Finally, some good news. When I first broke my back, the curvature it created in my spine was measured at 8 percent.  After one month, it had increased to 13 percent.  Now, after another month, it is only at 14 percent and the doctor thinks it is most likely stabilized.  Thank God!  Although it will never get any better, at this point I should be able to do almost everything I used to, in time.  (I don't think I will ever go sledding again, and things like dirt bikes and snowmobiles but no longer hold the same appeal that they used to... but skiing and street bikes are in my foreseeable future again. hallelujah!)

I'd been having some problem with my right leg wanting to be pigeon-toed and that had been concerning me quite a bit.... Come to find out, I have always been "twisted", according to the doctor... that's actually makes a little bit of sense, since my right shoulder is just a little lower than my left, and even my right eyebrow is a little lower than my left.  (The eyebrow thing makes me want to accuse my mother of having an accident while pregnant! Just kidding, Mom....  Aren't I? ;-)) anyway, I have complained about the eyebrow thing to many of my girlfriends, while plucking them. I guess I just never noticed the right leg turning consistently outward before?  At least, I don't have to strain on the treadmill anymore to straighten that foot out.  The doctor said it would not ever do any good.  And it's extremely uncomfortable, so I'm just going to go back to walking in the unnatural, natural-feeling way that I have grown accustomed to over the years.

The doctor also said that I could start to wean myself from the back brace!!!!  I have just returned from driving myself to the post office for the first time this year.  He wasn't crazy about me doing that, but when I told him I had been spending 20 minutes at a time on the treadmill walking at 3 mph and pumping a 3 pound hand weight vigorously in each hand, he said I should not have been doing that, either.  That was the point at which I proceeded to explain to him how very much he had acted, and continued to act, like Jekyll and Hyde from my patient's perspective... I explained to him that if he had taken any time at all, or if he had taken or read adequate patient notes, he could've ascertained very easily that I followed direction very well.  It was never necessary to either understate or over state the instructions.  Each time I had followed what he told me to the letter, and he then told me at the next visit that it was the wrong thing to do!  I basically told him that quite frankly, it sucks!

I had greeted him with the opening words "I only had to wait two hours today, Doc, that's 100 percent better than either of my first two visits, but it's still pretty pathetic!"

I got quite a lot of things off my chest with him, and perhaps because I was quite nice about it overall but was obviously determined to have my say, and get everyone of my questions answered, he took it pretty well.  Perhaps it will help his future patients, but I won't hold my breath... it did make me feel 1000 percent better, however.  And I made my next follow-up appointment for 8:45 AM, hopefully that will shorten my wait to a reasonable time.  He specifically told me not to drive to the appointment, and not to over-do meanwhile.  He likened my spine to hardening concrete, he said if you walked over it you could chunk it up pretty good at this point. In other words, I could easily re-injure myself at this point and undo all of the healing that has occurred thus far.  Please don't bother to write to me to repeat his warning, OK, GIVE ME SOME CREDIT....I have no intention of doing anything but continuing to progress. :) 

I will continue to wear the brace whenever I am doing anything strenuous.  I can drive the four blocks to the Bank, post office, or store, without it but when I get out to actually go through the grocery store, I have stern instructions to use it.  I can sit down in a chair without it long enough to eat dinner with my family without it.... gradually increase the time.... Things like that....

Altogether, I'm pleased as punch!

By the time I left, I had learned that he drove the same model motorcycle as I do, a Honda shadow, only his is a 650 and mine is an 1100. (That is fitting, he's actually a pretty small guy.) He also said that he wished my newspaper column was running in the Vail Daily, and that he really hoped the current low carb fad (he then corrected himself and said, "it's not a fad, but you know what I mean") would continue. That was definitely the icing on the cake, finding out that he supports low carb! I told him I may contact him in the future when I need a quote, and he could expect to hear a lot more about me, too, because I intended to start aggressively publicizing and promoting an annual low carb convention in the Vail Valley and that this year's would have been a lot bigger if it had not been for my injury...

Altogether, it was a great visit!

March 17

I threw the jelly beans away after this, the sugar alcohols they contain gave me SUCH bad discomfort - I actually crapped the bed to be completel;y graphic and spent the next two hours wishing for death! Is there anything worse than diarrhea accompanied by severe cramps and naseau? Maybe, but self-inflicted? NO THANKS, never again... beware!

March 18

March 19

March 20

Okay, not the best dinner - so shoot me! (NOTE: I am JUST KIDDING - this note added just for any psychos who may be reading....)

March 21

March 25

I just finished putting the last two weeks worth of food into this journal -- the days that I had kept track of, anyway.  Things have been really crazy. One of the cables on my wireless networking developed a short last week, and I was able to replace it locally without too much trouble, which surprised me, but when the base station became disconnected from my computer, all the network settings were immediately and automatically wiped out.  What that means in English is, I lost the Internet connection on my laptop computer.  Because I cannot sit for long stretches of time, and it's not an easy thing to figure out, I've decided after several days of fiddling with it on the desktop computer long enough to hurt my back, that I can live without it. Of course I will eventually get hooked back up, but right now I have too many other things to do and not enough healing on my back to do it myself.  I am sure as heck not going to pay somebody again to mess with it… it will take a long time and a lot of book sales to pay off the first thousand dollars worth of installation from January! *shaking my head in disgust*

You'll notice I didn't keep track of this last weekend's food.  That's because I was having the period from HELL (again) and I was too busy popping pain pills and whining to keep track. While I did stay low carb, I helped myself to things like low carb chocolate bars and peanuts more than usual. I even made one huge bowl of Heavenly Mousse one day.  I've been doing a good job staying away from that stuff since I broke my back.  Anyway, I probably doubled my average calories to around 2800 a day, at a guess.  I don’t really care, either, because I always gain during my period and it doesn't matter whether I eat like a pig or like a bird. Grand total: up four pounds, but my fingers are still little sausages and I couldn't get my rings off on a bet, so hopefully most of it is just water weight which will leave sometime this week. I actually weigh the same today as I did last month at this time. I have been here for a long time, I suppose I should be used to it by now. 

This little break from spending so much time online will be a good thing for volume 2.  I have a file labeled "To Do -- Cook" that is at least four inches thick, and that doesn't even include the dozens of cookbooks scattered around the house with little post-it flags all through them… it's so nice to be able to cook again.

I have finally got all of my accounting caught up to current, and so this week all my extra time (what a joke that phrase is) will be spent planting my garden and flower seeds.  I may have a broken back but I am damned if I will go without my garden for even one season. Because I live in the mountains and our growing season is so short, I have to start almost everything inside.  I spent 250 dollars@Burpee.com this year.  Pretty ridiculous, but that will last through four growing seasons I will bet. And it's really easy to spend a lot of money at the nursery buying plants and flowers.  I bought a couple of hanging baskets things that have water reservoirs and space for 40 plugs each in a tower like formation.  I ordered three different colors of wave petunia seeds, and I expect after only a couple weeks of growing, these planters will look like 100 dollar baskets. So I guess it was money well spent, at least. There is nothing like being able to run outside and cut fresh salad greens everyday for months...  If you don't have space for a garden, you really should consider planting a couple barrels on the patio for salad greens, at least. I have two of the tiniest little raised bed gardens you've ever seen, and you would be really surprised at how much I can produce in a little tiny bit of space.  Raised beds are definitely the way to go.  They are less work and you can get two or three times the amount of produce in the same amount of dirt.  I absolutely cannot wait until the strawberries that I put in last year, come up this spring. I can almost taste them now. One year soon I will add some blueberry bushes and maybe some more raspberries too. I have been babying some raspberry bushes for a couple years now and have yet to see them bear any fruit.  Once they finally do, I will have to fight the birds for it.  I covered all of my strawberries last year with mesh and stole all the croquet hoops out of the garage to hold it down.  That worked pretty well. They don't call them bird brains for nothing, you know!

March 26

Today I really did it.  I sat in the chair and worked on my main computer for way too long. I didn't realize what I was doing to myself until Mitch walked in the door and I suddenly realized it wasn't lunchtime, it was dinnertime... tonight I am one hurting unit. Duh! Betcha I won't do that again anytime soon. Single-mindedness is not always an asset.  Maybe I will at last dump a little bit of my menstrual gain though. THAT would be nice! As well as way overdue.  So far it hasn't budged.

March 27

Things got so crazily busy around here that I missed a few more days here.

March 30

The fried rice and stir-fry was FANTASTIC! Yah-hooooo!

March 31 (Easter)

(can subtract alcohol grams, which are sugar alcohols)