and the symptoms went down in a couple hours. They kept me longer than was expected in recovery to make sure I wasn't going to flare up again and cautioned me to head back to emergency after I got home should I feel or notice any more affects.

So I was discharged at around 3 pm and made it home. Since I rested at the hospital so long I was pretty awake and alert so browsed the computer for a while. Then the Tylenol 3 kicked in and I slept for a couple hours.

Today I feel pretty good, a lot less sore than I expected to be. All in all an interesting experience. No longer am I a surgery virgin. So sad.

Snow Troubles

So I'm going into surgery on Dec 13th to have my gall bladder removed. Its only minor invasiveness so I'll be in for day surgery and back home that night. I took a few days off work to recover so all is fine.

Except the nurse at the pre-op appointment told me I'm not allowed to lift more than 20lbs for two weeks after the surgery. That includes shoveling snow.

Think about that for a second. From Dec 13th to Dec 27th I can't shovel snow. Look outside. See that white stuff? Yeah, its snow. Chances are more of it is coming our way over the next month. And for two weeks I can't get it out of the driveway.

Great.

You think Kim is going to shovel it? HAH! Right now she is in no position to be out in snow and ice. Maybe it is a light centimeter on the walkway, but not a few inches of packy snow that breaks shovel handles.

I'll have to rely on the kindness of nieghbours. Fortunately Steve got a brand new electric starter snowblower with 30" maw. He boasts he can do my driveway in three passes. I guess I'll be testing that theory in a few weeks.

Out! Out!

I met with the general surgeon yesterday and confirmed that yes, my gall bladder is coming out. A fairly routine surgery in which he makes four small incisions and removes the organ, then later I go home that same day. The worst problem that can typically happen is cutting the bile duct and he said he does about 128 of these operations a year and has never had that happen to him.

I'll probably be getting it done in December or January, and I'll be taking a week off of work to recover. Not looking forward to that let me tell you. I'll be laid back in pain and Kim will be huffing and puffing from carrying around the extra weight of the pregnancy. What a pair we will make that week.

Well, now I know....

... and I am HAPPY!

The Verdict is In...

... I just don't know what it is yet.

Kim and I went in for the blood test this morning and we agreed she would not call me at work with the result when she got it this afternoon. So its safe to say she knows by now and I'm at once dying to know and terrified to know.

I thought I could concentrate on work but its pretty hard now. I'll probably leave early and rush home to either get the good news or commiserate with my love.

Obey The Vessel!

Yesterday we went in for the penultimate visit to the fertility clinic, the Transfer. We got some very good news: of the 9 fertilized eggs, 4 were excellent candidates for transfer and another 3 were on the verge. So we had two of the best transfer into Kim (aka The Vessel) and today another 2 or more will be cryogenetically frozen for a further attempt later on down the road as circumstances dictate.

Which leads the possibility of this conversation happening many years in the future...

Me: You know, you and your sister are actually the same age.
Child: No we're not!
Me: Yes, its true, you were conceived at the same time, we just put her on ice for a few years.

Heh, that cracks me up.

Still Hurting

Note: I wrote this yesterday but an internet outage prevented me from posting it.

Whenever I have a truly strenuous Jiu-jitsu class I typically have the sorest body parts two days later instead of the next day. It’s a common thing from what I understand.

Well, today I’m really feeling the effects of the attack from Sunday night (oh and it was confirmed I have gallstones via ultrasound yesterday). It feels like someone hit me in the solar plexus with a baseball hit with a bat. Sore.

In my head I imagine my bile duct looking worse for wear after passing a particularly large stone, stretched and bruised. Or maybe its my muscles strained from trying to move the damn thing through an opening half the size. Whatever it is, it sucks.

I’ll probably get surgery to get the gall bladder removed. Its gotten to the point where I can’t predict what will set it off. One weekend I eat an amount of food and no problems. Another weekend I eat a similar amount of food and I’m writhing in pain. Its getting to the point where I’m afraid to eat anything almost. So I think this fall I’ll go under the knife and have that useless organ removed.