Day 10-11 My wife left me (to visit my daughter)

Nov 12, 2010

Day 10 (11/12/10): 
My wonderful daughter is pregnant with our first grandchild.  Saturday morning her friends are having a baby shower for her.  However, she lives 4.5 hours drive from here, and my wife REALLY wanted to go.  (On some level, so do I.  But it's a "girls only" thing, and I don't really want to be cooped up in a car for that long anyway!)  I encouraged her to go - that I can take care of myself, and am really doing well.

She's been making a truly wonderful hand-crafted gift for the baby - one that will truly be an heirloom - and finished it on Thursday night.  (I'd tell you what it is, but my daughter may read this, and I will NOT be the one that steals my wife's thunder on this one - she's worked way too hard on it to have the surprise ruined by me!)  Anyway, my wife doesn't like to drive at night, and the shower is mid-morning, so she needed to leave Friday around 11:00 to get there well before dark.

Friday morning we start carrying things to her truck.  (I say "we" - I only carried the wrapped presents - everything else is over my 15-lb limit!)  Finally get everything packed and she's ready to go.  Turn the key...  The starter just "clicks" and does nothing.  No problem - grab the jumper cables - connect to my car - still nothing but a "click".  Let it "charge" for a while - still no luck.  Darn!  Now what?  She hates to drive my car (a very nice Jetta TDI, but too small and she feels intimidated by everything else on the road), but it's our only choice.  Move everything over to my car.  She discovers the CD player, and runs inside for her collection of Christmas CDs.  I show her how to load up all 6 slots in the player, and she's in heaven. 

One last goodbye kiss, and she's on her way to Austin.  And I'm stuck at home without a usable car...  Have no plans to go anywhere, didn't think I would want to go anywhere, but suddenly now that I can't, it's all I can think about...    I need to go to the store for some more soup (not really, but I WANT to).  I could take the dogs to the park for a nice walk (I can do that here, too.  We've got 10 acres of land!).  I just feel claustrophobic as heck. 

I suddenly realize that this is the first time since I was 17 years old that I haven't had a car / truck / motorcycle available to me...  Wow!  How spoiled am I?  OK - get over it, and walk... 

Wonderful neighbor (also member of my church) calls to check on me.  I tell him the story, and he offers to get me a battery, and even install it for me!  How great is that - he knows I can't lift anything heavy, so he just steps in and does it.  He goes and gets the battery, then brings it to me in the middle of huge downpour, installs the battery, and...  No luck.  The old battery was definitely on it's last legs (5+ years old), but it's the starter itself that's died... 

Get this - he starts apologising to me that he doesn't know how to replace the starter!  He's just driven 25 miles in the rain to get me a battery, installed it, and now he's feeling bad that it didn't solve the problem.  That's the kind of great neighbors you have when you're REALLY lucky!  I thanked him profusely, and told him not to worry about it.  I don't really have anywhere I NEED to be, so it's no big deal.  The dealership will send someone over next Tuesday to fix it - and my wife will be home on Monday.

OK - so what does any of this have to do with weight loss surgery?  Nothing, really.  But this isn't about weight loss exclusively, it's about living life to the fullest, and enjoying it to the max.  If this had happened before, I might have come inside and downed a bag of cookies, or had a bowl of ice cream or something.  Instead, I laughed it off and played with the dogs for a while.  Then went inside and made myself some more cream of chicken soup (3 more days on "full liquids") and read a book for a while. 

Life is good, even when it rains.  (It's absolutely POURING rain outside.)

Day 11 (11/13/10):
Woke up at 4:15 AM.  Yuck!  Way too early...  Decided to try to get up, use the restroom, and sneak back into bed without waking the dogs.  Success!  Managed to fall asleed again until 6:45 AM.  Much better!

What to have for breakfast?  I've been having Isopure Dutch Chocolate (1 scoop) mixed with 1 cup warm skim milk and 1 cup decaf coffee most mornings.  That's 34g of protein to kick-start the day.  But this morning, I just didn't want it.  So instead, I mixed 8oz of Isopure Mango Peach (the ready-to-drink kind) with 8oz of Diet V8 Splash Tropical, and it was great!  Total of 16g protein, so I'll have to make up the rest during the day. 

Getting some sweat pants on so I can go for a walk...  It's only 45 degrees out there this morning.  I know it's a lot colder elsewhere in the country, but for Texas, this is COLD!  We're used to the heat, but wimps when it comes to the cold... 
  Looking forward to a nice warm bowl of soup when I'm done walking...  Yum! 

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