A Lost Year

While many people are celebrate 2014 and look forward to 2015, I'm only looking at the latter, for 2015 to be a decent year, but then anything is better than 2014, after a good 2013 from the health issues of 2012.

I'm glad this is the last day of 2014, and while the year started off good with the continuation of 2013, it quickly went south in February after January where I walked the second most miles and passed the 2,000 mile mark in the last half of the month.

But then in February I aggrevating my Sciatic nerve (first in June 2011 and then worst in July 2012) and kept walking with it for a week to find I needed to take 2 weeks off. Then resuming walking in March I aggrevating it again and kept walking on it again only to also blow out both shins where I couldn't walk at all.

That prompted a 6-8 week rest with just a few short walks but things got worse when I got a bacterial infection in my digestive tract they couldn't diagnose and only said to give it time. I went from 155 lbs to 163 lbs in two months.

I managed to resume walking in June to get down to 161 lbs but it was July when things changed. Over a week period I lost over 5 lbs from the body fighting the bacterial infection, which reduced it but didn't eliminate it, and I got back to 155 lbs.

Then in August I got an ear infection, and the irony is that the Amoxicillin they prescribed didn't cure the ear infection, which turned out to be "swimmer's ear" and required a very painful cleaning and removing earwax which was stuck to the eardrums, it did cure the digestive infection.

You see Amoxicillin is a universal anti-biotic which kills all the bacteria in your intestinal system, both good and bad, which killed the infection but also all the good bacteria used to digest food, which meant the system worked again but then didn't function right.

Then they prescribed a more powerful anti-biotic for the ear infection which I took twice and stopped because it completely shut down my digestive system for days. Really, and it took a week to get it back to functioning where it had to rebuild the good bacteria.

That didn't quite happen until late October but then I got the seasonal flu for 3 weeks, followed by a few days of feeling good before coming down with the intestinal flu for 3 weeks which is a common followup reaction to the seasonal flu.

So by early November I was over all that and the digestive system began working again, this time with help from some probiotics (didn't work before), and I was still at 155 lbs when all was said and done with the body.

But to be on the safe side I reduced the walks to 6 miles, and while they felt too short and too easy, the goal was to give the body and the back time to recover for the new year when I plan to return to 8 mile walks in January.

The difference this time is that my digestive system has changed significantly where I have to remap the foods I can eat and lose the food I can't eat anymore, some which I liked (canned/fresh Salmon), but I've found a new list of foods which the body likes.

This has required going through a list of food and meal experiments to find what the body accepts and digests and what it doesn't, meaning it's been a trial and error period since the middle of November with foods, from meats to vegetables, but many are still on the list of off-limits, eg. wheat and many grains.

And through all that I managed to get to 153 lbs to start the new year with a goal to reach 150 lbs or less by March 1st or thereabouts. It looks promising as long as I don't get sick or I hurt or break some body parts.

The real goal is to get down to 145 lbs where I have the least fat on my body and find peace where my Sciatic nerve doesn't go south on me again. The specialist said in takes 2-3 years to recover from a pinched Sciatic nerve where it will be for the rest of your life.

They said it will never fully heal, only get to a point I can manage it. This is because once past about 40, the back won't fully heal to where you were, only to where you can function in life with little or no pain, but you will always be susceptible to reinjuring it from then on, as I learned.

So that's where I'm at to start the new year. Lots of positive signs with lots of potential pitfalls, and the best I can do is just keep going and keep walking, and give my digestive system time to find balance and function near normally for me.

That said, I have no New Year's resolutions other than keep going with my life.