Jan/100
I understand.
A while ago, we had a patient who refused medical attention until she was gravely ill. I got really irritated with her. I didn't understand how she, knowing that she needed medical attention, could ignore the doctor's recommendations. Eventually, when she was in too much pain to live her life, she came back in to see us. My doctor was able to intervene before it was too late. She proceeded to have a few scares, but managed to live her life comfortably and we developed a friendly relationship. I began to like her.
Some months ago, she called complaining about worsening symptoms. She ignored them at first, but when they got to be too much, she went to a hospital near her home. That facility ran some tests and then sent her home with pain medication. I told her to come see us in the office. My doctor admitted her to the hospital that day. She died a few days later.
If she had come to see us first, would she have lived? The answer was no. My doctor told me that she needed to die. I thought at the time that that was an extraordinarily callous thing to say. Until I read her progress and operative reports from our facility.
Sometimes the body can't take anymore. We can't continue to live in pain or with disease. Sometimes it's okay to give up and let go. Sometimes we do need to die. I understood what my boss meant.
One day I am going to look back on this and be angry with myself, or worse: One day, my family will read this.
My grandmother slipped and fell on Monday, January 11. She fractured her skull. During the course of her work-up at the hospital, she was found to have several more aneurysms throughout her body and metastatic cancer now in her lungs and intestines. I found out about this on my way home from work today. I cried most of the way home, feeling sorry for myself. It occurred to me to straighten up and call my cousin, who still lives in South Florida, because he probably didn't know. He didn't.
During 2009, my grandmother suffered several strokes, falls and a heart attack. She was diagnosed with a thoracic aortic aneurysm. She rebounded against all odds. I spoke with her last week and she was chipper as ever. She gave me hope. I knew she wouldn't be well enough to come to my wedding, but she well enough to stick it out and just be here on Earth, and that's more than I could ever ask for. I love my grandmother. Adore my grandmother. She is one of the strongest, most compassionate, most courageous, most incredible women I have met.
I laid it out to my cousin. I told my cousin, in my work vocabulary what is going on with her. What kinds of tests they'll probably do. What I believe, with the limited information that I have, how well she will fair should they or should they not proceed with any surgery. My grandmother, had she lived in the Dallas-area, would be one of my doctors' patients. I see her in every other patient diagnosed with lung, heart and/or vascular disease.
I do not want my grandmother to die. I want to continue to hope that she'll get better, she'll rebound from this too by some miracle. I'm not ready for her to go by any stretch, but I love her and I understand.
Dec/090
Four Eyes
This was one of my Christmas presents to myself. I've had these Lafont frames for a number of years and they've just moved from one dark drawer to another. Jeremy bought me a pair of Chanel frames for Christmas last year, but the frames are too wide for my face, despite them looking awesome when I tried them on in the store. I suspect that he accidentally bought a larger frame size then what I had tried on. That really stinks because the Chanel frames are gorgeous otherwise and I love them to death. These, however, fit really well, don't travel on the bridge of my nose, and I wanted something a little funkier than the Versace and Paul Smith frames that I currently alternate between.
The Jonathan Alder "Specs" case was picked up during a sale at Anthropologie a few years ago, and has been unused until now. Shopping in your own closet can be great!
On a side note: the cold weather has done a number to my skin and lips. One day it was seventy degrees. The following day it snowed. And stuck. I don't get North Texas weather. In Florida the temperature was predictable, dependable; Hot and humid I wouldn't trade the snow for that again, but I would like some consistency. Please and thanks.
Dec/090
We work well together.
This whole wedding thing brings out the entrepreneur is the most unlikely of people. Jeremy has decided that we should get into wedding photography because it allows us to rape people of large sums of money legally. Then, that worked it's way down to pet and baby photography, for a more reasonable price, and we'd use lube. I'm really excited about this venture, because I love and miss my cameras, but I also love and miss Jeremy. With the way our schedules have been lately, we haven't spent a lot of quality time doing things like visit parks or walk the dog, and I like the idea of the two of us being together, doing something that we both enjoy, and making money.
Nov/090
Progress!
Time to start hitting the gym again! I have been slacking off and eating anything and everything in sight for the last two months. I was afraid to get on the scale, but I mustered the courage this morning and... my weight hadn't changed at all. This is good news for someone who was convinced they had put on 15 pounds in the last month, but bad news for a person who set a weight loss goal and hasn't made any progress. I want 2010 to be the year of the skirt for me, which means I have got to get my legs toned up. Gym this evening and then every evening thereafter (unless long dog walks are substituted). Also no more garbage food, which is going to be so hard. Reps keep bringing me goodies at works. In the last two weeks I've had catered lunch, cupcakes and truffles. The closer we get to the holidays, the worse it's going to get. Ugh.
Our Save the Dates should arrive today. I am very excited about this! I'll probably spend the next couple of nights (after the gym!) addressing them. We're finally saying, "Hey, guys, we're getting married!" So neat!
I think we've settled on an invitation design. Although we finally agreed on something that is in our price range, it is still very high and I would like to try to take inspiration from the design and make our own. Jeremy and I both have a lot of experience with graphic design, so it shouldn't be very difficult. We'll see. I have also been buying invitation samples of some of my favorite designs, which was a bad idea. I received one last night and it was gorgeous letterpress on cotton. It breaks my heart that we can't afford those invitations, but I am going to salvage what I have and cut into mats for photos.
We may have also found our photographer. Jeremy is super awesome and haggled with this Austin-based photographer for a better price. We'll get two photographers, an engagement session or bridal portrait session (I would prefer to have some really nice photos of the two of us in plain clothes), continuous coverage on our wedding day, our photos hosted online to order and a copy of all high res quality photos on DVD! I may be forgetting something, too, but it all works out to be a super awesome deal!
Nov/090
ONLY SIX MORE MONTHS
Jeremy and I finally got over the major hurdle of finding - and booking- a reception site for our wedding. We have decided to hold our reception at The Heard Natural Science Museum in McKinney, Texas. We are still undecided as to where we will hold the ceremony. Initially, we planned to exchange vows in one of the on-site gardens, but the garden was not what we thought it was, so we nixed that. Jeremy really wanted to keep the wedding kind of country and simple, and so did I, but it looks like we're going slightly more modern. Jeremy is not as enthused as I am.
Now, we get to move on to invitations! How exciting!
Oct/090
Professional piggy back service!
Jeremy and I recently flew to Florida to visit my family (My first time back to Florida since I moved in May 2008!). Jeremy really hit it off with my nephew, who thought Jeremy was my brother!
Sep/090
September, finally.
This weekend has been a dreary one with constant rain. We almost didn't go to the Coppell farmer's market because of the rain, but I am glad that we did. Although there was a light drizzle, we did get much of our shopping done (all of the regulars were there) and we were photographed several times by a photographer for some local publication. Crazy tattooed couple with hellhound shop for meat in the rain!
We also stopped at Bicycles, Inc to pick up a few odds and ends, but wound up spending over an hour drooling over a small collection of vintage bikes and perusing the aisles.
The rest of the evening was a lazy one, with the doors and windows open. The rain brought much cooler air and it's been a great excuse to lay around in our underwear enjoying the breeze. I apologize to our neighbors.
I can't say it enough: I can't wait for cooler weather and long bike rides. Come on, Autumn!
Aug/090
Saturdays! (and also, Friday!)
Ashly and I woke up bright and early this morning and headed to the McKinney farmers market. It's quite a trek just for a market, but we figured it would be worth it, and we also had other plans in the area. So away we went.
We arrived around an hour later and realized that we forgot to get cash, so we had to stroll around downtown historic McKinney to find an ATM. It was beautiful outside (though it started to get a little warm around this time), and downtown was really cute, so it was a lot of fun. We headed back after we finally found the ATM and started on our adventure of market shopping.
The market really wasn't a whole lot different from the one in Coppell, TX. This isn't good or bad, because it's a really nice market all the same. I don't think we'll be headed back to McKinney for a long while, but it was good to go to check it out -- the Coppell market has a few of the same farmers, and if it's not the same farmers, they're selling the same (local) produce, and Coppell is much closer. We scored some chicken hearts (going to cook them as seen on Eating Nose to Tail), beef soup bones (extremely meaty, destined for some kind of stew/soup), sausage, as well as some ground beef. All of that loot was from Rehoboth Ranch, who seem to be very, very nice people, with delicious product. They were out of fresh eggs, so we picked up some of those from Dominion Farms, as well as vegetables from a few local farms, and some cheese straight from Lucky Layla Farms, and were on our way.
The next stop was a place in Melissa, TX. This is just a few miles from where we were, and our reason was that it's a reception spot for weddings. It looks very quaint and cute on their website (not disclosed for a reason), and it seemed like something we'd be interested in, but we got there to find out that it borders a gated community of very expensive homes, and is not so "country" after all.
We ran a bunch of other errands and now we're sitting at home, lounging and drinking. I picked up a bottle of North Coast Brewing PranQster at one of the places we stopped, and I was pleasantly surprised. its reviews on RateBeer are not that great, but it's pretty tasty -- I will agree that it is quite hot, for being low ABV though. It doesn't match up with North Coast's Scrimshaw, though, which is one of my all-time favorite every-day brews.
The "Friday" part of the title in this post is for what happened yesterday -- I pulled 415lbs (deadlift) in the gym yesterday, which is a 5lb PR. My goal for the day was 420lbs, but after making 415 and discussing it with my training partner, he advised me to do lesser weight for some reps and then call it a day.
There are like a million hyperlinks in this!
Aug/090
School daze
Today was the beginning of the semester. I'm taking two classes -- Algebra and TX Gov't. I figured Algebra would be its torturous self (I am not so good at the mathematics). I'm not looking forward to either, to be honest, as both seem quite boring. I was pleasantly surprised by the TX Gov't class, though, until the end, when he dropped the bomb on the assignments... He expects us to do three interviews -- one with a city-level official, county-level official and a state-level official. I'm not sure how this is supposed to happen, and at this point I'm not entirely sure if it's 100% for real -- from what the professor said after the class, he has to pass this over with the dean. The class in general seems a little disorganized, so we'll see. If it's for real, I'm not entirely sure I'll be able to stay in this class. I hate to think of it that way, but we'll see.
This morning I went to get dressed only to find that none of my pants fit. I'm not sure if it's bloat, or what, but it was frustrating, to say the least. I've gained a little weight, but nothing that should make my pants not fit. Not in the recent past, anyways -- over the past 6 months or so I've put on about 30lbs, but I've purchased pants accordingly. I have until November for the (powerlifting) meet, in which time I may try to cut weight -- right now I'd fall into the 242lb class. The next class down is the 220lb class, which I trust that I could cut to, no problem. The problem is more related to strength loss. As it is, my lifts are all going up. My goals are pretty close to my maximum gym lifts, and my goals are actually to surpass these current goals BEFORE the meet, but as of right now, my meet goals are:
Squat: 315lbs -- I'm not far off from this, so it's entirely feasible that I could surpass this prior to the meet.
Bench: 225lbs -- This is realistic considering my current maximum. Bench is my weakest, crappiest lift.
Deadlift: 420lbs. This is 10lbs over my 2 rep max, and I fully expect to surpass this prior to the meet. If things stay as they currently are, I should have no trouble getting this weight in the meet.
We'll see. Tomorrow is bench day, and we're warming up and going straight for heavy singles until we get to my max.
I am tired.