MEMORIES OF EMILY'S PASSING - IT'S BEEN 20 YEARS

 Emily at age 17 in 1996              Rebecca at age 23 in 1981

Friday, June 27, 1997 - I spent most of the day that day with my 18-year-old daughter, Emily. I had just bought a little rental house, and I showed it to her, and she was begging me to let her rent it from me and move away from home. We looked at other houses that day, too, and Emily was helping me pick out the next investment.

That evening, we rented and watched the movie Jerry Maguire and I made her cover her eyes while I fast forwarded through the sex scene at the beginning of the movie.

Sunday, June 29 - After church, Emily was up on the roof, cleaned out the gutters, which she volunteered to do. At one point, she was laying down on the roof with her head hanging over the edge, and I told her to stop fooling around before she fell off the roof and broke her neck.

Monday, June 30 - The four of us (Bill, me, 20-year-old son Barry and Emily) made plans to see My Best Friend's Wedding on Thursday. It was the last time that the four of us would sit in a room and talk. It was the last time we were a normal family. It was the last time I saw my daughter conscious.

Tuesday, July 1 - I left for work before Emily got out of bed that day. After working a while, I ran an errand, and when I got back to the office, I saw that Emily had left me a voice mail. "Hi, Mom - it's Emily. I just wanted to let you know that it's 2:00 and I'm leaving for work. I'll see you later. I love you. Bye!"

I listened to the message with my finger perched over the "delete" button on the phone. I started to push it, then I hesitated. I thought, "What if Emily gets killed in a car accident tonight, and this is the last time I will hear her voice? I'll be sorry later that I deleted it." I realized that it was just a morbid thought, and deleted the message.

I had been having thoughts like that for about 18 months. Every time she would leave the house, I would grab her and hug her and say, "I love you! I would die for you!" I always wanted it to be the last thing I said to her, just in case she died in a car accident. I did not treat my other family members this way - just Emily.

When she left to go to work that day, she never came home again.

Wednesday, July 2 - If we had not had the window air conditioner running, we would have been awakened by the sirens at 1:00 am. About a mile from our house, Emily, alone in her compact car and on her way home, swerved to miss a deer and lost control of the car. Her car went into a yaw, and spun into a telephone pole on the passenger's front door. The car wrapped around the pole and the pole struck her head.

We got the call at 2:15 am. We rushed to the hospital to find our daughter in a deep coma. She had brain surgery that day, but it was no use. She never woke up, and around 6:00 pm, the doctor told us that Emily had experienced brain death. We went to sleep at my father's house, because all the beds at my house, including mine, were occupied by family members from out of town who had rushed in to be with us.

Thursday, July 3 - Around 4:00 am, after not sleeping, I told my husband that we were going back to the hospital. We spent all day there, waiting for all the arrangements to be made for the four men who would receive Emily's vital organs. Between Wednesday and Thursday, there were at least 100 family members and friends in and out and just hanging around. At noon, the hospital told everyone to leave so that they could prepare Emily for surgery. Bill and Barry and I stayed.

Later that afternoon, we invited Emily's fiance to return and he came back for an hour or so.

In the evening, I held Emily in my arms one last time and told her about the surgery. I was so afraid that there was a chance that she was still "in there" but couldn't communicate with us and that she was terrified. All I could do was tell her not to be afraid and that she was going to go to heaven and be with God, and that it was going to be all right.

Finally, around 11:30 pm, we said goodbye and went home.

Friday, July 4 - I did not sleep. I stayed awake and called the hospital several times throughout those hours to see how the surgery was going. A wonderful nurse told me details and let me know when Emily's heart stopped beating. They removed her from life support just before dawn on the 4th of July, 1997.

AS SERIOUS AS A HEART ATTACK!

I wanted to put up this post in case anyone was wondering how things are going with my "kinder, gentler" challenge.

I am taking a break right now from weighing, measuring and tracking because on May 15, 2016, my dear husband, Bill, had a heart attack.  We had no warning, and did not even know that he was at risk.  Plus, he has been eating a healthy low carb, optimal protein, healthy fat diet for over seven years.  What the heck?

I want to write out the sequence of events, and I am hoping that this blog post might prevent someone else from going through what we went through.  So let me start at the beginning:

In September 2015, Bill had sudden onset vomiting and chest and abdomen pain.  We rushed to the ER, where he had an EKG and was told that his heart was fine.  The doc in the ER said it was probably just a stomach bug or food poisoning.  We understood that the normal EKG meant that his heart was healthy.  It was not, but no one at the ER told us that a normal EKG does not equate to a normal heart.

Four weeks later, in October 2015, it happened again.  Another ER visit, another EKG, and another clean bill of heart health.  This time, the ER doc suggested that Bill see a gastroenterologist.  Bill decided not to.  The ER doc did not mention seeing a cardiologist, even though Bill presented with chest pain and vomiting.

It happened again four weeks later in November, then four weeks later in December, then four weeks later in January.  Three more ER visits, three more normal EKGs, three more docs telling us to see a doc for the stomach, but no mention of seeing a doc for the heart.  In January, Bill finally decided to see a specialist, and after a few tests, was told he had GERD (gastroesophageal reflux disease).  He was given a pill to take and he started taking them.

Bill had slowly been gaining a little weight, even though his diet had not changed, and when he gained even more after starting the GERD medicine, he decided to stop taking it.  He had not had a stomach issue for several weeks.  He stopped taking the pills, and had another vomiting episode on May 10.  We called his GI doc, and he said to just start taking the pills again and everything would be fine.

On May 14, he fell ill and told me that he was tired and felt like he had been hit by a truck.  No chest pains, but just all over muscle aches.  In the evening, he had a headache and all his bottom teeth hurt.  I decided that if he was still not feeling well after the weekend, I would take him to the doctor.

On May 15, I went to lift weights at the gym, but Bill decided to stay home.  He said he felt better, but was very tired.  At 3 pm, he started having chest pains and difficulty breathing.  HE DID NOT FEEL THE NEED TO TELL ME THIS!  He thought he was having some sort of muscle spasm.  He spent the night sitting up in a chair, unable to lie down.

On May 16, as I was headed out the door at 4:30 am, Bill stopped me and told me he was having chest and back pain and trouble breathing.  We immediately got in the car to take the 10 minute drive to the hospital.  Neither of us thought it was a heart attack, or I would have called 911.  We told them in the ER that he was having chest pains, and after an EKG, things got pretty dramatic.

Within a few minutes, we were told that Bill was having a heart attack and needed immediate surgery.  He never clutched his chest and passed out.  It did not seem like a heart attack.  But standing in an ER room and listening to "Code Blue, Room 9!" over the PA system is something I never want to live through again.  Watching several medical persons run into my husband's room and start working on him was so frightening!  For the second time in my life, I felt like I was part of a TV show, the first time being when my daughter was in the ER after her fatal car accident in 1997. After an angioplasty and two stents, he was taken to the ICU, where he spent three days.  We found out that he had three blocked arteries in his heart.  One was completely blocked and that's where the two stents were placed.  Another one was 85% blocked, but the doctor said we would wait seven to ten days to put in a stent there, because putting in a stent can sometimes cause a heart attack, and the doctor did not want him to have two heart attacks so close together.  The other artery was only around 30% blocked, so no need for treatment on that one.

The cardiologist told me that if I had gone to work that morning and left Bill at home, he would have been dead in an hour or so.  He said that Bill did not have a "close call".  He had "THE call".

On May 17, Bill had an echocardiogram done to see what damage was done to his heart during the 18 hours that he was having a heart attack but did not seek treatment.  We were surprised to learn that there was no damage to the heart.

On May 18 we left the hospital and went home.  Bill was told to do a lot of nothing, to lift nothing, and to take a three to four month leave from work at the golf course.

On May 20, we were back in the ER because Bill was still having trouble breathing.  When we came into the ER, the same doctor was there.  He told us that Bill no doubt had congestive heart failure, and that his heart enzymes during the attack were the highest he had seen.  But the cardiologist said he did not have congestive heart failure, because there was no damage to the heart.  He did decide, however, to go ahead and do the surgery to insert the other stent, as long as we were there.  The surgery went well, and Bill was released from the hospital again the next day.

On May 23, I took Bill in to see the cardiologist in his office because he still could not breathe.  He was examined by the nurse practitioner, who told him that because his heart had suffered no damage, it must be lung disease brought on by fifty years of smoking (he quit ten years ago), and Bill was referred to a pulmonary specialist.  We made the appointment, but could not be seen for a couple of weeks.

On May 25, we were back at the ER because Bill could not breathe and was having head, neck and shoulder pain and was going back and forth between chills and hot flashes with extreme sweating.  The ER doctor told us that Bill had congestive heart failure.  Tests showed fluid around his heart and fluid around and in his lungs.  After he was admitted, the cardiologist ordered another echocardiogram, and this time it showed that there was damage to the heart.  So now the cardiologist concurs with the ER doc and Bill has been formally diagnosed with congestive heart failure.

Bill was put on a pretty high dose of a diuretic, and started losing water weight right away.  He was checked out by the stomach doc and the lung doc and got a clean bill of health from both, so it's all about the heart at this point.

On May 27, Bill was released from the hospital and sent home again.  He has a followup appointment today with the cardiologist, and next week he starts cardiac rehab.  In the ten days following his release from the hospital, he lost over 13 pounds of fluid.  His breathing is normal.  He sleep apnea is gone.  His energy level is good, but he does get tired a little bit after walking around.  He is not working, but we do take short walks around the block and such.  His mood is much improved and he is back to his normal, cheerful self.

But, enough about Bill!  I'm sure you are wondering how I am doing.

During the twelve days that we were going in and out of the hospital, I was stress eating and not sleeping.  I stayed with Bill at the hospital, sleeping on a futon next to his bed, and ate three meals per day in the hospital cafeteria.  The food was surprisingly good, with lots of low carb options.  I did eat a few high carb things, like I had a cookie twice during that time, and I had fruit and yogurt.  I was no nervous that I felt the emotional need to eat every couple of hours, and I gained several pounds during that time.

Needless to say, my plan for getting down to 130 pounds flew out the window when Bill's heart attacked him.  It has been three weeks since then, and I am now ready, emotionally and physically, to start taking care of myself again.  I fasted two days ago, and I am fasting again today, and may fast tomorrow as well.  This morning, I weighed 140 pounds.  I'm going to try to get on the fast track to getting rid of the weight I gained since May 15 and go on from there to my goal.  I took a break from the gym to take care of Bill, but I have started back again and have been lifting weights and making progress.

THE BIG QUESTION:  WHY DID THIS HAPPEN?

According to everything I know to be true, Bill should not have heart disease.  He has been eating low carb for over seven years.  He quit smoking over ten years ago.  He is active.  What has happened does not seem right, and I need to get to the bottom of it, and also find out if I am at equal risk.

From what I have learned, the cause of heart disease is not high cholesterol, but systemic inflammation, as these articles explain.  All of Bill's inflammation markers are high.  Maybe mine are, too.  I don't know.  And if he, and possibly me, too, have serious inflammation, what is causing it?  Is it the feedlot beef that is high in Omega-6?  Has a sensitivity to eggs been developing?  Is too much dairy causing inflammation?  I have no idea, but I intend to find out and stop this thing in its tracks so that Bill can recover, live long, and prosper.

In the third week of July, Bill and I are traveling to see Dr. Jeffry Gerber in Denver.  I have been following him for a while, and his understanding of heart disease is on the cutting edge of current research.  Bill will be tested and evaluated, and so will I.  If you would like to get an idea of Dr. Gerber's views on the subject, check out this great youtube video.

When we left the hospital, we were given a set of instructions that included the recommendation to eat 7-10 servings of grains per day, along with starchy vegetables, very low fat, virtually no animal products contained saturated fat, and low salt.  Basically, they want Bill to become a vegan.  This will happen over my dead body.  I know too much to ever let that happen.

And, all the doctors we saw told Bill that he needs to go on a statin drug.  Statins cause so many side effect, including damage to the heart muscle, damage to other muscles and memory loss.  Statins are bad, and Bill refuses to take one.  I have heard Dr. Gerber say that he does prescribe statins, but not very often, so we are hoping that Bill will not have to take them.  I trust Dr. Gerber, and if even he says that Bill should be on a statin, we will have to seriously consider it.

We will be depending heavily on Dr. Gerber to bring us through this mystery and out the other side.

I'm not sure when I will post again.  I will give an update when I can, and I will definitely let my readers know the results of our testing with Dr. Gerber.

Thanks for reading!

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY TO US!

Bill are is 69 years old and I am (almost) 58 years old. We eat high fat, including lots of heart-healthy saturated fat, sufficient protein and very low carb. We avoid eating artery-clogging whole grains and sugar.  Neither of us needs to take medication of any kind, we are normal weight, and disease free. We both had high blood sugar, but not any more. Medical professionals are amazed at us!

Today, we celebrate our 39th wedding anniversary.

 

 

 

WHERE IN THE WORLD IS CARMEN SANDIEGO?

Okay, so I dropped off the face of the blogosphere about nine months ago.  I started this blog back in February of 2009, which was over three years ago.  I used the blog as a place to record my personal stats, which I was very into at the time, and as a storehouse for all the great articles I was finding in my main area of interest, which was, and still is, nutrition.  Low Carb High Fat nutrition, to be precise.  And then, without an explanation, I disappeared, and no one knew where I was, just like my old friend, You-Know-Who:

(I would watch that show just to hear them sing!  I'm really dating myself now!)

Everyone has had the following experience:  Someone says something snarky (or downright mean) to you out of the blue, and you are so taken aback that you can think of nothing clever to say.  Later, when it is much too late, you think of the perfectly scalding comeback that would have put that person in their place and elevated you to “most clever person ever”.  I had one of those experiences back in August 2011 when a random stumbler stumbled across my blog and called me and my blog, well, stupid.

The comment posted by this anonymous person went something like this, as best as I can remember:  “Your blog is so lame!  Who cares about all your stuff?  Why don’t you get a life?” and more along those lines.  I posted back something like:  “Oh, yeah?”  I know.  Not the height of cleverness.  After I posted that brilliant response, I deleted both his (I don’t know why, but I always assumed it was a guy) and my comments so that no one else but me and that guy would see them. He never returned and it was a good thing, because I spent the next three days coming up with the most scathing comebacks I could think of, and I’m glad I never got the chance to use them.  I did not want to go on record tearing some stranger a new one as if I cared about what he said.  But I did care, and shortly after that, I stopped blogging.  To you, Guy that Commented:  I assume you will never read this, but you got your way.  I realized that no one cared about all my stuff and I got a life.  Not that I didn’t already have one, but you know what I mean…

I’m not sure what motivates a person to make a comment like Guy did.  I tried to imagine myself visiting someone’s blog about, say, restoring classic cars, and leaving this comment:  “Your blog is stupid!  I don’t care about cars and neither should you!  It’s a stupid hobby and a waste of money!  You need to get out of the garage and get a life!”  Nope, I don’t see me doing that.  Because, at heart and on the surface, I’m a pretty nice guy.

Anyway, the stats I posted nine months ago were the last ones I recorded here, right before I stole away into the night like Carmen Sandiego.  Not only did I stop recording them here, but I stopped in the real world, too.  No more weighing and measuring of food, no more tracking of fat grams or any other kind of grams and no more weighing and measuring of my own body.  Oh, I would hop on the scale every now and then (every few weeks, if I was looking fat), but those times were few and far between.  My tape measure stayed in the drawer and my digital kitchen scale stayed in the cabinet.

I feel pretty confident that I am only talking to myself here, because any people who were following my blog have long since given up on me, I’ll bet.  But if anyone is reading, the answer to “Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego (aka Rebecca Latham)?” is that I just hit the wall and could not stand having to micro-manage my food and activities for one more second!  Being the anal retentive, perfectionist, obsessive compulsive person that I am (that last one has never been diagnosed), it was a hard thing to give up.  My charts would be incomplete and I would not be able to look back to a certain date after August 24, 2011 and know what my thigh measured that morning or how many grams of carbs I had eaten that day and what percentage they had been of my total calories!!!  Oh, the agony! 

Long story short, I got over it, and I am much happier now.  I have been sticking, mostly, to the low carb lifestyle.  I have had times that I have gone completely off of it, like during the holidays, but it is now my default way of eating and I always come back to it.  Over the past few months, I realized that I was getting too far away from what I knew to be the best for me and my chubby body and my chubby hubby.  I was starting to do things like grabbing a bag of Peanut M&Ms when I was out and about and a little hungry, and ordering and eating a pizza (crust and all!) when I was too tired to cook.  Lately, I put on about five pounds, and decided to get really serious about low carbing it again.  Just to see where I was starting at, I dusted off the ol’ tape measure and measured neck, waist and hips, and found out that I was almost EXACTLY where I was, body-size-wise, back in August, within an eighth of an inch.

Here is what I learned (again, pretty sure I'm just talking to myself to solidify things in my mind and convictions) after my nine months off:  Whether I obsess over it or not, it looks like this is the weight my body wants to be.  All the many months and years I spent tracking everything and trying desperately to shed some more body fat were a waste of time and effort.  I mean, hey!  I did not track for the last nine months, and no harm done!

Having said that, I have made a new commitment to get really serious about low carbing and high fatting it again.  I have decided that I am not going to eat candy and chips (did I forget to mention the Doritos that I was having with more and more frequency?) and I am not going to grab cookies at the bank (yes, my bank has a cookie jar and there are bowls of candy on every flat surface accessible to customers).  For the past week or so, I am doing what I know is right and eating protein, fat and some veggies, no fruit save a few berries now and then, and drinking only water, tea and homemade lemonade sweetened with a little liquid Stevia.  I am not measuring my food.  I am eating what appears to be a reasonable amount.  After all the measuring all these years, I guess I should have a handle on what that means without having to get out the dusty digital scale!

If I never decrease my weight from here on out, I am resolving to be content with that.  In clothes, I look pretty good, and no one sees my secret love handles but me and my husband, and he’s not complaining.  I have dropped a couple of pounds in the past week or so, and that’s nice.

I have spent the last several days shoring myself up with reading great nutrition articles on the internet and catching up with all my favorite low carb bloggers that I have ignored for nine months and finding a few new ones, too.  I am rereading “The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Living” by Volek and Phinney (two of my faves, who chose me to be a success story in “The New Atkins For A New You”, for which I will always be grateful), which was a gift from Karen Norris, my ol’ Atkins pal.

I will post again when I feel like I want to write something down in font, or when I find a great bit of information that I don’t want to lose track of.

Onward and Downward, as I always say, but even Onward and Straight Ahead can be a good thing!

(By the way, I have gotten back into quilting as a business, so if you want to visit my other blog on that subject and see photographs of my quilts, you can click here.

MEMORIES OF EMILY'S PASSING - IT'S BEEN 14 YEARS

 Emily at age 17 in 1996              Rebecca at age 23 in 1981

Friday, June 27 - I spent most of the day that day with my 18-year-old daughter, Emily. I had just bought a little rental house, and I showed it to her, and she was begging me to let her rent it from me and move away from home. We looked at other houses that day, too, and Emily was helping me pick out the next investment.

That evening, we rented and watched the movie Jerry Maguire and I made her cover her eyes while I fast forwarded through the sex scene at the beginning of the movie.

Sunday, June 29 - After church, Emily was up on the roof, cleaned out the gutters, which she volunteered to do. At one point, she was laying down on the roof with her head hanging over the edge, and I told her to stop fooling around before she fell off the roof and broke her neck.

Monday, June 30 - The four of us (Bill, me, 20-year-old son Barry and Emily) made plans to see My Best Friend's Wedding on Thursday. It was the last time that the four of us would sit in a room and talk. It was the last time we were a normal family. It was the last time I saw my daughter conscious.

Tuesday, July 1 - I left for work before Emily got out of bed that day. After working a while, I ran an errand, and when I got back to the office, I saw that Emily had left me a voice mail. "Hi, Mom - it's Emily. I just wanted to let you know that it's 2:00 and I'm leaving for work. I'll see you later. I love you. Bye!"

I listened to the message with my finger perched over the "delete" button on the phone. I started to push it, then I hesitated. I thought, "What if Emily gets killed in a car accident tonight, and this is the last time I will hear her voice? I'll be sorry later that I deleted it." I realized that it was just a morbid thought, and deleted the message.

I had been having thoughts like that for about 18 months. Every time she would leave the house, I would grab her and hug her and say, "I love you! I would die for you!" I always wanted it to be the last thing I said to her, just in case she died in a car accident. I did not treat my other family members this way - just Emily.

When she left to go to work that day, she never came home again.

Wednesday, July 2 - If we had not had the window air conditioner running, we would have been awakened by the sirens at 1:00 am. About a mile from our house, Emily, alone in her compact car and on her way home, swerved to miss a deer and lost control of the car. Her car went into a yaw, and spun into a telephone pole on the passenger's front door. The car wrapped around the pole and the pole struck her head.

We got the call at 2:15 am. We rushed to the hospital to find our daughter in a deep coma. She had brain surgery that day, but it was no use. She never woke up, and around 6:00 pm, the doctor told us that Emily had experienced brain death. We went to sleep at my father's house, because all the bed's at my house, including mine, were occupied by family members from out of town who had rushed to be with us.

Thursday, July 3 - Around 4:00 am, after not sleeping, I told my husband that we were going back to the hospital. We spent all day there, waiting for all the arrangements to be made for the four men who would receive Emily's vital organs. Between Wednesday and Thursday, there were at least 100 family members and friends in and out and just hanging around. At noon, the hospital told everyone to leave so that they could prepare Emily for surgery. Bill and Barry and I stayed.

Later that afternoon, we invited Emily's fiance to return and he came back for an hour or so.

In the evening, I held Emily in my arms one last time and told her about the surgery. I was so afraid that there was a chance that she was still "in there" but couldn't communicate with us and that she was terrified. All I could do was tell her not to be afraid and that she was going to go to heaven and be with God, and that is was going to be all right.

Finally, around 11:30 pm, we said goodbye and went home.

Friday, July 4 - I did not sleep. I stayed awake and called the hospital several times throughout those hours to see how the surgery was going. A wonderful nurse told me details and let me know when Emily's heart stopped beating. They removed her from life support just before dawn on the 4th of July, 1997.

MY MOM AND ME - WE'RE BOTH 50 YEARS OLD!

Well, at least in these photos, we are.  The one of my mom was taken in 1984, and mine was taken in 2005.  Today marks 15 years since she died the day before her 62nd birthday.  She had suffered with ALS for five years.  It's hard to believe that I am now only two years younger than she was when she became ill.

34 YEARS AGO TODAY - JANUARY 21, 1977 - IT'S A BOY!

This is me on January 20, 1977, the night before my firstborn was to arrive.  I was 21 years old, two weeks overdue for delivery, and had not had even one contraction.

After seeing my doctor and having an x-ray, I found out that the baby was breach and huge, so I checked into the hospital to prepare for a C-section in the morning.

I was so scared!

And just a little irritated that I was not going to get to use all the cool things I had learned at Lamaze class!

Barry Alan was born at 9:12 am on January 21, 1977.  He weighed 9 lbs. 5 oz. and measured 21" long.

This is his first photo, which was taken by his dad in the hall the first time they met.

Because he was long overdue and big, he did not really look like a newborn baby.  Plus, he was delivered by C-section, so he did not have that "fresh squeezed" baby look.

This is the first picture of Barry and me.  I think he was a couple of days old here.

I had a rough time with the surgery, and I was probably not up to having a picture taken right away.

Back in the good old days, they did not kick you out of the hospital within hours of giving birth.  And, because of surgery, I got to stay a whole week.

 The day we were ready to go home, I remember thinking, "What are they thinking?  Are they really going to just let me walk out of here with this baby?  I have no idea how to take care of him!"

This is the first photo of Bill and Barry.  It was taken at our home the day we got out of the hospital.

I also have a strong memory of seeing a cat walking into my living room.  My first thought was, "Why is there a cat in my house?"  Before Barry was born, my cat was my baby.  While I was in the hospital, I forgot she existed.

Here is Barry today, along with his lovely wife, Laura, their daughter Annelise and their son Will.

Happy Birthday, Barry!  I love you!

I SLIPPED ON THE ICE AND GOT HURT AGAIN

I tore a tendon in my shoulder in December and I have been in physical therapy and not allowed to do my weight lifting.

Last night, on my way out of physical therapy, I slipped on the ice and wrenched my shoulder really severely trying to catch myself. The pain was exquisite, and I was sure that I had severed my tendon or dislocated my shoulder. It hurt all the way from the top of my shoulder to the ends of my fingers, and my thumb was going numb.

It was late, and the door locked behind me, so I could not get back into the doctor's office. My phone was in my car, so I could not call for help. I could not get to my car because the parking lot was solid ice.

I stood there holding my arm and feeling slightly panicky for about ten minutes, banging on the door every minute or so.

I finally started walking across the snow, so I would not slip again, and then a woman in scrubs came out the door. I yelled to her to stop, so she would not fall on the ice, and I told her that I had fallen and was hurt and needed to get back in.

She told me it was too late to get back in, and that the phones had been turned off, so I could not call them.

She then walked away from me, got in her car and drove away.

I walked across the snow, got in my car and drove home, and I iced my arm a few times before bed.

This morning, my arm feels better, but not as good as it did before I fell.

The doctor's office called me this morning and told me that they will deal with the woman who did not try to help me.

I have PT again tomorrow, and they will assess my shoulder and see if I have done more damage.

Not happy.

TODAY IS MY 36TH WEDDING ANNIVERSARY

 

Thirty-six years ago, on October 27, 1974, Bill and I were married.

Here we were then, and here we are now.

And they said it would never last!  Well, my father said it would never last!

I'M SICK OF TRACKING!

In case you didn't notice, I stopped posting a daily report on August 3rd.  I'm just sick of tracking, and I wanted to go for a while just eating the types of food I am supposed to eat and see if I can reduce my stress.

So, now I am weighing and measuring once a week, on Sunday, and posting that result here.

If you are curious what I am eating, you can look at some of my old menus, because they are what I am eating now.

36 YEARS AGO TODAY

It was on May 25, 1974 that I proposed to Bill and he said yes!  Five months later, we were married.  He was 30 and I was 18.  We are still married today, with no breaks.

And they said it would never last.  Well, at least that's what my father said...

DECEMBER 6, 2009 - A BITTERSWEET BIRTHDAY TO ME

Emily, age 17, in 1996                       Me, age 23, in 1981  

This is a post that I put on the Atkins Community Forum on my birthday:

I have not been able to be on the Atkins Forum a lot lately, and I wanted to explain why to some of you who have been missing me.

A couple of months ago, my husband and I expanded our business, and I have had to devote a significant amount of time getting things set up. It will probably not let up for several more months. I had hoped it would not take as much time as it has been taking, but I guess it is what it is. I hoped that I would only have to cut down a little on my “Forum Time”, but I am finding that I have little if any time to get here with any regularity.

I just want to say that I really miss being here every day and I think about everyone here all the time. I am looking forward to the time that I can be here more often.

I started Atkins on March 15, 2009, and I really feel like this Forum has become my lifeline in very many ways. I have made good friends, and have received so much help in my slow weight loss. I have also felt privileged to be able to extend help to others that have shared my struggles.

Before I go off again, maybe not to be seen for several days, I wanted to share a few personal things with you.

First of all, today is my birthday. I am 54 years old, and I feel great and healthy and slim. So it is a good day.

On the other hand, I have not been having a good holiday season, generally speaking. This year is the 13th Christmas that I have been apart from my dear daughter Emily Rebecca, who was killed on the 4th of July in 1997 in an automobile accident at the age of 18. She had just graduated high school three week before. She was practically perfect in every way, beautiful, giving and sweet natured, and we had an uncommonly close relationship.

I have not talked about Emily on this Forum for many reasons, but mainly because I still struggle so with her loss, and don’t like to bring it up and burden people with the knowledge of that struggle.

My husband and I also struggle with the loss of our 26 year old son, Joe, who died in an accident in 1991. He was my husband’s son and my stepson.

I have also had two babies die in the womb, one in 1976 and another, shortly after my daughter’s death, in 1998.

I also have terminal disease in my family. My grandfather and mother both died young, at 59 and 62 of ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease. My chances and the chances of my four biological sisters, of contracting this disease are 1 in 2, and if I do get it, it will be in the next few years.

At this point, you may be wondering why I am being such a downer today! I guess it is because I so often feel like an outsider with secrets that are uncomfortable to share, and only the people closest to me know all about me. But I have come to know and love so many people here that I decided to “come clean” and tell you more about myself.

Although I am having a tough time at the moment, and for these past few weeks, I generally try to be upbeat and happy in my daily life, and take great pleasure in my surviving son and my two beautiful grandchildren. I enjoy eating well, being healthy for as long as I can, and my life with my dear husband is good.

So, all that being said, I feel like a weight has been lifted now that I don’t have to pretend that all is always well! Thanks for listening, and I’ll be here as often as I can!

MARCH 15, 2009 - ATKINS - TAKE 2

I would not want anyone to go through what I went through the first time, which also led to the next nine years of yo-yo dieting which left me at the heaviest weight of my life – 158 pounds.

The day I hit my highest weight – February 25, 2009 - was the day that I started The Zone diet. Over the next three weeks, I lost 8 pounds, but I was starving the whole time, eating only 1,000 calories per day. According to that diet, that is the amount of food I would have to eat for the rest of my life! No thanks! I now know that not only is it hard to starve all the time, but it is unhealthy and unnecessary!

When my husband's doctor told him on March 13, 2009, to go back to Atkins, I was heartbroken. Not again! I just can't do it again! And I can't have the two people in my house eating completely different menus, either.

That same night, I found the Atkins website. I looked at what the plan is all about. I couldn't believe it! Vegetables required? Net carbs? If you don’t lose weight, eat 5 net carbs more vegetables? This was not what I remembered from the first time on Atkins…

I read as much as I could on the website that Friday night, made up a shopping list on Saturday and went shopping for low carb foods, plus some really bad food to eat that day. Last chance, right? And on Sunday morning, March 15, 2009, we started Atkins.

MARCH 15, 2009 - MEAT, EGGS AND CHEESE!

On my computer, dated August 31, 2000, is my menu for my first day of Atkins (this was before net carbs - I was just counting carbs):

Breakfast
3 slices bacon (0 carbs)
1 oz. cheese (0 carbs)

Lunch
1/2 cup cooked chicken breast (0)
4 green olives (0)
2 slices bacon (0)
1/4 cup celery (2.1)
2 Tbs. mayo (0)
2 slices deli ham (0)

Dinner
2 hamburger patties (0)
1 oz. cheese (0)
a few bites of vegetables (5.5)
a few bites of pork steak (0)
2 slices American cheese (2)
1 piece low carb chocolate (3)

Total Carbs for the Day - 12.6

Yay! I'm doing Atkins! But wait... I GAINED 2 POUNDS?!

This basic diet went on for 9 days. By then, with going up and down with weight, I was 1.5 pounds heavier than when I started! What was I doing wrong? I was eating less and less every day, trying to get it to work! I was already down to 1000 calories per day, which, when you are eating nothing but protein and fat, is really only a few bites of food each day. Something had to change! I went back to the book, and decided to change what I was eating.

Here is my menu for September 9, 2000:

Breakfast - 2 oz. cream cheese (0)
Lunch - 2 oz. cream cheese (0)
Snack - 2 oz. cream cheese (0)
Dinner - 2 oz. cream cheese (0)
Snack - 2 oz. cream cheese (0)

Weight loss for the day - 2 pounds! Now, I thought, I'm on to something!

I kept this up for 4 total days and lost 5.5 pounds!

The next day, I incorporated a steak into my cream cheese diet, and immediately gained 1/2 pound.

Back to the cream cheese! Another day of cream cheese, and I lost the 1/2 pound again. Whew! That was a close one!

So the next day I tried having an Atkins Advantage Bar and a few macadamia nuts with my cream cheese. I gained another pound!

I guess you can see where this is headed.

I continued to cut calories and carbs, until, at the end of 20 days, I was 5.5 pounds lighter, eating 1000 calories per day, 5-10 total carbs per day ( not net carbs!) and I was starving and miserable!

I even called the Atkins Center, where they put a $75 charge on my credit card and told me I needed to cut out all carbs, and eat nothing but protein and fat. And that if, when I tried to add carbs back in later, I started to gain weight, I should spend the rest of my life eating no carbs.

Would anybody be surprised to know that I quit on Day 21?

In the meantime, my husband was eating all the meat, cheese, fat, and eggs he could stuff in his mouth! Within a few months, he had lost 35 pounds.

As time went on, it didn't seem to be working for him anymore. I accused him of cheating. He denied it. He got off of Atkins and started eating a "regular" American diet again with me and gained back all the weight.

MARCH 15, 2009 - ATKINS - TAKE 1

I thought I would give you a little background on how I got involved with the low carb lifestyle. In the year 2000, all I had heard about Atkins was it was some horrible fad diet that was killing people. Then my dear friend, who was substantially overweight, went on it and lost about 30 pounds really fast.

When she told me what she was doing, I actually said, "Really?! Well, I hope you don't die!" She took that crack pretty well, and calmly told me that I should read the book before I passed judgment.

She was right - all I knew about Atkins were the rumors I had heard about eating pounds of bacon, dozens of eggs and slabs of cheese and butter. Everyone who goes on Atkins has a heart attack, right?

So I read the book. No, I inhaled the book, in one sitting, and I was totally convicted by what I read. By the end of the day, I was asking my husband if he would mind trying a new diet. "You'll like this one," I told him. "All you have to do is eat as much meat, eggs and cheese as you want!" He had 35 pounds to lose and I had 25.

In my haste to absorb the main points of Atkins, I somehow missed a few important things, like that you are supposed to eat veggies. Well, in my defense, he did give an example in the book about a man who could only lose weight and then maintain that weight when he ate zero carb.

We started the next day and ate nothing but meat, fish, fowl, eggs and cheese, all in unlimited quantities. I knew that we were also supposed to eat a small salad and a cup of cooked vegetables each day, but I was afraid to do that part, because my friend didn't do that, and I wanted her success.

FEBRUARY 25, 2009 - THUNDER THIGHS

I have always had large thighs. When I was a little girl, they were starting to be visible, if you knew what you were looking for. By the time I hit my teens, I was convinced that I was fat because of the way my body was shaped, even though I was a normal weight.

I now know that we are genetically predisposed to store fat in certain parts of our bodies. I store fat in my thighs, and no amount of dieting or exercise will change that. I might store less fat there as time goes on, but I will always be somewhat disproportionate in that way.

One time, after my children were born, I starved myself down to 113 pounds. And I still had thunder thighs!

Finally, at the age of 53, I have made my peace with my thighs, and I know that as I get closer to my goal weight, I’ll look better, but not perfect, and that’s okay.

FEBRUARY 25, 2009 - "YOU EAT TOO MUCH - NO WONDER YOU'RE CHUBBY!"

I clearly remember a day when I was around 12 years old, and my sister was 13. She was one of those kids that was always thin, no matter what she ate. I, on the other hand, although not fat, always tended toward being just slightly chubby, at least in my own mind. I was definitely not thin, like my sister. Looking back, I was probably normal weight. Even so, on this particular day that is burned into my memory, my father told me that I ate too much and should try to eat less and lose weight. I told him that I eat no differently than my sister, and he said I was lying. He said I was obviously sneaking food when no one was looking.

It’s an argument that we have to this day. He is now 79, and I am 53. When my weight has been out of control, he has accused me of overeating in secret. He says, “If I lock you in a room and give you only what you are supposed to eat, I guarantee that you will lose weight!”

How can I express to him the frustration of eating exactly what this diet or that diet has told me to eat, and yet losing no weight, and, in some cases, gaining weight? I have locked myself in a room, figuratively speaking, and controlled what I have eaten to the 1/100 of a calorie!

Thank goodness that there is now research out there to support what I have suspected all along – everyone’s metabolisms is different, and you can give two people the exact same thing to eat, day after day, and one will lose weight and one will maintain or gain.