1. I returned to the Fitness Center today around 1:30 and, like yesterday, few people were in the facility. Once again, I took all the precautions I know to take. I wore a mask. I used hand sanitizer. I wiped down the two machines I used.
Yesterday, I worked out for thirty minutes and I felt like I could have done more. Today, I raised the level of resistance on the Nu-Step machine a bit and huffed and puffed on it for twenty minutes. I then kept the recumbent bike at Level 1 and pedaled for twenty minutes on it.
After 40 minutes of exercise, I didn't feel even close to being depleted and I didn't feel any discomfort in the surgery site.
I'll keep fiddling around, searching for a sweet spot of time and exercise level. I will continue to heed the transplant team's orders that I ease into this part of my recovery and not overdo it while also trying to see just how far I can take things.
2. While the book Yellow Bird is fundamentally about Lissa Yellow Bird's tireless (obsessive?) efforts to find the missing truck driver Kristopher "KC" Clarke, what makes Sierra Crane Murdoch's book gripping and fascinating is her in-depth exploration of the Yellow Bird family history, with special emphasis on Lissa Yellow Bird's story, her in-depth exploration of the complicated history of the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation and the thorny relationship between the tribes and the U.S. government, and her reporting on the Bakken oil boom and the impact of all the activity related to oil extraction on the land, the residents of the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation, and on the workers and bosses in the oil business.
I thoroughly enjoy Murdoch's approach to non-fiction -- and I enjoy other writers who approach non-fiction the way Murdoch does. Murdoch digresses. She sets aside, from time to time, the main story of the search for Kristopher Clarke and takes us into all kinds of relevant history and background to this story and, as readers, we come to realize that many currents of US history, as well as Yellow Bird family history and Lissa's personal history, are all converging in this story of oil, murder, and Lissa Yellow Bird's search for justice in Indian country.
3. As I've written about previously, my May 11th transplant surgery required heavy doses of fluid, all of them pumped into my body. One consequence taking in all those fluids is that my weight increased from 221 pounds to nearly 240 pounds.
In my first consultation with a transplant dietician while hospitalized at Sacred Heart, I expressed my disappointment that I'd worked steadily from November to May to take off about thirty pounds, and much of it was back again.
The dietician was sympathetic, but firm in her response: "This is no time to concern yourself with losing weight." She went on to explain how I needed to eat in order to encourage the healing of the surgery site and what products I couldn't eat because either they were risky and could make me sick or they interacted poorly with the anti-rejection medicines.
Okay.
I told myself I'd do my best to follow her instructions.
And I have.
The transplant team, including another dietician, refined those instructions a little later on because I needed to increase the magnesium in my blood and decrease the potassium.
That has worked out really well.
And now it's late August.
As part of my recovery program, I weigh myself every morning.
I'm not sure, but I think much of that fluid has worked its way out of my system.
I'd had some moderate evidence of edema in my ankles and lower legs and, at least today, there's very little or no swelling at all -- but, I continue to wear compression socks.
I've begun to lose weight again.
Already, after just two days back in the Fitness Center, the exercise has helped lower my weight. This is both encouraging and motivating.
I continue to follow the transplant team's orders.
I'm not doing anything drastic.
I'm pacing myself.
I really like the idea that with exercise and some close monitoring of what I eat and drink, I might one day get back to weighing something close to what I did on the day of the surgery.
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