At Least You Have Your Health

My best friend is critically ill.

It's difficult to think about anything else right now.

At 7:30pm on New Year's Day, my phone rang.  I saw that it was Dominik's wife, Natalie, and I knew it was strange for her to be calling me at 2:30am German time.

Dominik was in emergency surgery.  He had a perforated intestine.  It hit him without warning in the middle of the night and he was lucky that Natalie called the ambulance as quickly as she did.  Time is everything in that situation.  The doctors have to remove the broken part of the intestine and clean the leak as soon as possible.  It's not a matter of if there will be an infection, but rather how bad the infection will be.  

He made it through the surgery with no complications, but he went into septic shock.  We're told that this is very normal under these circumstances.  He's been in a hospital bed in the ICU for the last five days and he's listed in critical condition.

Dominik is 36.  He's fit.  He's in extremely good health and is hardly ever sick.

This happened to him with no warning.

I guess my purpose in writing about this is two-fold.  First, I appreciate any prayers and good thoughts for my friend.  Second, I realize that if this can happen to him, it can happen to anyone.  It has made me think a lot about my own fragile mortality.

I want to live a long, healthy, happy life.  I know that in order to do that, I must lose weight.  I must eat better (and less) food.  I must exercise more.

There is no easy way to do this.  I am on the right track.  I just have to stick with it.

* * *

Last week, I averaged about 2300 calories per day, and I walked about 16,000 steps.  I lost 2 pounds.

I have lost 31.6 pounds total (in 91 days).

Here's a picture from my trip to Germany for Dominik and Natalie's wedding in August.  This was moments after I arrived at his apartment.  We started drinking beer immediately.