Doing the Jepson - Revisited

Saturday, January 10, 2009 When I was at the doctor a week ago yesterday she said I needed to exercise. I told her I did the Jepson (jogged) in the pool for an hour quite often. She said that I didn’t have to go to that extreme and that if I were to get in chest-high water and walk back and forth across the pool for thirty minutes it would be good enough because of the resistance of the water pushing against my body (and arms and hands). I thought I would give it a try. Good grief it is harder than jogging. When I jog the bouncing up and down and pumping my arms causes much less drag and I zip back and forth across the pool. This walking thing takes real effort and works a different set of muscles. A good side benefit is that time seems to go by more than twice as fast as when I jog. Ya hoo. Thus thirty minutes doesn’t seem to be long enough. I have been doing forty or fifty minutes in stead. I hope she doesn’t spank me. Hmm, on the other hand that might be fun. He he. I read in a diabetes diet cookbook recently that weight training “…helps cells throughout your body become more sensitive to insulin. Plus, weight training increases a compound, called Glut-4, that binds to the cell membrane and then helps ease glucose into muscle cells…helping muscles absorb sugar and remove sugar from the blood.” so the last two days, before getting into the pool, I have gone in the weight room and done twenty reps of five or six routines. Though I can really feel it, in total it is less than ten minutes. I think it will make me feel better though my left shoulder hurts. It is the one I had operated on a few years back and I think re-pulled a year or so later. I am left handed but when lifting weights at least, my right arm is stronger than my left. Hmm.

Dust Cloud

Saturday, 09 Jan, 2009 Last week we signed up to have added insulation added to our attic. Questar, our natural gas provider is supposed to reimburse us the $541.00 cost. The insulation guys came yesterday. They had to drag their hose through our filthy/wet garage; (thanks to the snow and gunk we have been having), through the dining area, down the hall, through our bedroom, through the master bath and into our closet where the attic access is. They laid down plastic on the floor, hung sheets over the clothes in the closet, were extra careful and cleaned up after themselves including vacuuming. Then I vacuumed and cleaned up after them, but there was still a fine film over everything especially in our bathroom and closet. For whatever reason; I suppose because they were on the closest and lowest rack, my pullover shirts had enough insulation on them that I took them down and ran them through a laundry cycle. This morning I cleared everything off my counter and cleaned it. I cleaned the mirrors while I was at it. Yesterday after they left, I turned the furnace fan to the always on position hoping it would suck what was floating in the air down through its filter. Yuck! update: Later today I changed the furnace filter. It was totaly clogged. We have an air filterinf machine in our bedroom. I cleaned it too. Its filters too were clogged.

Medical update

Friday, January 02, 2009 I had a 9:40 appointment with Shelly Ebert LP to follow up on my lab work I had done last week (7 vials of blood). The news was not good, and to be honest I can’t remember half of what she said. Thank goodness she made me a copy of the results and added her notes which helps at least a little bit. Long story short, I am a heart attack waiting to happen. I am “two months” away from needing dialysis. I have a parasite in my blood; one of a number of thing making me lethargic. My testosterone level is low; another lethargic factor. I have a number of things affecting my memory. Though my bad cholesterol is good, my good cholesterol is way too low. Who knows what else! I got a shot of testosterone in my hip plus a prescription of testosterone to rub on my chest daily. I got a prescription of vitamin D, 50000 units; a huge amount. I am to take one pill, every other day. I am to take niacin at bedtime with one adult size aspirin. I need to increase my fish oil intake to four capsules a day. I have been taking one. I need to exercise every day for at least half an hour. She said walking back and fourth across the pool in chest high water is perfect. I don’t even have to jog which I have been doing when I do go. I have to admit that with the bad weather etc, I have not been doing it recently. I need to lose a lot of weight and; oops there goes that memory thing! I need to have more lab work done in three months; should I live that long, and see Shelly for the results. All I can say is, it is a good thing I have no fear of death, though going through the process of getting there disturbs me at least a little bit. I would like to live long enough that all my grandchildren are old enough to remember me.

Jayden took this picture of himself

At the Instacare

Jayden's banged up face