How I got to where I am today.

Last year I lost 85 pounds, then life happened.  

My little sister Traycie got married on New Year's Eve and all things were looking great.  In January my Dad was told he had to go on dialysis or else be sent to a hospice, since his kidney's were not working.  He chose dialysis and the 3 time a week trips to dialysis took a toll on my life and more so on the lives of my 2 sisters.  If that were not enough strain, on February 25th my Mother was in a SERIOUS car accident that required MAJOR spinal surgery and required 3 months of intense therapy and recovery at Northwestern Rehab center downtown.  She initially could not walk, had lost movement and feeling in her arms and legs.  So she had to fight to relearn EVERYTHING.  We 3 kids rotated vistiting her and taking or picking up Dad.  In late May we got good news that my Mom would be coming home from Rehab on June 3rd, so things were looking up.  Dad seemed to be doing better, dialysis was keeping his fluid levels down and he was getting back to being himself.  On Memorial Day we were all over at my sister Deb's house.  My Dad had dialysis that day, so he was not over.  We were all talking about how it would be good to get Mom home and now that it was warming up Dad could do some more outside stuff.   We got a call from the dialysis place that my Dad had not showed up at dialysis for his time.  At this point we had arranged a pick up service to take him to and from dialysis.  My brother-in-law and I went over to his house to see if he was there, he was not.  We then got a call from the hospital that they had to bring my Dad in.   Unfortunately this was NOT an unusual event, so we just sent Thad over to see what was going on.  The problem was that this time was different than any of the others.   He had suffered complete heart failure and they had to revive him in the hospital.  He was completely sedated and on a breathing tube when we got there.  They said they would monitor him over night and re-evaluate in the morning.   At 4 AM my sister Deb got a call from the hospital that my Dad had taken a turn for the worse and she should get over there.  By the time I got there 1 hour later he was already gone.  We knew that he was not in good health, but we thought things were getting better.  I had the typical Son-Father relationship, we talked about sports and not much else, but he influenced EVERY part of my life.  I am a Cubs fan because of him, I love Elvis because of him, I bowl because of him, I have a temper (because of him).  I talk to him every day now.  I regret that I did not talk to him more when he was here.  It is nearly 6 months, but I still can't believe he is gone.

In times of trouble I turned to food.  With the running around and stress it became easy to turn to food for comfort and to forget about what was really happening in life.

I can NO LONGER use those as excuses.  I am going to start my diet and exercize today and get down to 225.  This morning I weighed in at 318.   My plan is to go back to my 1,500 calorie diet and to start my walking which will lead to jogging/running.