Alright, I'll jump. Here's a new thread for our journey to maintenance. Used my baby steps theme of earlier.

And I'll put an update in on my grandfather. He has something called TTP, which is when a lot of tiny blood clots form in a lot of the small blood vessels. They have done some damage to his kidneys. He had no indication of this condition at his last doctor visit, and none of the typical outward signs that normally manifest. They ran the tests three times they were so surprised. This is why they are doing the plasma cleansing - it is called plasmapheresis and they basically pull the blood out, scrub it, put it back. He also is having dialysis to help the kidneys. The two processes together took about eight hours today. I'm hoping tomorrow will be quicker. He'll have to have it done daily for a few days. He got pretty agitated by the end tonight, it had been a long day and he was worn out.

Birchie - I did have breakfast, a protein shake before we left the house.

Thank you for starting this new thread, Shannon. Hope your grandfather is having a good night. Yesterday sounds exhausting.

I am having a slow start to the day and thinking about what I'm going to eat. I'm also wondering why I've fallen out of the habit of writing food and exercise down in a notebook. I'll try to start that up again. It only takes a moment, after all.

to everyone else who's reading. Let's really try to focus this weekend.

Thanks for starting the new thread. Great name! Hope your grandpa is doing better!

Shannon, thanks for starting the new thread. I hope your grandpa's condition improves steadily.

I'm hanging in there, actually saw the sun for a few minutes yesterday. We've had another 7 inches of rain in the last few weeks, which amounts to nonstop drizzle. Not like what they had in SoCal yesterday -

My eating's not been great, I'm back to doing that thing where after a 12 hour workday I come home and stare at the walls, unable to focus on anything, wanting to put sugary things in my mouth and often caving. It's a stress response from way back. Good news is I'm off clinic duty and teaching both for a few weeks so I can "just" manage the research lab and deal with administrative loads. That usually is my recovery time. I'm waiting for the rain to lessen so I can finally go for a run in the woods, because I'm finally not on call this weekend.

Things look better this morning than they did last night. I've been sitting with him for the last few hours while my mom gets some breakfast and tries to rest a little. The fact that my mom would leave for that long is a good sign, and he looks much better than he did yesterday. He's more hydrated, has had a lot of fluids, some plasma, and now another unit of blood. He's had some morphine this morning, so he is much more settled than he was. We have more dialysis and plasmapheresis this afternoon, which may agitate him again. He's been alternating between fast asleep and popping wide awake and chatty this morning.

I did have fast food breakfast today, as my mom wanted chicken minis. As she hadn't accepted any offering food for two days, I would have gotten her anything she wanted. I had an iced coffee and a chicken, egg and cheese bagel. I have some yogurt in the fridge in the waiting room for later.

Saturday, and I'm at 156.3. That's the result of two weeks of tension. I will try to unwind myself during this three-day weekend.

I can't believe the temperatures are going into the 60s today, after being in the 30s for much of the week. I walked around after gym-going, half-blinded by sun glare, and it felt good.

Sunday, up to 156.5, which I knew when I went to bed last night, because my feet were swollen and tight. This is salt and water weight, rather than calories.

I was dragging yesterday, physically tired but pushing myself to get a load of laundry done and another egg bake made, and also to get a bit of work completed. Staff in India will be working on Monday and I want to have a full queue of work for them to pick up and advance.

Mild and damp here with bulbs coming into flower all over.

I've just had a very good workout: foot exercises, movement-based flexibility, corrective exercises, single legged compound lifting (must try to label all the parts for you), suitcase deadlifts. So good.

Just having post workout snack of apple and cheese. Then into the shower. Then small domestic and gardening tasks until my client sends his comments back to me. His mother died a fortnight ago and everything has been turned upside down for him. Our joint deadline is Monday morning.

I'm back from my mini golf vacation. We had a good time despite the wind and rain on the morning of the tournament. The first five holes were brutally cold but eventually the wind died down and the rain stopped for the rest of the day. We drove home with the rain yesterday. So glad we took our chance with the high desert and the threat of flash floods because the Cajon Pass was horrible--a fire truck fell off the freeway and the lane and shoulder disappeared! We had some torrential downpours at times and a few areas of flooding, but nothing scary.

Hope your grandfather continues to do well, Shannon.

As to my weight, here we are, over half-way through February and I'm still where I was at New Years. I'm not at all happy with it.

Checking in both to say hi and to get the new thread emailed to me daily.
Shannon, I hope the TTP responds quickly. If plasma exchange doesn't work (it usually does) they can do something else called IV Ig, which is another way of overpowering the "bad" antibodies with "good" ones. Your grandfather should make a good recovery from this.
Allison, I too am at the same weight (possibly even 1-2 pounds higher) than I was at New Year's. Can't imagine playing golf in the wind and rain; around here, golf is played for only about 3 months of the year, and no one ventures out on the green if the weather isn't great.
Saef, we too had temps in the 60s both yesterday and today. It seems almost too good to be true; I feel like we're definitely going to "pay" for this with a miserably wet spring, or a late cold snap that will kill all the bulb flowers. OTOH, it was a joy to be outside today.

Monday, and I'm at 156.6, which, again, was what I thought would happen.

I went shopping yesterday, which rarely happens these days. By shopping, I mean going to a store that is not a grocery store. To a real store, the kind you have to drive to. Then I made a new recipe for chicken and tried to get some more work done.

Allison - we saw the firetruck falling into the sinkhole on the news this weekend. Scary!


Andrea - it seems to be responding. He's had two of the plasma treatments and has gone from platalets at 26k Thursday night to 53k yesterday morning, and say the TTP activity is decreasing. They are going to do another round of the dialysis and the plasmapheresis today.

For some reason, the dialysis doesn't bother him but the plasmapheresis freaks him out and he gets very agitated and angry. Maybe because they have started it at 7:30pm both times and he is worn out, don't know. Tonight they need to give him some kind of medication before it, he's been very hard to handle during it.

So, on top of the stuff with my grandfather going on, my mom was out sick with what was probably the flu all last week and their 15 years old Chihuahua is in congestive heart failure and going to die any minute. My dad took her to the vet yesterday and is giving her IV lasix and has her on oxygen. I ended up driving my mom home yesterday afternoon to see her, shower and pack a new bag. We didn't get out of the hospital until 3, so with the 2 hour drive didn't get back until almost 10. I got back to my house about 11. After getting called back out on Saturday at 9pm when he freaked out over the plasma and not getting home then until close to midnight I'm worn out. Mom told me not to come over today, but I know she's tired too and don't want to leave her by herself. I'm taking DSS back to his mom after breakfast, I'll decide then I guess.

Hope everyone is doing well.

Hope you get some rest, Shannon so you don't get sick! Too much to deal with! Hugs!

We have terrible rains here. Dh usually has almost zero commute but today he has a long commute to meetings. I'll be worried about him all day. I have the day off and plan on being productive.... exercising, seeing a friend, doing stuff around the house....

Just written my afternoon snack of a few nuts and a cup of tea in my black book. Baby steps towards writing everything in it. And then starting to weigh myself again.

Good luck with today's challenges, everyone.