Our trip, his appointment, and a family crisis

I've been bad, I know. It's been a month since a posted and a lot has happened. I'll try not to ramble on too long!

First, our Florida trip! We went to visit my brother and his family the first week of March. Even though it was a cooler than normal, we still had a great time. We met the new baby and tried to keep up with my older nephew who isn't quite 2 yet. My SIL and I walked/jogged in our first 5K at Epcot and it was absolutely fantastic! We were having so much fun talking and taking in the sights that I didn't have time to worry about how far we'd gone and finishing.


Yes, we wore our tiaras. And I really felt like a princess when we were done. The last picture is of us approaching the finish line and I just love how happy we both look. It was an incredibly uplifting and empowering day that I'll be drawing strength from for a long time.

Now the appointment. DH had his follow up appointment today with the urologist to discuss his s/a. His count on the first was okay but not great and his count the on the second a week later was terrible. And in both tests showed a lot of white blood cells still as well as too many abnormally shaped sperm. It's bad enough that the urologist didn't even feel that an IUI would be successful. At this point, the major culprit is DH's life style. He doesn't like to eat and trying to get him to eat fruits and veggies is pretty much out of the question. He smokes about a pack a day and drinks far, far too much beer. The doc gave him a list of supplements to buy, a prescription for more antibiotics, and orders to get it together (eat right, quit smoking and drinking). When pushed for an answer as to what could be causing the inflammation/white blood cells, the doc tossed out a few ideas one of which was the possibility that DH is allergic to our animals. For whatever reason, DH latched right on to that despite having no other symptoms. Whatever. I'll be damned if I'm getting rid of my "babies" without proof that it's necessary. I told him that he needs to try getting healthy before I'm willing to even consider the animals as an issue. Obviously I can't force DH to make these changes but I can encourage him to make small changes. So for this week I asked him to to try eat at least one fruit and one vegetable each day along with two small meals. He seems to want to do this and with the big 4-0 looming in a few weeks, I think it's hitting home a little harder.

The family crisis. A week ago my grandma was found unresponsive in her bed. She's 75 years old and in pretty darn good health so it was a shock. After some testing and cracking her chest open, they found out she had a dissecting aorta. Pretty scary. She was in surgery a really long time because they couldn't get her to stop bleeding but they were finally able to close her up and get her up to ICU. The whole (24 of us at least!) family nearby camped out in the surgical waiting room until we knew she'd at least made it. We didn't get home until after 5am Friday morning. The first 24 hours were a little touchy but day by day she's made fantastic progress. Tonight she was sitting up in the chair, eating her dinner, and sounding a lot like her normal self. By the end of the week she should be able to move in to a rehab center. She's an amazing woman. But then again, anyone who could raise my dad and his two brothers (all whom are less than a year apart) would have to be pretty darn fantastic!

And lastly, on a little side note about me....my weight loss is now up to 33 lbs! I had a small gain last week because of the whole camping out at the hospital thing but I'm fine with it. These next 2 pounds are super important to me because it will put me under 200 lbs for the first time in my adult life. I was pleasantly surprised this week at my Weight Watchers meeting when my leader asked me and another guy to hang out for a minute because she had something for us. Turns out, she wants us both to apply for the Weight Watchers 2010 Role Model of the Year! I have to submit pictures and a 400 word essay with my application but the more I think about it, the more excited I get. I'm only a third of the way to my goal but I really have confidence in myself that I can do it. And heck, if I win a role model award then I pretty much have to get to goal this time, right?