I'm worried because tomorrow I have to go in for the first of three small surgical procedures on my left leg. Let me back up a bit and tell you the story.
A year ago when I had been living in the desert just a few months, I gained a fair bit of weight. It didn't look like a lot to other people, but it ended up being just under 20lb in the space of three months. Finally, last Fall I got a kick in the ass and decided for the first time in my life to start exercising. I couldn't run for a minute without having to stop. I was in bad shape. I have overweight people in my family and I've lost several family members to heart disease at very young ages (like, my age... seriously). Time to make a change.
There are three grocery stores near my house. One is 0.5 of a mile away, one is 1.3 miles and the other is 1.8. I started walking to them instead of using my car, the nearest first and then the ones that were farther. Soon, instead of walking there I was jogging.
I started running and walking a few times a week and then I got it to where I was doing it more days out of the week than not. I started exercising portion control as well, and thought about what I was eating instead of just mindlessly munching away on things.
I ran a 5K in March, and today I hit my best ever run time of 3 miles in 26:44. That isn't exactly the most showy of times for runners, but it was absolutely huge for me.
With a lot of hard work, many tears, and a lot of impatience and frustration, the weight came off. I lost 23lb and now I'm a healthy manageable weight.
As the weight came off, though, I noticed some pinching sensations in my left leg, and realized that one of my veins was getting more and more prominent. Buried under my tubby leg was something I didn't know I had... a venous insufficiency. It's not that bad, but it causes me discomfort and it sure doesn't look pretty. I found out I have four veins in my left leg that basically need to be shut down.
So, tomorrow I start getting those done. I know it's probably going to hurt and be uncomfortable. I know I'm probably going to be very annoyed during the recovery process. I don't know how my body is going to react. I could be back to normal a week after the last one, or I could be limping for a month, we'll see.
So anyway, I don't have a recipe for you today, because I've been running every morning in order to create some kind of buffer for Wednesday when I can't. I'm sure I'll be spending lots of time in the kitchen whilst I'm healing up. It is my happy place after all!
So thanks for your patience and sorry that I'm not a good blogger right now. Things will be back to normal soon. Wish me luck!
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