Bandster Blogs Are All Grown Up. . . *wipes tear of pride*

Oh Anonymous, flaming poster, you've finally arrived to bandster-blog land, officially annointing us as true Interwebs Members.  We've been accepted into the douchey, flamey, inner-circle.

In all seriousness, it seems there is a little epidemic of nasty Anonymous posters lately.  I'm sorry for those whom Anonymous has struck (I'm assuming it's more than one anonymous), but please don't let it get you down.  It comes with the territory.  Something about social communities where people can "hide" brings out the nastiness, even among people who are normally very nice, and it seems to happen in clusters.

So, keep on posting, sisters, and ignore the nasty.  And if you're considering joining the Anon fray and getting something off your chest, I'd urge you to reconsider whether that's really the person you want to be, because we may not know who you are, but you know. 

Exercise Blows

Argh!  I hate it that every time I start exercising, my scale immediately jumps up (um, like 5 lbs).  I KNOW it is water weight, but knowing it doesn't make me any happier.  It's the anti-incentive for a behavior that I NEED to see payoff to continue.

Moral of the story?  Yes, I'm not going to Body Pump tonight because my scale is a whore and my body hates exercise.  We'll see if I can do better tomorrow.

(At the very very least, I took the dogs for a walk today so I'm not a complete potato).

Doggie Trauma!

So you all know we have two dogs that are our "kids".  They are both 6 years old and have been out of their crates for over 4 years now.

Yesterday I left home for my WW meeting, and my husband got home about an hour later.  He walked in to blood EVERYWHERE-- all of the floor, smeared all over the wall and the big blonde dog. He can't find our other dog.  He's panicked and calls me.  I panic and rush home.

Well, it turns out that one of them pulled four art-pottery bowls from Fantoni off of the sofa table, and then they proceeded to EAT ONE ENTIRELY (it has disappeared), break one and gnaw the leather off of the back (this one is in shards and marked with blood-- it seems to be the source of the murder-scene), chew the ends on a third, and eat the leather off the bottom of the fourth.

This is what the bowls look like.  The one that was entirely eaten was a bit smaller- maybe 2x2 inches.

Edited to Add:  The Actual Remains (RIP)

So we find the missing dog (she was hiding, imagine that), stop the blood flow on the other (his paws and later, his mouth).  Knowing my dogs, I just KNOW that the one who is bleeding wasn't the one who ate the bowl-- it had to be the other one.  She eats things.  When she was a puppy, she ate an entire black "tough chewer" kong.  Not chewed it to pieces, I mean ingested the whole thing (the blowout when it came back up was not pretty).  So in spite of the evidence, I drive her an hour away to the nearest open vet.  She gets X-rayed and it looks clean-- like, at least she chewed it well before swallowing any large potentially hazardous shards.

The vet looks at me like I'm an idiot when I say that the other dog was bleeding from the mouth and I didn't bring HIM.  I was just so convinced because he does not and has never chewed or eaten a non-food item, ever, and Maddy is known for it (rubber kong, tree branches, a huge patch of carpet, dog beds, any piece of paper or cardboard she can get her mouth on, and recently, a brand new tampon that she took from my purse and managed to unwrap neatly, gnaw the plastic away, and then eat the cotton).  If one of my dogs is going to devour a CERAMIC BOWL, it's going to be her.

So anyway, today I'm on big blonde watch because the vet said he'd probably pass anything he ingested without a problem because of his size (he's 125lbs, giant breed), and if he had problems I would see some sign.

We have puzzled this event through.  WHY would they do this now?  They have been acting up lately-- last week an entire loaf of french bread disappeared from the counter, paper wrapping and all.  That wasn't tough to figure out-- big blonde can definitely pull things off counters and he LOVES bread.  Then yesterday we come home to a paper shredded mess in the basement, where some of our stacked bills/etc. waiting for filing had been pulled off the desk and chewed.  Again, Maddy got blamed for that given her love of paper even though she hasn't ever pulled something off a table or counter.  But POTTERY?  Old, Italian pottery (ahem, also it should be noted EXPENSIVE collector piece pottery) that I've had in that exact spot for years?

It appears we have a dog that has developed separation anxiety at age 6.  And he's a big blonde dog that is a Mama's boy.  ARGH.


Ok, in other news:  Does anyone know if you can record a video on your iPad and post it to blogger or somewhere online.  If so, how?  I can't figure it out.

Happy Friday!

Peace

Happy MLK Day.  I hope we can all remember that the struggle for equality in this world will never end, but it's an important fight.  The world today is a better place because of King and others like him.  At the very least, I hope you enjoyed a day off from work :)

I did a BodyPump class this morning and I have been exhausted all day.  I am weak as a kitten, y'all. But I liked it and I think I'll go again later this week.  I did BodyFlow on Saturday and it was ok-- I like hot yoga a lot better, but this is closer to my house, cheaper, and it will work for improving my flexibility and general stretching which is what I want it for.  I've discovered that I have weak/tight hip flexors that cause me a lot of grief when I do any moderate level of cardio, so I'm going to focus on some strength and flexibility training for a bit before trying to push the cardio.  It's so hard for me to get into an exercise routine anyway-- add in a lot of hip pain and I know I just won't ever make it happen so I'm trying to work around it.

Seriously, I am pooped.  I thought exercise was supposed to GIVE you energy.  I call foul on that one.

No New is Good News?

Saw my band doc yesterday for about 5 minutes.  No fill or unfill-- we're in "wait and see" mode.  Ugh.

He posited a guess that I've had some diaphragm adhesions develop post-surgery and that the pain will go away in time.  Apparently, nothing concerning in my abdomen came up in the CT scan and he doesn't seem inclined to follow up with other tests.  I guess that's fine with me, but I wish I had a more definite answer.  In any case, I'm happy that he wasn't alarmed by my report.  I go back in 6 weeks to check back in and (cross my fingers) get a teensy tiny fill.  I am ready to make some progress again.

Ok, now for another health concern (I swear, I am not normally a hypochondriac!)  Does anyone else have hypertension?  I have NEVER had high blood pressure, but my last three readings over the past week were all high (155/88)!  How does someone go from 293 lbs to 160 lbs and develop high blood pressure AFTER losing the weight?  It's so completely bizarre.  I don't smoke, and I weigh less and am more active than I've been since I was a teenager! Based on some reading I've done, I think I'm going to take the next 6 weeks to my next appt and see if I can lower it without medication by decreasing caffeine and alcohol and increasing my exercise.  My hope is it's just a stress-blip, but who the heck knows.  If it's not back to normal in 6 weeks, I'll go to my PCP and talk medication.  I'd love to hear from anyone who deals with this--what are the implications of managing it with medication?

The good news is that I'm in a size 8 now, wonder of wonders.  It's pretty insane how I haven't lost any weight in months, yet I'm still going down in size.  I love this band, pain or no pain!

Band Complications? I'll keep you posted. . .

I hope you all are enjoying your New Year!

Y'all, I am going to Weight Watchers, but not actually DOING it (as in, not tracking or counting).  Ha!  I think we can all see where the problem might be.  That said, I'm down my Christmas weight and weighing in right 159'ish, which is not the low-low of 155 I've seen, but also right in the same wheel house as the last four months.

I see my band doctor tomorrow.  Actually, I was sitting in his exam room Thursday after a two-hour wait (his office is so overbooked every.single.time) when he was called into an emergency surgery. . . and I didn't actually get to see him. I mean, I couldn't be upset-- emergencies happen.  But when they tried to reschedule me for two weeks from that day because they were booked solid in the meantime, I gave them bitch brow and said they could fit me in on Tuesday, thank you very much.  I mean, it's not like I don't wait for hours even when I have an appointment months in advance, so it's no difference to me and I really don't care if it creates an overbook for them.  They OBVIOUSLY don't have a problem with that. Besides, I really do need to be seen and I haven't seen him since September.

At the end of November, I had a really sharp bad pain in my left chest area- about where the underwire of my bra hits. (of course, a week after I cancelled my November appt and rebooked for last Thursday, their first available appointment).  It went away after a few hours (after I stupidly didn't go to the ER), but then it came back here and there, less sharply  and more nagging and uncomfortable, until it really geared up last week to a pretty constant low-grade  state.  So when I was at his office on Thursday, I thought I'd finally get some answers as I've been assuming it's my band.  My self-diagnosis is reflux that doesn't feel like reflux, but of course I'm terrified it's erosion. Well, it kind of got worse Thursday and Friday after my appointment-interuptus, so I decided to FINALLY go to urgent care.  The urgent care doc was concerned about a blood clot in my lungs, as the pain I was experiencing was consistent with that and I have a genetic risk for developing them, but as a lapband patient himself (same surgeon, too), he also suspected it was my band.  He had a similar pain after losing his first chunk of weight and was told it was because the fat padding of the stomach had gone down and the band was now rubbing on other things internally-- he suggested a slight unfill might help. (ACK!  I need a fill, not an unfill!).  So anyway, today I had a CT scan to rule out the lung clot (came back clean, btw), and they did an abdomen scan as well.  They said everything was normal, so I'm interested to see what band-doc says tomorrow.

I just hope and pray it isn't anything major with my band.  I NEED my band.  I can deal with the discomfort of the pain if I know it isn't a sign of something serious, but I also don't want to ignore something that could potentially get worse.

Anyway, I'll let you know how it goes once I have the semblance of an answer.