Jun 12

Jun 12 Jury Duty Batman...Weekly Weight Update

This week started off with a bang if you can call a 400 mile road trip with a sick 2-year-old a bang. As you know from last week (because both of you are regular readers and are already up-to-date after reading Graduation), Rizzo, Cece, and I were down in North Carolina for my brother-in-law's high school graduation. On Sunday morning we began the 6+ hour drive back up to Herndon, VA. It started off just fine especially when we were able to track down a nice looking and delicious coffee shop to grab some breakfast for the road.

Cece didn't seem too hungry but was eating her muffin in the back seat. We didn't think much of it but, without warning, I hear Rizzo from the backseat go "Uh oh" and Cece had vomited all over herself and the car seat. I found the first possible gas station to pull over (in the middle of nowhere North Carolina) and hopped into action.

I have mentioned it before but just as a reminder to everyone out there, I'm the vomit parent and Rizzo is the poop parent. I don't do well with poop. I gag every time. I have changed many a poop filled diaper but there has never been a time that I haven't gagged unless I actually threw up a little. Rizzo doesn't do well with vomit. It makes her feel nauseous. So the deal is I work on the vomit and Rizzo works on the poop.

Long story made bearable (you're welcome, Rizzo) I'll just list the key points of the sick-Cece road trip:

Cece was stripped down to her diaper and she wandered around the gas station parking lot with Rizzo only wearing a diaper while I cleaned the car seat to the extent possible with paper towels and Febreeze.
We stopped at least 8 more times during the entire trip to change poop filled pants and diapers
At one point I had to run into a Family Dollar in the smallest township in Virginia and purchased a $4 outfit because Cece had accidents in all her other pants. Luckily the outfit isn't too bad looking
The 6+ hour road trip turned into a 12+ hour road trip including stops for lunch and dinner.
We eventually got home safe and sound but boy was it a long day

For lunch we stopped in Chatham, VA and ate at a small "Italian" place called Pino's. I put "Italian" in quotes because it is far from an Italian Restaurant. There is pizza and pasta on the menu but it also serves hummus and burgers. Having worked in many a small town throughout the Commonwealth of Virginia I can say that if you are ever in the middle of nowhere in Virginia and looking for somewhere to get something to eat just seek out a Gino's or a Pino's. They are everywhere. They aren't healthy. They aren't Michelin-star rated. They aren't always clean. But they are always there and they are usually open.

I bring that up because I wanted to share two pictures with you from our Pino's excursion. The first is my sandwich. I'm pretty sure I ordered the healthiest meal on the menu. It was a grilled chicken sub sandwich. Take a look.

Doesn't that just look so appetizing? Grilled chicken with onions, peppers, mushrooms, and an unidentified style of cheese that is semi-melted. Like I said, not the healthiest place in the world but it was open.

The second picture I want to share was something that I have never seen before. I can't imagine it could be tasty or...I don't even know how to describe it. Just take a look.

Yep, there it is. pizza cones are sold at Pino's. Now, I know this blog is mostly about losing weight and getting in shape but I won't ever deny that I love pizza. Further, I won't deny that I love ice cream cones. It had never occurred to me to combine the two and serve pizza in the shape of a cone. There is no way that this could taste good. Just look at the picture. Food pictures in advertisements always exceed the look of the actual product. If this is what a "good" pizza cone looks like then what must an actual pizza cone look like? The first two (from left to right) look like they are filled with tuna salad. The third cone appears to be comprised of cottage cheese, a meatball, and french fries. Just gross.

On Tuesday I had the wonderful opportunity to serve on jury duty. More accurately, on Tuesday I had the wonderful opportunity to sit in a room for about 8 hours watching CNN and reading a book while waiting to be selected for jury duty. I've never felt like I had wasted more time in my life than sitting in a room waiting to be called to serve on a jury and this from the guy who has literally watched an entire season of Frasier on Netflix in a single day. I would be happy to serve on a jury and believe that a trial by jury something that no one should take for granted but there has to be a better way to select a jury than to have people sitting in what is essentially a doctor's office waiting room all day long just to be sent home at the end of the day. Yes, the sixth amendment to the US Constitution grants us all a trial by jury but the eighth amendment protects us from cruel and unusual punishment. I’m pretty sure the time I spent waiting to serve on a jury qualifies as cruel and unusual but I don’t know why I was being punished.

A long day of fighting crime on a jury deserves wine and a comic.

Thursday night was a terrifying experience and I wasn’t even present. On my ride home from work Rizzo called me to let me know that Cece was running a fever. It was somewhere around 103 so she didn’t know if we should take her to the doctor. Luckily, Cece’s pediatrician is awesome and gave us his personal phone number so we could text if we have any questions. After a text, Cece’s doctor advised Rizzo to take her into an urgent care facility (the doctor’s office was closed for the evening). A few minutes later I get a frantic call from Rizzo telling me that I need to go meet them straight at urgent care and not to go home. I was stuck on Route 7 and anyone that lives in the Washington DC area knows that road is a parking lot at 5:30 on any afternoon. Rizzo sounded scared but all I could do was get there as fast as I could. About 10 minutes later Rizzo called again telling me not to worry but letting me know Cece had a seizure in the car. I didn’t understand her on the phone the first few times but after three attempts I finally heard the word “seizure”; a fucking seizure. Now I was terrified and made my way to the urgent care with all deliberate speed. By the time I got there Cece was fine, if having a fever of 101.5 and an ear infection counts as fine, but was still crying a bit.

It turns out that Cece had a febrile seizure in the car. This was something new to me but Rizzo (being a teacher and therefore familiar with the term) and the doctor put my mind at ease. A febrile seizure is a seizure that is associated with a high body temperature but without any serious underlying health issue. They typically occur in kids between 6 months and 5 years old and the kid is usually back to normal within sixty minutes. It was must faster for Cece because by the time I got to her, about 30 minutes after it happened, she was back to normal except for the slight fever and feeling generally bad.

It was ridiculously scary but we were lucky because (1) Cece was staying with my parents on Thursday so I wasn’t worried about her not being cared for, (2) Rizzo is the best mom in the world and took care of Cece quickly, (3) our doctor provided sound medical advice in a method (text message) that most doctors wouldn’t share with their patients, and (4) I was already taking Friday off to spend the day with Cece so she would have plenty of time to rest and recover. Everything I’ve read about febrile seizures is they aren’t associated with other issues so Cece should be just fine and is doing much better but, shit, was that scary.

The rest of the week/weekend was pretty uneventful given that we couldn’t really take Cece out anywhere with her ear infection and fever. Rizzo and I both made time to work out with is always a positive even if sitting around the house is just as boring for parents as it is for kids. There was just one more thing that Rizzo and I did this week; we decided to cancel Weight Watchers.

Weight Watchers has been great and I wouldn’t have changed my experience but I feel like now I’m just paying to have a place to check my weight. Rizzo and I both believe that we have changed our lifestyle for the better and continuing to pay doesn’t make sense. This is by no means a sign that I’m going to stop trying to lose weight (I’m not) and I’m still going to continue to track my progress and report it here. It has been about 10 months that I have been using both Weight Watchers and this blog as a method for keeping myself motivated and tracking my progress. Now I’m just dropping one method of progress and replacing it fully with another.

With that in mind, this week was okay as far as weight is concerned. I had a few meals out that were more than I should have consumed, including a giant sandwich during my jury duty day and a night of finishing a bottle of wine with Rizzo. I also kept up with all my workouts so I wasn’t overly concerned and the results were as expected. I dropped .2 pounds this week which brings my current weight to 205.6 (as reported on the at home scale which will be the scale of record for this point forward) which ties the lowest I have ever been. The total weight loss is now at 62.2 lbs. That puts my .4 away from another massage.

I have also set my ultimate goal weight at 190lbs. I can’t remember the last time I weighed less than 200lbs and after talking with my doctor he agrees that clocking in at 190 would be a reasonable and healthy goal. So that will be another number that I’ll start reporting. I’m currently 15.6 lbs away from my ultimate goal.

June is starting off well for #TeamClark in the Bring It On! challenge. It’s amazing the number of steps and miles you can rack up by mowing the grass. This week I was able to match last week’s total miles of 50.9 but Rizzo couldn’t keep up with a measly 43.1 miles. That gives me a 8.3 mile for the month of June with a total of 75.6 miles to Rizzo’s 67.3. Rizzo is still hoping to capture a Red Door Spa day but I don’t think that is going to happen. I better hurry up and figure out what I want my prize to be for June since I’m clearly going to dominate. I better dominate because Rizzo is now training to run a 20k and has the Avon Walk coming up in July so I’m pretty sure June will be my last victory for quite some time.