the thoughts and experiences of Heather Meadows
Mom went to Peoria this past Tuesday to be with Aunt Carol, and she tweeted me this morning to let me know what’s going on. She says Carol is doing much better. Thankfully, it wasn’t Respiratory Distress Syndrome after all. Carol is off the ventilator and sat up in a chair for two hours this morning!
Thanks to everyone for your well wishes!
(Previous Aunt Carol post is here.)
Lots of stuff has been going on with me lately, and since I never seem to blog properly anymore, here are some links to pictures.
On October 1, we rearranged the living room in order to better accommodate our new TV table. This is the happiest I’ve been with our living room…well, ever. There’s plenty of floor space for Wii Fit and Wii Sports, all seats provide an adequate view of the TV, and Sean has a nice big contained area for his clutter–comfortable for him, livable for me. This living room arrangement is composed entirely of win.
On October 3 and 4, I attended the Webmaster Jam Session in Atlanta. I live-tweeted the whole thing, and also sent a few iPhone photo updates here. The photos I took with my regular camera are here.
It was a great conference. Having never been to a web conference before, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, and certain things were different than I’d imagined. But I learned a lot and even met a few new people. Hopefully I’ll be able to go again next year.
Once the Webmaster Jam Session was over, I headed over to see Charles and Heidi. Charles and I went to the Buford Highway Farmers Market, which is the greatest grocery store in the history of the universe. The next day, all three of us went to the Atlanta Greek Festival. We also spent some time just relaxing and chatting, which was nice. It was a short but really fun visit. I love seeing Charles and Heidi :)
The Atlanta Greek Festival gets its own gallery because it was so huge. I loved seeing the dancers, listening to the band, eating all the delicious Greek food, and exploring all the shops. I even bought a cookbook! The church where the festival was held was absolutely beautiful, so I took lots of photos. You can see them all here.
Settling back into my normal routine after the whirlwind Atlanta trip was not an easy task. The following Monday I went to Riverwalk during my lunch break. It was an absolutely beautiful day, and there were lots of boaters out on the water. I jogged the walking path once, then sat by the river and took pictures. (I’m fairly pleased with how blue my eyes look in this one.)
I went back to Riverwalk on Thursday, not to jog this time but simply to look around. We’d had a great deal of badly-needed rain Wednesday night, and Riverwalk was transformed. The Savannah was mud-colored and drab and the sky was overcast, but the plants felt vibrant and every surface was beaded with water. The very air felt fresh. It was a different kind of beautiful.
So there you have it. Lots of adventures, with hopefully more to come. :)
My aunt Carol, Mom’s oldest sister, tripped and fell last Wednesday, hitting her head. She is now in the hospital in a great deal of pain, on a ventilator. At first they thought something was wrong with her bowel, so they did surgery, but found nothing.
She was moved to what Mom says is a better hospital, and now they have found pancreatitis. Unfortunately Aunt Carol has also entered into Adult Respiratory Distress Syndrome. They’re not sure of the cause.
Originally we were hoping that Aunt Carol could be weaned off the ventilator and sent home in a few days, but now it’s uncertain when that might happen. Mom may go to be with her (Mom’s in Kentucky and Carol’s in Illinois).
This is the same Aunt Carol who had a heart transplant. The Aunt Carol who suffered gangrene and had to have a toe removed. The Aunt Carol who lost her husband to a stroke. The Aunt Carol who lost her only son when he was just a teenager. The Aunt Carol who sacrificed so much to take care of her ailing mother.
My Aunt Carol has always only ever wanted to live quietly, love her family, and do her own thing–write, paint, and enjoy life. But she keeps having obstacles thrown in her way.
She’s a fighter. She’s gotten through everything up until now. She can get through this too.
But if you could keep her in your thoughts, we would all really appreciate it.
Me: I’m going for a bike ride. Be back in a couple of hours.
Sean: A couple of hours? That’s a long time! What am I supposed to do without you?
Me: Well, it takes that long…I have to get there, and then I have to ride, and then I have to come back.
Sean: I suppose I’m not allowed to watch Smallville while you’re gone.
Me: No!
Sean: And I know I can’t watch Monk either.
Me: No, you can’t.
Sean: So what am I supposed to do?
Me: Isn’t there some sort of quest you can go on?
Sean: I can’t save the world all the time. Sometimes, other people have to do it.
Me: Would you rather I not go?
Sean: No, I want you to go. I just want to watch Smallville while you’re gone.
Me: Well, if you do that you’ll have to watch the same episodes again when I get back.
Sean: Okay, fine. I give in to your demands. The plane will be waiting at the airport.
Me: Don’t forget the $30 million.
Sean: Whatever, terrorist.
I went to Riverwalk for a walk during my break today, as I’ve been trying to get in the habit of doing. I’ve been going there intermittently just to look around, but since I got serious with my exercise habits I’ve been trying to do more. Today, for the first time, I tried jogging. Also for the first time, I went around twice.
My first lap, I jogged as much as I could, striding briskly in between. I used my iPhone’s stopwatch to see how I did: 19:26.9.
For the second lap, I was quite winded, so I resolved to walk it and see how long that took. While striding along, I held my arms straight out, then straight up; then I did curls up and out to the side; then I did some punches. I was trying to simultaneously stay focused and give my arms a workout. It worked! The stopwatch says my walking time was 22:16.8.
Obviously I have a long way to go to improve my jogging. I’ve never been much of a runner. I always got a stitch in my side, even when I was at my best physical condition–back during the kung fu years. Today that didn’t happen, but I did get pretty winded after what I consider brief periods of jogging.
But the point is I tried, and now I have a time I can work on beating.
I headed back to work feeling almost giddy. Working out hard like that is such a good feeling. I need to always hold on to that fact so I will keep doing it.
As I hung my sweat-soaked clothes on the back of the door to dry, I remembered: I used to do this. I used to get all sweaty at lunch and hang up my clothes afterwards. Back when I first started working here, I was in total explore-mode and would walk all around the area. After awhile I got out of the habit, and then I always felt that it would be so inconvenient to bring workout clothes every day, and get sweaty and then have to keep working with no time for a shower.
I don’t feel that way anymore. I’ve been bringing workout clothes every day for weeks now, whether I actually use them or not. It’s become a habit. And today’s rush of good feeling proved to me that being sweaty is hardly worth worrying about.
I think I’ve finally purged some pretty self-destructive habits, and built some constructive ones. :)
I bought wi-fi for the week the first afternoon we were here, but it's only worked for about 15 minutes. The first night, I was getting ready to upload pictures of the resort where we're staying when it went down.
We called the front desk a few times and finally found out that the Internet connection was fine, but the resort's network was down. I resigned myself to wait.
I didn't expect it to work when I got up at 6 this morning, and it didn't. Imagine my delight when it suddenly worked about half an hour ago! I posted some unmoderated comments and responded to them, then let AJ check his bank account…and while he was doing that, it went out again. :P
So here I am, posting from my iPhone…boy this takes forever! :P
My attitude towards health and weight loss changed drastically after I was encouraged to get an ICD. Part of it was that I hadn’t yet found the right tools, but I also don’t think I had been taking my health nearly as seriously as I should.
It’s been over a month since I committed myself to a healthier lifestyle. I joined Weight Watchers, I bought exercise videos that I actually enjoy doing, and I started forming better habits.
Here, in list format, are some of my achievements.
Good Things I’ve Been Doing
Things I Refuse to Allow Myself to Do
I have a long way to go, but I am going to get there. I am not going to shoot myself in the foot. I am going to stay focused on my goals and I am going to do everything I can to reach them.
My most immediate goal is to avoid the ICD. I’m hoping by the end of August my heart will have recovered enough that my doctor won’t think it’s necessary anymore. This may not be possible. If I have to have an ICD, I have to have an ICD. But I’m going to do whatever I can do to avoid it before I have to make that decision.
My long-term goal is, of course, to get down to a healthy weight. I’m not ruling out any options. Obesity runs in my family, and it may very well be that I can’t beat this without surgical assistance. But I am not going to have my intestines rerouted without doing everything I can do first.
This month has been a great start. It’s going to get harder from here, and down the road. But I refuse to give up.
It’s not “I’m not giving up this time”. There hasn’t actually been a time when I have been this motivated. In the past when I’ve tried to lose weight I’ve always lacked a true commitment, always let either my eating habits or my exercise–or both!–slide. So this is really the first time I’ve ever made a concerted effort to be healthy.
It’s going to be the last time, too, because I’m going to stay this way for the rest of my life.
My first week of Weight Watchers is over, and I’ve lost 3.4 pounds.
I’m at such a high weight, and my weight has fluctuated so much, that 3.4 pounds doesn’t seem like all that much. Most crap diets have you losing 10 pounds the first week. But I’m taking heart from this. First of all, Weight Watchers isn’t a crap diet; it’s a lifestyle change. I have been shocked by my eating habits this past week. I never really thought about how many times I feel “hungry” in a given day. This week I learned how to wait.
Secondly, 3.4 pounds is an achievement. I’ve actually been checking my weight every day, and it has consistently gone down this week. That’s not always going to be the case, but it has been helpful in keeping me going so far. It’s not really healthy to lose more than a couple pounds a week, and I want to do this in a healthy way.
I slipped up several times this week–there were days I went over my point limit–but Weight Watchers gives you extra points each week, and I didn’t use all of those up. My crowning achievement has to be last night, when I had enough points left for dessert, but decided I wasn’t hungry and didn’t have any. (!)
I really feel that this is something I can stick with, and that is largely due to Weight Watchers’ online tools. A few years ago I purchased Diet Power, and it did everything I could possibly want to help me diet…it tracked not only calories, but pretty much everything, and auto-adjusted based on weight loss and how much you ate and exercised. But it’s a desktop application, with no web version. To have it with you anywhere, you had to export your data and take it with you, then install the application wherever you were and import your data. I typically only used Diet Power at home, which meant that I wasn’t checking throughout the day to make sure I was on track. The software also took up a lot of processing power, so I’d tend to leave it off and then forget about using it.
Weight Watchers doesn’t track everything Diet Power tracks, but it tracks what matters. Maybe not tracking every single mineral is a good thing. I like that I can input foods with just three values: calories, total fat, and fiber. I don’t have to know, for example, how much iron there is. It’s something less to worry about. And the food database is quite robust; often I don’t have to add the item I’m eating, because it’s already there.
But the best part is, of course, that I can get to the site from any computer with internet access, which means I can stay on track all day. Weight Watchers seems to have many more online tools I can use, too, as I get adjusted.
I’m doing well so far with tracking points and sticking to my limit. I’m going to focus on that this week as well. But I’m also going to try to increase the number of times I work out. I only exercised a few days last week; I’m going to shoot for every day this week.
Every time I’ve tried to lose weight in the past, I’ve failed. But I cannot afford to give up this time. There’s too much at stake.
And I want to achieve this. I want to know that if I stick to a plan over time, I can accomplish great things. There is so much I want to do with my life, but if I don’t get over this fear of commitment I seem to have, I never will.
The other night I made this recipe from my 501 Delicious Heart Healthy Recipes
1 1/2 pounds ground round
1 1/2 cups chopped onion
1 cup chopped green bell pepper
1/2 cup chopped celery
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 (10 3/4 ounce) can reduced-fat, reduced-sodium cream of mushroom soup, undiluted
3/4 cup water
1 (14.5 ounce) can no-salt-added whole tomatoes, undrained and chopped
2 tablespoons chili powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 (8 ounce) package spaghetti
2 ounces reduced-fat sharp Cheddar cheese, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
2 tablespoons chopped pimiento-stuffed olives Cooking spray
1/2 cup (2 ounces) shredded reduced-fat sharp Cheddar cheese
1. Cook first five ingredients in a Dutch oven, stirring until meat crumbles; drain well, and return to Dutch oven. Stir in soup and next 5 ingredients. Bring to a boil over medium heat. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 1 hour, stirring occasionally.
2. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
3. Cook spaghetti according to package directions, omitting salt and fat; drain.
4. Stir spaghetti, cheese cubes, and olives into meat sauce. Spoon mixture into a 13×9-inch baking dish coated with cooking spray. Cover and bake at 325 for 20 minutes or until thoroughly heated. Sprinkle with 1/2 cup shredded cheese, and bake, uncovered, 10 additional minutes. Yield: 8 servings.
Notes: I didn’t use lean beef; I used ground chuck. I did not use olives at all. Also, I didn’t have any shredded cheddar cheese, so I didn’t do the last part. And finally, I used minced garlic from a jar rather than fresh. Regardless of all this, the casserole still tasted great.
If you’ve been following my tweets, you know I’ve started Weight Watchers. Maybe that has something to do with the absolutely foul mood I’ve been in lately. I hate not being able to do whatever I want whenever I want. (I’m such an American.)
I actually feel pretty good, health-wise. And I don’t feel like I’m stressing out. I’m just getting annoyed by everything.
Rassafrassin’…
I do most of my whining on Twitter these days, but as usual, it’s over capacity. Or as my friend Chris would put it, the FailWhale is up. So here I am, posting nothing on my blog, because this is how much I want to complain.
Sorry, universe, if I overload you with negative energy today.
Might want to sing it note for note.
Thanks, Mom and Dad ;)
It turns out it wasn’t a black and white issue. I thought it would be one of two possible outcomes; it never occurred to me that there’d be one in the middle.
My heart has recovered…some. My ejection fraction is now 35. An average person’s EF is over 55. My doctor says this is good news, but she still recommends the implanted cardioverter-defibrillator. However, the decision is up to me.
Dr. G explained to me that when they implant the ICD, they purposefully put you into V-fib to see if it works. If not, they shock you the old-fashioned way to keep you from dying, and then change the settings.
That kind of bothered me. If I haven’t gone into V-fib ever, it seems to me like putting me into it intentionally only increases the chances that it will happen again.
When I got home I read about the procedure to implant the ICD and what recovery is like. Obviously it involves surgery. The surgeon creates a “pocket” under the collarbone, like they do for a pacemaker, and a lead (or three) goes down a vein to the heart. You’re not put all the way under, but there is a sedative.
As with any surgery, I imagine there’s a chance of death during the procedure.
If I do this, I will have a device stuck in my body that will be noticeable through the skin. Plus I’ll have a scar. Plus, they pretty much never remove these things, even if you get better.
If I don’t do this, and I ever do go into V-fib, or my heart is otherwise irregular, I won’t have anything to save me from sudden cardiac death.
The issue, to my way of thinking, is whether or not I am in grave danger of my heartbeat becoming irregular or stopping. This may just be the heart meds talking, or my complete lack of desire to undergo surgery again…but I don’t feel like I am. I think my heart has improved a great deal in the almost six months since I was diagnosed, and I believe it will continue to improve. I think that if I had worked harder to improve my diet and exercise, it would be better than it is…and I think if I work on those areas now, I can help it improve even more.
At this point, I feel like waiting and seeing what happens.
I have an appointment next month with the doctor who does the procedure, then a follow-up with Dr. G in July. By then it will have been eight months since my diagnosis.
Some heart patients apparently wait nine months to see if their heart has recovered, so why not wait that extra month and then have another echo before I undergo life-altering surgery?
That’s basically where I am right now. Obviously, I’m going to talk with more people and learn as much as I can, to try and make the most informed choice.
It’s been about six months since I was diagnosed with congestive heart failure and started on medication. Today’s the day I get my heart echoed again to see if it has recovered.
If it hasn’t recovered, then it probably won’t. This will mean I will have to have a defibrillator implanted in my chest, to restart my heart in case it happens to stop. With medication, I will still feel normal (as I have felt for the past few months), but my heart won’t actually be normal.
I am not sure if this is like a pacemaker, meaning I can’t be near microwaves and cell phones, or not. I basically put that knowledge off, because I figured there’s no sense in worrying about it if it doesn’t even happen. Of course, now the not knowing is bothering me.
If my heart has recovered, I will feel normal (as I have for the past few months) and my heart will be normal. Obviously I’m hoping for this outcome.
I’ve lived with Apartment Arrangement Option 5 for two weeks now…and I’ve decided I hate it.
My goal was to create comfortable home bases for me and Sean while expanding seating areas for visitors. What ended up happening was Sean would sit on my couch to play video games or watch DVDs. If you remember, I moved his area to be against the wall. That ended up being fine for using his laptops, but not for just relaxing, so he’d lounge out on the big couch when he wanted to do that. I like sitting next to him, don’t get me wrong, but if he feels like stretching out, there’s no room for me.
Another problem is that the loveseat, along the wall next to him, became a dumping ground for stuff while serving zero purpose in terms of seating. It turns out it’s just awkwardly placed, with no decent views of anything.
Yesterday I came home to find Sean and his dad sitting on my couch, and that made me fully realize how inconvenient the layout is. The couch offers the best view of the TV, so obviously guests would want to sit there…meaning I probably get cut off from my laptop, which I don’t really like moving around.
It didn’t solve the problems after all; it just shifted them.
I’d been unhappy for days, but that galvanized my need to do something. So I went back to my Photoshop file and messed around some more. A lot more. Until eventually, finally, I came up with Apartment Arrangement Option 10, a revision of Option 5.
See how Sean and I will have our own departmentalized seating areas? But we can both move to the main couch, directly in front of the TV, and snuggle together if we want. It’s the best I could do, given our ridiculously narrow living room with its inconvenient doors and bizarro closet jutting into the room.
Sean’s agreed to try it, but he said “Not today”. ;> So we’ll see how this does, here in a couple of days. Wish us luck :>
Last night, one of the people I’ve met through Twitter posted the following stream of angry tweets. (Read them in reverse order.)
I probably don’t have to tell you how much these hit home for me. I’m not the one she’s talking about, but I may as well be. How many years have I whined about wanting something more? About wishing I could lose weight? About how I can’t seem to follow through with anything?
Here is a person who seems to actually be able to do those things, frustrated as hell with someone like me who won’t get organized and do it. I can’t blame her for feeling that way. I’m frustrated with myself most of the time.