why did i wait so long?

This is a sneak peak, mainly because i like this picture, hehe.This is me on saturday driving to work on the last night our hospital was opened.  soon I will post progress pictures. I just want to make sure I hit that 100lbs lost goal before I post them. They will be full length photo’s. not just a face shot. This weekend was soooo draining! The hospital I work at closed on sunday. They opened a new one down the road. It is beautiful! I worked the 1st night it opened! What a stressful, exciting, emotional night that was! there were media everywhere! We transferred over 100 patients from one hospital to the next, some of which were in ICU. They were all safely tranported in a little over 8 hrs! Amazing.  The new hospital is bigger, smells wonderful, has all new equipment, computers ect…. It is very nice to work in that environment. Here is a news link about it.  http://www.abc-7.com/Articles/readnews.asp?articleid=26817&z=2  

Being a respiratory therapist, we have to work in the whole hospital. Nurses usually are confined to their designated area, when we get to go everywhere from ER, ICU, general med, and OB. I was in ICU last night (the 1st night) which was exciting and stressful at the same time. Not too many people can say they worked at a hospital on the 1st day it opened! Pretty cool eh? One of the many reasons why I started trying to lose weight and get in better physical shape is because of my job. A lot of people think respiratory therapists just hand out nebulizer treatments to people who are wheezing or having a little trouble breathing. Although that is part of our job, we do a whole lot more than that. We take care of people on ventilators, Intubate people (put them on life support), manage the ventilators, draw blood, transport people to ct scans, run to codes and do CPR, plus a lot more.  Im mentioning this mainly  because this has a lot to do with why I am on this journey. When I was 300 plus lbs and totally out of shape, doing these things became very very difficult!  Every time I go to work, i find it more and more easy to do what i have to do. If I need to run to a code, no problem, do cpr…no problem….help transport a pt on a ventilator…..no problem..not to mention all the walking we do. I just cant stress enouph how much easier my life and job has become now that i am healthier. Last night we had a code(the patient is not breathing and or has no pulse). I ran to the code and then did chest compressions on the patient for about a half hour!!! a year ago when we had a code I would always be the last one there, and then I would try my hardest to get out of doing chest compressions. When I did have to take a turn at it, I could only do about five minutes before I was dripping with sweat, my back was aching, my heart was pounding, and I was about to be coded!!  It was so embarassing to know that I couldn’t do this part of my job. Last night people were asking me “do you need a break yet?” “are you tired yet?”. I just kept saying “NO, im fine” :)   it felt so good!  I could have gone on for ever doing chest compressions on that guy! I never want to get back to the way I was before, NEVER!! anyway, just thought I would share my weekend with you all.

today I had

B- greek yogurt with honey

S- post workout protein shake

L- egg beaters, turkey sausage, fruit and yogurt

D- shrimp and angel hair pasta, with a salad with romaine, spinach and italian dressing

S- 100 cal popcorn….then weight watcher mint chocolate chip ice cream cup