93,280

I never knew there was no such thing as an overweight New Yorker.  A couple weeks ago I was in New York City for a few days as a chaperon of sorts for a Central Methodist University mission trip experience designed as a discernment opportunity for college-age participants to ponder what might be the Christian community's response to immigration.  Each day brought a new venue, a new opportunity, a new sight to visit, a new day trip to take, a new conversation to participate within.  It was a fabulous experience, envisioned and flawlessly executed by my friend Lucas, the CMU chaplain.  And the experience involved lots and lots of walking -- to and from our home base in Greenwich Village, to any number of the church-related institutions we visited each day, through Central Park, to Times Square and a Broadway Show (The Lion King -- awesome!), to Ground Zero and back, around Liberty and Ellis Islands, to and from seemingly a thousand different restaurants and hot dog carts and the famed Magnolia Bakery just up the street.  All in all, according to the trusty pedometer I kept in my pants pocket, I walked 93,280 steps in about 100 hours spent in New York.

When I uploaded the rather sophisticated pedometer to the laptop when I got home, taking into account my height and weight, the program calculated that I had walked 43 miles!  My mother put it in best perspective:  I had walked a marathon and a half!  PLEASE hear me say I don't see that as terribly heroic.  There are surely New Yorkers who walk further than that weekly; indeed, many of our college student participants' late-night city wanderings probably resulted in twice the steps I walked.  But it was a monumental achievement for me.  No way could I have done that three and a half months ago when this journey began.

Generally speaking, I am starting to feel like I'm adjusting to this new normal.  Food is staying down better, and I've been green-lighted to start weening off the prescription (Reglan) that has helped reawaken my stomach post-surgery.  I still find myself staring at the stranger I see in the mirror, and get a chuckle out of the fact that at a recent encounter with a few old friends I hadn't seen in a while, I had to reintroduce myself to some.  Neither the surgeon or excellent family practice physician have gotten to the bottom of the sometimes serious pain I'm experiencing under my right shoulder blade -- I had an ultrasound of my gallbladder just prior to the NYC trip and will undergo another test next week to determine whether the gallbladder is even functioning at all.  If it's not, well ... at least thanks to the insurance out-of-pocket having been met, the next surgery is a freebie.

Still, there are a few hopes not fully realized, yet.  I try not to get overly wrapped up in how much weight loss to go, although I'd be lying if I said I didn't stand on the scales more mornings than not -- I have goals no matter how much I pretend I don't.  I tried on suit coats (off the rack!) this morning and discovered that I'm six sizes down from where I was, and yet my new-found vanity kept from seriously considering a purchase -- that suit will look a lot better in one more size smaller!  Yet, I still haven't had to take a diabetes pill since the night before surgery, and the doctor just told me I needed to eat more salt due to my now too-low blood pressure. 

It's just that I never had the goal of walking a marathon and a half.