A few weeks ago as I lay in my bed and for no special reason, I fingered my left shoulder and noticed that I had a bit of a bone poking out. I decided to check my right shoulder, no bone but felt a few lumps and bumps. Strange, but I chalked it up to my age and the constant adding of small bumps to my skin. As I age, I notice that my skin is becoming multicolored. When I look at my arms and hands I see brown spots, darker brown spots, a few red spots with a few blue blood vessels thrown in for good measure.
Getting back to my new bumps, the next morning I checked them in the mirror and saw that they were quite red and covered an area of about the size of a toonie. I live in a senior’s building and most days we have a sort of afternoon get-together, anyway I told the ladies about my new find and they all wanted to see it. Now these ladies are all self proclaimed doctors you understand, mostly because they all have had almost any malady that age brings us. However there was no consensus as to what I had, so I decided to go to a real doctor.
She looked at it, patted it and then gave me her verdict. “Ohhh, I was really hoping you would not say that!”, I said. “Shingles!” she repeated. Then she asked me if I had the vaccine and when I said yes, she said that it was just as well because my rash might have been much worse.
Off I went to the drug store with my prescription and was given enough pills for ten days. They were ugly. Dark blue and big; horse pills, I think we call them. Anyway, I was to take six pills a day and hopefully by the end of it, my rash will have gone back to where it came from.
I have such hopes for this year and this is not the way I wanted to see it begin. This is the year of the pig according to the Chinese calendar and that fits. I am a bit of a porker and over the years I have added more baggage than my frame should hold, so I decided to take off a few pounds as a New Year’s resolution. This is nothing new as I make this resolution every year, but this was going to be different. This time it would work!
I decided to do some fasting. I know, this is not recommended by any doctor, but I did it anyway. I was surprised at how easy it was. Well, maybe easy for the first day, but the next day hunger returned. No, this time it would be different, I would not give in. I am going to lose weight and lose it the right way. I reached for my various diet books and began to read through them. I reminded myself that I am planning a trip to Australia in October, so I really want to travel lighter and that certainly will make my disposition brighter. I made a shopping list and planned my diet for the coming days.
At the end of the second week, I was pleased to see that I was on the right track. I recorded my weight loss, day by day, and slowly and erratically things began to move. One day up by .08 ounce, the next day down by .06 ounce. I smiled at the downs, and frowned at the ups. By the fourth week I was down by 6 pounds. “Hurrah”, I congratulated myself – it’s working!
Back in December, I had set a 2.00 pound limit a month which certainly is doable, and right now, I was ahead of the game. But I soon learned that setting a goal and reaching it is harder than I envisioned.
At the beginning of week six I was full of hope as I stepped onto my scale. I had reason to smile, I was down, not by much, but down As usual I weight myself first thing in the morning and then get in the bathtub to enjoy a warm bubble bath.
After I dried myself off, I decided to double check my weight and guess what? My body soaked up 0.6 ounces of water! I went from 173.0 to 173.6 while I was in the water. How could that be? Bubbles and water oozed into my body? If that is so, then why am I forcing myself to drink eight glasses of water a day? I can just absorb it while in the bathtub.
As I stared at my scale, my mood changed instantly from light blue to indigo. My prescription for such a disasters is to self medicate and my favorite medicine is a tub of Haagen-Dazs salted caramel ice cream. I stood there wondering how much of it would register on the scale the following morning?
This took careful thought. If I did eat some ice cream, I would be walking backwards and my six weeks of hard work would be lost. I reminded myself that I had lost a few pounds and maybe it’s always, “two steps forward and one step back” so, maybe, perhaps, I should do a little backwards walking. Surely, a little bit of ice cream could only help.
In the end, I was strong! No ice cream! I am still determined to lose my weight – probably not as much as I was hoping – but after all, things have turned around. My shingles are gone! Those horse pills did the trick and I count myself so very, very lucky that mine was a mild infection. So, onward into the year of the pig. Hopefully my luck will hold. Hopefully my weight will continue to go down. Hopefully I will emerge at the end of it, lighter and healthier. Actually isn’t that what it is all about? And frankly, I can’t ask for any more than that can I?
Barbara Ellis was born in Budapest in 1940 and after the war her family escaped their homeland. After many weeks, they arrived in Switzerland where they sought assistance and were eventually directed as Displaced Persons to Australia. They arrived there in 1950 and she went to school and grew up in Sydney. They moved to Canada in 1956 to the small town of Lethbridge. Her father and mother moved to the US in 1959, while she stayed behind and has lived here ever since. She has been lucky to have managed to travel all over the world, and is now busy writing down her wonderful experiences.
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