Week 353 Update

At 6:45 AM on the two thousand four hundred seventy second day of my journey I groggily stepped up on Mr. Scale and he said, "204.0 pounds!" I had seven dental implants all calling for attention this morning, each one aching its own little ache. Fortunately I have a good response to that, hence the grogginess.

Oh, what a week! The fact that I am up 2 pounds and 4 pounds over the top of my target range is not my major concern. Last week I was nursing a swollen ankle but that feels just fine today. Right now my mouth takes top billing on my list of concerns, because on Thursday I had 7 dental implants inserted into the bone left behind by extractions. http://www.dwlz.com/Al/Journey/dentures.html Ouch!

Let's back up a bit. From Sunday through Wednesday things were pretty normal, with getting oriented to the Mac taking up a lot of my time.

For eating, if you check the table above, you can see that I ate significantly lower than last week. The only day that I got up into the 40s for points was Tuesday, two days before I knew I was headed for tough eating times. Then starting on Thursday, it fell off to where I was only getting less than 30 each day.

I have to admit that this is still confusing to me. They say that you should have a BMI less than or equal to 25 (which is at 200 pounds for me). The optimum BMI is 22 or so, according to some experts. Well, if I exercised a lot more that might work out well for me, I don't know, but right now, when I get down to 185, which is only a BMI of 23.1, I feel too thin. Dotti starts getting upset with me if I get any lower than that, and she likes me where I am much better than 185. A BMI of 22 would require that I get down to 176, and that would really be thin. So, for now, I will just try to maintain around 200.

So, seeing the scale go up is not big deal. It is an Ibuprofen spike that I am sure will leave as quickly as it arrived, as soon as my pain level drops to normal.

I did get to the gym twice this week before visiting the dentist. We walked 3.0 miles round trip each time. On Monday I didn't do much else, beyond a couple of exercises for my back. I didn't want to push it after the way my ankle reacted the week before. On Wednesday I went ahead and walked 1.7 miles on the treadmill too, but slowly. I also shot some baskets, but held down the jumping for now.

On Tuesday Dotti and I went to a movie. "There Will Be Blood." The theater we go to has what they call the "Living Room" auditorium, where you have hassocks to put your feet up on, and generally are pampered like in your living room. (We really didnÕt care for the movie that much, and we left before it was over, but we were there for over 2 hours, and did enjoy spending the time together.) The reason I was so high on points that day was that I had a meal at the theater and some snacks too. It all came to 32 points, and once breakfast and a couple small snack were added in, even though the Movie meal took up two meals, it pushed me over my 46 point limit for the day. Thursday, Valentine's Day, was a tough one for me, the toughest I have had since that July day in the chair. I spent more time in the chair than I did that unhappy day, but it was for a better cause I hope. I walked into the office a bit before, and was in the chair about 7:30 AM. It was just before 2 PM when I met Dotti at the door and she drove me home.

I was utterly exhausted at that point. If there had been more to do that day, I would have had to been put under general anesthesia to have it done. When he finished the sixth implant I felt that my reserves were completely drained, and there remained perhaps the toughest one yet to do. I took a bathroom break three times during the stay, at the conclusion of each phase. This was the end of phase 3 and I was looking at myself in the mirror and I looked liked I had gone a few rounds in the ring. My facial muscles had lost all their tone and the skin hung like I had just lost my last and dearest friend, a perfect exhibit of what is meant when it is said, "His face fell at the news." I was approaching the end, and I tried to reach down inside myself and find some joy at this fact to power me forward. I honestly didn't know if I had found it yet when I headed back for the last go.

Dotti, and anyone who knows Dotti won't find this surprising, was carrying on a happy conversation with the ladies at the front desk when I came out. I didn't have it in me to stand and join in for more than just a second before I made my way out to the car. The drive home is a blur to me, and soon I was propped up in a chair in the living room, pain medicated and one of my favorite old (made the year before I was born) Sci-Fi movies, When Worlds Collide, playing in the DVD.

That night I had rebounded amazingly well. I was of course not back to normal at all but I had a lot of my energy back and some food in my stomach (nice soft Cream of Wheat with some peanut butter mixed in for flavor and extra protein), and life felt a lot less like doomsday and more like the morning after, which the 70's hit song described.

My dentist called me about 7 PM to check on how I was doing. (Yet one more wonderful difference about this dentist and my last one. This office has called both Dotti and I every time we have had any work done in the evening to make sure all was well. This never happened from our last dentist, ever. Call it professionalism, or real concern, I don't care, but I do like it! ) He was amazed at how up my voice sounded on the phone. I was laughing and clearly well on the way to recovery compared with how I had felt when he last saw me at the front door of the office. (Yes, he had walked with me all the way to the door, where Dotti was waiting, and didn't leave it to an assistant.) I told him I was pretty amazed myself. After my extractions in July, that evening I was still digging out of the hole I had been left in after the procedure. This time I was doing much better.

Getting implants is less destructive to the body than pulling teeth is. I was l left with no gaping wounds that had to fill in with new growth. I was left with 7 silver caps, six below the gum line and one slightly above. No place to trap food, and no bloody sockets to worry about. I could go and use a straw immediately if I chose to. I could eat hot food or cold food with no harm to the implants. Soreness, and worry about infection were the only real issues. I went on penicillin immediately to make sure that infection was given no foothold, and meds for the pain. Still the dentures were not a happy fit, and putting them in over the top of that was not something I was looking forward to, even though I wore them out of the office as I was leaving the dentist's office after the procedure.

The next morning I got up and looked at my email and in reply to a friend's inquiry into my condition, with the qualifier that I shouldn't push myself to answer quickly, I sent the following email:

Sent: Friday, February 15, 2008 8:39 AM

Subject: Implants

Only pushing a bit.

I feel bad this morning, but it could have been a lot worse I guess. I am going back to bed shortly.

I had 7 implants stuck in my head (6 on the top and one on the bottom) and I still have two more to do on another day in the future. But at least most of the work is done. I was in the chair from about 7:30 AM until close to 2 PM, and I was really out of gas by that time. I am still pretty well out of gas.

More later.

BTW, thanks for thinking about me!