February 26, 2012 - Great Weekend!

What a great weekend !

On Friday night, I went to the State Theater in New Brunswick with my buddy Frank to see the "Pink Floyd Experience".  The tickets were a holiday gift from Frank.  We went to a great restaurant in town for dinner, then to the show.  What a terrific band!  I've never seen Pink Floyd, however, I have seen Roger Waters and this band was terrific.  Nice small theater with great acoustics.  Here is a short clip from the show.

The dinner before the show was probably my first "heavy" meal since coming home from the Super Bowl.  I had stuffed mushrooms and rigatoni bolognese.  Also had a couple of drinks.

On Saturday morning, I brought Lulu over to the person that watches her when Emily and I go somewhere. Late morning we left for Atlantic City.  On the way we stopped at a wine vineyard in Cream Ridge to sample some wines and picked up a couple of bottles.  It was nice reminiscing for the 2 of us.  The first time we ever went to Atlantic City we had stopped at this vineyard.  We had a really nice time at The Borgata.  It wasn't an ocean view, but nonetheless, here is a view from our room.

We had dinner at a Japanese Tapas restaurant called Izakaya.  Second heavy meal in 2 days.  Kobe beef on a skewer, lobster on a skewer and shrimp fried rice.  The first one was no problem, this one had some slight repercussions, but not really bad at all.  We bet a few races at the race book (no winners) and then called it a night.  After breakfast this morning, we headed home.

After we picked up Lulu, we relaxed for a bit at home and then headed over to Frank's house.  His girlfriend had a little get together for his upcoming 55th birthday.  Typically, after 2 heavy meals in 2 days, plus room service breakfast this morning, I would do shakes the rest of the day.  Today I didn't.  I also ate at Frank's house.  I know that might be pushing things a bit, but I feel really good and know that tomorrow will be a complete day of cereal and shakes only.  It felt really good to get away. 

Tomorrow, it is back in training day as I am now 3 months away from the half-marathon.  I've got a lot of catching up to do, but will take things 1 day at a time in my training.

February 23, 2012 - More Golf in February?

The weather this "winter" in New Jersey has been unbelievable.  I already played golf once this month and today makes twice.  60 degrees and sunny today.  When I played at the beginning of the month, I walked the course.  I also tried something a little different, I played with only 3 clubs (7 iron, 56 degree wedge and putter).  The reason I did that was because I have been having so many issues with my driver, probably averaging 6 penalty strokes every round I played.  I just wanted to see how I would score not hitting the ball as far, however, hopefully in the fairway.  Wow, did that round teach me something about managing a round of golf.  Because of all the penalty strokes, I've been shooting in the mid-90's.  With the 3 clubs, I shot a 78.  I only missed 1 fairway all day, and did not have any penalty strokes.  Today, I didn't walk and took my full set of clubs.  Typically, I would have walked, but I still don't feel anywhere near perfect.  I ran on Tuesday and it was like I had never run before.  I was still so congested that I barely made a half mile before I had to start walking.  I also felt lousy the rest of the day.  I decided to hold off on any more working out until next week.  This is why I played golf using a cart today.

I also opened my BIG MOUTH (as Ralph Kramden used to say) regarding my stomach and the antibiotics.  Late Tuesday it finally hit and has been a  mess since then.  Luckily, today is my last day taking them.  A lot of bloating, pain and running to the bathroom.  Going to be extra careful with my diet.  As always, that means lots of shakes and nothing too crazy food wise.

Busy weekend coming up.  Tomorrow night, I'm going to something called the "Pink Floyd Experience".  My friend Frank bought the tickets as a gift for the holidays.  I will be going with him.  On Saturday, Emily and I are heading to Atlantic City.  Really looking forward to a great weekend!

February 20, 2012 - Back on Schedule

Finally back in the swing of things.  All that's left of the sinus infection is some congestion.  Spent the weekend getting caught back up with things.  Ran a bunch of errands and took Lulu for a few walks on Saturday. Went to Adin's hockey game on Sunday morning and then out to lunch after the game.  Today is my 7th day on antibiotics and still no repercussions with the stomach.  I'm thinking that's mainly because until the past day or 2, I really have not eaten much at all.  I have been mainly doing my shakes.  I did start eating regularly over the weekend.  So far, so good.  Only 3 more days of antibiotics after today.

I did start back at the gym today.  I really wanted to start running, but I am going to wait another day because I'm still pretty congested.  The gym was tough, I got tired in a hurry.  I didn't push myself and feel great getting the blood going again.  I'm going to start running again tomorrow and am anxious to see where I am as far as my training is concerned.  Also need to start the heavy push with my fundraising for the half marathon beginning tomorrow.

My next trip is coming up in a few weeks.  Heading down to Tampa for some Yankee spring training action in early March.  Now that I'm feeling better, I'm starting to look forward to that.

February 17, 2012 - FINALLY better...I think ?

Wow, has this sinus infection knocked the shit out of me.  Five straight days of having a fever over 100 finally came to an end yesterday.  Today, I am officially back on my feet and actually headed out to run some errands. I also took Lulu for a walk.  The total as of today is 14 lbs. lost.  I almost feel hungry today.  Certainly not the way I want to lose weight, but I look pretty damn good.  I am going to try and keep as much of that weight off as possible once my full appetite returns.  I am in my 4th day of being on antibiotics and so far, the Crohn's has been good.  Once I get into the 2nd week and also begin eating more, the true test will begin.

I did end up missing the Team Challenge kickoff dinner, which was last night.  I am definitely not going to push things, but I hope to be back in training some time next week.  Will all of the crap I've dealt with my whole life, being a couple weeks behind in training is going to be a breeze to overcome.

Now that I am a couple of days shy of 2 weeks since my return from the Super Bowl trip, you may be wondering, do I still think it was worth it.  Anything short of death, and it certainly was.

February 14, 2012 - Feel Like Crap !

So much for being better by the weekend and going for a run this past Sunday.  On Saturday, this so called upper respiratory infection evolved into a massive sinus infection.  Other than going to the doctor, I haven't been out of bed since.  Now, the real scary stuff starts.  Nothing worse for Crohn's than taking antibiotics.  At all costs, I try and avoid taking them, but have no choice.  My fever is pretty steady between 100-101.4, my throat is raw and I have absolutely no appetite.  Timing is everything in life and my timing is not very good right now.  Thursday is the kickoff dinner for the Team Challenge half marathon and our training schedule was emailed to us this week.  Sure looks like I will be a minimum of 2 weeks behind in my training by the time I kick this.   Well, I have faced one challenge after another in my life, I guess there's always room for more.

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone !

February 10, 2012 - Better?

Let's get the important stuff out of the way first...my stomach is completely recovered from this past weekend.  The bad news is, I have an upper respiratory infection.  Not the worst thing in the world and certainly not a surprise.  Not only did I beat myself up with all of the partying, I also was running around Indy wearing a long sleeved t-shirt and a Giants jersey all weekend.  On Saturday it was 35 degrees and pouring all day.  This will run its course and hopefully, by the end of this coming weekend, I will be back to 100%.

I am caught in another catch-22 right now.  Because I am sick, I'm not working out.  Because I'm not working out, I'm not sleeping as well as I normally do (the cough is also not helping).  Sometimes, it's a fine line between pushing myself too soon and needing to start pushing myself.  I'm really hoping to go for a run on Sunday.  I'm getting BORED !!

As far as my diet is concerned,  I usually mess up when I go out to eat.  Feeling lousy has kept me in the house, so my diet has been great, which is why my stomach has rebounded so nicely. 

Patience, Neal... patience !

February 8, 2012 - Recovery Continues

Getting better !  It's definitely going to be a longer process than I would like, but I just need to remain patient.  Had the exact same meals as I did yesterday (cereal, shake, eggs), but did have a bit more energy, therefore, I got a few things done.  Would love to start running or going to the gym again, but I know my body isn't ready for that as yet.  My stomach is getting better faster than the rest of my body.  I'm just really tired, achy and congested, but the gut feels pretty good.

I had taped the Super Bowl and watched the game in the afternoon.  There must be something very wrong with me because I still got nervous in the 4th quarter.  I have to admit, when I was at the game as the "hail Mary" pass from Brady was coming down, I shut my eyes.  When I watched it for the first time today, I couldn't believe how close to being completed it actually was.

Looking forward to an even better day tomorrow.

February 7, 2012 - The Recovery Begins

This is what my blog is all about.  There are things all of us with Crohn's are going to do that is going to knock us on our ass.  It's what we do after we're knocked down that controls our disease.

Got to sleep sometime after midnight last night and got up around 8 a.m.  Still feel pretty bad.  I have absolutely no voice, I have no energy, my head is killing me and my stomach isn't much better.  I am going to do absolutely nothing today.  Other than my meds, I'm not even unpacking.  I did have some cereal for breakfast and ran right to the bathroom.  Spent most of the morning uploading all of my pictures and videos from the trip.  Had a few paperwork things to take care of.  By the time that was finished it was early afternoon.  I had a shake for lunch and went back to bed.  I slept for about 3-4 hours, getting up a little before 7 p.m.  I had a couple of eggs and was back in bed by 9 p.m.  On a scale of 1-10 with 10 being completely healthy, I was a 0 last night, a 1 when I got up this morning and probably a 2 by the time I went back to sleep.

The key for me is to be very patient and not push things physically or with food until I feel much better.  Again, these flare ups are going to happen, it's getting them to calm down as quickly as possible so the intestines don't suffer permanent damage.  I refuse to let this disease keep me from experiencing things like I did this past weekend.  I will take as long as I need to at this point to get things to calm down.  If I have to do nothing for a week or however long it takes, it's worth it to me.  I wouldn't trade the time I had in Indy for anything.

February 6, 2012 - A "Super" Weekend

It’s around 7 p.m. on Monday and I’m sitting in the airport in Indianapolis waiting to board my flight back home from one of the greatest weekends of my life.  Other than the day my daughter Jill was born and getting married in Aruba, I can’t think of anything else that tops this.

Just relaxed on arrival day (Friday).  My brother Larry got into town around midnight.  On Saturday, I knew we were leaving the hotel around 9 a.m. and would not be back to our rooms until later that night, so I had a shake for breakfast.  Our first stop in town was the NFL experience.  That is a gigantic space that has everything anyone that loves football could possibly want to see.  There is a museum, including a history of every team in the league.  There is a spot where workers actually show how footballs are made.  That was pretty cool.  There is also a number of different activities that you can participate in where you basically try and perform things that players do.  The lines to those activities were enormous, so Larry and I decided to just do 1 event...field goal kicking.  You only get 1 kick and you can choose to try anything from an extra point, all the way up to a 40 yard field goal.  Larry and I chose the 40 yard field goal.  You will see in the attached video how we both disgraced the family name.

We left the NFL experience around 2 p.m. and headed for Ruth's Chris Steakhouse for a late lunch/early dinner.  No reservations were available for usual dinner hours.  We ate around 3 p.m.  Again, it was so important for me to really pace myself with food and drink.  I was pretty good with food, not so good with drink.  Steak is really difficult for me to process, so I decided to have a pork chop and baked potato for dinner.  I also had 3 vodka’s with dinner.

After dinner, we headed over to Nicky Blaine’s, which is a great cigar bar located in Indy.  We ended up staying there until around 10 p.m..  Not sure but I think I had 5 or 6 cigars and at least a half dozen glasses of port (1 glass for each cigar).  Met a bunch of people that were going to the game and had one great conversation after another all night...even with the Patriot fans.  After the early dinner, I didn’t eat anything else the rest of the day.  Got back to the hotel around 11:30 p.m. and got a pretty good night of sleep.  

There was no pacing myself on Super Bowl Sunday.  It was fast out of the gate and continued to be a sprint the entire day.  A motor coach picked up our entire hotel of Giant fans at 10 a.m.  The ride into town was a blast.

When we got to town, there was a private party at a place called “The Huddle” for about 1000 of us Giant fans with an open bar and food all day.  If that wasn’t enough, the travel group arranged to have about a dozen retired Giants at the party.  Everyone of them signed the jersey that I was wearing.   I’m guessing that along with  the food (some chicken, some pasta and a burger), I  probably had a half dozen or so vodka’s.  The game started at 6:30 p.m., but we left the party around 4 for the stadium.  The walk to the stadium was one of the more memorable parts of the weekend.  They had all 1000 of us leave at the exact same time with the front group of about 50 people holding up “Giant “ballons so the rest of us wouldn’t lose them.  We were all pretty drunk and were going crazy on the way to the stadium.  News cameras were following us, it was spectacular!

This picture is Otis Anderson (retired Giant running back), Larry and I.  Take note, he is showing off his RINGS.

 

Everyone following this blog knows how superstitious Larry and I are.  When we got to the game, I made a beeline for, you guessed it, the pizza stand.  For anyone that saw the game, there is no need for me to write anything about it.  Here is a video of what it looked and sounded like just after the game ended ( apologize for how shaky it is, I did my best).

One bonus of the trip was that I found out, through facebook, a good friend I went to high school with, that now lives in Boston, was also going.  I hadn’t seen him in 30 years.  We met up in the stadium.  I got to meet his twin sons.  They were all Patriot fans.  Sorry guys.

Once the game ended we headed back to “The Huddle” for the post game celebration.  Twenty cases of champagne were waiting for us.   It was like 1000 family members,  celebrating together.  Grown men hugging, jumping up and down, crying tears of joy, high fiving, chest bumping, head butting, you name it, we were doing it.  With every one of those embraces came a glass of champagne.  I'm guessing I probably drank 2 bottles worth.  The motor coach got us back to the room around 2:30 a.m.  Larry and I watched Sportscenter talking about the game for about an hour and finally went to sleep a little before 4 a.m.

This morning, I woke up feeling like an elephant was stepping on my face.  Hangover is way too gentle a word to use to describe what I felt like.  But, I was still smiling.  I think I probably slept with a smile on my face.

My stomach was really not too bad when I woke up, but I decided that today would be an all shake day.  As I wait to board my plane for the flight home, my head is feeling better, but my stomach is not very happy.  My daughter Jill wants me to meet her in New York for the victory parade tomorrow (Tuesday).  I think I’ll make the decision of whether or not to push things while on my flight home.

I am now on the flight and am crashing pretty badly.  Been in the bathroom 4 times already and my voice and energy are completely gone.  More than anything in this world, I hate disappointing Jill.  Unfortunately, there is no way I can go to the parade.  I still have a 1 hour drive home ahead of me and after that, I think I will sleep for 2 days.

The plane just landed and I called Jill.  As soon as she heard my voice she basically told me not to even think about coming into the city tomorrow.  Like I said, I hate disappointing her, but I knew she would understand.

Just got home.  It's midnight and everyone is asleep, everyone except Lulu.  You would think I was gone for a year because it was a lick attack from one happy animal.  Emily got up and gave me a sleepy hug and kiss.  I'm feeling better already. 

What a weekend !!!

February 3, 2012 - Indy...FINALLY !!

Haven't blogged most of this week.  I spent most of the week basically going nuts waiting for today and my flight to Indy.  I just needed to stay as calm as possible, eat as smart as possible and get plenty of sleep.

The staying calm was the toughest, until I figured out what to do.  Workout, workout and more working out until I had no energy left.  That actually took care two issues, keeping me calm and sleeping well at night.  I ate pretty well all week and left for the airport this morning feeling terrific.  Mission accomplished.

This morning at the airport was almost a disaster.  Newark airport has a parking lot where you then need to get on bus which takes you to the terminal.  I parked my truck, went into the back to get my suitcase, looked up and saw the bus pulling up.  Locked up, zipped over to the bus stop and made the bus.  Once I got to the terminal, I got on line to check in, reached into my pocket to get my keys to put them in my carry on.  No keys.  Checked the carry on.  No keys.  Uh oh !!  It's a 30 minute roundtrip ride to the lot and I'm not even sure where the keys are.  My first thought was to turn around and head back to the lot, chancing that I may not make it back in time to make the charter flight.  Then, I thought about my friend Frank.  Frank works part time for Continental and I knew he was working this morning.  I called him on his cell phone and long story short, he spoke with his boss and explained the situation.  His boss asked him if I was a Giant fan.  When he replied, "yes", he told Frank to head out and find those keys.  Frank went to the lot, saw the keys sitting on the back of my truck, brought them to me and a disaster was avoided.  I owe you big time my friend.

Plane ride was great !  500 or so Giant fans including retired Giant punter, Sean Landetta.  Sean spent the entire flight walking through and talking to everyone on the flight.  When he got to me, he was nice enough to allow me to wear his 2 Super Bowl rings and take this picture.

Talk about a great start to a trip !

Sean told a really funny story to everyone on the plane.  He played for almost 20 years and at the end of his career, he played for the St. Louis Rams.  All players get papers every year where they need to make a choice of where they would like their retirement money to go (i.e. stock, bonds, interest bearing account).  They were given the papers on a plane ride home from an away game.  A 1st year player sitting in front of Sean on the plane started cursing a few minutes after the coach gave him the papers.  Sean leaned forward and asked him what the problem was.  He said, "I'm a receiver.  All I'm asked to do is run, run and run some more.  This paper is bullshit".  Sean couldn't imagine why he would say that, so he asked him.  The player then said, "Look, Sean, you're a punter, you don't have to run all the time.  I'm a receiver, I run non-stop and now they are asking me to run a damned 401k".  Almost peed myself, I laughed so hard.

Headed to the hotel and decided to just take it slow and easy today.  I never react very well to flying and the rest of the weekend is going to be crazy, so I just hung in the room.  My brother is driving into town tonight and will not be here until sometime between 11-12.  Tomorrow will be all day in town and of course, Sunday is game day.  We'll talk again tomorrow.