Infection and Weight Confirmed

I bit the bullet and called the doctor. I had to after looking at my throat in the mirror this morning; red splotchy areas and what appeared to be bumps or hives on my uvula. If it wasn't strep it was definitely some kind of infection, so it was time to face the music -- and the scale.

Fortunately, I had good news in the latter area. When I hopped on the scale I was at 211 -- this was late morning, after breakfast with all my clothes on. It made the nurse perk up and comment that I was losing, and she pointed out on the top page of my records that my heaviest weight over the past two years was 245.

I then asked her to look up my heaviest weight in my records. I've been holding on to my National Weight Control Registry packet waiting for my next doctor's appointment, because I couldn't remember what year I reached my heaviest. She flipped the pages back, and in October 2001 I was 338 -- I remembered incorrectly and thought it had been 337.

Then the nurse was really impressed and bemoaned how difficult it was for her to stick to a diet. I fought rolling my eyes at her, because she looked thin to me, and I couldn't imagine her diet goals being more than 10 to 15 pounds tops. If only I had such a hard battle! But that's being catty -- as I get nearer my goals I know full well how hard those last 10 to 15 pounds are going to be.

The doctor, when she arrived, also made an interesting albeit odd comment. She said she saw my picture in the paper recently, "although heavier than you are now," she commented. It turns out it wasn't even me -- it was a picture of people at a gym I've never set foot in -- but I still took the comment for the compliment it was intended to be (at least I think it was!).

Well, one look in my throat and the doctor was making faces. She took a throat culture and sure enough, it's strep. So now I'm on high-powered antibiotics for 10 days. Which means of course yeast infection, so I'm already stocked up to medicate myself for that, too. Oh, the joys...

Well, even though it wasn't the greatest news, I did get some good things out of it. I got the info I need to send in my NWCR papers, the scale reading was positive, and to top it off, my blood pressure was 124/80 -- and that was with a strep infection and my bloodstream full of decongestants that normally make my BP race.

Plus, I discovered that when I bounced down to 208 two weeks ago I hit the 130 pounds lost mark. Now if I can just get myself back there in the next week or two! I'm not counting on much lower than 211 this week, maybe 210, since I'm sick and hardly moving (if I can help it). But that's at least maintaining, and in the old days when I was sick that rarely happened because I'd be comforting myself the whole time with my favorite foods. Yep, definitely making progress.