2 weeks of no progress. . .

I don't know what's going on.  I'm eating better. . . I'm running more.  On Saturday morning I saw 185.something and this morning I'm back over 188.

I know I didn't eat the best on Saturday.  I worked the horse show at my barn.  I was there from 7:20 am - 6 pm.   I had an Advocare shake for breakfast.  Lunch was a brat and a "few" nachos - really just a few.  Hubby and I had a frozen pizza for dinner.  But I was on my feet all day and I was exhausted and sore.  Surely I didn't lose weight, but I blew up 2 lbs.  I did *not* eat 2 lbs of food.  I likely didn't drink enough water.

Sunday morning I ran 4 miles.  Again an Advocare shake for breakfast.  Lunch was 2 eggs and turkey sausage.  Dinner was at McAllister's.  I had a cup of chicken dumplings and half a club sandwich.  Nothing here is HORRIBLE.  But clearly my body doesn't like it :(  This is pure sadness for me.

So today I'm back trying to be beyond good.  Like perfect.

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This weekend I went to visit my brother at a hospital in St Louis.  He cut open his leg at work last week, severing a nerve and losing upward motion of his foot and toes on that foot.  They are doing a second surgery today to try to repair it.  Fingers crossed!  He's really bummed about this.

Afterwards we went to Trader Joe's for our annual purchase of pumpkins on a stick. 

These are really ornamental eggplant.  Who knew?  Every year I buy one bunch for me and one for my mom.  I buy one bouquet off fall flowers for each of us.  I combine them into an arrangement.  It's so fun!  I love them. :)  Maybe I should grow my own? 

Encouragement needed

I've gained a solid 10 lbs since I got sick.  I was around 178 when I got sick.  I'm now 188.0. 

I really wanted to kick, scream, cry. . . throw a two year old temper tantrum this morning.  But this is *my* fault.  I own it.  I've been eating like crap.  I've been drinking soda.  I'll do go for a day at most and then it's back to crap eating. 

I don't often use this fat monitor, as you can tell by how dirty the screen is.   I was running late for work (as always) so I didn't feel like making it pretty for a picture.  But I'm up about 2% I think.  Again I don't use this thing that often, so hard to know what my lowest was.  But I don't think I ever got below 30%. 

And this is why I'm gaining weight. . . I'm doing things like this.  This is a Gus' Pretzel. . . it's a St Louis thing - they've been around since 1920.  And that's a Shock Top in my hand.  And yes it's a playoff game.  And yes, it's the Cardinals and the Cubs.  It's historic.  But whatever.  I can't keep eating like this.  So I've got to buckle down.  I have another playoff game Thursday (if we make it that far).   My goals are to be pretty damn perfect between now and then. 

I welcome all advice for how to get back on the wagon.  I know people struggle with this.  I know that this isn't rare.  What do you do to get back on track?  Cause I gotta stop the scale before it hits 190.  I've worked hard for this!   I can't let it slip away. 

To step off on the right foot, this is breakfast:

Vet trip to Mizzou

Last week Wednesday, we loaded up Eli and headed to University of Missouri in Columbia MO.

Now for all you non-horse peeps (cause I was asked), that is not a blindfold.  It's a fly mask.  Eli can see through it.  It's to protect his eyes from debris, like the hay that's right there in his face, from flying in his eye.  Eye injuries in horses suck.  So better safe than sorry. 

We had a 10 am appointment so we left my barn at 7 am.  This was an early start.  We stopped about halfway at a rest area.  All was good.  We hit the road and not too long after that we hear "bang! bang! bang!" about 5-7 times.  Eli never moves much as we are traveling.  When we stop he might move around and adjust himself.  But on the interstate?  Nope.  My hubby was driving and could see his nose poking out the window so we knew he was still standing (my fear is a horse going down in the trailer).  We keep driving and we hear more . . . not as much but it sounds like a stomp or kick here and there.  We stop at the next exit.  Eli seems fine.  I get in the trailer and look to see if there's something in there bugging him (a horse fly or wasp, etc)  I see nothing.  So we continue.  He keeps randomly making the noise but we have no choice but to continue. We arrive and he's fine.  But I'm shaken up by that. 

Our appointment is with Dr Keegan.  He invented the lameness locator.  This is a computer system with three sensors that are hooked to the horse (top of head, top of pelvis and right front foot).  you trot the horse down a concrete hallway and the computer determines where the horse is lame.  It was really interesting and since I do software development I was intrigued by the math and algorithms that are going on in the program.   To make a long story short the locator indicated a right front lameness.  The vet thought he saw a left front.  We blocked the left front and tested again.  No change.  We blocked the right front and tested again.  No change.  Then we proceeded with neck xrays as I was originally thought this was a neck issue.  The problem is that neck issues are rare in horses and don't respond well to treatment.  The xrays showed some arthritis and we did a block/steroid combo on 2 joints and did them on both sides of the neck.  We inject C6/C7 first.   This was done guided by ultrasound.  We tested with the lameness locator again - no change.  We then injected C5/C6 and tested with the lameness locator.  We got a change on the straight line.  The locator indicated that Eli was no longer lame!  However, we had also been testing on the lunge.  That was showing left front lameness going left and right front lameness going right.  We did decide though that maybe this was Eli's way of going or a different lameness and we were going to stop at this point and see how the neck responds. 

I just want to say that Eli allowed the vet to inject four joints without any sedation.  My boy stood like a rock.  He didn't move a muscle.  It was amazing.  Everyone said (many times) how good he was. They said they wish they had patients like him every day.  The vet didn't want to have to sedate him cause sedative can mask lameness.  But I think everyone though he'd need some sedative.  The intern vet said she had seen neck injections only once before and that horse had to have the "shit sedated out him".  Eli is amazing.  I got all teary eyed watching him be so good.  I get teary eyed every time I think about this.  I love him so much and he's just so amazing - the best horse a girl could ever ask for. 

These pics were taken the next day at home.  Eli had to be shaved and cleaned (really *really* well) in order to have the ultrasound guided injections.  I joked that I'd kind of like to take my clippers and turn those into hashtags!  Ha ha.  #horse

It was 7:30 at night.  I was exhausted from standing most of the day, waiting and having a small level of stress all day.  Neither my husband nor I really wanted to drive home.  It's dark at this time and thinking about how Eli got restless on the drive there, I didn't want to risk having a problem in the dark.  So we opted to stay.  I helped get Eli settled in his stall and we left at 8 pm to find a hotel. 

We got to the clinic at 7am the next morning to hit the road.  I really wanted to get to work as I didn't plan on taking 2 days off for this.  Plus I knew we might have to go back.  So I wanted to save that PTO.  The ride home was normal and Eli didn't doing any banging around. :) 

I was allowed to ride Eli after 48 hours.  I rode him Saturday morning and again Sunday morning.  I'm so sad to say that there is no change in his head movement that he does under saddle at a walk. So now we can to the bute protocol: 2 grams twice a day for 2 days, followed by 1 gram twice a day for so many days. . . tapering to 1 gram once a day.  I will try this to see if it helps.  The next veterinary step would be a bone scan.  At this point I feel like if that's the last step then I might as well go for it.  Why go this far only to turn around at the last step?