keannis

(It's so much easier to just throw up a quick daily update than to try and play catch-up... argh!)

Things are good. Busy with midterms. Need to sit down and organize my thoughts so I don't ramble for four pages when I finally do update... lol. Should be tonight... I'll be done and home pretty early today. Was going to do it last night, but it was a long day and a couple G&Ts and some Netflix sounded a lot more appealing than doing anything else. :-D But I'm being a good girl over here in real life... just need to keep track of everything on here too before I forget it all...

You guys are awesome. I feel like such a pansy for being so woe-is-me now. That said, I still don't have time to write much, big midterm in the AM, but sometime tomorrow I'll catch up.

I'm glad you're back! Exploring is great. It's been one of the most frustrating things about the back pain is that it severely limits my walking (although that's finally starting to change after many many years) - I miss having the freedom to hike and explore. There's nothing as awesome as just... wandering and finding fun new stuff! And it's so nice to spend time with your SO outside of the house, away from the screens, out in the world. Neat about the LARPing - a friend of mine introduced me to it years ago and I had such fun that one time - but my general fear of being a novice at anything (plus the inevitable ridicule from my husband, as nerdy as he can be, RPing is not in his nerd-realm) has kept me from going back. It always looks like such fun though. Props on the sleeping too. Man, it's hard to change your sleep schedules. I've been on my current schedule for like 8 weeks now and I'm *still* struggling to get to bed on time most nights.

I'm mostly being super ridiculous and dramatic. I will return to my normal happy-go-lucky self soon. I hope. Maybe. I'm glad you're back though, you were like the last surviving person from my initial group of NF friends and I was sincerely hoping we hadn't totally lost you... hahahaha.

Goal Allocation Quest 1: Strength and Mobility +2 STR +1 DEX Quest 2: Endurance +2 STA Quest 3: Nutrition +2 CON Life Quest: Academics +3 WIS Mid Challenge Summary Quest 1: A, A, C; average 3.3, or B+ Quest 2: B, F, C; average 1.6, or C- Quest 3: C, B, B; average 2.6, or B- Life Quest: DONE Challenge Allocation Quest 1: 3.3/4 = 82.5% = 1.5 STR, 1 DEX Quest 2: 1.6/4 = 40% = 1 STA Quest 3: 2.6/4 = 65% = 1 CON Life Quest: 3 WIS The semi-random decimals were really bugging me so I did some rounding. I feel that's fair since I rounded 0.2 up on STA and 0.3 down on CON, then shifted 0.2 from STR to DEX to make it a little prettier.

I'm going to do this really quick 'n' dirty: Friday: 0 workout pts 0 cycle pts 2 food pts Saturday: 0 workout pts 0 cycle pts 1 food pt Sunday: 0 workout pts 0 cycle pts 2 food pts Weekly totals: Quest 1: Strength/Mobility (5/10 pts: C) Quest 2: Endurance (3/5 pts: C) Quest 3: Nutrition (11/14: B )

Yeah, I have an appointment Wednesday. If I'm lucky, and they don't back-file a claim for my first few appointments (which I had paid cash for, and they shouldn't file, but I bet they will), then I'll get 2-3 more appointments... but I just found out they haven't filed any of my appointments since August with my new insurance company, so I have NO IDEA what I'm going to owe, what appointments they'll file, etc etc. It's maddening. So I can definitely go Wednesday, but I have to cancel my future appointments each week until I know what they decided to file, because I either have one more or 3 more. Yay? Makes ya wanna bang your head into a brick wall. My therapist is absolutely amazing though and I know he'll work with me to keep me going while they review my case (in theory, since I'm a post-op patient, they should renew my benefits without asking too many questions, it just takes a while), I just feel like the rug has been pulled out from underneath my feet since this has all come to light very recently. :-/

That looks like such a fun time! Back to reality can't be fun.

It's nice to see this thread more active, btw!

Nah. Just needed to get that off my chest. It's hard to pick up the pieces when everything feels all crumbly and messy. The only way I'm keeping myself together lately is by being hyperorganized and on top of everything... so after 3 days of ignoring it all, it's tempting to leave the mess instead of trying to get going again. I really don't know what I'll do if they pull my PT. We've been making so much progress and things were looking up for the first time in a decade and I can't go back to not being able to walk around. I'm so, so, so afraid of not having my PT to help me get strong and mobile again. I did my whole PT routine at the gym this morning with a sinking feeling in my stomach. New buddies may be needed. There's not much point in posting more than just quick summaries on my thread if I'm just talking to myself. I'm pretty friendly when I'm not super grumpy like today! Promise.

Don't trust that Math trickster. Just when you think you and Math are friends, Math always decides to be a total jerk. (Said with love from a classics major turned ICU nurse who still, to this day, struggles with the physics/math concepts in her grad school classes.)

I am... feeling discouraged. Friday was terrible and I let it put me in a funk all weekend long. I got out of it this morning, got up early and got back into the gym, but I'm still horribly stressed out about my physical therapy situation and letting it get to me (there's a good chance my PT benefits are being pulled after this week for at least 2 months while they "review" my file, and I'm not ready for that). Plus, all of the people that I've been following and interacting with around here have all disappeared off the face of the earth, so it's feeling pretty lonely every time I log in. I dunno. I'll try to get my sh*t together tonight and get back on track with my quest tracking/posting.

Oh my gosh, what a terrible day! I'm so sorry everything went so wrong! I would have given up; I am so impressed that you stuck it out to the bitter end. I hate to hear that getting your medal wasn't the moment of pride and happiness that you'd hoped for, but just know that I (and I'm sure everyone else reading this) am damn well impressed. I hope your toe's okay (or easily healable); I hope your knee's okay (or easily healable); and you rock.

*wince* I hate when I can't get blood from someone. Some days, man, you just can't get it. Although a simple blood draw on a healthy adult is rarely difficult... that sounds like someone might have been awfully new. :-/ Sounds like things are going well overall!!

That sounds amazing!! I second the "let's see some pictures" comment!

*sigh* I'm really unmotivated to keep up with this right now. I didn't do anything over the weekend (I mean, I ate pretty okay but I didn't work out or anything, I was in a huge funk after Friday) and while I'm pretty much back on track now, I just feel like this has kind of stagnated and my original 'crew' has all sort of disappeared and stopped updating their own quests/coming by here. Kind of lonely and demoralizing. Not sure if I want to keep putting the time and effort into posting. so if I'm missing, that's why. I'll try and come back later tonight and wrap up the week 3 stuff, see if I can find some motivation to post and keep myself accountable.

Well, I *was* doing great... and then I woke up at 4am this morning with a wicked migraine (throwing up, photophobic, audiophobic, splitting headache, the whole nine yards). Haven't had one like that in *years*. So I didn't even go to class today (which is huge; this is not the kind of program where you can miss lectures easily) let alone the gym. I'm finally feeling vaguely functional, now that it's 4pm, so I'll try and eat a good dinner and maybe do my PT later, but today might be a wash. Edit: and, having spent an hour on the phone with both the health systems billing department and my insurance company, I am about as disheartened as I've ever been, my PT benefits are about to be pulled a month earlier than we were initially told, and I still don't know how much I owe because it's been two months and I can't get them to file the damned claims right. I'm definitely not getting my workouts in, and it's going to be a miracle if I manage not to stress-eat until I go to sleep tonight. Days like this are so hard to recover from... the old habits don't die easily. I'm so terrified they're not going to renew my PT allowance after it runs out in a few weeks and all of this hope of getting out of the back/hip pain cycle was for nothing.

That plot is kind of awesome. I know my weight will easily fluctuate up to 3lbs a day (sometimes 5lbs in a day - no joke, I wish I could explain it) so even weekly weigh-ins can be off for me. I generally check the scale once a month to get a general idea of where I'm at but I can't rely on it otherwise.

Awesome job! Making food from scratch is the hardest part for me. I need to figure out what to do for Halloween this year! I love it when it's on a Friday or Saturday! I just moved to DC this summer so I'm looking forward to seeing how this city parties...

Son of a gremlin, thought Keannis as she grunted her way into her 17th squat. That evil, malicious, no-good, bastard of a maester. I’m going to kick his arse next time I see him. Strong through the legs and glutes, push back up. This is – this is so awful. 18 squats, down below parallel for the first time since the injury. The rehabilitation maester had been impressed with her progress and had upped the ante on her daily workout. Nineteen. All the way down. All the way – ergh – up. Her thighs were on fire; her glutes felt like they may not offer to help her again for the rest of the day. And… twenty! With a deep breath, she returned to standing, then realized to her horror that they had added in a set of static lunges to start today. Yep. I may just give him a piece of my mind next week. She knew full well that by next week, she’d be stronger, happier, and would probably just give him a big hug, instead. --- Quest 1: Strength/Mobility (1 pt) Oy. Done. The DOMS is going to be fun tomorrow morning. PT thinks the adductor pain (which had abated almost entirely by yesterday) was probably from using them as stabilizers with the one-legged bridges, and that it's fine, since they need strengthening just like everything else does. So, we advanced my 60º squats to below-parallel squats, added static lunges, and modified my stepups to force my glutes into action. Plus I need to have my quads on the foam roller basically every damned day in addition to laying on a lacrosse ball to get it to sink into my psoas. Hateful. (I love it.) Quest 2: Endurance (1 pt) Bikey bike bike! Got over 6 miles today, still at level 5 but it was a lot easier feeling today than yesterday (hence the much higher avg speed). Will keep at it tomorrow then Monday bump up to level 6! Quest 3: Nutrition (2 pts) Fruit: Apple as part of lunch Veggies: Cheesy broccoli with dinner I AM SUPER TIRED OF STUDYING, YOU GUYS, OMG.

Brag away! I love bragging when it's about stuff like that!

Oooooh, jealous! Enjoy your vacay!

Super tired so no storytime tonight. Quest 1: Strength/Mobility (1 pt) 1 point is almost cheating, because I didn't go to the gym today. I knew I'd be out late and didn't want to leave super early due to the dogs being at home alone all day, and with physical therapy being today, I didn't go between classes either. But, PT was a workout, and we advanced my exercises even more, and blah blah blah. So I did at least do the PT half, even though today was supposed to be a bodyweight workout day as well. :-/ Quest 2: Endurance (0.5 pt) Again, didn't gym today, BUT I did walk the mile home from the Metro station even though there was a bus I could have took home that pulled up right as I was leaving. In exciting news, I had no pain with the walking! That's huge for me. Maybe all this PT doom is working. Anyways, half point for being good and getting 20 minutes of moderate movement in, even if it wasn't on the bike. Quest 3: Nutrition (2 pts) Fruit: Banana and apple for snacks Veg: Broccoli and mushrooms in my lunch Parting thought: how is it October already?!?!

Don't give up on it - when it's cooked it has a nice flavor. Sort of mild allium-y (like oniony/garlicy/savory). It just stinks to high heaven until you introduce it to some fat and heat.