today is the greatest!

yes it is! i go to the restorative therapist today to get my garments for my leg which means no more everyday appointments, no more wrapping, and no more wearing sweat pants all the time. don't get me wrong i love my sweat pants but wearing them 24/7 gets old. i'm also happy to say i have been able to still exercise with all this bandaging around my leg so hopefully when i get on the scale i will be a couple pounds lighter after the wrapping comes off. i have been riding my bike everyday twice a day for 30 minutes to start and now i do 40 minutes. i have been able to reach my target heart rate too which is good, i think it means that my endurance is getting better. i also got my bodylastics system in the mail yesterday so i'm going to try it today after work. i'm soooo excited! i get my life back to normal as of 2:30pm today well most of it back to normal. i still have the blood clot to worry about for about another 4 to 5 months and the blood thinners for about a year. so the pounds are slowly coming off and i am excited to say i found my exercise routine. now i just need to learn how to use these resistance bands. i've been banned from jazzercise for some odd reason so i have to manage else where and come to find out i do a better job doing things on my own then going to one of those classes. i'm just sayin and it's my opinion.

happy health,
cwak

home gym'n it

this weekend i bought one of those recumbent bikes. i got the schwinn 220 model and i love it. it has a nice circuit training option that i like to do. right now i'm at level 4 but hope to increase that number when my bandages come off my leg. it even saves the user's stats so you can see your progress. so i have been using the bike every day since i got it. of course it's only been three days but i intend to keep it up. so then today i was searching the web for a at home resistance training program and came across the bodylastics. i purchased a system instantly and i'm pretty excited about using it once i get it in the mail. i will be journaling my experiences about it once i get it. i think i picked this system because it's small enough where you can pack it up in a bag and take it with you for traveling. i thought perfect! let's give it a try. my first choice was the body by jake tower 200 but after reading some reviews about the bodylastics i was quickly convinced that bodylastics might be the better choice...mostly because of the cost. i still intend to start a running program once my leg is back to normal, in the mean time i'm turning my spare bedroom into a home gym.

cwak

such a tease!!!

the last four months have been crazy and a tease for me. i get my surgery at the end of november and about mid december i'm walking and driving a little. just about to return to the gym and start driving again full time it hits me on 1 january something is seriously wrong with my leg and on 6 january i end up in the hospital for about 2 and half weeks. i started back to work on 15 february and this past monday and tuesday i was driving, going to the gym, and getting back to normal. oh geeze...um well on wednesday i went in for my restorative therapy for my leg because it seriously looks like someone took an air pump to my leg and blew that thing up till it couldn't get any bigger. so when i went in they wrapped the lower part of my leg up to my knee...things were okay then and i could still drive. on thrusday they took the bandage off and i actually got my ankle back...yay no more cankle. then the therapist said lets do the thigh next and i was excited so i said okay. she ended up wrapping the entire leg so now i'm back to barely being able to walk and i can't drive and can't go to the gym. aaaaaahhhhhh! okay i feel better now...hold on wait...aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!!! the wrapping will probably go on for another week or so. just as long as i don't have to wear this crap next weekend...i wanna go out dang it!!!

well going to the gym monday and tuesday felt good. i was a little sore where i had my surgery and definitely lost a lot of my endurance but that can easily be fixed once i stop seeing the doctors. i can't wait for this to be all over but in the end i think it could have been worst and luckily i caught the clot soon enough where it could be fixed. and can i just say thank God for parents!!!

xoxoxo,
cwak

wwoooowwaa!!

okay so on january 6th...yes remember everything...i was rushed to the er and then admitted to mercy hospital for a severe deep vein thrombrosis (dvt). very very painful stuff...morphine drip worked wonders with that and the swelling in my leg was ridiculous...looked like i had one elephant leg. it was crazy...the next day i had a procedure done where they went in and put tubing through my veins...again this was very painful...i could actually feel the doctor cut into my leg. i wanted to die! anyway they transferred me to ccu...the next day i had another procedure done where they went through the same tubing in my viens and tried to suck the clot out...doctor said they were about 90% successful and i should be feeling better. wrong! two days later they do another doppler/ultra sound on my leg and the clot reformed. so five days in the ccu they decide to move me to a different room...the nurses tried to convince me that this is good news it means you're getting better...wrong again! on the sixth day they tried to do physical therapy...i couldn't walk it hurt so much and i was crying...there i said i cried and i cried alot because i have never been in that much pain before. on the seventh day which was my last day at that hospital the doctor said i can go home and that an at home physical therapist can work on me at home. i didn't feel ready to go home...how can they send somebody home when they are in extreme amounts of pain...i ended up going home monday night...seven days in the hospital. wednesday i saw my family physican and he told me to go to the vascular department to have things looked at so they set up an emergency appointment just for me...joy! so i went and they admitted me to the hospital again...this time at bwmc. much nicer and i even got my own room. still couldn't walk and my leg was so swollen i couldn't even look at the thing. i really didn't do much at this hospital except for sleeping and taking my blood every 2 to 4 hours. i ate pain medicine for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. in the past two and half weeks at the hospital i have never seen so much blood takin from one person but now i know it can be done. hospital food wasn't all that great so i didn't eat much while in the hospitals...i ended up losing around 30lbs. i was released from bwmc the following monday...still had swelling and some what still very painful but not as much.

being in the hospital for two and a half weeks did two things to me one of which i don't like very much now that i'm working again is it screwed up my sleeping habits. with those doctors and nurses waking me up every 2, 4, and 6 hours i couldn't get any sleep. second i don't have an appetite anymore. i eat something but very little of it. not sure why that happend...i think its because of the hospital food not being very good i'm afraid to eat something i love and not like it. but the plus side of it all is that i am losing weight and i did want to start losing weight but i wish i could have started it just a little differently.

so here is my story in the beginning of 2010...i'm slowly getting back into the swing of things. i started therapy last week and today i'm attempting the gym.

xoxo,
cwak

my 2010 new year resolutions

okay so here's my list of resolutions for the year 2010...hopefully i achieve one of them this year...okay so here it goes...

1. lose weight, lose about 6 t0 8 pounds a month until i reach my goal

2. paint more or get a little more serious with my artwork

...um that's it, no wait

3. keep my condo presentable at all times for the unexpected company

4. start my running program as soon as my foot heals about 99%

5. cook more or better yet learn how to cook

6. travel a little bit more

7. explore my wild side

finally...

8. don't let so many people take advantage of me...geeze!

okay so that's my list and i hope i can stick to some of them for this year. i'll keep posting my progresses and such with each of my goals.

cwak