Follow-up & How I Almost Died in the Woods

I had my follow up appointment with my doctor a couple of weeks ago. It was a little bit of a letdown. He'd been on vacation and hadn't been able to review any of my labs or bloodwork. I was hoping for some kind of answers. I was hoping for a plan. I was hoping that somehow, the fact that I've felt worse and worse about my weight, my body, and the prospect of ever fixing it over the month since my first appointment would be helped in some way. I didn't get it.

I understand the concept of wanting to get my medication right and stabilized before trying to come up with some kind of weight loss plan. But I gained four pounds over the four weeks since my last appointment, and I don't know why. The nurse told me an anecdote. When we're babies, we don't just stand up and walk, we have to learn. We fall down, and we fall down, and we pick ourselves back up and try again until finally, it works. Some of us need to learn how to eat and take care of our bodies. It just all seems so hard.

Oh, what? You were wondering about the part in the title where I almost died in the woods? So, last weekend my Mom calls and asks if we want to go for a hike. Of course, in my head, I don't really want to, but it is a good idea and Sam loves walking on trails. I make sure to check and ask if it's an easy hike and will it be okay for Sam, and am told that yes, it will be. Paul tells us that it's about a 2 mile hike. Sounds easy enough, a good length for Sam too. Then we get in the car and start driving. Suddenly, we're heading up Blanchard Mountain. To the trail that starts at the top. The same place Justin and I went hiking a few months ago, and had to turn back. That is NOT a 2 mile trail. The opinion is revised, and Paul says it's 5 miles round trip. Seems long, but okay...

We start to walk. I almost immediately fall behind. As we walk, I get so far behind that I can't see my Mom, Paul, their colleague who came, or Sam. My sweet awesome husband stays behind with me, and encourages me.

We get the the point where we break off onto "Max's Shortcut". We've probably walked about a mile at that point. At which point we get up a short hill to a sign. It says that Max's Shortcut is 3/4 of a mile long. And that the lake is in 2.5 more miles. If you can do that math, what I'm saying is that the round trip for this hike was SEVEN MILES. I almost started crying.

First of all, who in their RIGHT MIND would think that an out of shape, 100+ pounds overweight person would be able to keep up and not be embarrassed on a SEVEN MILE HIKE? Secondly, who would think that a TWO YEAR OLD would be able to walk that?? Thirdly, who DOESN'T look at a trail map before calling it an easy hike and just guessing about how long it is?

I keep walking. I'm trying. Suddenly the trail is going up. At a VERY steep angle. Yeah, guess what? The reason it's a shortcut is that it's shorter by going STRAIGHT UP the frigging mountain. I estimate that I made it about 2/5 of the way up this trail before I stopped and actually shed tears. About 2/3 of the way up, we caught up and stopped. Sam was getting fussy. He wanted me to carry him, which was in NO WAY possible. We had a snack. I caught my breath. We stood up and started walking again. At this point, we'd probably walked a total of a little under 2 miles. But hiking, that's equivalent to 4 miles walking on a flat sidewalk. Paul and the co-worker were almost immediately out of sight. I just stopped. I couldn't do it. And I could feel a meltdown on Sam's part. The four of us turned around, since we'd come in two cars.

The hike back down was almost as bad. The grade was so steep that my ankles were KILLING me and I was wincing. By the time we got to the bottom of the shortcut Sam was really running out of steam. My Mom and Justin ended up taking turns carring his 27 extra pounds of weight. Justin carried him for the last 1/4 mile at least on his shoulders.

All in all, we probably walked around four miles. I won't be going back there again for a long while.