Einstein the Puggle

(try not to sing that song in your head now...)

Oh Mondays, how I love you! I work the weekend just so I can take Mondays off to have some 'me' time. I especially love the Mondays that the housekeepers come (every other Monday.) It gives me an excuse to get out and goof off, and then come home to a clean house.

If rain is in the forecast, Einstein goes to doggy day camp and then gets an "exit bath". Clean house, clean (and tired) pup. Gotta love that.

If it's sunny out, 'Steiners and I go for a walk somewhere. I try to find new and different places to walk so it doesn't get boring.

It's going to be a stressful few months, making my Mondays off even more important.

Hang on, BJ, we're in for a bumpy ride. It's all in the name of early retirement.

Oh my gosh! I love my new Zephyr HxM with SportsTrackLive linked via Bluetooth to my Droid.

I listen to music while it tracks my miles, heart rate, speed, time, and lots more.

It announces stats as often as you want through your headphones and uploads all of it to your account. It even overlays the path you've walked over google maps. Apparently I walk in circles when walking Einstein in the neighborhood. That's easy to do in my 'hood.

The good news is that my Droid has a navigation system to help me find my way home if I get lost.

Yes, I've used it during a walk.

Today Einstein and I walked 3.2 miles averaging 4.1 mph! I'm pretty comfortable with 3 miles per day, so I'll hang around that distance.

The OCD side of me can see getting a lot of enjoyment from my new "toy".

I hate it that I haven't been writing. I think it's due to a number of things, but I really want to get back into writing again. I love having a record of my life with a search feature, especially with the memory issues that come with getting older.

I'm going to quit worrying about being boring or repetitive. I'm also going to stop writing as if anybody reads this (except me, of course!) I'm not even going to bother catching this thing up. Eventually, I'll get around to the stuff that's happened over the past few months (year, etc.)

So here goes.... Let's hope I stick to it!

My fankle surgeon called me today to see how I was doing. Kinda unusual, right? The last time I saw her was when she told me that the MRI showed a blown tendon and new "stuff" growing back after surgery number 2. I was about four weeks into PRP treatment and still up to a level 5-7 on the pain scale when walking for more than 10 minutes. That was back in June.

Today I was able to tell her that I've been walking an average of 3 miles a day and yesterday walked FOUR miles. Very minimal pain. She was very excited to hear this and wants me to come to her office next Monday so she can document the success of the PRP. I'm her first patient who has had this treatment, and I think she's hoping make a case for using it on other patients. It's still experimental and it was given to me free due to a mix-up at the facility. I've read that the treatment runs between 1200 and 1500, so that was quite a mistake!

I have a lake by the house and I take Einstein with me for laps around the lake. It's a nice walking path and Einstein gets lots of attention and gets to meet new dogs and people. Each trip around the lake is a mile and I started out walking the lake about 3 weeks ago. First one lap, then two and so on. Einstein gives me the stink-eye when it's hot out and I tell him we're going for another lap. Sometimes, he'll lay flat on the ground and refuses to budge. I'll generally give in when he does that because he's typically OK with going a few laps. I'll just go home and finish it on the treadmill, in that case. I'm trying to get in 3 miles a day x 5 days a week. I'll for sure take at least one day off a week.

As you can guess, the weight is starting to fall off rapidly. I haven't changed my diet a bit, because I was not eating much. 1-2 protein shakes a day and Greek yogurt. I think it worked out to under 800 calories a day unless I had something extra, which wasn't often. I'm pretty much on a soft food diet because of my jaw, but that's a story for another day.

I'm so grateful that fanklegate seems to be in my rear-view mirror.

OK, NOW I can write about the weekend. We were invited to a 'tribe' weekend at a lodge just outside of Leavenworth for a tribe member's surprise birthday. The 'tribe' consists of friends that BJ has had for over 20 years. I got lucky when I married BJ because he has a wonderful group of friends. Bonus! They're all starting their families, so I got to play with babies and little girls all weekend. Squee!

Here's where we stayed. We (the tribe, consisting of five families and one single guy) had the entire lodge to ourselves. We stayed in "Brook".



I didn't take a lick of work with me (another bonus!), and actually relaxed for a change. Well, to be honest "relaxed" is a relative term for me. I think the only time I truly relax is when I'm under anesthesia. Even when I'm sleeping, I'm working on something.

The first night, we played lots of DVD trivia games. We split into two teams, and I'll have you know that people WANTED me on their team. Especially when it came to things like celebrity news. I'm on top of that, yessiree. Sports? Not so much, but the guys had that stuff covered.

We had a GREAT kitchen, so we cooked all our meals except breakfast on Sunday morning. Cleaning up was so quick with lots of women and THREE sinks!

Saturday, the most of the guys (including BJ) and their wives went out snow-mobiling (sp?). My physical therapist threatened me with terrible things to keep me from partaking in that particular activity. I know that she knows how to hurt me, so I stayed in the lodge with the kiddos. I finally finished a book I'd been nursing for about two months. I don't know why I kept reading it once it got to cannibalism and other gruesome things, but the end was worth it. No, I'm not going to tell you the name of the book. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

Saturday night, more DVD trivia and then Texas Hold'em poker. Five dollars was the buy-in, which was a good thing because BJ and I lost our shorts (not really... nobody wants to see that.) All of the adults played, so there was a big pot (55 dollars!) I don't know who won, because BJ and I are old and went to bed at about 11pm.

Sunday was a real treat. We went to a buffet breakfast. Normally I'm not a big fan of buffets, but this was a high-priced buffet and was DE-lishious. Oh my gosh, the Belgium waffles were to die for. There was hardly anything to them; really light and crispy. Every pork product (high end) you could think of, and even salmon. After breakfast, we went for a sleigh ride. There wasn't a lot of snow, so it was noisy and bumpy (and cold, boy was it cold!) The kids loved it though and it was fun to watch them enjoy themselves.

BJ and I left a couple of hours after that. Frankly, our charm reservoir was getting empty and we needed a little bit of quiet. We didn't even turn on the radio the whole 2.5 hour trip.

Unfortunately, Einstein was sick when we picked him up from doggy daycare, so I had to immediately take him to the vet. He had some plant debris embedded in his ear (not from doggy day care), and it was infected. Poor little puppy was miserable. He's still afraid to bark two days later because it hurt so much. He's on pain pills and antibiotics now, so he should be feeling better soon.

To make the weekend even better, I've finally resolved something that has plagued me for too long. Resolved probably isn't the right word. Maybe resigned is a better word. Resigned myself that I've done everything I can in a situation I won't be sharing here and I can freely walk away with a clear conscious. I once learned in counseling that sometimes resolution needs to be done all on your own without the cooperation of the other party. I'm glad that the counselor shared that with me, though I never thought I'd be using that advice in my relationship with this person.

I'm looking at this situation as part of my evolution. I believe we come here as imperfect stones. Each rough situation we're in polishes us a little bit more until hopefully we come out of this with very few rough edges. Unless we accept the situation for what it is, learn from it and move on we'll leave this life with many imperfections. I don't think I'll ever be perfect, but I've had quite a few opportunities to be polished and I'm honestly thankful for those opportunities. I'm proud of the person I am and would not be me without the rough stuff along with the good stuff.

Who knew all this could happen in three days? What an awesome life I live, and I'm grateful every day for that.

Poor little blog, you must feel ignored!

So many things to blog about, so little time so guess what? I'm going to write a This and That!

• My dad chose the next Soul Pancake assignment. The assignment was, "List 5 questions you hate not having the answer to." My answer:
  
  1. What will be the cause of my death?
  
  
  2. Am I done living all my lives (Is class over?)
  
  
  3. Will my family ever truly accept the spiritual path I’ve taken?
  
  
  4. Will I be guaranteed to never be destitute?
  
  
  5. Will there be a cure for Alzheimer’s before I get it? (this is my greatest fear)



• Big Fish extended my contract for the whole year and added more hours (kaCHING). There's only one of me, so Ranger Mike will be working with me at TLS (my company) along with Cameron (son #1). My plan is to do work exclusively for Big Fish and oversee Cameron and Ranger Mike (finally, payback for when he used to try to punch me in the head when we were kids!) on the rest of the clients. I keep saying I hope I don't get any bigger, but that doesn't seem to be working. I guess I need to just live with the idea that TLS is too good to be small.



• Physical therapy is going well on the fankle. It was a piece of cake in the beginning, but now it's getting serious. I am doing weight bearing exercises for 1.5 hours along with electrical stimulation therapy and ultrasound therapy. I'm getting quite a work out three times a week and won't be done (according to my PT) until at least the end of March. I also have 3x a day fankle exercises to do at home. I have an assigned PT to catch me if I start to pass out now. Can you guess why? Yeah- I started passing out a few of times and made them nervous. My answer to that was to not make me work so hard. They didn't like that answer very much.
  
  I really like the 'kids' there. They're all in their 20's and really nice kids. We joke around with each other and I've shared with them that I'd like them all to dance the "Thriller" dance for my graduation. Everyone else gets a shirt. Dontcha worry, I'll bring my video camera if they come through for me. ::snicker::
  
  I've noticed something really funny. My ankle now feels "floppy" to me. When I told my PT about it she said, "That's how NORMAL ankles work". Now I know for sure that my left fankle also has a coalition because it isn't 'floppy'. Having an extra bone in the ankle is great when you're wearing heels because your ankle doesn't wobble about. Now I wonder if I'll be able to wear heels ever again. For the record, I do not plan to have surgery on my left fankle. I'll just leave it locked up. At least this explains why I ran 'funny'.



• BJ and I have a REALLY fun weekend planned. Can't say much about it until afterward, but suffice it to say I'm really looking forward to it. Sadly, we can't take Einstein. I'm not too upset for him because he's practically a mascot at the puppy hotel. They love him there. He loves it there too. How do I know this? He allows the girls that work there to carry him around like a little baby. He won't let BJ or me carry him around. Little brat! He's just so darned cute (and smart.)