A Night in the ER and the White NorEaster Death

Not that I have really tried to make my life more interesting it just seems thing just happen.

Monday night leaving the gym I started to feel a mild pang in my chest. I thought nothing of it and headed to my weekly Bible study. About five minutes into the drive it really started to bug me and get worse. I started to get mildly dizzy and thought I was going to have to stop and pull over on this two lane road where there was really no place at all to do so. I made it to the house where the study was taking place and it was really bothering me by then but when I got inside and sat down it subsided a bit so I thought it had passed. Just before we started the study it started again and it felt like someone was repeatedly stabbing me in the chest with an ice pick. I got up and got a drink of water, got dizzy and laid in the floor with my feet in the air...nothing helped. Finally I went in the bathroom and it got so bad that I was laying in the floor sweating profusely. By this time the people who lived there were trying to take my pulse and calling the ambulance. So Finally the EMT's got there and started working on my and concluded I was not in any danger of shuffling off this mortal coil. Soon there after the ambulance arrived and took me to the ER where I spent a good 4 hrs. They did 2 EKG's and took some x-rays and "concluded" that it was a muscle strain. If nothing else I got some nice drugs out of the whole deal.

Tuesday the whole Northeast went into panic mode due to the predicted NorEaster. People at work were already making plans not to come into work Wednesday and what not. I figured that I would wait and see given the fact that most storms like this one where they predict huge amounts of snow sometimes turn out not to be as bad as they are predicted to be. So I went to the gym that night and did a easy workout since I am under dr's orders to take it easy for awhile and then stopped at the store to get a few things I needed (just in case we did get the predicted snow)...my storm items were eggs and toliet paper (already had milk). So I go home and go to bed at my usual time (9:30) and figured I would access the situation in the morning.

So I wake up at the usual time (5:15am) and looked out the window and could tell there was snow on the ground so I figured I would go back to sleep and go to the gym about 6:30 (since I can't excercise). So waking up at 6:30 I could see there was about 1 foot of snow on the ground so I went back to sleep until 7:30 and called the office and told them I was taking a sick day(the one I should have taken Tuesday after being in the ER half the night before) and wouldn't be in to work. I woke up again at 8:45 and got up and went downstairs to have a bowl of cereal. BY 11 am I was stir crazy and suffering from cabin fever. I was going to do laundry but only had enough Tide to do one load, I then cleaned a few dishes and surfed around the internet until it decided to stop working. I got dressed and went out and shoveled the snow from around my car (just to do something).
The rest of the day was spent inside pacing back and forth trying to find something to do as a way to pass the time. I did know that one way or the other I was going to be at the office today becasue I doubt I could have spent another day in the house with out goinng crazy and snapping.

So anyway the trip into work this morning was not that bad until I got into Albany and the roads were still pretty crappy but I had no major problems so I was glad. So this week has pretty much screwed up the whole diet/excercise routine which means I am not weing myself this week.

Hopefully next week I can get back into the old routine...ahhh...routine....

-c

The Fortress of Solitude

First off no one go into shock by seeing two posts in less than a week.

So I call my house the Fortress of Solitude (for those not getting the reference check out Wikipedia) and this week it was very close to resembling the actual place as it has been depicted.

Thursday morning I woke and was going to wash my face before heading off to the gym and work. After waiting for a few minutes for the water to warm up and getting nothing but ice cold water I ran down to the basement to check the oil tank which turned out to be low…very low. So after I got to work I called the heating oil place and told them I needed the tank filled up and the guy said he would send someone out that afternoon to do it, so I figured that I had taken care of the problem and would not have to worry about it while in Cincinnati for an extended weekend. When I got home Monday evening I hardly noticed the temperature in the house mainly because I was so tired from traveling, so I just hopped in bed and turned the electric blanket on and went to sleep. When I woke up Tuesday morning it was bloody COLD. My first thought was to check the pipes both upstairs and downstairs to see if they had running water. After seeing that both were still working I decided I would get home early that evening and tell the landlord who lives next door. Well when I pulled into the driveway no one was home so I went inside and was going to wait for her to get home. My first inclination that something was wrong was that the bowls in the sink were frozen solid and I tried the faucet and nothing happened and was like Oh Crap (that’s the PG version). So I ran upstairs and checked the bathroom (both faucet and tub still had running water) and went back downstairs and that’s when I first noticed I couldn’t feel my hands and could see my breath. After spending a good hour with the heat gun pointed under the sink at the pipes and in the basement trying to find the frozen pipe I gave up and left a note on the landlord’s door that the furnace was not working and that I had frozen pipes in the kitchen. I then headed to bed which was just like a winter camping trip (with an electric blanket) and got up in the morning and found the note from the landlord saying she would check it out and that the fuel line might just need to be bled out on the heating oil tank. So I went to the gym and my training (ugh) and called my landlord to see what she was able to determine about the furnace. She said that she had checked it out , bled the line which did not work and called the maintenance people to come and look at the tank. She said it could be dirt in the line or might have to replace the whole thing since it was old and there when she bought the house. So I am sitting in training thinking I am going to be able to make snow angels in the living room before going to bed (she did offer me a spare bedroom on her side of the house if it was a major problem).

She did call about 5:30 to let me know that the heat was back on and the guy was finishing up repairing the pipe that busted so I had to cancel the staircase bobsled competition and the hockey game I had planned for that evening.

When I got home last night it was a comfortable temperature and I could feel my fingers.

The house has gone back to being the Fortress of Solitude sans cold and ice.

-c

I'm a Loser

Well I guess it is time to finally make a new blog post.


From the title of this post you might think that I will be talking about my social life or lack there of but I am not going to...at least right now.

Since the beginning of November I have been consciously trying to drop weight. I have changed my diet and been working out at the gym religiously. In October I had my first physical in a long time. According to the scale at the doctor's office I was somewhere around 250lbs, although when I joined the gym a few days later and weighed myself there I was 243lbs but that is beside the point.

Once I joined the gym on the first of November and starting my 2-a day workout session I have really gotten into shape. At the end of 3 months I have lost a total of 32lbs. So far I have lost weight every week except for 3 weeks where I have maintained and the week after Christmas where I gained 1.5 lbs (I was working out at an inferior gym while home for the holidays).

I still want to lose about 15-20 more then start toning. In additon to my running twice a day I am going to start spinning and swimming in the Master's Swim program at the YMCA.