Some Normalcy

Today is day 13 that my FIL has been in the hospital. Hubby and I have been up there the majority of the time, largely due to the holidays making it possible to have time off. But now it’s going to be much more difficult for us to make the 2 hour drive up to the hospital every day. We will get up there as much as we can and definitely spend our weekends up there. We want to be there but we have reality to face and bills need to be paid.

As far as his status, he is still on a ventilator and they planned on putting in a trach. but saw some improvement and they are still trying to wean him off the ventilator instead for now. But the trach. is not out of the picture all together and they may put it in in a few days. But he has been running a temperature and they will not take him off breathing support while he runs a temperature. It is so frustrating for him because he’s not as sedated now and he can’t talk but wants to tell us things so badly. Hubby and I work with him and after a lot of questions and patience we can sometimes figure out what he wants or what questions he has. He is too weak to lift his hand to point to letters on a dry erase board or to write. It’s tough to see. Good to see some signs of improvement though. We’ll hope things start heading in the right direction. It will be a very, very long road ahead.

Today was my day off and I wanted to spend it at home. It’s so good to be home. I stepped on the scale and have gained almost 10 lbs. from my lowest weight. Too much emotional eating. This week was really tough for a variety of reasons. There is so much sadness in a hospital. It has been stressful to say the least.

But I do have to say that I am hopeful. I am never going to gain all of my weight back. End of story. It will come off and I will get to a healthy weight. This experience has taught hubby and me just how important it is to be healthy. Hopefully there will be some normalcy very soon.

So I am taking today to try to just have a normal day. I’ve missed it so much!

I got to sleep in a lot later than hubby this morning. He had to go back to work. It felt good to sleep in our own bed!

I am going to follow the Simply Filling plan because that’s what I really want to do. Hopefully this will work out with all that is going on. I will try my best!

For breakfast, I had 1/2 serving of oatmeal with blueberries and milled flax along with an egg.

As you can imagine, we are pretty low on groceries! I missed my glass of milk this morning.

I drank a cup of coffee with FF vanilla creamer and chatted on the phone with my sister. So nice to have a normal conversation! I also got to talk to my Mom for a while later in the afternoon.

I spent the morning getting things done around the house. I had lots of laundry to do.

For lunch, I ate a sandwich made with light bread, FF lunch meat, FF cheese, lettuce, tomato and light Miracle Whip.

I also made a soup with leftover FF chicken broth, northern beans and chicken.

It was a very cold day today, so the soup tasted extra delicious. Can you believe we haven’t had a single snow fall yet this winter? It’s absolutely crazy! This past week it was 60 degrees outside! I’m loving it.

I finished up my lunch with an orange.

My body felt so much better after drinking lots of water and eating healthy foods again.

I spent some time looking into what charges we would incur in the event that we need to cancel our upcoming cruise. I contacted Carnival and Expedia and spoke with reps there so they could document that I checked into it. Thankfully, we purchased insurance and will be reimbursed 100% for our cruise! WHEW! Also, our hotels and rental car will be 100% reimbursement if canceled before the check in dates. We would only be charged $300 total to reschedule our flights and $98 for the insurance. A lot cheaper than if we hadn’t purchased the insurance. We are keeping our fingers crossed that there will be drastic improvements in the next few days and that we won’t have to cancel this trip we’ve been looking forward to for months. But we wouldn’t feel right leaving if he’s still in ICU…

I did a little shopping online for the cruise. I got each of us some extra swimwear and a few other things. It should be here next week! Hopefully it all fits, if not, I should be able to return it in store at Old Navy.

In the afternoon, I ate an AE Dairy YoLite yogurt.

I was really battling those sweets cravings but I need to realize that there are healthier options than chocolate!

I am disappointed that my HBBC didn’t work out so well. I hate setting a goal for myself and failing miserably. It seems like everything happened in the past couple of months. I was sick, too many holidays and celebrations, and now the FIL ICU stuff going on. But exercise is so important, and while I may have tripped up. It’s time to keep on going. I did get in an elliptical workout this past weekend at the hotel. It was my first time on an elliptical and I LOVED IT! I also bought a new recumbent bike from my cousin, a real nice Schwinn one, that has been sitting in the garage since before Christmas when they delivered it…hopefully I can bring it inside tonight! I am also tentatively setting a plan for this year. It will be a multi-part plan. The first step of the plan is to follow Jeff Galloway’s 10K training program. He suggests walk/runs. So that’s what I will do!

I started my first day today. I ran/walked 1.5 miles in 20:18. The workout was supposed to be a 20-25 minute run. I included my warm up and cool down in that. I wanted to go longer but I was hurting today. Maybe next time! It was still a great workout and I burned 260 calories. Pretty good! It felt amazing too. I ran at 6 mph. for the most part, a couple 5.5 mph parts. So a nice pace for me!

After that, I ate a boiled egg for a snack.

For supper, I made a chicken and veggie stir fry over lentils along with baked squash. I also had a glass of skim milk.

Delish! And I finished it up with Bunny Tracks ice cream for 4 points.

Overall, I’d call this a good day! It was SO nice to have some normalcy! We are staying home tonight but will go back up to the hospital tomorrow, so I’m not sure how much time I’ll have for a regular post. Tomorrow is WI day though.

I hope all is well with all of you!

***UPDATE*** After writing this post, I got news that they removed the ventilator!! Hopefully there are no more complications and he can progress from here!