My Left Toe

It's been about 32 hours since I had the ingrown portion of my big left toe surgically (and hopefully, PERMANENTLY!) removed. I decided to go ahead and do both sides of the toenail area while it was numb, and that should take care of any future problems I might have had with the inside margin of the nail along with the ingrown and somewhat infected outside margin.

Although I've had problems with ingrown toenails for years and years, this was the first time I've ever gone to a podiatrist to have it taken care of. I honestly don't know why I never went to one before this, maybe I was scared that going to a "specialist" would involve more painful procedures than I was willing to have done, but I have to say, Dr. Christopher Dobry at Frisco Foot Care was just wonderful. He was extremely patient with me, did everything he could to minimize the pain of the shots required to numb the toe, talked to me about various subjects throughout the procedure to keep my mind off of what was being done, and from what I can tell so far, did a fine job of the procedure itself.

When I had an ingrown toenail removed from the very same location 6 months ago by my Family Practice doctor, it took nearly 2 months to heal up. This time around, I can already tell that the healing time will be substantially less. I have minimal pain and I'm already putting pressure on it when I walk. A much, much better experience this time around.

So many thanks to Dr Dobry, I'll be back again soon to get my right big toe done and that should hopefully be the end of any more ingrown toenail problems, well, at least a 97 percent chance for permanent solution!

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Week 10 Results

I'm happy to report that the last remaining pound gained during our New Jersey trip is now gone! So I'm back to the original weight I was at right before we left. Yay!

On a more painful note... I've got an ingrown toenail that will be excised on Tuesday. I have the worst toenails known to mankind and I have had to have ingrown toenails surgically removed since I was in my early 20's. And no, I do not wear confined shoes that squish my feet, I wear Birkenstocks almost exclusively now (except when I go workout at the gym), but my toenails are just genetically messed up and this is unfortunately something I have had to do periodically all my adult life.

This time around though, I'm going to a podiatrist instead of to the family doctor. When I called for the appointment, the receptionist mentioned to me that I would be given the choice to have either a "Correction" or a "Permanent Correction". I would assume the "Correction" is to just have the offending piece of toenail removed, but the thought of a "Permanent Correction" is very appealing to to me even though I have no clue regarding what's involved.

If I never had to have this done again would be soooo nice, because having the doctor inject that deadening stuff into my big toe is incredibly painful, and I actually put off going to get this done longer than I problably should just because of the pain from that shot. So next week, I'll post an update on what happened and how it's going. But I'm sure dreading Tuesday morning....

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It Was Tut-riffic!

The King Tut museum exhibit has been in Dallas for about the last 6 months. Greg and I have kept saying we really should to and see it before it leaves town for good. Well we finally went to go see it yesterday, on the closing weekend! How's that for procrastination?! But anyway, it was really quite interesting, and the craftsmanship of the items they found in his tomb along with other tombs in the area was extraordinary. Some of the most intricate jewelry and wood work, those Egyptians really knew how to be patient and take the time to do something right.

As a high school student, I had developed an keen interest in Egyptian history from my World History class, and it stuck with me as I grew older, so I was really happy to get to go and see the exhibit. Greg found it interesting, but he doesn't do real well in large crowds (he gets a very strong feeling of the invasion of his personal space in crowded conditions which makes him very uncomfortable) and so he enjoyed it for awhile, but he was also glad when I had had my fill of it and was ready to head home.

One unfortunate thing happened though... we left home at around 11am to head to the museum and in our rush out the door, FORGOT to bring our DTG lunches with us, so by the time we got home at around 5pm, we were STARVING! Needless to say, the lesson learned here is don't allow yourself to get so rushed that you forget to bring your food with you. So once we got home, we ate both our lunch and our dinner. Yummy goodness!

One last thing to share... I lost one of those pounds I had gained during our time in New Jersey, so I'm starting the new DTG week up just one pound from when we left. Not too bad at all, I feel it was a very successful trip. :)

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Home From Jersey

Well we're back! It was a nice trip, but I was ready to come home. There's nothing better than getting back into your own bed, sleeping with your own pillow, using your own bathroom facilities and keeping your own routine schedule. I guess traveling just gets more difficult as you age and get set in your ways. :)

I weighed in this morning to see how I did over the trip. I am very happy to report only a 2 pound gain which is fantastic considering my past history with trips to New Jersey and the number of "food and drink fests" we were required to attend during this trip. We were celebrating two birthdays and one First Communion and so they brought out the "big guns" as far as the meals were concerned. Based on past experience, I consider this a major accomplishment and I'm just tickled to death that I came home without the 10 pound gain that I had last year.

So now we finish out the week WITHOUT any DTG meals (I can canceled the order for this week since we were to be gone for most of it) and we start back up with the routine on Saturday morning. It would be great if I could lose the two pounds on my own before we start the new week, but I'm not holding my breath for that one! Maintaining where I'm at while I finish out the week will be accomplishment enough, but I'll still try to shoot for a loss if I'm able to do so.

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Post Birthday Recap

My husband's birthday was yesterday, and it's our tradition to take each other out for whatever dinner the birthday person would like to have. Last night, he chose Outback Steakhouse for his birthday dinner. So here's a recap of my meal...

1/2 of the dinner salad
1 of the medium hot wings
about 1/8-1/4 cup of garlic mashed potatoes
and about 2 ounces of the 6 ounce steak I ordered
1 slice of bread with butter

I left the restaurant with that really full feeling and was afraid I had overdone it. Because we're leaving town today to head to NJ for a family occasion, I decided to get on the scale this morning so I could get a good representation of any weight change during our trip. Much to my surprise, I lost a pound! After the dinner out last night! Needless to say, I was one happy camper this morning. Still hoping to make good choices while we're away so I don't go backwards in my journey. Will post again once we're back in town.

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Week 8 Results

We got our iPhones this past weekend, and so far, they are pretty neat. I can see my emails on it, listen to music at the gym on it, read the NY Times newspaper on it and so much more. Yesterday, I had to go to the doctor because I have an infection in my big toe where part of my toenail is growing back out after being surgically removed due to being ingrown. Anyway, long story short, I was driving home yesterday and I saw this car in front of me which had their business name and phone number on it. The business was for a handyman service, and sometimes I could use a service like that (my husband is NOT good at handyman-type projects around the house), so I grabbed my phone and took a picture of the back of the car when we were stopped at a stop light. So now I have the name of the business and their phone number saved as a picture on my phone. So there's another good use for the phone. Overall, I'm quite happy with the purchase, but I'm still recovering from the sticker shock... those darn things are incredibly expensive. Oh well, the price you pay for technology.

Now, on to my Week 8 results... This week, I've had no loss and no gain. Just stayed the same. Bleh! Although, when you think about it, that's ok since we had just gone out for Mexican dinner with my Dad to celebrate Greg's birthday the night before. I did pretty well with that... didn't have my usual margarita and drank iced tea instead, and only ate half of my meal instead of the whole thing. Now if I can stay the same after our upcoming NJ trip, I'll be jumping for joy!

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iPhone, Here We Come

Well, after putting it off for the last couple of years, we are finally going out to get iPhones today. My husband's cell phone is gasping it's last breath and so before it dies completely, we're going to go get new phones. Oh yeah, we could go ahead and just get him a less expensive phone to replace his ancient one, but hey, Greg's birthday is this coming week and our inner "techno-geeks" have been patient and waiting for two years so it's time we did it. Once we've had it a few days, I'll have to post our reviews of the new phone.

On the subject of Greg's birthday... well, my dad is taking us out to eat Mexican food tomorrow night to celebrate. On top of that, we're headed out of town for a long weekend back in Greg's home state of New Jersey for our niece's First Communion, so that's going to be a huge food fest too (good Italian families never get together without TONS of food available). The next couple of weeks is going to be extremely tough and I just pray I don't gain back everything I've lost so far.

Last year when we went to NJ for the Fourth of July holiday, we had been doing the South Beach diet for about 5 months. I had lost about 10 pounds at that point. After we came back to town, I got on the scale and found I had gained the entire 10 pounds back. And now I'm very close to the same weight I was last year right before the NJ trip. Deja vu, if you know what I mean. I really hope the end result this time does not resemble the end result after last year's trip. I really am kind of stressed out about it because I've been doing so good with the DTG plan. I'll try to be "good" but you know how families can be... eat this, try this, why aren't you eating?? Ugh... Calgon, take me away!

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