A local judge has ruled that taxpayers must fund the sex change operation of a convicted murderer because she suffers from gender identity disorder and the 8th amendment requires that we provide her with all necessary medical care, and her doctors say she needs to have a complicated operation to turn her penis inside out to form a vagina.   (I have ( Read more... )

I've run into two different people in two different situations today who do not believe that universal health care should or would cost them more than the current system we've got.  I got into a particularly difficult conversation today with a woman who has a master's in public health and is convinced that getting health insurance profits out of ( Read more... )

Several years ago I made some significant changes to my life and lost 82 pounds. I don't think about fat loss much anymore. I've maintained at about 75 pounds lost for over two years now. The changes I made back then are so thoroughly integrated into my life that it's not usually an issue. If I go too long without exercise I start to go insane, ( Read more... )

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I'm reading the Chi Running book and being bemused at how ugly I run.  I decided to get a consultation on how to improve my form, to straighten up my posture. 
This is what the guy told me.

My legs, particularly my right leg, splays out.  I need to work on adductor muscles.  He told me to quit squatting and deadlifting so much and work on building ( Read more... )

About two weeks ago, so a little over four months after the operation, I finally went running without the binder. I still bloated a little bit, but not much. Running is going well. My form is much improved. I haven't tried any races yet, but my sense is that I'm clearly faster. Maybe a minute a mile faster.

The problem now is that there's a section ( Read more... )

Just wanted to keep the panniculectomy tag alive.

Massage, rolling the scar, is useful these days.  I rub vitamin E oil into it and had the massage therapist go after it the other day, trying to keep it from adhering.

It hit the mid-fifties here - a heat wave considering we've had solid snow cover for weeks now.   Having been side-tracked from my corporate client anyway (see cat saga, below) I decided to steal a few moments and go for a run.  It's been twelve weeks since the panniculectomy.  I still bloat up in the evening and put on the binder for this run, but ( Read more... )

I still prefer to wear the binder to sleep.  I can sleep without it, but there's an uncomfortable tugging feeling at the incision that bothers me in the night.  I can go all day at work without it but prefer to put it on late in the day when I start to bloat up.  My stamina is back and I can put in full days at work and am back to normal sleep ( Read more... )

I made a pledge to myself that I'd swim at least once each calendar month.*  I've held to it ever since then.  I have time to go swimming tomorrow night.  But today, January 29th, I've still got an open wound from the surgery six weeks ago.  I honestly didn't expect that.  It's probably a very bad idea to take an open wound into the grody YMCA pool ( Read more... )