Just Call Me Stubby
Three fairly traumatic events transpired last night. My boyfriend, Jeff, and I spent the majority of yesterday running errands and shopping. By 1, I was starving, so we went to Ruby Tuesday for lunch. As something of a foodie, I usually turn my nose up at chain restuaruants like this, but I’m a whore for Ruby Tuesday salad bar. There. I said it. I’d work a corner for Ruby Tuesday salad bar.
Anyway, after a big lunch and reupholstering a suh-weet old chair all afternoon, we were too tired to be very hungry for dinner. I caved first though, and decided to make some apple chips around 7:30. Jeff had just bought a new mandoline slicer, and it seemed like the perfect time to test it out.
It worked beautifully–sliced the apples cleanly and evenly. Until it also sliced off the tip of my finger. As soon as I stopped jumping up and down screaming “I NEED A BAND AID! I NEED A BAND AID!” I had a look. Wow. Yuck. It was just… gone at the top. And the blood. There was so. much. blood. For hours it bled and bled and bled. Around 10, Jeff tried to dress it with some gauze. The gauze was bloodsoaked before he could even finish wrapping it. Between the massive outpouring of blood and my intermittent wailing that “I just can’t do this anymore… put me out of my misery!” Jeff decided it was time to go to the ER, where the second traumatic event took place.
I’m not sure what’s going on with the Highland Springs Bon Secours Emergency Room triage scale, but DAMN is it cruel. Either that or it needs to be calibrated, because I’m sure I didn’t gain 7 pounds since Thursday morning. But then again, I was dressed, it was at the end of the day, and I was wearing my coat. So really, that number was most likely accurate. Which is so depressing, because it means that I’m not losing anything. I’m gaining.
This led to the third traumatic event. After leaving the ER, drunk on Percoset and depressed about my weight/body/remnants of a finger, I bought a pint of Ben and Jerry’s and ate all but a few bites of it. Okay, I ate all but ONE bite of it.
This morning it seems the bleeding has finally stopped, I’ve come down off my pain-medicine high, and I am ready to make a change. Much like the dozens of times I’ve made changes before, but I think now I realize that cheaters never prosper. Like Jillian says in Shred, “You’re only cheating yourself.” And it’s true. I’ve been cheating myself.
So the things I need to work on:
1. Food. I’ve GOT to get a handle on my eating habits. For the next few weeks, in addition to tracking calories with my new handy dandy Livestrong app, I want to start making a conscious effort of eating 60% vegetables, 30% meat/protein, and 10% dairy. I’ve got to break emotional ties with food. I live in America and I have a good job. I’m NOT going to starve to death, so I need to stop obsessing. Also, I have a pretty lax job and life in general. There’s no need for me to go through 2 bottles of wine a week.
2. Exercise. I’m moving in with Jeff in two months, to a new city about an hour and a half away from my home now, and I want to join the local CrossFit box shortly thereafter. In the meantime, I simply don’t have the time or the excess money to do that. I have the equipment, so there’s no reason I can’t get a kick-ass workout at home. However, with my finger a bloody stubby mess, there are limits to what I can do. Grabbing weights isn’t an option right now, nor is extended plank work or swimming. I have osteoarthritis in my left knee, which means I can’t run without pain more than twice a week. Or so I think. I honestly haven’t tried to up my weekly mileage in several years, so maybe this is the perfect time to do so? Anyone out there have experience becoming a longer-distance runner with a bum knee? Any tips or gear prerequisites?
So, yeah. That’s where I am right now. Two weeks into the new year, and my resolution to make no health/fitness resolutions isn’t getting me anywhere. Although the point is to live with health as a goal regardless of the time of year, I REALLY want to look good in a bathing suit this summer, which is going to necessitate upping my game quite a bit. How are your resolutions going? Are you making any headway?
January 18th, 2011 at 10:03 am
Re: upping your running mileage – perhaps if you do it in small increments it won’t be so bad. I have had 5 operations on my right knee (from torn cartilege to a torn ACL) and always assumed I couldn’t/shouldn’t run. When I signed up for my first triathlon two years ago I did the couch to 5k program and was amazed that I never had any knee pain, at all. I’ve since gone on to run several 5ks and even trained for a half-marathon this past fall. I didn’t experience any knee pain until I got up to about 10 miles and I think that had more to do with not stretching appropriately than anything else. Long story short, try to increase your mileage but do it slowly. Good luck!
January 19th, 2011 at 7:50 am
As soon as I saw the word “mandoline” I knew what was coming next. I’m a little surprised they didn’t cauterize it (even chemically), though. That’s what they did when my mom cut off her fingertip.
January 19th, 2011 at 10:30 am
You know, when I went to the ER I fully expected to have it cauterized. Later Jeff and I joked that I could have gone to a veterinarian for a tourniquet, tegaderm, and waterproof bandaging, for about a hundreth of the price.