At twelve weeks, I'm half done with my participation in the 20/20 Lifestyles diet, exercise, and lifestyle management program.  So far, I'm down 38 pounds, and I'm pleased with that.  It's been tough, but I made it through.  Well, half through.  There are twelve weeks to go—the second half is "maintenance," where I theoretically learn a little bit about how to maintain my weight and exercise once I'm all done in a still-supervised manner.  I'll see my trainer and dietitian less often than before, but my exercise schedule and diet will not really change, so in theory I should continue to lose weight at a similar rate. In theory.

At the beginning of the program I had blood tests done, and at the halfway point I had them done again.  This is to monitor how my cholesterol and other internal chemistry things are going, and make sure that I'm still getting all of the proper nutrients and such.  I failed my blood test on Wednesday.  It seems like it should be an easy test to pass—I mean, I've had blood; I've always had blood.  I failed in the sense that the person wasn't able to extract any from me.  As it turns out, my veins are made of solid titanium, and try as she did, she couldn't draw blood.  I got seven or eight holes from that fun adventure, on my arms and hands, and I've still got a bruise from it, a week later.  We rescheduled for yesterday, and I drank about 72 ounces of water the night before and the day of, just to make sure I was fully hydrated, and she still couldn't get anything out of me when the time came.  She had the needle in me, digging around and repeatedly stabbing my veins, but couldn't get it in.  Finally she gave up, and referred me to a lab in Bellevue.

So, I drove to Bellevue where I was greeted by angry people who really hated their jobs.  The first technician also failed to get anything out of my swiss-cheese-arms, and he called in the boss.  She was very annoyed, after having just gotten off the phone with an auto repair shop that had held her car for a month, but she put that anger to good use, finally getting a needle into my vein after a couple stabs, and sucking a couple tubes of blood out of me.  And this time, I didn't even black out when it happened.

Good Lord.  I've healed up, and "only" six of my needle holes are visible now.  I look like a junkie.  I can't wait to go through all of this again in twelve more weeks.

Labels: health