Thanks, and I need your help again.

I can't begin to thank all of you for your support during this time of grief.  We had the memorial service this past Thursday, and the most telling comment came from our Senior Pastor (who has been our family pastor for the past 24 years), "People are lined up outside the doors.   I don't think we're going to start on time."  I thought I knew how special my mom was.  As it turns out, I seriously underestimated it.   Not just the quantity of people who came, but the personal stories that just about everybody shared about her.  Family members are returning to their own homes, and now it's going to be just me and dad ( little sister lives in the Memphis area) (and DAPGF, obviously).  Seeing the outpouring of support here in the blogosphere, I know that we'll be able to make it.

 

And I wish that this was the end of the grief, but a blog friend of Shane Nickerson (and if I dare, myself) needs prayers of support and comfort far more than I do.  Please click here.

 

(cross-posted at The Randomness and What Happened)

Cancer sucks

Some of you may be aware that my mother has been battling cancer.  I may have mentioned it in a post or two, but I've also mentioned it in comments to others' posts when they've lost a family member, including Pauly, Falstaff , and Wil Wheaton's friend, Annie. 

 

Anyway, my mother underwent a radical, experimental surgical procedure (hyperthermic chemo perfusion) back in April 2004, where after the cancer is surgically removed, heated liquid chemo is basically poured into the body cavity and all internal surfaces are "washed" to directly kill any remaining cancer.   When she was diagnosed in January 2004, they told her she had 6 months without that surgery.  With the surgery, they gave her a 50% chance to last another 2 to 3 years.   So she had the surgery.  Just over a month in the hospital to recover, 2 rounds of follow up chemotherapy, and not quite a full year to get her strength back.   After that, she went back to work…as a hospice nurse!  My mother, who spent the last several years of her career working with the terminally ill, decided that since she'd beaten cancer back that she'd go back to working with the terminally ill.   She was that kind of a strong and caring person.  So after a year of working, she and my father retired.  Her regular tests were showing some recurrence of the cancer, so they decided to take the time to enjoy life for themselves.  They did some traveling, they saw relatives, they had fun.   During this time, the cancer was reestablishing itself.  According to the doctors who would read her MRI scans, the cancer was "slow-growing" but it apparently WAS growing.   Finally, her last scan showed that it was spreading from her abdomen up to her chest, including starting to compress the main aorta coming out of her heart.   So a second round of surgery, similar to the first one was scheduled for Thursday, April 19. 

 

It was going to be a 10 hour or so procedure, and I took the day off and my sister flew in from Memphis.  Everything kicked off around 7 a.m.  She had been tired, in pain, but seemed in good spirits, so we weren't too worried.   I mean, she came thru the first surgery just fine…why should this be any different?  So my dad gets a call at 3:30 in the afternoon.   The surgeon said that there had been some complications, that when they were removing the cancer from around her liver, some of the cancer had gotten into the main artery that fed blood to the liver and that the artery had torn.   They worked into the night to stabilize her, and finally at 8 p.m. the doctor came down and told us that they had the bleeding under control, she was on a respirator, and that they'd go back in first thing in the morning on Friday to try and repair the damage and finish removal of the cancer.   So we all show up at 7 a.m. again, and the oncology surgeon and the vascular specialist he'd called in Thursday afternoon met us and told us how extensive things were, and told us that her chances were slim, but it was possible that they could repair the damage.   We unanimously said to go for it, and the doctors headed up to the SICU.  Around 9:30 a.m. we got the call.  They couldn't control the bleeding, and she'd gone into cardiac arrest.  They did open heart massage for about 10 minutes, but couldn't revive her.   My mother died at 9:20 a.m. on April 20, 2007.

 

We had 3 years that we hadn't expected to have, she's in a much better place, and no longer in pain.  Don't tell me that the cancer won.   She fucking beat cancer!  It can't get her anymore!  We all miss her terribly, but to know that she's in heaven and no longer in pain is worth the pain that we all feel.   I wanted to include a picture, but all my digital pics are on my computer's hard drive and it is still a non-functional pile of electronic crap.  Sorry for the downer nature of this post, but I had to get this off my chest.  Tell your parents that you love them.  Tell your loved ones that you love them.   And watch out for cancer.  It fucking sucks.

A new tool...

So, I started a new "program" for lack of a better term.  Simply put, it's a program of affirmations.   Similar to Oprah's latest book pimp, The Secret (I know about this from DAPGF, not because I watch Oprah), the premise behind it is that the future isn't strictly set, but can change based on our perception of what the future will be.   Power of positive thinking, whatever you'd like, the idea is that you pick a fairly specific goal (but not one so specific that it doesn't allow flexibility in approaching the goal), and once a day write the goal down 15 times.   My source (and I might divulge it later, but as funny as it may be, it is NOT Stuart Smalley from old school Saturday Night Live) cited several fairly specific goals that he set (one at a time, not all at once), and that they all came to be after following the daily process for several months.   He did say that there was no consistent, "do this for 90 days" timeframe for it, but that his experiences ranged from several weeks to 6 months for realization of the goal.   He also stated that it's ok if you are skeptical, just so long as you consistently write the goal down.  It is his argument that the daily affirming of his goal helped him achieve his goal by allowing the future to perceive a path from his present to the successful goal.   I don't have the book in front of me (here at work, planning my stealth post by mail), but I'll try to clarify some of the details in a later post. 

 

I started back on Friday the 13^th, with my goal (naturally) being to lose weight.  Specifically:

 

"I, iamhoff (use your real name), will get my weight below 240 lbs this year."

 

Now the interesting thing is that this doesn't set daily progression targets, or spell out a specific method or activity I must undertake to achieve it.   Given that I started the day after my 36^th birthday, "this year" could mean either Calendar Year 2007 or my 36^th year, with the deadline being April 12, 2008.   Those details aren't really the concern.  What I seem to be noticing is the positive reinforcement from constantly writing my goal down.   I've got a big wire-bound notebook that I keep in my laptop bag, and I write a few lines at a time.  Constantly having to look at my own words stating that I intend to drop some serious poundage (just shy of 50 lbs), seems to help keep me mentally in the game and helps me avoid the urge to constantly stuff my face.   Again, I'm not setting goals of only consuming 1200 calories per day, or getting a solid hour of cardio work in each day.  Rather, I'm just constantly reminding myself that I'm trying to lose weight and hoping that being constantly aware of that will help me fight the urges to eat everything within reach.   It hasn't been completely perfect, but I have noticed a small downward trend in my weight over the weekend.  And since I didn't make it to the gym at all this weekend, it has to be because my reinforcement helped me to control my eating urges.

 

If I continue to make positive strides, I'll go a little more into what I read, what the background is, etc, etc.   For the meanwhile, I'm hanging tough and trying to fill my need to munch with gum and lots of water.  As a side bonus, drinking as much water as I seem to be should help clear out any toxins or other impurities in my body, thus helping to make me even healthier!   Wish me luck…

I am serious. And don't call me Shirley.

"The fog is getting thicker.  And Leon Hoff's getting larger."  Points to anyone who can name that reference.  And yes, Hoff has been getting larger. 

 

Look!  A real post!  And it isn't even cross-posted over at The Randomness (which isn't illegal, RiverDriver…besides, I changed some of the poker discussion in the one here because my readers at The Randomness understand how the games work)!   Anyway, this past week and a half has not been good.  DAPGF and I have been house and pet sitting for some friends.   Half the time I would go over in the morning to release the creatures into the backyard before work (GF went the other half of the time).  Unfortunately, that early morning route took me past my most evil nemesis…McDonalds!   And not for something relatively harmless like coffee, not even the most safe of breakfast sandwiches, the Egg McMuffin with Canadian Bacon.  No, the Sausage Egg McMuffin.  And not just one, because they have a deal going.  A single McMuffin is typically $2.49 or so.   They had a deal for 2 McMuffins for $3.00.  I couldn't bring myself to just order one…it wasn't cost effective (thus proving the theory behind SuperSize Me!).   So I'd order two.  And I'd eat two.  900 freaking calories consumed by 7:30 a.m.  Normally, 900 calories would cover breakfast, lunch, and a mid-morning snack!    And this happened several times during this period.  I never went there to snack at any other time of the day, just breakfast.  

 

I spent my 2/3 of my potential gym time during this period either trying to revive my currently dead computer, or getting things together for Easter.   This past weekend also…Saturday I went to a memorial service for a friend, in keeping with his "religious" convictions, held at an Irish Pub in Orange County California.   So no working out and Guinness beer.  Yeah, that's an effective combination.  Easter Sunday.  Up for 6 a.m. sunrise church services, so no shot at the gym there.  Then the Easter buffet that DAPGF and I typically attend.  Then over to my parents' house for an early birthday celebration, complete with chocolate cream pie.   So Monday morning I hit my heaviest weight that I've ever (knowingly) been. Two hundred and eighty-eight pounds!  Holy gastric bypass, fatman!   And yes, I did cave in and have my McMuffins.  Fortunately this was the last day, so no more driving past McDonalds.   I did eat relatively sensibly for the rest of the day…Lean Cuisine and some soup for lunch; reduced fat Wheat Thins as a snack; and a BBQ Chicken Wrap from Red Robin.  No real exercising beyond a short dog walk in the morning and a 30 minute dog walk at 11:00 Monday evening.

 

Tuesday morning (today) I was down a whole 4/10 of a pound!  Woo hoo!!  So far I've eaten relatively sensibly.  Oatmeal for breakfast, some Wheat Thins for a snack. I made a couple of ham and cheese sandwiches from leftover Easter ham, and had some soup to go with them for lunch.   And I'm going to the gym after work.  Of course after that I'm going to attempt to buy a new motherboard for my poor computer, and hopefully install it.   The plus to that, I'll probably not get much chance to snack at home, which is a good thing.  Too much Easter candy sitting around, waiting to melt in my mouth, not in my hand.

 

As I mentioned earlier, my birthday is approaching.  I will be 36 this week (laugh it up, little sister, your early 30s are slipping away just as quickly!).   I started this here blog a few weeks before my 35^th birthday.  I wasn't thrilled with the idea of turning 35, and how getting older is affecting me (metabolism most of all…I don't seem to have any anymore).   I had started to make some progress, and unfortunately The Troubles (getting laid off) hit me a month after my birthday, and proceeded to utterly destroy not only any progress I had made, but also any motivation I had for just about anything.   It was most decidedly not fun, and probably the worst period of my life.  As part of this whole rededication of What Happened, I've been trying to improve various parts of my life.   I've actually made some progress in a variety of ways. 

 

Now that I'm working again (it's amazing what a steady paycheck can let you do), I'm starting to get my bills under control.   The Troubles really put me in a bind, and it's rough trying to dig out.  I was even in this weird position where I wanted to file bankruptcy but couldn't.   The way the new bankruptcy laws read, I made too much money recently to qualify for a Chapter 7, which would've eliminated my debts (they average your income over the previous 6 months, so it didn't matter that I didn't make any money, my average income was too high), and a Chapter 13 was pointless, because all it did was reorganize my debts…I was still obligated to pay them and the whole freaking point of the exercise was THAT I HAD NO INCOME AND COULDN'T PAY MY DEBTS!!!!   When I finally got to the point where my average income would've qualified me for a Chapter 7, I didn't have any money to pay the legal fees to actually file the bankruptcy!   And since a Chapter 7 eliminates all debts, nobody (especially the attorneys) was going to extend me credit for the $2500 in legal fees that it would've taken, only to have $2300 of it eliminated as part of the bankruptcy settlement.

 

I'm also getting control of my personal sense of organization (which somewhat ties into the financial aspect of Hoff).   I went thru all of my financial files, and got rid of (to quote Joe Speaker) a metric-ass ton of old credit card statements, bank statements, insurance premiums, car service records, pay stubs, etc.   Besides taxes, I had documents that went back to 2002, and in some cases were car registration materials that covered a car I had 2 cars ago (the Integra).   A clean environment has the potential to be self-fulfilling, and I'm trying to make it so.  And as my financial environment comes together, I lose the stress that went along with it.   And as my physical environment comes together, I am visually inspired to make sure that I am compatible with it.  This, combined with my newly lessened stress, is giving me the motivation to…

 

Get back on track for weight loss, which was the original point of this here blog anyway!  I've gotten way too fat.   Many of my clothes no longer fit me.  And to top it off, my dear brother in law has been extremely successful at losing weight.   AND HE DID IT ALL WITH WILLPOWER!!!  How dare he do it without a support group, or diet supplements, or Oprah, or whatever.  Correct me if I'm wrong, but he dropped something like 50 pounds over the past 6 to 8 months.   Now I really have no excuse.  So I'll see you at the gym.  And if I can get my computer working again, I can reload my mp3 player with more workout-appropriate music.   Come along for the ride.

The one in which we try to get our ass back on track

I.  Am.  Lame.  There.   I said it.  I haven't posted in a few weeks, and I am scum for it.  So much of my little corner of the universe is conspiring to keep me out of the blogosphere.   Not sure why…my blogs aren't anything spectacular, but they certainly don't suck as bad as some other stuff that's out there.  Nonetheless, I find myself facing obstacles to getting blog posts out.  

 

First, there's my computer priorities.  I do enjoy blogging, but my "unmolested" computer time is pretty limited.   So when I get a large chunk of free time (i.e. when DAPGF is teaching), my first instinct is to fire up a poker tournament.  The smaller ones (called Sit and Go's, because when you have the right number of people – 9, 18, 45, etc. – you take your virtual seats and start playing) usually take just over an hour to play.   So on nights that DAPGF teaches, by the time I get home from the gym and throw some groceries down my neck (points to anybody who can name that reference), I can get 2 or 3 poker games in before GF gets home and my time is no longer my own.   The only other time I can typically find a large enough block of time when I'm not likely to be bothered, is after she goes to sleep.  Unfortunately, this means that I'm lucky if my poker game is over by 1:30 a.m., so the early evening hours tend to get devoted to poker.

 

Then, we have my "after-hours" life.  DAPGF teaches two nights per week.   So the other nights of the week, we spend together doing whatever.  Maybe we go see a movie, maybe we sit and watch TV, maybe we take the dog to the dog park.   In any respect, it does not typically involve me getting to spend time by myself sitting on the computer.

 

In my more prolific blogging past, I did most of my blogging at work.  My previous job left me a lot of flexibility in the office.   Most of what I did in the office involved time on the phone, looking over sets of construction plans, and waiting for people to give me said plans to review.   As such, I had a fair amount of time that was free enough that I could keep up on my blog reading as well as my posting.  I also had my own office and didn't worry about corporate IT Nazis throwing a hissy-fit about my visiting non-work related websites.   Now most of my time at work is spent reviewing and writing environmental review documents, drafting City ordinances and laws, and writing proposals to hopefully get more work.   So my in-office time is much more packed.  Combine that with the idea that our corporate masters have an idea that we should have an "open" work environment to encourage teamwork and such, and our IT overlords have IP tracking software on all of our computers.   There have actually been emails from our CEO telling us to not go to non-business related websites, because for each employee hour wasted while surfing, it costs the company X number of thousands of dollars each day, blah blah blah.   So I am understandably reluctant to spend hours with Blogger open, either posting or simply checking out others' blogs.

 

Finally, the ultimate frustration is the fact that my personal computer died.  I take my work laptop home with me every night, just so I can check my email and such, but even then I don't have all of my music, photos, poker hand histories, and other crap that I usually find blog-worthy.   And to top it off, our IT overlords have installed synchronization software on all of our laptops, which synchronizes the hard drive to our network every day when we log into our intranet.   So I do what I can to delete my temp files, internet history, file/application history, etc. before I shut it down (it syncs on shutdown), but I'm not a full blown computer geek (I just play one on TV), and I'm sure that there's something I'm missing that could tell the overlords whether I've been visiting Beastiality . com or something (I don't, it's just an example…besides, zoolover . com has a much better library of mpeg files!   I kid!  I kid!).

 

So I'm trying to be sneaky and type this post up in MS Word, and then I'll sneak into Blogger and doublecheck my "Post by Email" address, and fire it off.   Hopefully it will work, because I'd like to get back to being a mildly popular member of the blogosphere again, as opposed to a guy with two blogs that nobody reads.   Wish me luck.