Things have gotten a lot better with the drinking. I don’t know what was going on but I  have cut back and am back under control.  Work is good. I just got my evaluation and it was glowing. I have lost a little more weight and my eating is good.

I get up every day and hour early to work out on the elliptical and I feel so good about this. There are mornings that I don’t get up, of course, but all in all I am doing so well. Karen tells me that she is proud of me and my commitment to this weight loss. I reminder her that this is really a life change and I have to be real about it if I want to be successful for the long haul.

Karen is close to having her LapBand surgery. 4lbs and her psych evaluation and she can submit. I am excited for her and the prospect of many HEALTHY and happy years ahead. I love her with all my heart and I want her to be here with me. I am getting healthy and have more energy….she deserves the same. Plus the weight loss with hopefully help her knees. They are so bad that she can hardly walk through the grocery store with me.

So I am down to 170lbs. I think that my highest weight was approx. 270. 100 lbs and feeling fine. I wish that I was losing faster but maybe this is the best way for me. I just have a hard time when I work out so hard and much and eat nothing but salad and fish for two meals a day…….I expect more.

I am getting new glasses this Friday or Monday. I am so excited. Cute, cute they are! I am also getting ready to get braces again. I had them when I was 17 but moved away from my parents house and never competed my treatment. I am now ready to go ahead and pay for it myself. I am feeling like I am totally making myself over and it is all about me. I of course want to look good for my wife. But I want to look in the mirror and love what and who I see. I am working on this. I think that I will probably be ready for PS (tummy tuck, possibly inner thigh lift) in about a year. I am looking into getting all my current debt taken care of so that I will be able to get credit for this treatment.

On May 7^th I am having my ovaries removed finally. I have been in the ER three times with unbearable pain from these damn things and I am so glad that they are finally coming out. 

So that's it for now....thanks for listening (reading) all my silly ramblings. 

Later............Dre

I have been so depressed lately and I just don’t know what to make of it. I can’t get out of bed and I am drinking like a fish. I get drunk at any opportunity and weight loss has stalled. I know it is my fault but I can’t make it better. I called in sick 3 days last week and I feel like shit for doing it. I am lost right now……….

Oh holy hell! I went to the emergency room Friday the 10th because I started having this horrible pain in my left side. First I thought that maybe I had hurt or pulled something because I had just finished working out on the elliptical machine. This was at 7pm. But no the pain continues and I take my sleeping pills and slept for 2 hours. So around 11pm I call OHSU on call doctor and talk with him. He says that it doesn't sound surgery related and asked when my last period was. I explained that I had it all removed except my ovaries. BINGO! The damn cysts strike again. I am certain by now that this is what is going on and I called Karen at work and told her what was happening. I tried to tough it out another couple hours but then I was like come home and take me to the ER or I am driving myself. This was at 12am.

So she comes home and takes me to SALEM hospital. We check in about 12:30am The worst place to be if you are sick. What a damn joke. I don't know why it continues to be so shitty but it is a consensus of Salem people I have talked to that it does suck and big time. 

So we get there and there is like 17 people in the waiting area. I checked in and explained that I had just had surgery and I was totally sure what was happening. We waited in the lobby for about a half hour. Me rocking in pain and Karen getting more pissed by the minute. We should have just gone to Portland and OHSU (by the end of the night I wish we had made the drive, pain or not). So I say lets go to Portland then and go to the counter to tell them I was leaving and to do what they needed to do to check me out of their system. The woman was like well wait just a sec let me see what I can do. What do they do? They pull us in the back in front of all those people that had been waiting hours just to start the process. I felt bad but my side felt worst and I was thinking that I would get something for this pain and we can get home and sleep. NOPE!

I wait another 3 hours for pain meds. I get poked twice once for blood draw and then for them to put in an IV line for the meds. Why I ask couldn't they have done both at the same time? HUH? Well they give the drug that is 10X stronger than morphine. WOW is all I can say. I felt it move through my veins, literally. Unbelievable. Then they wanted to do a CAT scan of the area to check that it wasn't bowel related and they bring me these two bottles of liquid to drink. The bottles were 26-32 oz each. I just looked at the girl and laughed (the drugs, of course) and asked her if she knew anything about gastric bypass surgery. Karen is totally pissed off telling them "she can only drink 3-6 oz at a time! What do you expect her to do with all that", love that girl. So I drank what I could. I was so high I had to be reminded to drink at all. WOW that stuff is awesome!

Long story short, no impaction, no leakage or anything like that. Just the cysts from hell rearing their ugly heads. I wish I could just have them removed! But alas no more surgery for me for awhile. 

We got out of there and on our way home at 7am. Can you believe it?

I went to see my GYN today because of some ovarian cysts that were found earlier this year. Things are okay and he says that we will just watch them closely. I know that my Mother will be relieved to hear this. The best news is that I have lost 12 lbs since surgery and 34 lbs from my highest weight. Yeah for me!