That was.... Steak. Sauce!

Merry Christmas Eve!

This must be a personal record: writing a post at 6:00 am. Since I woke up at 4:15 am for no good reason, other than the need to pee, and couldn't fall back asleep, what the hell, let's get our chat on.

First, a little housekeeping:

I'm not going to do this the justice it deserves, but I have some happy heart news. After a pretty crappy year full of uncertainty and heartache (in all its manifestations) I had another Echo that indicates my heart function IS ALMOST NORMAL! Let's break it down by numbers:

In February, my Ejection Fraction was 10-15% (depending on the report). I'm no expert, but I'm thinking that another month without treatment and I would have died. I don't feel that an exaggeration and it is.... I don't have words.

As of this past week, my EF is now 45-50%. That's HUGE. That's crazy. In August, it was 30-35% and I was pretty damn happy about that. But I'm only 5-10% away from normal. And I'm pretty sure I have the best blood pressure in the building at work.

And speaking of work, I finally got to go back to work on Black Friday. (Because that was a good return date?) However, I had to start at the bottom of the barrel, and technically I'm only a seasonal hire. I won't know for a few more weeks if I'll get to stick around and in what capacity. Thanks to my excellent news, I will be able to return to full-duty, but they may just not be able to fit me in at my old place, and that means I'll have to start looking around. Because I'm making about 45% of my old salary. Yeah, about that.... Actually, let's not even talk about that. Thanks to my amazing news, I won't be receiving much more in the way of disability assistance from the insurance company, and while I get it, I REALLY don't like it. Oh well, it's Christmas, let us focus on happier things. Like....

My 2 sisters and I did a post-Thanksgiving Biggest Loser thing, where the 4 weeks between the holidays we did weekly weigh ins and compared percentages lost. I just did my last weigh-in about half an hour ago and my 4-week total is a 1.79% loss. I think I might win! Unless sister #2 had a totally kick ass week, because she was only at a 0.06% loss at week three. $15 worth of lottery tickets is at stake! Which really means MILLIONS OF POSSIBLE DOLLARS are at stake!!! Well, MILLIONS OF POSSIBLE DOLLARS and a longer, healthier life. I'll let you know. Hopefully my next post is a picture of my 1.79% thinner self rolling around in a pile of money. Stay tuned!

In related news, I baked 12 dozen cookies on Wednesday, and made a turkey. And yet, I lost weight this week. Awesome. Also awesome is how much everyone loved the cookies. Sugar cookies, snickerdoodles, chocolate chip, and sugar cookie snowman (created without a cookie cutter I might add) iced with a homemade almond glaze. Yeah, my feet were killing me after 10 hours in the kitchen on my day off.

Me? Not too smart.

And speaking of my feet killing me, I completed my year of insurance-loving, deductible-meeting, out-of-pocket surpassing fun by visiting yet another doctor, a podiatrist. My feet have hurt since I was in school, and I always assumed it was because I marched and then worked retail since I was 13. (Yeah, I used to twirl shit in front of hundreds, maybe even thousands, of people, while wearing spandex. So what? You gotta problem with that? Didn't think so...) Plus I gained a bunch of weight after school, so that didn't help. Turns out tho, I have flat feet. Like, no arch. It's pretty crazy. If you look at my foot when it's propped up on a coffee table or something, I've got a very shapely arch. I'm thinking foot-fetish people would dig it. However, as soon as I step down on it, you can't even slide a piece of paper between my foot and the floor. That's not good. So I was prescribed all sorts of homework for icing and numbing and stretching, plus some inserts that I have to break in. Ugh. Those things hurt. I know they will help, but it's like an 8 year old with a new pair of glasses. Someone's gonna have to make me.

Oh, and, AND, I'm not supposed to walk barefoot. Like, EVER. Not even when I get out of bed. I'm to put my feet directly into shoes before I even stand up out of bed. This is Florida folks. I may be closed-toed in public, but when I get home, I lose the shoes and socks before my bra even.

Oops - 6:45 am. I have to go shower now. Sorry, I'm not sure how to tie this whole thing together. How about with a....




Wait, did you get the title? No? Sigh. Santa needs to bring you a certain set of DVDs. Oh, you can Netflix them too, but this is one set worth owning. Which I hopefully will, thanks to a generous gift card from my in-laws :-)