Whine & Cheese

It Worked

It was kind of funny yesterday as both myself and Todd had doctor appointments since prior to this year and likely the entire time we've known each other you could use your fingers to count the number of time both of us combined had been to a doctor's office.

Mine was a referral to a podiatrist for my feet that have been a mess for several years now.  The good news/bad news is that it's nothing horrific... mostly calluses due to wear and tear (especially since I go barefoot 24/7 for a good part of year) and okay... some warts.  Fun!  Treating hose with some stuff the doc gave me, but nothing super-strength as it is available OTC, but bandaging up my feet which is not easy!  I have a liquid nitrogen option if this doesn't work, but the doc said she prefers to try the "not painful" route first.  Not a bad idea.

While I was in the building, I also got a copy of my lab results from my PCP visit a couple of weeks ago.  I did receive a recorded message with the cholesterol numbers... which were quite good, but rattled off so quickly that I wasn't sure what was what... or if in fact that were that good.   I don't come from the most optimistic genetic pool, so I am a bit of a hypochondriac... but sure enough, in the report all the numbers were very good.... in fact, were called "unremarkable" which made me laugh when I realized that they meant it in the "no remarks to be made" sense and not the fact they were quite remarkable, or dare I even say... awesome. Ha!  The one blip was low HDL (or "good") cholesterol... but I think they were just being nit-picky and trying to find something to say as a 38 when it should be over 39, is not so bad.

Another reason I was so surprised by these results was Todd's cholesterol numbers from three months ago.  They were enough to send him to a dietitian and we did a big 'ole re-boot on our entire eating lifestyle.  Well, to be honest I didn't jump right at the start... but close enough to my doctor's appointment, that I do think even a week of good eating helped out my numbers. 

But one thing I appreciated and am grateful for (now in retrospect) is that Todd's doctor didn't throw some cholesterol meds at him and send him on his way... but instead tried to get to the source of the problem, examining what you eat and how you eat it.  Like I said in the last post on this subject, you are what you eat... and why not regulate your body with food instead of drugs?!  I know this is not possible/the case for everyone, but I suspect a lot of folks on cholesterol drugs didn't were not offered this "dietary intervention" strategy, which is pretty sad.

Anyhow, I've built this up enough.. but, as you have likely suspected the results were amazing!  In 3 months, Todd's total cholesterol and LDL (or "bad" cholesterol) went down by 38% and 43% respectively... both of these were very high and well outside the good range (all his numbers are not in the good range).  His dietitian told him that the LDL change was the biggest 3-month drop she had ever seen!   His Triglycerides also decreased by 53%!   And if those numbers aren't enough, a more visible sign of improvement in this healthier eating is that he has dropped 19 lbs!   (As a quick sidenote, that was, until very recently... without any exercise... we are now doing Wii fitness stuff (and Todd is swimming laps), but that's fodder for another post)

I am very proud of him and admittedly relieved that this worked, since he has made such an effort and really took the time to educate himself with his own research along with the dietitian, which I think really gave us some constructive advice based on what we were actually eating via his food diaries. The best thing is that this isn't a deprivation, it's really just making better choices.  That is, unless you think not eating fast food or a half-dozen cookies is deprivation.  But heck, for me... I am eating more food that I probably have since I moved to Arizona almost (gasp!) 20 years ago!  Best part is that this is very sustainable... again a lifestyle change vs. a diet.

We now find ourselves "selling" this to anyone who'll listen... it's certainly been a wake-up call, light-bulb moment... whatever cliche you could come up with, but the numbers don't lie... and they have worked!

You Are What You Eat

As I recently mentioned, we've been kind of obsessed with eating in our house... but not obsession as in gorging, but eating healthier. 

I have 'fessed up to my "not entirely bad, but a tad too much" 30+ lb weight gain over the past year or so.  While I always needed to put on some weight (I know!), it just seemed like it kept on going to a point where I wasn't really happy about it.  For awhile I didn't feel like doing much anything about it, "wallowing" would indeed be the perfect word.  But a couple things finally lighted a spark, Todd having some high cholesterol #s... and me somewhat jokingly deciding to "play along" with his food diary, that he had been keeping for his dietitian... and the shocking results of my first day of doing that!

The amount of information we've absorbed over the past couple of months have been amazing and I think we've really made positive steps towards a healthier life.  I thought I would share some of those things... with the caveat that I am not a doctor (nor do I play one on TV) and that works for us (Todd has lost 15 lbs, I have dropped 3 lbs in 2-ish weeks) may not work for you... but still I think this is still stuff that is beneficial whether or not you are trying to lose weight. 

Given all the directions this advice has come from, I don't really know who to give credit to... obviously there is Todd's dietitian which has provided a lot of direct feedback to what he (and thus, indirectly, myself) are eating right/wrong... Todd has read two Michael Pollan books lately ("In Defense of Food" and currently "The Omnivore's Dilemma")... and a lot of it is common sense and/or stuff you've heard over and over again, but here's just some quick stuff we're doing (which Todd may have to correct me on):

Eating 5 times a day - My metabolism had enough and even though I know "it's the most important meal of the day" it was no longer OK with not having a steady breakfast for much of the past 2 decades.  That worked for awhile, not more.  The trick for me was to not make it work-intensive... yogurt, a fruit/nut bar, etc.  Snacks are usually fruits, nuts, a cheese stick.

Keeping a food diary - As I said, this started as kind of a joke... but when my first logged day exceeded 3,000 calories... well, that was an eye opener... though that certainly wasn't a typical day (lunch and dinner out on the weekend).  There are a lot of website that you can keep track of this (and for free)... and I can't imagine anyone won't be surprised by the results.  My first change was the # of calories I was drinking in the morning... there were probably days I was drinking 200+ calories of Coffemate... which leads us to...

Food Your Great-Grandmother Would Recognize - Pretty sure this is from Michael Pollan, but the advice is not to eat anything that your grandmother (or great or great-great depending on your age) would not recognize as food.  This was a light bulb kind of moment... and CoffeeMate was one of these things, I have a feeling Grandma would give you a blank stare if you mentioned stuff like: sodium caseinate, dipotassium phosphate, and sodium aluminosilicate.  Other quick advice:  the less ingredients the better.  That's why I've made the switch to half-and-half!

And we've come to the realization that food has its parallels with smoking and global warming... the dangers having been long ignored and corporations more interested in making money than people.  Stuff like high fructose corn syrup is today's version of nicotine of the 1950s. 

Read, read, read - We've been doing a lot of reading lately, stuff like the Pollan books speak of things like I just mentioned (we plan on seeing the documentary "Food, Inc." - doesn't open here in Phoenix until late July)... we picked up a couple of those Eat This, Not That books, that looked kind of cheesy, but really offer up some great advice in a very accessible way.  And just read nutrutional labels, it'll take you a bit longer to get thru the grocery store... but there is good (or at least) better food options out there if you look.

Eating In/Out - It's challenging to "eat right" at home, but we've learned it virtually impossible when you eat out... and there are just some crazy things out there.  Again, taking a worth looking at one of these nutrition tracking websites to see what a typical meal at a fast-food (or heck, even a regular chain restaurant like Applebee's or Outback) adds up to and quite quickly.

Balancing and Linking - We're not on a food diet per se, but we are watching what we eat and in what combinations.  We try to eat protein at every food session ... and monitor the carbs, which is the closest it ever it feels to being a "diet"... but not totally depriving ourselves of carbs, we strive for a 2-to-1 carb/protein ratio... the more protein the better.  Also, we have found not to get too caught up with "fat" or "cholesterol" ... granted you don't want to go overboard, but those words are really not as bad as their reputations.  Dietitian advice was to only go low or no fat on dairy products.

So that's pretty much some of the very basics... but it's been very interesting making this change and really not as traumatic as expected... drinking (or trying to) drink those 8 glasses of water each day, left little time for a soda (diet or otherwise) and after being a multi-soda a day drinker pretty much all my life, it was quite a surprise that I didn't miss it.  Or that something like an orange for post-dinner dessert was just as satisfying as a handful of cookies.  Well, not exactly or on every night... but more often than not it is.

Diet & Exercise

... yes, I have finally got around to facing those to things in my life.

I have mentioned lately that I have packed on some pounds recently.  For a while there, I had just suspected it... but sometime late last year when we wanted to weigh Rocky and did the whole... weigh yourself first, weight yourself holding dog, do the subtraction... method, and when I did Step #1, well I was given quite a jolt.  Looking at pictures of myself (which honestly are a rare thing no matter what the physical condition), it was pretty obvious that this occurred over the last 1-2 years... and the result had been about a 30-35 lb weight gain. 

Now this isn't as bad as it sounds, I was underweight for my height most of my adult life (that stretching from late high school to about 5-ish years ago)... and all this weight just puts me at the tippy-top of the range I should be for my height... or slightly "overweight"... depending on where you look.  Regardless of the official guidelines, I can tell you I was not certainly happy with the appearance or used to carrying around the extra weight.  This has certainly contributed to the whole mid-life crisis I have been feeling lately as it seems like it has been a lot of physical and mental (i.e. dealing with work in this economy and having done this self-employed thing now for nearly a decade now).

I will be the first to admit, I didn't want to deal with the body stuff for a while.  Motivation, self-discipline, will-power... one of them check-marks in my "strengths" column.  Sure I whined and wallowed about it, but I didn't feel like dealing with it, let alone doing anything about it.  Call it "denial" or whatever (I say it was more "indifference"), but if you are going to view this in the "stages of grief" model... more recently I have come around to "acceptance" which brought me to the point where I finally decided to do something about it.

A lot of this impetus is thanks to Todd.  A few months back, he went in for a physical... which he was dreading.  He was suspecting that he would be told he should drop some weight ... and given the high stress and long hours of his job, high blood pressure also would not have been a surprise.  He got both those things, but the bigger/biggest surprise was very high cholesterol.  Instead of immediately throwing him on some kind of drug, the doctor decided to try "dietary intervention" and he has been seeing a dietician / nutritionist on a regular basis.  I think this was a really wonderful approach, as I think it seems like these days everyone (doctors, patients, and certainly pharm companies) are too quick to go to a "take a pill" solution without addressing what can be naturally ... and what's really the source of the problem. 

Part of this was keeping a food diary and he has done that by hand, but also via one of the many web sites that make it quite easy to do.  When you start keeping tabs on this nutrtional info... or heck, even just looking at it... it's no wonder obesity and diabetes has been rising at alarming rates in this country. 

So while we have tidied up our eating since Todd has been doing this, I decided to participate more actively within the past couple of weeks.  I think one of my problems is that my metabolism just shut or slowed down as it I entered into my 40s... and I am hearing way to much how things start following apart at this stage in life.  Now I kind of understand all the bemoaning about reaching tha milestone, 40 was actually an amazing year for me... but this 41 year has certainly sent me back to earth.

My problem is that I did each much at all.  I could go through a day without eating much of anything until dinner time... and if I did eat during the day, it as likely not very healthy... stuff like a few cookies and half a bag of popcorn, I take it qualifies as "not healthy."   So while my body dealt with that kind of eating for awhile, it had enough recently... and my carb heavy grazing and lack of eating, packed on those 30+ lbs, though thankfully for me, again I definitely had room to grow...

Well, this has turned into much more of a ramble than I anticipated (though for me, rambling on is no surprise).  But anyhow, I am now eating 3 meals a day + 2 "snacks"... though dinner is still my primary meal.  I am eating healthier... we've had more fresh fruit and nuts in the house than ever before.  And to simplify things very much, watching the carbs... and shooting for a 2-to-1 ratio between carbs and protein... and always trying to have some protein at every eating opportunity.   Though keeping things into perspective... something like an orange with natural sugars and a couple of cookies might have the same number of carbs, but you can guess which is the better alternative.   And not worrying so much about "fat" and "cholesterol" content, which don't necessarily have to be avoided... but get a bad rap with their names... but again, there's good fat and bad fat.... but again, that's just the very basics.

... okay, haven't got to the exercise stuff either!  But having did the gym thing several years back, we also knew that was something that wasn't going to work for us again.  Todd just wants to get home after his typical 12-hour day at the office (and often longer than that!) and while I have the time and opportunity, I again mention my rocky relationship with self-discipline and will power.  We have been looking into home exercise equipment (mostly ellipticals, which seemed like a good combo between a treadmill and bike), but this weekend we broke down and got a Wii...

...along with its two most famous fitness products, Wii Fit and EA Sports Active.  We test drove each of them over the weekend and both seem to give us a lot of opportunity to give us an on-demand exercise program that can fit into our schedules.  While I haven't explored it fully, I am particularly impressed with Active which gave a very structured 15-20 minute program that left me breathless last night and a tad sore this morning.  The technology is really quite a amazing at how well it tracks your movement... and the Wii Fit board which also is an amazing device, but also a scale...

The good news there is that it did calculate a Wii age ... and for me it was 35, which absolutely shocked me.  That's -6 years, but a lot of that was determined seemed to be determined by a pretty silly balance exercise, so I am not putting that much faith/cred into that.  It did however calc a BMI (body mass index) and there I need to take my 24 (again, borderline normal / overweight), down to 22... which translates to a weight loss of over 20 lbs, which I was thinking I needed to do... before all this, I was thinking 10-15 lbs.

So, we'll see what happens.  At some point, I think my body will know what weight it should be... but I certainly am starting to feel better that I am putting better stuff into my body and at least starting to move around a bit more than I have in a few years.

If you got this far, thanks for sticking around!   You know how I roll... and diet and exercise have moved to the forefront for now, which ain't a bad thing.

Body Rebellion

Ok... as kinda promised, back to mid-life crisis mode.

In what seems to be a perfect storm of "stuff," it also seems like my body is starting to rebel.  Last Friday, I mentioned (twittered) that my lower back had kind of gone out on me, actually it wasn't all too bad... it really just bugged me when I tried to get up or down... or move around... you definitely start to feel old when you must "shuffle"... anyhow you move a whole lot more than you think when any slight wrong move can lead to discomfort (I won't go as far to call it "pain").  The best I can describe it is that my lower back feels crunched down like an accordion... often accompanied with shooting discomfort down the legs (self-diagnosis would say its sciatica-ish).  At the time, I was worried about dealing with the sitting for 2.5 hours for The Lion King... and in not terribly comfortable seats, but I managed.  And like I said, it wasn't too bad... though over the weekend it did kind of move around to my shoulder blade area and then neck, but eventually worked itself out .

But then this morning, I am dealing with this mid-back muscular thing... that is throwing off the my chest and makes it almost feels like I had a heart attack or something... no worries it's not, it definitely has that mirror/reverse image thing that is definitely middle back, but it is kind of annoying... and for someone who until very lately had a hard time reconciling his age, I have to say I am starting to feel it... and quickly!

Another thing that has decided to shut down is my metabolism.  A lot of folks kept telling me that once I hit 40 that things would change and it does almost seem as if a switch flipped.  I have been lucky to be one of those people who has never had to worry about weight and pretty much since I reached my "adult" weight I have been +/-5 pounds for I'd say a good 20 years without much worry about diet or exercise.

Now, I knew that had changed fairly in the past year or so, but I was a little surprised (ok, shocked!) to see by how much when I weighed myself this weekend.  Well, it was under the guise of weighing Rocky since I/we thought he had gained weight... which he did, if you can call a 1/2 lb-ish weight "gain."   Anyhow, I figured I had put on probably 15-20 lbs... so I weighed it and it came out to be 35-40 lbs, well that was an eye-opener.  The good news is vs. my "starting" weight (what I had been most of my adult life) I was underweight for my height, by that 15 lbs or so... so this "new" weight now puts me on the upper limit of "normal weight" for my height.  Yikes! 

So I'm not sure what happens next, I should make an effort to move around a bit more ... this is definitely a case where having your commute be a walk down a hallway is not a great thing... and I should take Rocky along, as he is another thing I feel like I am dropping the ball re: his exercise and activity level (which leads him to "I'm bored" behavior, i.e. the cats being in constant "level red" terror alert status).

That's today's diatribe... maybe writing things down will make a difference!  Ha!

Waist & Eyes

I know that this particular discussion won't win my any fans, but for the most part I have never had to worry about my weight.   A combination of factors - genetics, good/fast metabolism, not being a big eater (I can still go through most of a day "forgetting" to eat)... and for a good two decades I was stayed pretty much +/- 5 pounds or so of the weight I was in high school...

While always viewed as "thin," my little fitness kick a few years back, showed that while I was under ideal weight for my height, that didn't exactly translate into a good body fat ratio (or I guess, good 'ole BMI - body mass index)... that whole "skinny fat" phenomenon.  I did manage to improve that and while I was quite pleased with the result, that whole fitness routine fell by the wayside...

But of late, and almost as if on cue upon hitting age 40,  the pounds got added on and stayed... guessing in the 10-15 lb range ... and for the first time in a long time, I found myself facing a different waist size.  So when buying some pants and shorts for the Europe trip, I went up 2" worth of waist size -- and bit to my dismay, it seemed to work.

But when I got back, those same shorts were hanging off my waist.  So much so, that I was able to ... much to Todd's amusement (or not), wiggle my way out of a pair w/out using my hands   Now, I was not trying to be cool/hip being a "low rider" and... and even if that is what I was shooting for, my guess is that Hanes is not brand that would accomplish that. 

Then I realized that in Europe I was either wearing a belt on or a shirt tucked into them... things I don't typically do here in AZ, particularly in the summer.  So yesterday, while Todd was shopping for some work clothes... I decided to get some shorts (60% off was too hard to pass up) and go back to my old waist size... and to my relief, they fit fine... granted not with much upward margin for "error"... but we'll cross that bridge (again) when we get to it.

One thing that does make me feel old is my eyes.  Right now, I am wearing glasses as I do my once a month swap of contact lenses, giving my eyes a 12+ hour or so break from wearing lenses.  I have really enjoy these contacts.  I am still too wary of LASIK, so this is just fine with me... for a couple of years now, I can wake up and see... and am only reminded on a monthly basis how blind I am! 

Gastrodome

Not much to blog about today as I spent most of the weekend dealing with a stomach bug.  I thought I had successfully avoided it when it made its rounds shortly after the holidays... but alas I am just fashionably late.

I won't get into graphic detail... but its been awhile since I've dealt with anything like it.  I was feeling a bit wishy-washy (fatigue and achy-ness) as early as Friday, but proceeded with the normal activities/eating until it hit big time early Sunday morning.   I swear it was like one of those melting ice glaciers crashing into the sea... and some nasty acid reflux to boot... but thankfully no throwing up.

So I was in a vegetative state all day Sunday... eating carefully and sparingly, but still didn't quite make it through overnight issue-free, but not nearly the intensity of the night/morning before... thankfully nothing urgent work-wise for me today, so can take it relatively easy.

I am just wondering now if it would be productive to take some stomach meds or if it's just one of those things that needs to run its course.

Weekend Round-Up

Random stuff from the weekend:

• Ate at two of our favorite restaurants ... and both of them hot and spicy! New Mexican on Friday night and Thai on Saturday night.  You know you go some place a wee bit too often when the wait staff starts to recognize you.  We're pretty that's now happened at this Thai place as our waiter didn't question whether we really wanted "Thai Hot" (aka hotter than "hot") for one of our dishes.


• My back is better... well kinda.  I attributed a microwaveable heating gel pack on my lower back for my speedy recovery.  But after a shower on Saturday, I felt something funny back there.  A look in the mirror... I had burns on my back... and it was blistering!  Ouch!  Now I didn't think I put the gel pack, even with its cloth wrapper, directly on my skin... but obviously I was an idiot and did something wrong.  So while preferable to seizing and spasms, it's still a bit uncomfortable back there. 


• As promised, we took the dogs back to the bark park on Sunday.  There were not nearly the amount of dogs that were there last weekend (it was a tad later and a bit hotter), but still some fun to be had... kinda.  We try to give our dogs a bit of space, let them have their fun without us looking over their shoulder ... but this other little dog got into a minor growl/scuffle with Rocky.  Before we got over there, another lady (not the owner of the dog who started it) doused Rocky with the contents of her water bottle.  It was no biggie and the lady of the testy dog did apologize... but have to admit to being a tad peeved about the water throwing.  Not that Rocky cared...


• ... since we have two very different dogs.  How so?  If the dogs go out in the yard and the sprinkler is on, Toby will pretty much want to turn around and come right back inside...while Rocky's eyes immediately light up and, if left unsupervised, will grab the sprinkler and run around the yard with it.  Likewise, when the wheels of the vacuum cleaner start rolling Toby will slink away and go to farthest room away from where it is... Rocky will attack it when it's on!


• Needing to take a break from last night's NLCS game where our Dbacks are now down 3 games to the Rockies (I think someone should have quit while he was ahead!), started researching where we might like to eat while we're in Vegas.  We have narrowed it down to three places to have a "special" dinner... Italian, Southwestern, and a Brazilian steakhouse.  I'm leaning toward the steakhouse, but the penny-pincher in me still thinks its crazy to spend $150+ on dinner (which is what we're likely looking at for any of them) ... now don't ask me about my gambling budget, but for food??

You're Only As...

...old as you feel.

If that's the case, I feel my age odometer should be rolling over to a starting digit higher than a "4" next week!

My lower back was totally out of whack this morning. Last night, I recall a twist/turn that made me think "uh, that didn't feel so good".. but slipped off to la-la land in not so typically quick fashion.  When I got up for a 3:30am bathroom trip (another not terribly positive sign of aging), I knew something was definitely awry.  I could tell my back was gone, but I managed to hobble back to bed... though there was not much more sleep to be had prior to our usual 5:30am weekday wake-up call.

This back problem has happened before (and I am sure I've blogged about it).  As usual, it comes with no warning. I go to bed feeling perfectly fine and wake up in pathetic shape.  Getting out of bed the second time proved much more difficult than the first.  I literally had to roll out of bed and once I got upright my back... oh boy!  The best way I can describe it is imagining your back is a stretched out accordion... and that it's all crunched together... and it just all seizes up causing me to uncontrollably make funny sounds and breathe like a woman in labor.  While the pain and seizing is centered in the lower back, there is also pain (more soreness) radiating down my butt and legs.  Pretty much my lower half is a mess...and, let me tell you, it's not so easy putting on a pair of shorts either!   

I am glad Todd missed the "getting up" part.  While I am sure there are amusing aspects, it was not pretty... well, okay it was pretty... pretty embarrassing!   He did witness an "episode" or two (or three) before he left and was nice enough to feed the dogs before he left for work (since Toby likes to take his time eating and is highly distract-able, I don't feed the pups until after he's left), so I wouldn't have the bend down or crouch.

Just like a head cold, where you have a renewed appreciation of breathing... these times with my back, make me realize how important those back muscles are to just about any kind of movement that you just normally take for granted.

Things have improved slightly.  I have been putting a heat pack on it and moving around is proving to be better than laying down or resting (that's probably why the second time out of bed was worse than the first, everything tightened up again).

Should be interesting tonight, we are due to go to Game 1 of the NLCS between the Dbacks and Rockies tonight.  It's our one playoff game in Todd's office group split tix, so I am determined to make it!   While I doubt I will be 100%, I am thinking it should be manageable by later this afternoon... the fun part will be sleeping and starting over again tomorrow!

On the bright side, I am glad that it happened today.  Besides being the "big day"... this time next week we'll be on our way to Vegas and I can't imagine six hours in a car would be the ideal scenario for my back.

(Note: Of course, that picture is of me... been really hitting the arms and back at the gym <g>!)

Sick and Tired

Usually that phrase means that a rant is about to begin... not quite sure why, because I am a bit of both right now and barely have the energy to type this right now.

On Sunday, I was feeling pretty out of it.  Even Todd had noticed, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it... just malaise.  If anything, I figured I had just OD'd on tennis coverage.  Thanks to some wild matches there was nearly 12 hours of tennis on and I pretty much watched it, granted on TiVo time-delay... but even if you subtract out all those commercials (particularly the 1,634 times the John McEnroe AmEx "dispute resolution" ad aired -- "You can not be serious!"), that's still a lot of television and tennis!  (Also, remind me to stop getting concerned about Roger Federer losing a match before the end of the second set).

Anyhow, by Sunday night I had a scratchy throat and on Monday the nasal issues started... not enough to knock me on my ass, but definitely ugh-worthy.  Todd offered to run out and pick up so dinner.  It was a tough choice.  To avoid aggravating my throat, I wanted to avoid anything spicy (our usual food M.O.!).. so we decided on Fazoli's (not sure how national the chain is, but it's a fast-food Italian/pasta).

I went online just to confirm that they had Alfredo sauce since I figured the acidic tomato-based would be no good... and accidentally stumbled onto nutritional information... and while my fettuccine, as expected, was a "heart attack on a plate"... allow me to warn you, my dear readers, about Rigatoni Romano -- 1090 calories and 54 grams of fat -- and that doesn't include any of their warm and buttery breadsticks!

While I am usually not quick on taking pills (despite my mom's suggestion at taking something at the first sneeze or sniffle), I did take a 12-hour decongestant prior to bedtime... and boy that did not work!   NyQuil is one of God's little miracles... knock me out, just as long as I can kind of wake up in the morning... but this was not NyQuil.  While I probably did sleep most of the night (except for those 5 trips to the bathroom!), it felt more like I was on a hallucinogenic, high-speed journey all night long.  Not a fun post-three day weekend morning... I woke up exhausted, plus no noticeable upper-respiratory improvement. 

After getting a job that had to go out first thing this morning, I went back to bed for just a bit... and that seemed to help... now it is just a matter of what or what not to take medicine-wise.  Funny enough, I do have a doctor's appointment this afternoon.  Alas, it is not with my PCP, so I can't squeeze in this "oh, while I'm here" stuff... though I wouldn't expect a doctor to be able to do much about this anyhow...my experience is it's one of those "needs to run it's course" things.

Playing Doctor

Hey you... over here... yoo hoo... over here!

I know the picture is not  one I should used when I want you to pay attention to "the words"... but ogle later and we'll get to reason why I posted the picture in the first place (and yes, I know there are newer Speedo pix of the Puerto Rican pop prince...but I have my reason for using this older one... patience, patience).

As the post title suggests, we're playing doctor today... well, not that way.  I want you to play doctor on me... oh, that's not any better, huh?  Okay, how about it's time for "You make the medical call!"

I have had this "thing" for a few weeks and since I couldn't come up with anything else to blog about this morning so I figured it was time to ask my knowledgeable readers for their expert opinion... don't you hate when you've been wracking your brain over something and then finally ask someone and they're like "oh yeah, it's just..."  So that's what I'm doing here... and no worries I won't (and can't?!) sue you for medical malpractice.

I have had this discomfort, kind of a centralized "knot" sort of thing...it's near the "belt" region on my left side or, for purely illustrative purposes, where X marks the spot on Mr. La Vida Loca. There is no pain involved... but it has been  pretty uncomfortable... it has not gone away and it varies in intensity... most noticeable when I get up/out of bed in the morning or when I bend/stretch in certain ways.

My hypochondria zeroed in on a hernia... but there is no sign (at least that I can tell) of the characteristic lump or swelling of a hernia... nothing hurts or becomes more/less uncomfortable when I press around the area... and it's fairly localized, nothing wrong or not feeling right with "the equipment"... so maybe just a muscle pull of some sort?

Any thoughts or ideas?   Over-reaction or will I die a slow painful death? 

UPDATE (response to comment):  Unfortunately Scott, my doctor of 3+ years (who I met for the first time in January) looks ready for retirement any day now (or should be retired already)!