Last year I started rowing with the Solano Rowing Club and today I lost my virginity, having my first competition in gorgeous Vallejo. I competed with the men’s team. Here is some video footage of us practicing right before the race.
This event on the Napa River is called the Skipper Whipper. After the event, we had lunch together on Mare Island at the Brewery.
Shando captured almost the entire course in this video:
Shando selfies:
A puppy scratched me at the shelter! I hated to do it, but had to fill out a bunch of paperwork. I’m glad it wasn’t a bite!
Joe selfies without the scratch and showing some weight loss:
I got the first of the two doses of the Pfizer vaccine today, which I’m so excited about. I want to be able to see my family who don’t live with me without any fear for any of us, and without having to keep my distance. I’m glad we don’t need 100% of the country vaccinated for this to crush the virus, but I’m happy to do my part to make sure I do not inadvertently harm anyone else if I’m asymptomatic. I barely felt it and have had no side effects from the vaccine. I do hope more people overcome their fear and help us return to some normalcy with travel. My hope is that those anti-vaxers for Covid become such a small group that they can be contact-traced going forward.
I had a knee surgery called arthroscopy in January, so for about a month I had this thing planted in my arm to administer medicine intravenously. It was implanted in my upper arm and was threaded right up to my heart area. I’m glad to have it out finally to feel more human, but the technology is pretty amazing.
This was my effused knee at its worst, right before my surgery. that’s 58 cc’s of infection they withdrew just this one time in the Emergency Room. At least the view from the hospital room was nice!
I’ve been home bound more than usual the last few months of 2017 because of chondromalacia patella, a knee injury commonly known as runner’s knee. Earlier in the year I had injured my other knee, but that was quickly fixed after it was drained by an orthopedic surgeon. The left knee was a lot more painful and the recovery has been a lot longer with crutches and all. I’ve started physical therapy and I’m out of a lot of pain, but I will continue to heal and do my exercises so I can once again engage in the hiking and more extensive travel that I love to do so much. Despite the car accident that happened two days after this knee injury, I actually was not injured in the car accident so far as I can tell, but the timing was strange indeed.
I’m having a series of changes made to my mouth to help with my overall gum health and this is the first dramatic step.
Best birthday present was waking up unexpectedly to have reached fifty pound mark of weight loss since gastric sleeve.
Yesterday went shopping at thrift store for some “interim” size clothes and got some other things with my Mom. I try to weigh myself every couple of days, but this morning was truly a shock because I lost six pounds in just a few days, and it didn’t seem like I did all that much, although I did stay pretty active this past weekend.
Unless you count the temporary liquid and extremely soft food diet, I have so far “effortlessly” lost forty pounds without rigorous exercise. I started losing a little weight before surgery as mandated. Without any hunger I am losing a few pounds every few days and have not had to take a single injection of insulin, nor any oral diabetes medications, nor any cholesterol medications since the operation. I am hoping with more weight loss to soon be off the blood pressure medications, if my doctor approves it, and thereby avoiding the sometimes painful side effects caused by them, like edema. I also appear to not have apnea anymore, at least not very badly. I’m sleeping through the night without the CPAP.
While these pictures are not the most demonstrative of my weight loss, I do have a neck once again. I have also already started putting my largest pants in the donation box and I’m loosely fitting into the skinniest jeans I own. I bought some suspenders for the interim until I need to invest in a new wardrobe since the weight is not going back on, at least not the vast majority of it. It would be a challenge to eat enough to gain it back in the coming years. I do intend to put some of it back the right way with muscle and exercise, for which I already and will have, much greater stamina and motivation. I’m already much more comfortable with my appearance and my mobility, having lost that weight so quickly.
Many more illustrative pictures to come as I progress.
