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That refers to both kinds of weight- body and mind.
Let's start with the more measurable. This morning, naked and not particularly afraid, I checked in for the weekly Sunday morning weigh-in at 228.6. That was exactly where I was five Sundays ago: of the four since then, one has been a bit over two pounds above; one, the lowest ever to date, was not quite three pounds below; and the other two were in between. Those weeks also included some stressful experiences in my worlds involving tech and car trouble, and the start of the new regime in DC that may not have driven me to drink but has certainly encouraged more than a little stress eating.
The tech trouble was supposedly fixed two weekends ago, when my covered-oops-not-covered under warranty keyboard repair brought this laptop back to me with a new set of QWERTYs. It still seems a little wonky in the typig department (I did that one on purpose), so I'm likely to relegate this one to backup status as soon as I can get a decent deal and a for-sure warranty on something newer and sturdier. Then last Monday, we retrieved Eleanor's car from the mechanic with its dashboard demon-
-duly exorcised. Similarly, this occurred within the 60,000 mile portion of the car's warranty, but not within the whichever-came-first of five years, so it wound up being a $400 repair bill. Coincidentally, that's about how much our last payment was to Hyundai Financial last week to deem the car fully paid for, Yay! Not so Yay! was me driving that car home from work on Thursday night, rolling the driver's side window down before pulling into the garage as we do near-daily (to keep the side mirror from whacking the rails of the garage door), and discovering that the button controlling that window no longer worked. So now it's once again back at our non-dealer mechanic, who believes it's just the switch and hopefully not another car payment's worth of fixing the opener motor or something. Eleanor asked if there was any chance of replacing it, at least temporarily, with one of the other six buttons for the other three windows. Of course not; the engineers ruled out that workaround several years and models ago. So we've once again been down to one car since Friday morning, and have done pretty well with scheduling things so it hasn't been a major inconvenience. Yet.
----
The not-changing-much weight was also involved in the other kerfuffle of the past few days.
On Wednesday morning, I was given my official bottle of Possibly Magic Beans to start taking as part of the clinical trial I got signed up for last year. Before that appointment, there was a pre-qualification session with blood draws, pee in a cupping, an EKG and a sheaf of forms. Next came some testing, definitely the low point because it was farmed out to a local radiology place whose mammogram manner seems equally reviled by every woman I've talked to about it. At last, though, it was back after a complete fast for another set of vials to fill, electrodes to put on and rip off, and questionnaires and and an app to install- before finally getting my little white bottle of little white pills that could kill me, shrink me or, if a placebo, do absolutely nothing.
I took three doses- one the night before a quick followup draw of just one blood vial Thursday morning, one right after that suck, and one on Friday morning. Of those three possible outcomes? Well, I'm still here, and have had none of the nasty side effects, so not the first. Also, I'm still just about the same size, so not the second, at least not yet. "Sugar pill" or "not taking effect yet" are leading the pack, but after all that, the dosing has been put on hold.
Late Friday, the study people called and asked me to stop taking the pill. That Wednesday bloodwork had revealed, for the only time of the several they'd done (and others have done since I've been paying attention), an abnormally high presence of one enzyme that can be indicative of pancreatitis. They rattled off a list of other symptoms- pain in the midsection or radiating to the back, fever, tummy trouble, a sore shoulder for some reason- none of which I've experienced.
The reading clearly wasn't caused by the medication under study since I hadn't taken the first dose when they drew the blood, so I asked if they saw it still elevated on the draw they did after that first dose. Um, no, we don't have that back from the lab yet. They also did not put the report on my portal for the practice itself, since this isn't part of what Medicare and I pay them for. (Not for nothing, but they've yet to pay me for the probably four hours of time and fasting I put into this particular round.) They did say they will fax it to our primary practice and I should follow up with that office about whether it's a concern. That's fine, since I'm due for my physical with them anyway, along with the happy-joy five-year colonoscopy scrip that will come out of that. The trial people also recommended an ultrasound. Which the trial people would not be paying for. So we agreed I'd leave that decision to the people I do pay for such recommendations at our primary practice.
Meanwhile, I still log into the stupid app every morning and tell it I haven't taken the damn drug. It seems unconcerned about why.
----
So the week ahead now includes, in addition to the usual runs of work and workouts and tax preparation and shoveling the frozen tundra outside,
- Picking up the wounded car;
- Scheduling the physical;
- Making an appointment with our gas utility to have our meter replaced- not because there's anything wrong with it, but because we've been randomly selected to have ours rotated out;
- Paying the county tax bill, in person of course because of checkwashing, and applying for the annual extra Old People STAR reduction that we somehow seem to qualify for despite not thinking we ever would.
Not included: giving a shit about the Superb Owl.
Let's start with the more measurable. This morning, naked and not particularly afraid, I checked in for the weekly Sunday morning weigh-in at 228.6. That was exactly where I was five Sundays ago: of the four since then, one has been a bit over two pounds above; one, the lowest ever to date, was not quite three pounds below; and the other two were in between. Those weeks also included some stressful experiences in my worlds involving tech and car trouble, and the start of the new regime in DC that may not have driven me to drink but has certainly encouraged more than a little stress eating.
The tech trouble was supposedly fixed two weekends ago, when my covered-oops-not-covered under warranty keyboard repair brought this laptop back to me with a new set of QWERTYs. It still seems a little wonky in the typig department (I did that one on purpose), so I'm likely to relegate this one to backup status as soon as I can get a decent deal and a for-sure warranty on something newer and sturdier. Then last Monday, we retrieved Eleanor's car from the mechanic with its dashboard demon-
-duly exorcised. Similarly, this occurred within the 60,000 mile portion of the car's warranty, but not within the whichever-came-first of five years, so it wound up being a $400 repair bill. Coincidentally, that's about how much our last payment was to Hyundai Financial last week to deem the car fully paid for, Yay! Not so Yay! was me driving that car home from work on Thursday night, rolling the driver's side window down before pulling into the garage as we do near-daily (to keep the side mirror from whacking the rails of the garage door), and discovering that the button controlling that window no longer worked. So now it's once again back at our non-dealer mechanic, who believes it's just the switch and hopefully not another car payment's worth of fixing the opener motor or something. Eleanor asked if there was any chance of replacing it, at least temporarily, with one of the other six buttons for the other three windows. Of course not; the engineers ruled out that workaround several years and models ago. So we've once again been down to one car since Friday morning, and have done pretty well with scheduling things so it hasn't been a major inconvenience. Yet.
----
The not-changing-much weight was also involved in the other kerfuffle of the past few days.
On Wednesday morning, I was given my official bottle of Possibly Magic Beans to start taking as part of the clinical trial I got signed up for last year. Before that appointment, there was a pre-qualification session with blood draws, pee in a cupping, an EKG and a sheaf of forms. Next came some testing, definitely the low point because it was farmed out to a local radiology place whose mammogram manner seems equally reviled by every woman I've talked to about it. At last, though, it was back after a complete fast for another set of vials to fill, electrodes to put on and rip off, and questionnaires and and an app to install- before finally getting my little white bottle of little white pills that could kill me, shrink me or, if a placebo, do absolutely nothing.
I took three doses- one the night before a quick followup draw of just one blood vial Thursday morning, one right after that suck, and one on Friday morning. Of those three possible outcomes? Well, I'm still here, and have had none of the nasty side effects, so not the first. Also, I'm still just about the same size, so not the second, at least not yet. "Sugar pill" or "not taking effect yet" are leading the pack, but after all that, the dosing has been put on hold.
Late Friday, the study people called and asked me to stop taking the pill. That Wednesday bloodwork had revealed, for the only time of the several they'd done (and others have done since I've been paying attention), an abnormally high presence of one enzyme that can be indicative of pancreatitis. They rattled off a list of other symptoms- pain in the midsection or radiating to the back, fever, tummy trouble, a sore shoulder for some reason- none of which I've experienced.
The reading clearly wasn't caused by the medication under study since I hadn't taken the first dose when they drew the blood, so I asked if they saw it still elevated on the draw they did after that first dose. Um, no, we don't have that back from the lab yet. They also did not put the report on my portal for the practice itself, since this isn't part of what Medicare and I pay them for. (Not for nothing, but they've yet to pay me for the probably four hours of time and fasting I put into this particular round.) They did say they will fax it to our primary practice and I should follow up with that office about whether it's a concern. That's fine, since I'm due for my physical with them anyway, along with the happy-joy five-year colonoscopy scrip that will come out of that. The trial people also recommended an ultrasound. Which the trial people would not be paying for. So we agreed I'd leave that decision to the people I do pay for such recommendations at our primary practice.
Meanwhile, I still log into the stupid app every morning and tell it I haven't taken the damn drug. It seems unconcerned about why.
----
So the week ahead now includes, in addition to the usual runs of work and workouts and tax preparation and shoveling the frozen tundra outside,
- Picking up the wounded car;
- Scheduling the physical;
- Making an appointment with our gas utility to have our meter replaced- not because there's anything wrong with it, but because we've been randomly selected to have ours rotated out;
- Paying the county tax bill, in person of course because of checkwashing, and applying for the annual extra Old People STAR reduction that we somehow seem to qualify for despite not thinking we ever would.
Not included: giving a shit about the Superb Owl.