I'm trying to figure out what I want to do with this blog for the next few days.  It's kind of a pain to write this from a phone.  It's good to write the ups and downs when tracking your goals to become fit again but you don't want to start the thing with lots of downers.  People keep saying that this an "inspirational" blog but if I keep having setbacks, people won't want to keep coming back to get more of this type of inspiration.

This might be easier to follow if I give a little background of the past month.  I have an 7 year old nonverbal autistic son who I love dearly.  He is amazing at running, jumping and climbing.  He would seriously dominate  if he could do the Ninja Warrior Challenge.  A few weeks ago, he tried to jump from the table to the stair railing.  My wife was afraid that he would go right over the railing so she caught him in her left arm but it ended up tearing her shoulder muscles and tendons.  She had to go through surgery to get it fixed and now she is in a sling for at least 6 weeks and can't drive, with another month of physical therapy.  This is why it was so important and disappointing when the epidural on my back didn't work but was a major motivation to see what else would work. My daughter also went in for a tonsillectomy a couple of weeks ago so my major job along with keeping the house in order was to keep my son from climbing on them.   My son at the same time got a major sinus infection and we've the doctors trying different antibiotics until one worked.  I have been pretty healthy other than the typical back pain. Finally, this week, my daughter and son seem to be a lot better. 

Well, as I noted in the last entry.  I somehow got a MRSA Staph infection which led to Cellulits.  The best way to describe it is to feel like you have the symptoms of the worst flew ever, along with a bloated fractured leg.  Although the leg isn't actually broken, it is definitely some of the worst pain I have ever felt, to walk on it.  Very bizarre.  It's very rare to get a Staph infection but even more rare to get one if you haven't been in surgery.  So I don't know where I got it.  You know the saying, "I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy"?  Well I actually would wish this on my worst enemy because I'm not as nice as most people.  I went to the Dr. on Friday and got some shots and some antibiotics.  On Saturday, I went back for a checkup and the infection was not getting better, in fact, it was even more swollen and the infection had actually grown up to my upper leg also.  The Dr. finally ended up sending me to the ER to decide if they wanted to hospitalize me.  (Apparently most people don't drive themselves to the ER so the actual parking lot seemed like it was a mile away) They gave me an IV of antibiotics and then left the end of the IV in me so that I can get follow up IV's for the next 3 days.  They did send me home but told me to stay off my feet as much as possible and try to keep my elephantlike leg elevated.  I can't take pain meds because my wife can't drive for a few more weeks. 

So back to my question, what should I do with this blog for the next several days?  I'm getting better at writing on my phone although what would normally have taken 20 minutes to write, at the computer, has taken my about two hours because autocorrect keeps changing things, like MRSA to NERDS.

So I can:
-Hold off until Thursday or Friday until I can get back in the gym.
-Do a daily inspirational picture post with kitties or puppies.
-Put random memories of my life
- Continue to blog about my day even if there isn't much about getting in shape currently
-Quote some John Denver lyrics.
-Give you a play by play update of the day time TV shows that I'm watching.  (So far the most horrible one has been The Fantasia Barrino Autobigraphy on The Lifetime Network.  It's so horrible that it's awesome.
-Just do a daily picture.

I'm really trying to not let this become a bummer of a blog.  The good news is I've been so nauseated that I imagine I've lost a lot of weight!

4-15-2012

 The picture doesn't do it much justice but one leg is definitely bigger than the other.  People sometimes mention how pain is so bad they almost pass out.  The morning shower is the worst because I've been off of the leg all day and then standing sends all of the blood back down into the leg.  I literally thought I might pass out, but at least now I'm clean. 

Bandage Protection

Friday the 13

All good stories need a plot twist in it to keep things interesting.  How's this one?  Yesterday at work, I started to feel really hot and then cold and feeling nauseated etc.  I thought that my new diet was making me sick.  Then my whole body started to ache and I was getting a headache and I thought that maybe I had the flu.  When I got home my thigh started to hurt and my lower leg started to become very tender.  I finally decided that I had probably injured myself on the new Airdyne stationary bikes that Lindsay just added to Crossfit. I decided that maybe I had sat on the seat wrong and pinched a nerve in my leg which was causing the pain.  Finally, I had an excuse not to ride that horrible bike anymore.  But then my lower leg got very red and swollen.  Seriously, what kind of flu is this?  My wife Katie said that maybe I should go up to the emergency to have them look at because her uncle had died of Cellulitis from a staph infection in a cut on his leg.  I told I didn't have any cuts and I just had the flu and I probably needed to sleep it off.
Last night was pretty horrible because to add to my usual backache, I also had the chills and my leg felt like it was going to explode.

I decided to take advantage of my "rest" day and not go to Crossfit since I could barely walk.  I just thought that I'd go into work for a while and if I didn't feel well this afternoon I'd go get it checked out.  Well, Katie called me this morning very unhappy with me and said she just called the Dr. and he wanted to see me IMMEDIATELY because they were worried that it was an infection or a clot.  I wasn't real happy about it because I needed to get some things done at work but I'm much more afraid of my wife than I am my boss,  so I went.

After testing and doing an ultrasound, they ruled out a clot, so that's good news. The bad news is that I have Cellulitis from a Staph infection.  (The very thing that Katie's uncle died from) I don't know where I got it but the Dr. said that it's good that I came in this morning because if I waited too much longer, I could have been hospitalized.  So to try to make a boring story short, I'm laying in bed with my foot elevated and warm rags on it, they also gave me two shots of Penicillin and prescription for some antibiotic that is apparently so strong, they rarely use it except of severe cases.

I have a few morals to the story:
-Always listen to your wife
-If I ever get rich, I'm buying a laptop because writing this with a phone is a pain in the butt.
-It looks like I can't get away from the Airdyne Bikes......Yet.

I have a follow up appointment tomorrow where they will monitor it and if it hasn't gotten better, there's a good chance I'll be writing this from the hospital, on my phone again, for a couple of days.  Going to the hospital would be horrible because there's one only things I hate worse than Crossfit, and that is NEEDLES!  (I would make a horrible druggie)

It's hard to tell because the camera on my phone isn't great, but my left leg is severely red and swollen.  In these pictures, it actually looks like my right leg is the gross one because of my chicken legs.  The effects of Cerebral Palsy, has atrophied the muscles in my lower legs so even though the left looks "healthier" that's only because it's currently swollen.

So the bad news is I probably won't be at Crossfit tomorrow for my "daily pic".  The good news is that the nausea has helped me not over eat the past couple of days.  As far as I know, I should be back Monday morning to continue my new Healthy Life Challenge.

I went back to the Chiropractor yesterday to restart my therapy.  I chose Kevin Lundell because he does Crossfit also and he's giving me some tips and such on certain movements that I should do yet and what I can do instead.  He did say that there's a little bit of tightness in my lower back that we're going to have to work on before my spine adjusts properly so it's going to be more than one treatment.  The neck adjustment felt pretty cool though.  I believe all of this is happening to help teach me patience since that's one of my many flaws.  Although I don't know if I believe that because I patiently put on all of this weight and waited as long as I could to do something about it. 

I don't know how to explain what is happening in my back other than the feeling.  I feel like the in my lower spine, the prongs (probably not the medical term) on the back are overlapping.  So when I woke up this morning and turned to the side to turn off my alarm, the overlapping prongs would scrape against each other and whenever I pivot, they continue to scrape and the just need to pop back into place so they are not overlapping.  Obviously, none of that is probably physically true but that's what it feels like.  It was tight enough that I didn't want to get out of bed but then I remembered that I started this dumb blog, and that I apparently have 2 followers (me and probably my cat?) who would check to see what I did.  (Maybe if I continue to make the daily updates just boring enough, the followers will quit and won't notice) So I did go to the gym but I was leaning a little to right the whole time cause I couldn't stand up all the way.  As for the workout, all I did was alternate 10 minutes on the bike and rowing for 5 for three rounds.  I think those bikes and I are going to become good friends/mortal enemies.  I do get impatient not being able to do the official WOD.  I'm not sure why because I can't say that I actually enjoyed them when I was doing them.  I just enjoyed getting them over with each day.  As far as eating, I still stayed within my WW points but still crave a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup.

4/12/2012

Day 3

I think that Phil Collins' song "In the Air Tonight" might have been written about the time that a new hotdog stand opened up right outside of my work and so my co-workers had hot dogs for lunch whereas I had an almond butter and honey sandwich and some carrots.  It still haunts me to this day.  (It was yesterday) .  Currently with my diet, I'm just using some old weight watchers books, that my sister in law had, to figure out points.  That way I can still eat what the rest of the family has, just in smaller portions.  I want to start looking at The Zone and Paleo too, but at least for now, I have been eating better and that's at least a step in the right direction.  Although, I do crave a Reese's Peanut Butter cup at this moment.

Lindsay is giving me some other alternatives to the exercises that I still shouldn't or can't do.  The worst thing I could do is try something that I shouldn't or with bad form.  It's nice so I can still pretend like I'm doing the workout with the big kids.  Kind of like when you give your kid a toy snow shovel so that they can feel like they're helping.  The WOD today was 5 rounds of Run 310 m, 10 Kettle Bell Swings at 70 lbs and 15 Burpees.  I modified mine quite a bit so I don't know that it was the same thing.  I substituted the Run with 30 calories on the Aerodyne bikes, I had to use the girls weight on the KBS (53 lbs) and 15 crawl to the floor and slowly get back up again (It looked nothing like a normal burpee).  I think the average time was around 20 minutes.  I finished in 31 minutes 55 seconds.  It was actually pretty horrible but I gave my heart a little squeeze to know that I was ensuring that no one else had to come in last place.  At least I'm good at that.
 

4/11/2012

4/10/12

So, after looking at yesterday's picture I thought I actually don't look extremely large but then I caught a glimpse from the side and HOLY CRAP!  I am roughly 12 months pregnant.  How sad.  This morning’s workout was supposed to be 21, 15, and 9 heavy squat cleans and dips but my back was grinding quite a bit so I didn’t substituted 50 calorie rows for each round of squat cleans.  I had to use the band to help me with the dips.  I don’t know if that’s more due to the extra weight or because I’ve gotten a lot weaker.  I suspect it’s a little of both. 

THE BEGINNING 

Last Monday was seriously one of the most disappointing days that I can remember in many years.  I had just met with a spine specialist to look at some options.  I had just had my second epidural into my spine, in the past month,to help with my chronic back pain but neither of them worked.  “So what’s next?” I asked. “Well the good news, is you’re not yet  to the point where you need back surgery yet, the bad news is “chronic”  means you will always have pain.  We can try different therapies to help lessen the pain but we aren’t going to reverse the effects that have happened over the years.”  She went on to explain that the effects from my cerebral palsy over the years have taken a toll upon my back, add to that osteoarthritis, and a narrowing of the spinal column. old age,  and blah, blah, blah......I had quit listening.  Although she didn’t specifically say it, all I could hear was, “you might want to make your house more ‘wheelchair friendly’ but we’ll see if we can put that off until you get the ramp built.”  The part that ticks me off is that I had already gone through this several years ago and I gotten myself to where I was doing great but now I’m back to where I started.  I’m embarrassed of the shape I’ve let myself get into.  
If I fought through this once before, why can’t I do it again?  Because it wasn’t very easy.  Should I just throw in the towel and look forward to time in the wheelchair?  Probably, it would be a lot easier.  Well why don’t you then?  Well I have a family that relies quite a bit on me being able to move.  Why am I talking to myself?  I don’t know, I’m an idiot.  How did I let myself get back to where I was?  Several things; at one time I was doing Crossfit at the Ogden Athletic Club every day, eating right, doing Physical therapy and going to a chiropractor, sports massages, etc. and I’m not doing those things now.  But, even in my best of health during the past few years, most of the time, I felt like someone had just hit my back with a baseball bat and the worst of days I felt like my vertebrae were being ground together while someone was also holding a cattle prod to my back.  Now, I basically always feel like things are grinding.
So basically, what happened for several reasons, injuries, lack of money, enjoying good tasting food, etc. has left me back on the path towards a nice wheelchair at an early age.  I mean, no matter what I do, there’s a good chance that I’m going to be there someday anyway.  Why not just embrace it and enjoy it.  You do get better parking spots, you get to board planes first, you get wider bathroom stalls, it can’t be all that bad.  
Yet, in the back of my mind, I know I can get back to a quality way of life.  It will take a lot of work, willpower, money, vegetables (yechhhh) but it can be done.  So I’ve been telling myself for months now, that I’m going to give it another shot.  I can do this.  I’m going to get back into shape and I even know where to start?  The most logical place to start are these 40+ lbs that I’ve gained over the past year and then we’ll look at adding back these other things to do along with eating right.  I’ve been planning this for months but I haven’t done it yet.  I’ve had some great excuses why I haven’t started yet:
-Well, it literally hurts A LOT to get out of bed in the morning.
-I’ve got this event coming up that I want to get out of the way, and then I’ll start.  
-Taco Bell’s new Dorito Taco Shell!
-I hate exercise, I hate mornings, etc.
I have figured out that there will always be some reason or occasion that I should get out of the way before I start. I’ve got to just suck it up and start.  So I’ve* created this blog (*my 10 year old daughter actually created it.)  It’s pretty plain but I will be be able to keep day to day tracking of the workouts, meals, therapies etc. as well as a daily picture so that I can track my progress. Basically this blog is going to be my record  to see how great of quality of life I can maintain.
If you haven’t gotten bored and quit reading this blog entry, you’re probably asking, why do I think that losing the weight will matter if I already hurt before then?  Well, if someone were drowning and struggling to stay above water, what would happen if you handed them a 40 lb weight?  Would they think, “I was already drowning before I had this weight on me so it doesn’t matter, I’ll just keep trying to stay afloat.” No.  They are going to get rid of that weight as fast as they can and then continue to work on not drowning.  So that is what I have decided to do.
When I was attending Crossfit The Club daily, I was eating right because I didn’t want the bad foods to affect my results in the workouts.  So to accompany my diet, I am going to try to get back into Crossfit full time.  For me, these naturally go hand in hand.  Even if some days, all I can do is row, ride the bikes, or just walking to the back of the gym and taking my daily pic, just moving in the mornings, breaking off some of the rust and being near my friends and “support group” is what I need first off.  As I get back into healthy eating and exercise, and stretching, I will also try other  tools, therapies, etc to see what will help me the best according to what I can afford.  
So I guess I have made this blog to help me set goals for myself, track them, and hold myself accountable.  A goal not written down, is only a wish.  This is the beginning of a long process.  If others feel that they can gain anything from it, feel free to follow along.  My plans, are to update this daily with a post workout pic and once or twice a week with a longer blog post on different things that I am trying.  If everyone else finds my records and ramblings to be dull and no one wants to follow along, I guess I don’t care as long as I can enhance my quality of life for as long as I can. So, let it begin.

"The Beginning"