Health and Fitness Updates

A double-barreled discussion of health topics, one about a kid, one about me.

A Hospital Visit

My week got thrown off its already adjusted trajectory by spending four hours in the emergency department with L yesterday.[1] She’s fine but it was a stressful morning.

Her stomach started hurting badly Sunday. She was also hot, sweaty, and looked like hell. She had gone out to dinner with friends the night before and we wondered if she got some bad chicken. Despite hours of feeling terrible, she never got sick, though. We figured she’d sleep it off and be fine Monday.

But Monday she felt worse, so she stayed home.

Same Tuesday.

This was all horrible nausea, severe cramping at times, and the thought of eating anything made it all worse. She struggled to choke down a piece of toast, small bowl of cereal, or yogurt. That’s the worst feeling, when you need to get something in your belly but the mere thought makes you want to hurl. But, again, never had any abnormal GI activity.

She woke up in the middle of the night Tuesday/Wednesday in pain again, so S gave her some stomach meds along with a big pain killer so she could sleep. When she woke up, nothing was better. I was pushing her to go to school so she didn’t get too far behind, but found her with her head on the kitchen table crying. L does not like to miss school, so I knew it had to be bad if she couldn’t get herself together to avoid missing a third-straight day. I checked in with Dr. Mom, who said it was time to take L into the hospital to get checked.

Once there they ran blood work, did a CT scan, and, thankfully, everything came back normal. No appendix issues. No signs of blockages, growths, etc anywhere in her lower abdomen.

Unfortunately for her, by the time we got to the hospital her pain had receded quite a bit, so she didn’t get to receive one of those sweet, IV pain killers like S got years ago when she had severe food poisoning. Unfortunately for our checkbooks the pain also receded enough where she was starting to feel normal.

We were all relieved that it doesn’t appear anything bigger is going on with her. Maybe it was indeed something she ate, or perhaps a stomach bug that never fully blew up and caused her to puke it out.

After we left she wanted to get lunch, and ate it normally, which was the first time she had done that since Saturday night. She ate a regular dinner, too. This morning she said her stomach still feels weird, but the nausea had finally passed. Hopefully she can get through today and then has four days off for Easter to get back to 100%.

Scary but reassuring in the end.

Going to the ED at 9:00 AM on a Wednesday is probably one of the best times to go. But L did get to encounter some interesting folks.

There was a “Sassy Black Lady” running the security entrance, who snapped at anyone who avoided the not-super-obvious metal detector you were supposed to walk through before registering.

There was a woman in a wheelchair loudly sharing that she was there because of a sore on her foot, she wasn’t sure if it was a bedsore or a boil or what.

There was a cute little kid, probably two, walking around staring at everyone, and also coughing on them. We heard her screaming in her room later.

There was an older gentleman there with his wife who had the obligatory “horrible, old person ringtone” that was cranked beyond an acceptable limit which he let ring for 20 seconds while he slowly tried to find his phone, looked to see who was calling, and then commented on them to his wife before finally answering. Then he had a loud conversation with them, although at least he didn’t have them on speaker.

And then a dude came in who was either mental, on drugs, or perhaps both. Or, more likely, he may have been mental and NOT on the drugs he was supposed to be on. He paced nervously, then would sit, then jump up and pace around again. He kept sniffing and grunting loudly. I believe it was his mother who was with him and periodically she would snap at him to sit down and be quiet. The old lady sitting near us told her husband, not very quietly, that this kid made her nervous.

Thankfully we got called back pretty quickly, but this still had to be an eye opener for sheltered L.

Fitness Update

Y’all know that going to the gym is part of my daily routine. It is as much a mental health exercise as a physical one. Especially in winter, I could easily sit inside all day. Forcing myself to walk the two minutes across the street to the Y no matter what the weather is has helped me fight off my usual winter blues. Although I weigh a few pounds more than I’d like, those consistent workouts keep that from being closer to 10–15 extra lbs.

Anyway, I don’t really track my workouts. I have a little pocket notebook I take with me in which I jot down my strength training routine, but I never look at it once I’m back at home.

One of the first days of this year, I came across a post in which someone shared a little bubble dot calendar in which you could keep track of any habit, really, over the new year. I thought that was a cool visual reminder/tracker/reinforcer and printed one off. I figured I would brag on myself and share my progress through the first quarter of the year.

The colors don’t show well here, but the legend is that blue indicates strength training, red cardio at the gym (or in the pool once we get to summer), and black is either walks or other vigorous activities. “Vigorous activities” was basically my way of giving myself credit for breaking a good sweat on the days I had to shovel snow for more than 20 minutes. I reserve the right to include other intense yardwork that burns calories as the year progresses. You’ll also note three days with circles around the dots. Those are days that I did both a cardio exercise of some kind and then went out and threw snow around.

Bottom line is I worked out 73% of the first 90 days of 2025, which is pretty good. Allow me to apply those extra workouts to offset the days off, and I’m a little better than that. Having this visual reminder on my desk was a motivator on those days I was feeling lazy and didn’t want to bundle up and face the cold.

The only hangups have been a new, stupid, old man pain, this time in each foot, that has slowed be a bit for the last month or so. That stretch when I worked out once in five days in February came when I could barely put weight on one foot. Pretty sure it is a combination of arthritis and old shoes on the treadmill that knocked me out. I should note I was just walking on the treadmill, not running. But I did have the incline cranked way up. I guess my feet can’t handle steep inclines for extended periods anymore. Traveling for spring break knocked out a couple days, but I made sure to get a morning walk on the beach in during most of our time in Florida.

So 73% is my target to beat in Q2. I’ve already missed a couple days this month because of being busier than expected. Like when I have to take my kid to the ED. Hey, the pool opens in three weeks and that will open a new option for burning some calories while protecting my delicate joints.

It’s never too late to start tracking your healthy habits, thus here’s a link to the sheet. Apparently this person publishes a new one year each if you want to save it and come back when 2026 begins.