The Thompson Chronicles

So, as I mentioned in my last post, I’ve lost over 80 pounds since I had my gastric bypass surgery on September 8, 2008.

My surgeon’s staff actually took a picture of me in my final pre-op appointment to use as  "before" image; I’ve written to them asking if I can get a copy. While I wait on that, here are a few pictures of me taken in the weeks, months, and even hours, before my surgery.

Here’s me and and some of the guys with whom I ran the sound system at my church in Anchorage. It was taken in March of 2007 just before August and I left for West Virginia:

It’s kind of hard to see any of my body features in any of these pictures, because I tend to avoid cameras at all costs! While this is certainly not me at my heaviest, I’m certainly well into the mid-350’s here.

Fast forward to July of 2008, about two months before my surgery. August and I went to a Chili cookoff in downtown Charleston. Here’s a picture she took of me next to the river:

You can certainly see that I’m a seriously big boy in this shot!

Now, moving forward to the past several weeks. The last time I got on a scale was about two weeks ago and I weighed 229. I weighed 309 on the day of my surgery, so I can kiss the first 80 pounds goodbye! August took a picture of me back in December when my brother and sister were visiting me. You can see in this shot how much thinner my face looks:

August has been buying me new clothes because the old stuff I have just won’t fit anymore! Here’s me in one of the outfits she bought recently:

I’ve still got a good ways to go, but here are a few of the changes:

Old waist size: 56+, Current waist size: 42+

Old neck size: 20", Current neck size: 17"

Old underclothes size: 3x, current underclothes size: XL

The most amazing thing for me is that I no longer have to shop in the Big & Tall sections/stores. I was even able to buy a pair of jeans at Costco recently!

As many friends/family know, I am a type II diabetic. When I went in for surgery, I was on the following medications:

• Lantus Insulin: 100 units twice per day
• Byetta Injection: 10mcg twice per day
• Crestor: 10mg per day
• Lisinipril: 20mg per day
• Metformin: 1000mg twice per day

From this list, you can see that I was taking 4 pills and 4 shots every day. The fact that I was so overweight led to me having high blood pressure and high cholesterol so I had to take bunches of medicine.

Today I take the following medications for my diabetes and co-morbidities: NONE!

That’s right, I’m off all of my medications! That in itself has been worth the sometimes-difficult journeys associated with this surgery. I do not regret it one little bit!

I haven’t posted in a long time.

Sorry. It’s just so difficult sometimes when there’s not all that much to say.

We bought a house. I guess I’ll post some stuff about that later.

I’m in training at work. I guess I’ll post some stuff about that later.

I’ve put in a bid for my “dream job” in Houston. I guess I’ll post some stuff about that later.

I’ve lost 80 pounds so far since my gastric bypass surgery. I guess I’ll post some stuff about that later.

I guess I have stuff to say. Now to get around to saying it!

Sorry for the big delay in posting! We’ve been in Spokane for about 11 days now. Since arriving, we checked into our temporary housing (a real hole…will post about it later), hunted for a house and I’ve started work.

My new facility is awesome. It’s a totally new building and I think I’m going to love working there.

We found the house we want, have had our offer accepted, got it inspected, and we’re now about to settle on repairs/requirements. We’re hoping to close on it November 5th.

We rolled into Butte, MT a little while ago. As I followed my mapping instructions to the hotel, I began to get the impression I’d seen the roads before. Sure enough, we pulled up in front of our hotel and it was the SAME place we stayed on our way east last year! We’re not in the same room; that would have been too weird.

Today was the day with the least delays. There was a good deal of construction along the way, but I-94 is rather sparsely populated!

We’re glad to be off the road early and look forward to our final day on the road tomorrow! Next stop: our new home town of Spokane!

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth

Alcott, Louisa May

Dickinson, North Dakota

Yes, we’re in the thriving metropolis of Dickinson, North Dakota! I found the following information on the Dickinson website:

With a population of about 17,000, Dickinson is the regional center for Southwest North Dakota with several shopping, eating, and entertainment options.

Dickinson State University, a four-year-university, continues to enrich the Dickinson community academically while promoting cultural diversity and understanding.  A global initiative is being carried out at the University.  Through partnerships with other universities around the world, almost 400 international students attend DSU, sharing their culture with the region.

Energy, agriculture, and manufacturing are the main economies in and around Dickinson.  Various organizations exist within the community to promote collaboration for continually enhancing Dickinson’s economy. Community leaders also join together to develop innovative ways for enhancing Dickinson’s quality of place.

Dickinson is a prime location to live and work. It is a safe community with excellent healthcare, education, and emergency services. The recently built West River Community Center is a state of the art facility for exercising, socializing, and competing in athletic events and a new all-purpose complex, the Badlands Activities Center, will soon be constructed.

Dickinson is the gateway to the majestic Badlands that captivated the interest of President Theodore Roosevelt.  Driving, hiking or biking, and horseback riding through the colorful hills provides relaxation for anyone looking for relief from a busy lifestyle.

Dickinson began when the Northern Pacific Railroad saw the wide area of space in the Heart River Valley. Shanties began to emerge along the railroad and in 1881 the population was around 50 when Wells S. Dickinson, who was in charge of land grants for Northern Pacific, visited the town. The name was changed to Dickinson and a post office was established that same year.

Our travel today was pretty much event- and delay-free. There’s really not a lot to say about northwestern Minnesota and most of the length of North Dakota. We’re in our hotel and safe.

We’re safe and sound at the home of August’s niece Marty. August and Marty are actually the same age and were raised as sisters; they’re very close. Marty and her husband Tom used to live in the Houston area and we actually stayed with them for a few days on our trip from Alaska to West Virginia, so there’s a kind of symmetry involved with us staying here!

The trip from the Indy area was basically without incident, and it was every bit as long as I expected it to be! Overall, there were very few delays and the ones we had were construction-related. We gained an hour and wound up on the road for just under 12 hours…just as I predicted.

Tomorrow morning we’ll start the westbound leg of our journey to our new home in Washington. We’ll be heading for the thriving metropolis of Dickinson, North Dakota.

Well, we aren’t actually at the site of the Indianapolis 500. Neither are we actually in Indianapolis to tell the truth. We’re in a hotel about 10 miles outside of Indy.

Our day went almost PRECISELY as planned, which in and of itself kind of freaks me out! We got up early and headed over to the townhouse to do some last minute organizing and moving of our stuff to the garage. The cleaning team arrived right on schedule and set to with a will. Right about the time they finished the top floor, which was the only floor besides the stairways with carpet, the guys from Stanley Steamer showed up. They were in and out in about 45 minutes.

Everything was basically finished right at noon when the landlord arrived. He took a look at the main living level and said, “Good enough for me” and cut us a check for our entire deposit! After about an hour of my own personal 3D jigsaw puzzle putting everything into the Expedition, we got underway at around 1:20pm. This was right in the window for my “ideal” schedule and a good hour early than I expected.

On the way through rural Ohio on US-35, we saw the original Bob Evans and decided we needed to stop for lunch. As pretty big fans of the Bob Evans restaurants during our stay in West Virgina, it was kind of cool to see where it all started!

A long four hours later, we pulled into the parking lot of our hotel. This was a relatively uneventful day, which is itself a great blessing.

We’re actually on the way!

Next stop: Hudson, Wisconsin.

That’s what I experienced today! The freight company delivered the 28-foot trailer this morning pretty much on time. If you’ve seen all the big trucks on the highway that are pulling two shorter trailers (UPS and FedEx have jillions of them), those are the 28-footers. In order to understand why this particular trailer was spotted in our parking lot, you need to go back a number of weeks when August was making the arrangements.

She performed exhaustive research on just about every option out there to move our household goods to Spokane. It turned out that ABF had the best deal. In order to get a quote, she had to fill out an extremely detailed form on their website. She answered questions about how many square feet in which you’re currently living, the contents of each room, the numbers and types of appliances, beds, couches, dining tables, chairs, etc. It took August quite a long time to enter all that information, and she was painstaking in her attention to detail. The end result was the company stating that they estimated we would use 21 feet of a 28 foot trailer. We were given quotes for the whole trailer, 21 feet of the trailer, and a +/- dollar amount per foot above-below the closest cutoff.

When the packing crew arrived today, they walked through our apartment and immediately stated that there probably wouldnt be enough room in the trailer for all of our stuff. My reaction was visceral, because we were pretty much committed to this course of action. It was a Friday morning, and you can’t just whistle up a 40 foot trailer out of thin air. Not only that, ABF had dropped the trailer and left for other jobs. Even if a larger trailer was avaialble, it would have taken HOURS for ABF to come get the one they already left and bring a new one. Not only that, we’ve got this move budgeted pretty closely and we were looking at some pretty significant price hikes.

We decided to trust in the ABF quote process, the professionalism of the loading crew, and the providence of God. That trust paid off. Those guys worked their hearts out assembling a 3-dimensional jigsaw puzzle. It took nearly 12 hours, but they finally got it all wedged into the trailer with 3 feet to spare! We’re staying at a hotel that’s just down the road from the townhouse and will go back tomorrow morning to meet the cleaning and carpet crews. We’ll load up the Expedition and head out in the early afternoon.

Next stop, outside Indianapolis!

Unfortunately, there’s no automatic time-out! As soon as I finish this post and my lovely wife finishes one on her blog, I’m packing up the home computers. We’re getting down to the last-minute detail packing and putting the last of the various “often used” stuff into boxes. The trailer and loading crew are due sometime around 9am, so we’ve gotten ourselves into the home stretch!

We’re taking a laptop and the camera with us of course, so there will be updates from the road. Our general itinerary is as follows:

• Friday 9/26: Loading crew puts everything on the trailer. We go through what’s left in the house and throw away all of that extra “stuff” that’s always lying around after the movers leave. We check into the Sleep Inn just down the street.
• Saturday 9/27: Maid Service and Stanley Steamer show up to get the place cleaned up. Landlord shows up around noon. Hopefully everything is done and he’ll clear us for departure. We hope to be on the road no later than 2pm. Our first stop is just outside of Indianapolis.
• Sunday 9/28: This will be the longest single travel day of the trip. Our route will take us north to pick up I-90. This is the only way to get to our next destination, which is the home of August’s closest relative. She lives in Hudson, Wisconsin which is for all intents and purposes a suburb of Minneapolis. If you look at the map, that takes us right through Chicago so I’m anticipating possible delays. Fortunately it’s going to Sunday so traffic may be lighter. Either way, it’s around 550 miles and that makes for a pretty long day. Google Maps™ clocks it at 9 hours, 25 minutes. I’m betting on 11 or 12 hours.
• Monday 9/29: We’re spending the entire day and night at the relatives’ house. I figure that I’ll need the break, and August hasn’t seen her niece since this time last year when they went to the Philippines together.
• Tuesday 9/30: Departing Hudson as early as possible in (probably vain) hopes to get a jump on Minneapolis rush hour traffic, we’ll head to our next stopping point: Dickinson, North Dakota. I don’t know why this town even exists, but it’s got quite a few hotels near the interstate. I have an interesting story about this place that dates back to right after we got married, but I’ll save it for my post that night.
• Wednesday 10/1: Our next planned stop is Butte, Montana. What else IS there to say?
• Thursday 10/2: After a shorter (4-5 hours) day, we’ll roll into Spokane.

That’s the general plan. We’ll covet all of your prayers and good wishes as we trek back to the west. Seems like only yesterday that we were planning our departure from Anchorage. Now we’re heading about halfway back!

See you on the road!

I took the Expedition over to the place I get my normal auto maintenance done because I wanted to get the oil changed and check the alignment before starting our trip next week. It turns out that I should have checked the alignment back when we got here last year and I found out some of my tires were damaged. The shop manager and I decided that, because I had overloaded the truck when we left Alaska, I probably altered the alignment and that caused the front tire damage. Rotating the tires solved the vibration problem so I figured that was that.

Fast forward a few months to last fall where we wound up having to replace one of the rear tires due to pretty severe road damage. I wasn’t too concerned because this was one of the “bad” tires from before. Today, the worst of my procrastination came home to roost.

All four wheels of the Expedition were so badly out of alignment that all four tires had significant cupping and tread wear on the inside edges. I looked at the tires myself and they did NOT look safe. The “newer” tire from last fall wasn’t as bad, but I didn’t feel at all good about leaving it on the vehicle. So, a $20 oil change and $80 alignment turned into a bill of $845.53 which was just a tad more than expected! Thank goodness August has long since taken over our finances and we had some money in savings for this exact type of circumstance!

Have I mentioned lately that my wife rocks?

Oh yeah…and we’re leaving in ONE WEEK! It’s really down to the wire now!