*Timewarp*

I've been a nurse now for a full year! Talk about a time warp. My last post was talking about spousal support during my first semester of nursing school. So what happened in the intervening time? Lots of stress in nursing school. Lots of bellyaching over whether I was going to pass this test or that test. When it came down to it, I passed all of my classes and became a new grad nurse. I took a job in a step-down ICU, and two months ago took a position in a full fledged ICU. 

But wait, that's not it! In January, I went back to school for my MSN! I know, right? It's now May 1st, and I've completed my first semester as a masters student and have been a nurse for a full year.

I should mention...

We added our third child to our family back in april. I totally forgot to make a post, but here is a recent pic of her. :)


Aren't baby bums so cute?

Fitness

I have not posted in a while and I could make all kinds of excuses for it but frankly the main reason is that I haven't been in front of the computer all that much.

October 17th was sort of a new beginning for me.

I'll start with a little bit of history. Eight years ago I weighed in at 420lbs, one snowy night I was unable to drive my car up my quarter mile long iced in steeply pitched driveway. My only choice was to walk, in the middle of the night up this slick patch of road. I just couldn't do it, I had the will and the desire to do it, but I physically could not make the climb. It was then and there that I decided something had to be done. I was 24 years old and weighed over 400 lbs.

So I did what I thought at the time was the best way to handle it, I went to my Dr., got prescribed phentermine and began working out while using slim fast shakes to replace two of my meals, I'd go to the gym every evening after work for an hour or more and then come home and eat a horribly unbalanced meal of rice and meat.

Every. Single. Day. for 7 months.

I lost 130lbs in that time. I was wonderfully happy, I was in the 200's for the first time in ages. As it happened, I ended up getting married shortly after that, my wife had two children, and here we are seven years after that day and every bit of that weight has crept back on, and then some.

This time around I kept getting inundated in all of my pre-req classes about the horrible things that were happening in my body, and how it was all fully in my control to change these things. Anatomy taught me the disease processes to an extent and Nutrition filled in the blanks left by Anatomy. Both of these classes combined with an injury that left me unable to walk for a weekend provided the eye opening catalyst I needed to change my life.

You see, I knew from the day I enrolled in school that I would need to get this weight off before I went into nursing school because I could not see myself having the energy level needed to be as successful as I wanted to be.

All of that led to October 17th.

That was the day that I started eating a realistically healthy diet, a diet that I actually had a scientific understanding about thanks to my nutrition and anatomy classes. I started a six day a week exercise routine that I have stuck to religiously since that day.

I feel like I finally "get" it, I don't feel like I'm dieting, I don't feel like I have to force myself to be active. I'm not going to kill myself to get this weight off, I'm just going to live a healthy, active lifestyle and forgo the huge helping of misery.

Since the 17th of October I've lost over 35lbs and with the level of activity I've committed to I'll likely have another 10-15 off by Christmas.

This post, while lengthy and meandering at best is indicative of my life over the last few months. Now whats on the agenda for this coming spring and summer?

Graduate 2 Year School

Enroll in 4 Year School

Complete CNA this coming Summer

Run/Walk/Complete a 5k before August '12

Be a better Husband, Father and Individual

Just one more thing that I want to leave you with that has really stuck with me over the past couple months.

Every good healthy choice you make in a day is a step in the right direction, don't allow one misstep to alter the course of your day, week or month. Simply commit to making the next choice, and the next after that a better one.

Hot, Hotter, Hottest

Hot:

Air conditioning unit that is not big enough for the house is keeping the downstairs at a crisp 71 degrees, and our main living area on the main level at a blistering 78 degrees. The most irritating thing about the whole situation is the fact that it's a nearly brand new unit. Installed less than two years ago, by a company that was apparently incapable of accurately estimating the amount of cooling tonnage needed for our 2800sqft house. :(

Hotter:

105 Degrees outside on a recent trip to Mississippi for a wedding. An OUTSIDE wedding, might I add.

Hottest:

My dear wife of 6 years. Our anniversary is tomorrow the 12th, and I couldn't be happier that she said yes and is spending her life with me, and has given me two wonderful little boys.

Providing care

I've talked about my reason for choosing the nursing profession in the past, so anything to do with sick children is especially hard for me. I'm sure that at some point in the future I will have encounter a situation where I'll have to provide care to family that is having some kind of crisis with a child, or god forbid has lost a child.

I constantly worry that I'll be able to provide the kind of compassionate care that people need in extremely emotionally charged situations. Well thats not exactly true, I know I'll be compassionate, I worry more about knowing what to say, and how to act in those situations where there are no words.

Do you just quietly go about making sure everything that you can do is done and be as unobtrusive as possible? Do you let the clients (is that appropriate terminology even?) family set the tone for how you provide care?

Hopefully these topics will come up once I actually begin nursing school and there will be some guidance provided.

Science, You're destroying my childhood!

First it was the caviler dismissal of our dear beloved ninth planet, Pluto.

Then it was the horrifyingly shocking deletion of the triceratops from the dinosaur handbook.

Now, you're messing with the five senses?!?

When will the madness end!

According to Saladin's Anatomy & Physiology The UNITY of FORM and FUNCTION touch is no longer one of the five senses. It's position of power has been usurped by a pretender to the throne! Equilibrium, newest of the special senses.

My dear, dear friends, it seems as if fourth grade was a complete and total waste of time!

Paying good money for torture

Not much going on in the world of pre-nursing. Our next test on the skeletal system is not for two weeks. I did however decide to finally get motivated to get my butt to the gym and hire a personal trainer.

I chatted with several and ended up choosing a woman that had credentials from the university I am going to for nursing school. She did her initial assessment which included body fat caliper measurements, taking weight, as well as shoulder, chest, thigh, calf and waist measurements. We then covered where I am now physically/weight wise, and what my short and long term goals are. Felt almost like a medical history with all the questions I was answering, but I'm pleased they are thorough.

It was then time to move out onto the gym floor. I'm pretty out of shape and I have not ran since highschool but after 15 minutes of warmup on the treadmill she had me running 20 seconds on/20 seconds off at a 7mph speed to see where I was at physically. For me, 7mph is pretty damn fast, lol.

Before I continue on to the next part, I feel like I need to say that 6 or so years ago I went to the gym 4-5 times a week for at least an hour at a time. I knew what I was doing with the machines as well as how much weight I felt was appropriate.

Or so I thought.

We did a circuit of weights, she would ask at each location what I felt was an appropriate weight to lift. Asked me to lift that weight and then in almost every case doubled what I was lifting. For example, on the leg extension machine I had 105lbs on, did 10 reps and was told I was doing that way too easy. She then put another 80 lbs on (for a total of 185) and had me proceed with doing three sets of 10.

Yikes, by the last set of 10 I was barely able to lift the final 3 reps.

The entire workout went something like that, me telling her where I was comfortable, and her telling me that wasn't good enough. I signed up and paid for 15 1 hour sessions with her, we will see where I am after those sessions, but I'm excited to be pushed that hard.

I have a fitness goal I want to reach before I enter nursing school, and I've got until fall 2012 to get there.

Baby soon?

My wife is pregnant with our second child, and is about to pop. I feel so bad for her knowing how uncomfortable she looks. I really hate that there is nothing I can do but try to occupy our very very whiney 3 year old.

It's really frustrating how much the 3 year old has taken a nose dive in in terms of behavior. I guess this is payback for having a perfect 2 year old?

At any rate, HOPEFULLY sometime in the next week or two we will have a squishy new baby to love.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad